Articles

Dark Cinema: 'Danger'-ous Noirs

Creating an absolute definition of film noir is an elusive task; I've found over the years that a simplistic but revealing description of the era can be found in some of the frequently repeated words in the titles of the films themselves, some of which include 'fear,' 'night,' 'kill,' 'street,' 'big,' and 'danger.'Today, I'm taking a look at three 'danger' noir films from the classic era. Each one is worth checking out (or checking out again)!Appointment with D...

Read more

The Old Corral: Hank - The Westerns of Henry Fonda

That rangy walk, those steely blue eyes, that quiet drawl: Henry Fonda was ideally suited to Westerns. Born in the prairie city of Grand Island, Nebraska, in 1905, those roots equipped him to star in future Western movies. Whether as Frank James, Wyatt Earp or any number of other Western characters, Fonda became one of the most memorable Western leads of all.Fonda's early Western career was tied to that of John Ford. Though Fonda started acting in movies in 1935, Westerns -- or at...

Read more

Silent Cinema: Friendship and Family in Silent Film

Silent movies often feature sweeping romances but today we're looking at different kinds of love: friendships and the family dynamic. We'll look at a variety of families to see if this is true for silent films. Tolstoy wrote 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'FriendsHere is a selection of silent films that explore various types and aspects of friendship.Before he directed All Quiet on the Weste...

Read more

TV Time: Underrated Feel-Good Christmas Episodes

After examining classic Christmas television episodes a few years ago in this column, then looking at family-oriented specials last year, I'd like to present some lesser-known but still potent examples of heartwarming holiday entertainment. So let's dive into the ClassicFlix catalog for some feel-good shows you might not have seen.(As always, spoilers ahead, but I will tell you now, all of these shows will make you feel warm and Christmas-y.)The Twilight Zo...

Read more

Dark Cinema: Flawed Gents of Pre-Code, Vol. 2

In my ongoing look at the less-than-stellar fellas populating the pre-Code world, I'm shining the spotlight today on Warner's 1931 film Night Nurse. The film stars the always-fabulous Barbara Stanwyck as the title caregiver, Laura Hart, who finds herself battling a variety of contemptible characters in her quest to save the lives of two young girls in her charge. There are a number of do-gooders in this, including Laura's pal and fellow nurse Maloney (Joan Blondell) and Dr. Bell (Cha...

Read more

TV TIME: A Classic Television Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to enjoy with family and other loved ones, so it seems like a shame that so many American households spend the day huddled in front of a TV set watching football. I think we should spend halftime huddled in front of a TV set watching classic Thanksgiving-themed episodes, at least.The 'Special Thanksgiving Episode' is not nearly as established as the 'Special Christmas Episode,' but plenty of classic shows commemorated the November holiday once. Let's take a ...

Read more

The Old Corral: Hats Off to the Stetson

There are three main ways to distinguish a cowboy: his horse, his gun and his hat. On foot in town, the gun and hat are still there; even if there's a gun ordinance in town and he has no pistol on his hip, in the saloon for example, you'll never separate him from his hat. When it all comes down to it, it's the hat that makes the cowboy.He wears it out of doors, indoors and in some movies, in the bath.All Western stars knew this. It was why, when they got a hat they lik...

Read more

A Visit to the 2016 Lone Pine Festival

The 27th Lone Pine Film Festival took place Columbus Day weekend in Lone Pine, California, where hundreds of Western movies and TV shows have been filmed over the course of nearly a century.This was the third consecutive year I've attended the fest, and it was just as enjoyable as the previous two. Each Lone Pine Festival includes movie screenings, location tours, panel discussions, and book signings. This year even featured a stunt demonstration in the famed Alabama Hills!

Read more

Silent Cinema: A Celebration of Silent Baseball

The age of silent movies coincided with some of the most exciting years in the history of baseball. Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb set records when the movies were moving to the west coast and feature-length films were being established as the dominant form of cinematic entertainment.Naturally, it was only a matter of time before America's pastime met the silver screen. Then, as now, sports movies were popular entertainment divided roughly into two categories: the films that starred the pl...

Read more

TV TIME: Celebrate the season with The Munsters!

Halloween is an ideal time to revisit one of television's greatest sitcom families, The Munsters. Though it ran only two seasons on CBS, the comedy about the unusual inhabitants of 1313 Mockingbird Lane is one of the most fondly remembered shows of its era and continues to thrive in reruns, streaming and DVD.At first glance a show about equivalents of Frankenstein's monster and Dracula living in suburbia, oblivious to their own status as 'monsters' to everyone else, seems like a k...

