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‘Flickering Empire’ Reveals Chicago’s Role in Film History
Can you guess where the first film version of The Wizard of Oz was produced? Hollywood, 1939? What about the first newsreel? New York, maybe? Or, the initial screen adaptation of A Christmas Carol?...
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True Romance: High Tension (1936)
I don’t know if Allan Dwan ever read the Futurist Manifesto, but High Tension is an exemplar of the what Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was celebrating in his incendiary 1909 statement in praise of the...
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This week on TCM Underground: NOTHING
We all know what February brings at Turner Classic Movies: “31 Days of Oscar Malarkey.” (Quoted from memory – that may not be the actual phrase.) Yep, nothing but award winners for four solid weeks....
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Laugh Riot: I’LL GIVE A MILLION (1938)
Tonight TCM is devoting its 31 Days of Oscar programming to the year 1938. Films on the schedule include Best Picture nominees THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938), YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1938),...
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Going Outside the Association
Tonight on TCM (late tonight) a classic from James Whale airs and it’s one of my favorites. No, it’s not Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Bride of Frankenstein or even Old Dark House. It’s The...
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Masters of Screwball Part 1: Sturges before Sturges
Jean Arthur is a writer for the Boy’s Constant Companion. No, Jean Arthur is an actress, and in the movie Easy Living she plays a writer for the Boy’s Constant Companion, but let’s not get bogged down...
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A FREUDIAN LOOK AT THE BIRDS
TCM viewers can watch Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963) this upcoming Friday the 13th. I’d also urge anyone that might be reading this who lives near Boulder, Colorado, to come see it on 35mm (March...
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Searching for Old Hollywood–Postcards of Movie Star Homes
In my imagination, I can see the Hollywood of long ago when film industry insiders referred to their mansion-lined streets as the Colony. I see glamorous movie stars dancing at the Cocoanut Grove,...
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Luck of the Draw: Wild Card (2015)
I take comfort in Jason Statham. For more than a decade now he has been taking his shirt off in modestly budgeted action movies, ones that usually open in the first quarter of the year. These are...
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O Pioneers… of African-American Cinema! Help Kino-Lorber tell the story of...
The New York City-based Kino International has come a long way, baby, since its founding in 1977. Always pure-of-heart and forever steadfast in its dedication to releasing to the home theater...
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Oliver Reed at 77: A Conversation
Tune into TCM on Febuary 20th to catch Oliver Reed in OLIVER! directed by his uncle, Carol Reed. Feb. 13th marks what would have been Oliver Reed’s 77th birthday if he was still with us. Reed died in...
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Big Horror or Little Horror
Today is Friday the 13th and that means absolutely nothing to me. Seriously, nothing. But for a lot of people, it means bad luck and for some other people, it means horror, principally because of a...
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Masters of Screwball Part 2: The Trouble with Mitchell
Once upon a time there was a Hollywood director at the top of his game. He made movies that were widely popular, influential, critically esteemed, and profitable. He was a visual stylist and a...
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Actor or Director: Take Your Pick
Today on TCM, John Huston has a few movies on the schedule, including The Asphalt Jungle, The Maltese Falcon, and Key Largo. Not showing are any of the movies he acted in but he did both and did both...
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Home-wreckers, Commies, and Panicky Producers: The 31st Academy Awards
Movie lovers anxiously await the 87th Academy Awards next Sunday, February 22, though many of us have grown profoundly disappointed in the changes in the show over the last few years. In 2009, the...
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Hollywood Jazz History: Syncopation (1942)
“The kind of jazz we know is dead. Count me out as a pallbearer.” – Johnny (Jackie Cooper), in Syncopation Syncopation (1942) tells the history of jazz through the story of two white kids, so its...
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TCM Underground: The Greatest Hits
So a couple of weeks ago, big fat baby that I am, I gassed on about my TCM Underground wish list, pie-in-the-skying my own ideas about what should be on TCM Underground and copping a total “What Have...
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Beware! Louis Jourdan is Here
Louis Jourdan in COUNT DRACULA (1977) We lost Louis Jourdan on Valentine’s Day and since then there has been an abundance of considerate obituaries and tributes to the debonair French actor who stole...
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Character Dies, Smiles All Around
“If you want a happy ending that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” We’re probably all familiar with that observation by Orson Welles and in most cases, it holds true. Stop One Flew...
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Masters of Screwball 3: Sturges After Sturges (or, The Keystone Pipeline)
Here’s where we find ourselves–the proverbial wild west. A shapely blonde dancehall singer, clutching a smoking gun. She’s trembling with residual anger, surrounded by friends and allies who are aghast...
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