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Horror Role, Non-Horror Actor
Tonight on TCM, a celebration of roles classically thought of as horror roles but always played by non-horror actors. No, that’s not the actual theme but it could be. On the slate tonight there’s Dr....
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Tura Santana vs. the World
I was recently traveling in Oregon, and marveling at what Lewis and Clark must have thought as their years of travel across unknown terrain led them, at last, to such a wonderful and unexpected prize....
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Let Me Have One More Crack At It
Tonight on TCM, both Broken Arrow and The Battle at Apache Pass air, two films in which the same actor plays the same role. The actor is Jeff Chandler and the role is Cochise. He was nominated for...
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A Forgotten Director to Remember: George Melford
Last Thursday, I was researching early film production on Florida’s Gulf Coast for an upcoming conference. Taking a break from slogging through dozens of Florida newspapers from the 1930s, I decided...
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Bayou Breakout: Cry of the Hunted (1953)
After a career of making B-pictures for Columbia and Poverty Row, Joseph H. Lewis signed a contract with MGM in 1950. His calling card was Gun Crazy (1950), a daring crime film whose location...
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This Halloweek on TCM Underground: Horror! Madness! Blood! And David Lynch!
Halloween gets started a little early this week on TCM, with the spookshow getting under way at 5am PST/8am EST on Friday (Hell Night) morning and the whole haunted hayride running up until just...
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Wine & Wolves: The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
I can’t let Halloween pass without talking about a Hammer film. They go hand-to-hand in my home and one of my favorites is Terence Fisher’s The Curse of the Werewolf (1961). The film features some...
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So Who’s [Enter Genre Name Here] For You?
I’ve spent much of my time this month writing about actors and, specifically, due to the month, horror actors. Now, as we wind the month down on this Halloween’een, I must ask, “Who is horror for...
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Better Living Through Office Supplies (I Bury the Living)
In honor of the launch of the TCM Wine Club, I want to spend this Hallowe’en enjoying a scrappy, handmade treat. It’s a work of real craft, made outside the usual confines of big business by artisans...
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La Strada
(My film-critic friend Michael Casey is both a fan of Fellini and wine, so it seemed appropriate to let him fill in for me today and this post was written by him.) Entry into the world of wine can be...
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Happy Birthday, Burt Lancaster
No Golden Age movie star projected vitality, vigor, and a lust for life more heartily than Burt Lancaster, born on this date in 1913. With his dazzling smile and handsome Irish looks, he was destined...
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I Am Also A Fugitive From A Chain Gang: Hell’s Highway (1932)
In 1932 the treatment of prisoners on chain gangs became an issue of national import. In January Robert Elliott Burns published I Am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang!, which recounts two escapes,...
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This week on TCM Underground: Smithereens (1982) and Border Radio (1987)
This week on TCM Underground, a double dose of essential 80s cinema — Rambo be damned — and street level American independent filmmaking at its most denatured and daring. Philadelphia-born filmmaker...
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Another Hole in the Head 2015: 11 Days of Indie Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy in...
Tomorrow the 12th Another Hole in the Head film festival kicks off in San Francisco and for the next 11 days (Nov. 6-16) you can catch a variety of independent horror, science fiction and fantasy...
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I Sure Wish I’d Forget This Movie, or, The Joy of Experiencing Something New
Many years ago, more than I care to remember, I saw Lost Horizon for the first time. How long ago? Well, for a long while, the complete version was unavailable and if you caught it on television, you...
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Happy Fifth Birthday to Me (with movies)
Today is my fifth anniversary of joining Movie Morlocks. My first post, “Hey, down in front!” was posted on Saturday November 6, 2010. This week marks my 260th post—and since it’s been 261 weeks since...
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Are Politics Good Cinema?
Today on TCM, Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate airs, one of my favorite political movies out there. It basically details the day to day workings of the campaign of Bill McKay (Robert Redford) as it...
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Davis Grubb: The Writer Behind Night of the Hunter
“The fingers with the little blue letters. Now as the fingers stirred John could see them all. He supposed that at first the letters meant nothing; that perhaps each finger had a name and the name was...
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Julien Duvivier in the Thirties
“If I was an architect and I had to build a palace to the cinema, I would put at its entrance a statue of Duvivier.” – Jean Renoir Julien Duvivier is a memorable name, phonetically speaking. It rolls...
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This week on TCM: Abar, The First Black Superman (1977) and Three the Hard...
Shit’s about to get real… on TCM Underground Saturday night with a black-to-black baadassss double bill of ABAR, THE FIRST BLACK SUPERMAN (1977) and THREE THE HARD WAY (1974). It may be true irony or...
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