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When We Start Seeing the Movie Differently
Tonight, in prime time, TCM airs the 1977 Steven Spielberg classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It’s a movie I excitedly saw on opening weekend in 1977 and still remember how much I liked it....
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FROM THE PEN OF DANIEL MAINWARING
Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Dashiell Hammett are the triumvirate of noir writers hailed not only for their hard-boiled novels but also for their work as scriptwriters and script doctors during...
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The Human Comedy: An Interview with Roy Andersson
When I interviewed Roy Andersson last week I was struck by how mischievous this 72-year-old still was, his moon-shaped face cracking into an impish grin whenever he belittled things inimical to...
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This week on TCM Underground: The Manitou and Trog… the best buddy movie that...
A bogus psychic and a Native American medicine man combat an ancient entity of unimaginable power. THE MANITOU (1978) Cast: Tony Curtis (Harry Erskine), Michael Ansara (John Singing Rock), Susan...
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Men Among Monsters: Remembering Christopher Lee & Richard Johnson
Christopher Lee & Richard Johnson Horror fans received a double blow this week. It started with the news that Richard Johnson (1927-2015) had died and today we woke up to the news that Christopher...
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Reader’s Choice: Movies We’ve Grown to Love
In my last post, When We Start Seeing the Movie Differently, I covered movies that I once loved but, either through fatigue with the director’s style, or my own growth away from the content or subject...
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The Blank Stare of Harry Langdon
Back when I started my endless ramblings about the transition from silent slapstick to screwball comedies, I led by singling out Harry Langdon’s Tramp, Tramp, Tramp as a fulcrum point where screwball...
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Corridor of Mirrors
It took Christopher Lee’s obituary in the New York Times to remind me of Corridor of Mirrors (Terence Young, 1948). About two years ago I came across information suggesting that Corridor of Mirrors...
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Still Not Safe To Go Back In the Water: ‘Jaws’ Returns to the Big Screen
“TCM Presents: Jaws 40th Anniversary” swims its way to select theaters on Sunday, June 21, and Wednesday, June 24. The program, which is presented in conjunction with Fathom Events and Universal...
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Ozark Elegy: The Shepherd of the Hills (1941)
After the success of Stagecoach (1939), John Wayne was in demand. While still under contract to poverty row Republic Studios, he was lent out to United Artists for The Long Voyage Home (1940),...
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This week on TCM Underground, a New York Extrava-crimi-ganza: Vigilante...
When his wife and son are brutalized by thugs and a corrupt criminal justice system puts the perpetrators back on the street, a family man turns vigilante to find some measure of bloody justice. Cast:...
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Bugging Out! A Poster Gallery
Stock up on insecticide! Lock your doors!! Bolt those windows!!! Tonight TCM is unleashing a horrific horde of creepy, crawling monstrous critters into your home with a hair-raising line-up of bug...
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I Can Play it Both Ways
Late tonight, TCM plays the early seventies gangster classic, Get Carter, with Michael Caine in an absolutely brilliant performance as the cold, deadly Carter of the title. One of the reasons Michael...
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Hammer? I Hardly Know Her!
Writing about Hammer horror is always a bit intimidating, because there are other Morlocks with greater knowledge and authority on the subject (RHS, I’m looking at you!) so I generally feel my time is...
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Claude Rains: Best Dad Ever!
Today is Father’s Day and, as such, TCM is showing lots of movies with dads, from The Courtship of Eddie’s Father to Life with Father to, well, lots of other movies with the word “Father” in the title...
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When Technicolor Was Spectacle
Spectacle and the movies fit like a hand in glove. Ever since Georges Melies innovated a few camera tricks in his charming turn-of-the-century fantasies, the cinema has used spectacle to attract...
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Postwar Amnesiac Blues: The Clay Pigeon (1949)
After the conclusion of WWII, the subject of the returning soldier became a popular one in B-movies, with the image of a dazed G-man wandering desolate back alleys becoming cinematic shorthand for...
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This week on TCM Underground: Twice Upon a Time (1983) and Zotz! (1962)
In the mythical city of Din, two garbagemen try to stop an evil despot from plaguing the citizenry with eternal nightmares. Cast: Lorenzo Music (Ralph, the All Purpose Animal), Marshall Effron...
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The TCM Movie Locations Tour is a year old!
Previewed during the 2014 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival and launched properly the following June, the TCM Movie Locations Tour is now a year old. Seats are available and all lights are green…...
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Classic Hollywood Actors Discuss Women, Beauty & Femininity with Arlene Dahl
You can catch Arlene Dahl in a number of films airing on TCM in July: • SCENE OF THE CRIME (1949) JULY 03 • NO QUESTIONS ASKED (1951) JULY 17 • LIFE WITH FATHER (1947) JULY 29 Arlene Dahl was a...
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