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Forgotten Film to Remember: “Murder, He Says”
Though they rarely win awards or accolades, genre films have always driven Hollywood filmmaking. Formulaic and repetitive by nature, genres work by meeting audience expectations, because viewers find...
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Lost and Found: American Treasures From the New Zealand Film Archive
In 2009 The New Zealand Project was initiated, a collaboration between the New Zealand Film Archive, the National Film Preservation Foundation and private collectors to preserve and distribute American...
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Dr. Caligari: A Macabre Tale by Haunted Writers
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari airs tonight on TCM as supportive programming for The Story of Film, the 15-part documentary series about the history of world cinema. Episode 3 covers German...
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Mating Games: A Girl in Every Port (1928)
It’s hard to conceive of Howard Hawks without sound. His films are focused on work and its downtime, and it is in spurts of chatter in which his characters define themselves. As physical as their...
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I’m Tired: When Genre Exhausts Its Possibilities
*On Monday, September 23rd, TCM airs episode four of The Story of Film, which covers, in part, “The Great American Genres.”* For the first half of today’s schedule on TCM, the movies of Victor Mature...
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In the Trenches with James Whale
Boris Karloff & James Whale on the set of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) (Note: FRANKENSTEIN airs on TCM September 23 as part of the ongoing STORY OF FILM series) THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) is...
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Dynamite with a laser beam!
The other day, while doing non-Morlock duty for Turner Classic Movies, I had occasion to write about the 1950 RKO Radio Pictures crime/trial drama HUNT THE MAN DOWN. This was Gig Young’s first...
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Don’t send in the clowns
From September and on for the next several months, on Mondays and Tuesdays TCM is airing a sprawling and ambitious multipart documentary called The Story of Film. As you have may have sussed out by...
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The voyage of L’ATALANTE.
Within four years he filmed three acclaimed shorts and one feature that would later be hailed a masterpiece – only to die on October 5th, 1934, at the age of 29, from rheumatic septicaemia. Jean Vigo’s...
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Forgotten Film to Remember: “Murder, He Says”
Though they rarely win awards or accolades, genre films have always driven Hollywood filmmaking. Formulaic and repetitive by nature, genres work by meeting audience expectations, because viewers find...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lost and Found: American Treasures From the New Zealand Film Archive
In 2009 The New Zealand Project was initiated, a collaboration between the New Zealand Film Archive, the National Film Preservation Foundation and private collectors to preserve and distribute...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Doomed Couples of the Silver Screen: Crash and Burn
Today, in one of the more creative thematic lineups this month, TCM celebrates (is that the right word?) divorce or, at least, shows a lot of movies that all have divorce as a common plot element....
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Hollywood Goes to the Dolls
As regular readers may or may not know, one of my hobbies is doll collecting. While perusing some recent doll releases I came across photos of a couple of new dolls based on one of my favorite...
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The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
If you watch TCM regularly you’re probably aware that the classic movie channel is curating the upcoming event What Dreams Are Made Of: A Century of Movie Magic at Auction being organized by Bonhams....
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Elvis in a Haunted House! (or This Just In Over the Transom!)
We all have our blind spots and this is especially true in pop culture, where the decision to interact with one piece, one work, one movie over another is often driven by the most superficial,...
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Too Smart Lucy
Once upon a time (1946), there was a movie (Two Smart People). It was a modest, unassuming thing. It was made on the cheap, and had no major stars (Lucille Ball and John Hodiak, supported by Elisha...
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Low Box Office, High Entertainment
In case you missed it, one of the best action thrillers of the seventies aired at 3:45 a.m., EST, on TCM. The movie is The Slams and it stars Jim Brown as a character trying to get out of the slams...
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The Star System and ‘If You Could Only Cook’
This could be the title of my autobiography, since I do not cook for anyone—not even myself. But, it is really the title of a minor screwball comedy. Released in 1935, just a year after It Happened One...
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Lee Tracy: A Welcome Nuisance
“It didn’t take those women at the stage door to convince me I was nobody’s hero. I’d looked into a mirror once or twice. These light eyes, these limp features, these scars all over my face!” -Lee...
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The Palace and the Multi-Plex
Years ago, the Uptown Theater in Washington, DC, ran a movie that flopped completely. It was Julia Roberts’ Dying Young and, as tempting as it may be, I won’t go for the obvious pun as to its fate....
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