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Fine Artist / Con Artist
TCM airs one of Orson Welles most challenging films, F for Fake, this Friday, May 22, at 1:30am. The film is so unique that it is difficult to determine its mode or genre, or even to summarize what it...
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A Man and a Maid: Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
In 1936 Leo McCarey drank some expired milk. It was part of an ill-advised publicity stunt that had the crew of the Harold Lloyd comedy The Milky Way (1936) imbibe daily amounts of dairy. One of those...
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“Get your shovels!” Bataan (1943) revisited.
TCM Underground is suspended this week to make way for Memorial Day programming. Included in the lineup of movies about men at war is Tay Garnett’s BATAAN (1943), one of my favorites. Some time ago I...
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Two on the Run: DEADLY STRANGERS (1975)
In case you haven’t noticed, Sterling Hayden is TCM’s Star of the Month and I’ve enjoyed catching up with the tall, blond and brawny actor’s filmography on Wednesday nights. Today Hayden is best...
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Playing to the Rafters: Celebrating Olivier, Welles, and Laughton
Today on TCM, three of the all-time great hams grace your tv screen all day. There’s Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, and Charles Laughton, three actors who would have been comfortable walking around...
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Lana Turner, the Careless Cinderella
“One of the dullest towns in America is the dreary community of Hotchkiss Falls in the mid-Hudson Valley. The odds are 1000 to 1 against our finding anyone there with an interesting story. However...
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War, War, War: TCM Memorial Weekend Marathon
As we head into Memorial Day, TCM airs some of the greatest war movies ever made, one after another, for the whole weekend. That means today will have plenty of great ones on hand, many of them my all...
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With Friends Like These . . .
Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp as long-time Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, opens in theaters this fall. I am excited to see the film not only because of Depp but also because I am a fan of the...
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Finishing The Other Side of the Wind: An Interview with Peter Bogdanovich and...
From left, Peter Bogdanovich, Bill Weaver, (seated), Orson Welles and Oja Kodar. Photograph by José María Castellví Our story is about a special group of these, the richest, smartest, the chicest. The...
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This week on TCM Underground: Nothing Lasts Forever return engagement! Plus,...
A young man with artistic ambitions but no actual talent flees Manhattan in the not-too-distant future and hops a shuttle to the moon in search of true love. Cast: Zach Galligan (Adam Beckett),...
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The Hollywood Style
Regular readers might remember a blog post I wrote last year about Hollywood portrait photographer Eliot Elisofon. I’m a huge admirer of his work so I decided to track down used copies of some of the...
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The Cinematic Table of Elements
Later on tonight, TCM airs the 1966 Oscar winner, A Man for All Seasons, a movie that, on the whole, I’m not too wild about. But I like plenty of its separate elements. I love the performances, for...
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Katherine Hepburn vs. Herself
If you have patience for yet one more Cinderella story, I’ve got a 1935 romantic comedy with an interesting behind-the-scenes twist. This week’s Cinderella is Alice Adams, a Katharine Hepburn vehicle...
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Unusual Commentary Tracks
A few weeks ago I had a conversation with Tim Kirk, producer of Room 237, The Nightmare, and other titles. We talked about commentary tracks because he is releasing something called Director’s...
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Planning to Watch ‘Summer of Darkness ?’ You’ll Need This Noir-cabulary !
I am proclaiming 2015 the year of film noir. Not only am I teaching a course on noir this fall, but TCM is presenting 53 films in the noir-themed “Summer of Darkness,” which airs every Friday in June...
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When Aliens Attack: It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)
The “It” in It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958) is a lumbering thing, a slow-footed creature from a Martian lagoon terrorizing the crew of a rescue ship returning to Earth. Despite his violent...
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This week on TCM Underground: Miami Connection repeat performance! Plus,...
Members of a Florida rock band use their skills at taekwondo to combat a ninja drug cartel on the mean streets of Orlando. Cast: Y. K. Kim (Mark), Vincent Hirsch (John), Joseph Diamand (Jack), Maurice...
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Hollywood Comes to Hearst Castle: Memories & Musings
Maybe it was the Hollywood homes featured in my last post or the ongoing worldwide celebration of Orson Welles 100th birthday? Whatever the reason, I spent a great deal of time thinking about William...
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Why Should We Expect Redemption?
Earlier this morning, TCM ran one of the greatest of all the early sound films, and one of the greatest of all films, period, M. It stars Peter Lorre in a performance that, during his climactic...
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The Rise and Fall of Jimmy Parrott
For the last several weeks we’ve been looking at romantic comedies of the 1930s/40s, specifically the talented filmmakers and (mostly female) comedians whose careers flourished with the transition from...
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