Read more

Dark Cinema: Noirs Your Should Know, Vol. 2

I'm continuing my quest to shine the spotlight on those films noirs that are not necessarily well-known, but are certainly worthy of your time. This installment focuses on three Columbia Pictures features from the 1950s that will put you on the edge of your seat and keep you there for a while.Pushover (1954)Some may call Pushover a 'poor man's Double Indemnity' -- and the label is understandable. Like Double Indemnity, Pu...

Read more

The Old Corral: Howdy Ma'am - Women in Westerns

The West of the Western movie has always been a masculine place. Looking at it impartially, it's a bit odd because women have been associated with nature and freedom, while men have been the conventional law and order types. So we might imagine that men would be more urban creatures, setting up businesses and building churches, while women would relate to the wide open spaces of the frontier. But the reverse is true.In the Western myth women are the civilizers. The men in Westerns...

Read more

A Compelling Character: Edmond O'Brien

Oscar-winning actor Edmond O'Brien was born in New York just over a century ago, on September 10, 1915.O'Brien made his Broadway debut at the age of 21 and four years later made his film debut opposite Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). He continued to work in theater, including starring as Mercutio opposite Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in a 1940 production of Romeo and Juliet, and also appeared in a handful of other f...

Read more

Dark Cinema: The Flawed Gents of Pre-Code, Vol. 1

The films released during Hollywood's pre-Code era undeniably have their fair share of admirable, upstanding fellas. You have Warren William's long-suffering hubby in Three on a Match (1932); Leslie Howard as the sensitive and understanding fiance of Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931); and the good-hearted soldier, brought to life by Douglass Montgomery, who falls in love with a woman of ill repute in Waterloo Bridge (1932).More often than not, though (...

Read more

Classics 101: A Definition of Film Terms

Classic movie fans and ClassicFlix subscribers know that the great movies of yesteryear can be enjoyed as entertainment for their stars, stories, production values, direction, cinematography and all the other artistic areas that make films worth the price of a ticket. For those looking to delve deeper into the Hollywood vaults, most of the film books on the motion pictures of the era deal with the overall output of the studios and independents, 1920s-1960s, or specific genre, such as noir, ho...

Read more

Silent Cinema: They Had Color Back Then

Too many people, black and white is synonymous with 'old' movies. Therefore, it comes as a surprise when they discover just how colorful the world of silent film was. Color was present in motion pictures from the very beginning. Thomas Edison's motion pictures were advertised as having hand-colored footage of dancers, their twirling dresses ideal for disguising imperfections in the applied dyes.Tinting and ToningBy far the most common method for adding...

Read more

The Old Corral: The Westerns of Robert Mitchum

From a tenth-billed part as a heavy in Border Patrol, a 60-minute Hopalong Cassidy oater of 1943 to eighth in the cast list as the bad guy in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man fifty-two years later, with 29 Western appearances in between, Robert Mitchum took on the genre, and won.He was Bob Mitchum, of course, so a lot of the time he went through the motions, sleep-walking through the Western parts assigned to him. He used to say they painted eyeballs onto his closed lids....

Read more

Underrated Baseball Films

As a lover of both baseball and old movies, I enjoy discussions of the best films about the national pastime. Unfortunately, too often arguments begin, say, 40 years ago and concentrate on modern times while excluding fine works from Hollywood's past. The Pride of the Yankees is deservedly beloved; one of the iconic movies of the golden age of studio filmmaking, but it often stands alone as the token 'classic' choice in the conversation.Let's examine some underrated baseb...

Read more

Disney's Hidden Gems

Everyone's familiar with Disney's best-known films, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Cinderella (1950) to the studio's newer classics The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991).There's a rich library of somewhat lesser-known but very worthwhile Disney films to explore beyond the most famous titles, some of which will be fondly remembered by film fans, while others may be completely unfamiliar.There are so...

Read more

Dark Cinema: 'Big' Noir

Creating an absolute definition of film noir is sometimes an elusive task; I've found over the years that a simplistic but revealing description of the era can be found in some of the frequently repeated words in the titles of the films themselves, some of which include 'fear,' 'night,' 'kill,' 'street,' 'kiss,' and 'big.'Today, I'm taking a look at three 'big' noir films from the classic era: The Big Combo, The Big Heat, and The Big Knife. Each one is a...

Read more