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Dreamlife: Shattered Image (1998)
It has been four years since the Chilean director/mesmerist Raul Ruiz left this mortal coil, but it will take eternities to assess his work, comprising over one hundred features and shorts of...
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Some days it all comes down to a single picture
I can’t tell you how happy this picture makes me… but damned if I won’t try. You may or may not recognize this image from the Poverty Row horror movie MAN MADE MONSTER (Producers Releasing...
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Closing Act: Shelley Winters
TCM’s Summer Under the Stars programming ends on August 31st with a bang featuring a batch of movies starring Shelley Winters. The blond, boozy, ballsy and brash starlet is one of my favorite...
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Mundane Action: Vital, Important, Captivating
Today on TCM, a celebration of Ingrid Bergman will bring us many of the cinematic legend’s greatest films as well as some lesser known ones. Early in the day, her first film after exiting Hollywood,...
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Go, Miss Mend, Go!
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but in TCM’s program descriptions, every single silent film shown is described with “In this silent film, …” as a sort of talismanic warning: Abandon All Hope All Ye Who...
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The Ten Year Star Block
Recently, I was having a conversation online about the curious way that people tend to listen to musicians in ten year blocks. Bob Dylan has done continuous and extensive composing from the early...
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What I Learned from Summer Under the Stars
Summer Under the Stars concludes today with the entire day devoted to the films of Shelley Winters. I thought I would look back on this month’s programming and ruminate on what I have learned as well...
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Past Lives: The She-Creature (1956)
In 1956 the hip new fad was past life regression, thanks to the story of Bridey Murphy. In Colorado, amateur hypnotist Morey Bernstein had been experimenting his craft with Virginia Mae Morrow, who...
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This week on TCM Underground: The Born Losers (1967) and The Glory Stompers...
Turner Classic Movies comes roaring back into town this weekend after an absence of 400 weeks (well, feels like) with a rip-snortin’ double feature of 60s biker films that will make you want to hit...
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Susan Hayward in Her Own Words
Susan Hayward is TCM’s Star of the Month. Films she appeared in will be airing every Thursday evening throughout the month of September. I didn’t know much about TCM’s current Star of the Month so I...
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When the Flicker Goes Out
One of the great Hollywood stories airs today, A Star is Born from 1937. Starring Frederic March and Janet Gaynor, it tells the story of a hugely successful actor, Norman Maine (March), on his way...
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The Misunderstood Legacy of Dr. Caligari
There are times when the received wisdom on a movie separates from the movie itself and starts to run down a track of its own. Consider “Play it again, Sam,” the Thing Everybody Knows about Casablanca...
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Telluride 2015
Tomorrow TCM hosts its yearly salute to the Telluride Film Festival with 24-hours of TFF-related programming. TCM kicks things off with The Lion in Winter (Anthony Harvey, 1968) and wraps up with...
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Appreciating W.C.
Last weekend, TCM celebrated W.C. Fields in a tribute titled 100 Years in Film. Fields’ first venture into the movies was a century ago in a one‑reeler titled Pool Sharks (aka The Pool Shark). Fields’s...
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Death Watch: Josef von Sternberg Adapts An American Tragedy (1931)
In 1931 the Paramount Publix Corporation was eager to film an adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s novel An American Tragedy, having failed to do so since acquiring the rights soon after its publication...
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This week on TCM Underground: It’s Alive (1974) and Spider Baby (1964)
You may well want to gather the family together for this week’s Turner Classic Movies Underground double-creature-feature: a to-die-for pairing of Larry Cohen’s IT’S ALIVE (1974) and Jack Hill’s...
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Alberto Vargas in Hollywood
Vargas in his Hollywood studio. The photo was taken sometime during the 1930s. If you love vintage pin-up art as much as I do you’ll probably recognize Alberto Vargas’s name. Between 1920 and 1975 the...
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The Lasting Last Impression
Sometimes in Hollywood, they start strong and finish strong. Or they start weak and finish strong or start strong and finish weak. Given the nature of Hollywood careers, and how tied to an actor’s...
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The Art of Standing Still
The problem with animated cartoons was baked in on Day One. Winsor McKay was not the creator of cartoons, but he’s close enough for discussion’s sake. Right away with his inaugural film,, he devotes...
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The Late Career Favorites
Just a couple of days ago I wrote a piece here on last movies that seemed almost intentionally created to be the last work of certain actors. The Shootist, for instance, doesn’t just seem like the...
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