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Where the Remake Went Wrong: Out of the Past
Today on TCM, one of my favorite movies of all time comes on, Out of the Past. It was released in 1947 and 36 years later was remade as Against All Odds. Jeff Bridges stepped into the shoes of Robert...
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Uh oh, Monster Zero
In the mid-sixties, United Productions of America’s Henry Saperstein went shopping for high quality monster movies for North American distribution. Toho Studios shared with Hammer Studios in England...
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The Passion of Carl Theodor Dreyer
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) is Carl Theodor Dreyer’s first masterpiece. It was critically acclaimed but a disappointment at the box-office. Dryer followed it with a second masterpiece, Vampyr...
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Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die
Researching, re-viewing, and re-visiting film noir this summer through TCM’s Summer of Darkness has led me beyond the trio of hard-boiled novelists/screenwriters generally discussed as the genre’s...
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Technicolor Daze: Scaramouche, Chad Hanna, and Apache Drums
When I have an empty afternoon to kill, I go to the movies. This past Saturday my hours were filled to bursting with the “Glorious Technicolor: From George Eastman House and Beyond” series at MoMA,...
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This week on TCM Underground: Cleopatra Jones plus Cleopatra Jones and the...
Nearly forty years after the advent of Blaxploitation, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish the parodies (CLEOPATRA SCHWARTZ, BLACK DYNAMITE) that followed from the genuine articles...
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Underrated ’65
When asked what my favorite film decade is I always reply the sixties. So what is it about the swinging sixties that I find so damn appealing? There are a plethora of reasons including the influx of...
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Where the Remake Went Wrong (and Right): No Way Out
Last week I did a post on how the remake Against All Odds paled next to its original inspiration, Out of the Past. I enjoyed writing it and reading the comments and discussion that followed, as...
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Remaking Godzilla
Greg Ferrara’s thoughtful pieces on remakes last week and yesterday got me thinking again about Godzilla—which was the subject of my own thoughtless post last week. Maybe too many things get me...
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The Names Have Been Changed for Dramatic License
The movies have a long history of telling true stories by making them completely untrue. I’m not talking about taking a movie about a famous person, like Night and Day‘s telling of Cole Porter’s life,...
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Big Blondes, Big Guns, and Big Bad Criminals: Fun with Film Noir Posters
I love movie posters from the Golden Age, because they were designed and executed by graphic artists and illustrators. They retained the expressive flavor of paintings and illustrations and followed...
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Appassionata: I’ve Always Loved You (1946)
“The color overshadows the plot.” – Frank Borzage on I’ve Always Loved You (’46) In 1945 Frank Borzage signed a lavish five-year deal with the penurious Republic Pictures, and it granted him...
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This week on TCM Underground: Bayou (1957) and Baby Doll (1956)
Tune in to TCM on Saturday night at 11pm (PST)/2am (EST) for a double shot of swampy sensuality and kudzu-choked carnality with occasional violence. It was likely the controversy – the equivalent of...
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Elisabeth Lutyens: Horror Queen of Composers
Female film composers are a rarity but there are some wonderful examples of talented women working behind the scenes who managed to flourish under the tight deadlines imposed by film studios while...
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Happy Ending or Apocalyptic Nightmare, Mike Hammer Style
With few exceptions, movies have one ending. Most of the time, the ending you see on the screen is not only the ending intended, it’s the only ending anyone ever had in mind. Sometimes the ending is...
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William Powell vs. the World
William Powell the unflappable. That was his screen persona—memorialized in the likes of The Thin Man. He had a voice like single malt Scotch and a suave manner somehow equal parts immensely cultured...
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Freaks
I was going to write about Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1961), which screens on TCM on July 18th, but I got derailed by my backyard screening last night of Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932). There were two 16mm...
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In Film Noir, Never Take the Stairs
In watching Side Street (left) last Friday as part of TCM’s Summer of Darkness, I noticed how cleverly the locations were integrated into this story of an average guy stepping into a web of intrigue...
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Martial Art: Pedicab Driver and the Golden Harvest Library on Warner Archive...
, Last week Warner Archive snuck out a minor announcement with major implications. Six martial arts films from Golden Harvest studios were made available in HD on their Instant streaming service, in...
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This week on TCM Underground: Equinox (1970) plus Bloody Birthday (1980)
Blame the Brothers Grimm (go ahead — blame them! They’re German!) but for my money you just can’t put a foot wrong by sending teenagers or young adults or even thirtyish people cast as...
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