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  • TV TIME: Celebrating Ed Asner

    Long before he became America's unofficial grandfather by playing lovable if gruff characters like Carl Fredricksen in Up and Santa himself in Elf, Ed Asner had a long and storied television career. Prior to his breakthrough role of grizzled newsman Lou Grant, Asner guested in a wide variety of series in the 1960s, often playing characters that were nasty, mean, or downright evil. Let's go back to the days when this legendary performer had more hair on his head, more letters...

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  • Dark Cinema: Safe in Hell with Dorothy Mackaill

    The opening of Safe in Hell is a bit deceptive. The film's title appears on-screen, with its block-style, capital letters filled in with a silent roar of angry flames. Meanwhile, the music we hear conjures a scene from the late 1800s, perhaps a pair of ladies strolling through the park with ankle-length dresses and lace-trimmed parasols. But once the credits fade the ...

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  • Silent Cinema: An Evening With Buster Keaton

    After the success of their Buster Keaton shorts set last year, Kino Lorber and Lobster Films have joined forces to release Keaton's features on DVD and Blu-ray. I was thrilled to receive copies of the films and am eager to share some of the goodies included in these releases.The films are packaged as two-disc sets with one feature on each disc. The General comes with Three Ages, Keaton's very first feature, and Steamboat Bill, Jr. comes with College

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  • Susan Hayward: The Tough Chameleon

    Oscar-winning actress Susan Hayward was born in Brooklyn nearly a century ago, on June 30, 1917. Originally named Edythe Marrenner, Susan grew up in New York -- where, incidentally, she became lifelong friends with a boy named Ira Grossel, later known as Jeff Chandler.After graduating high school in 1935, Susan became a model and before long was off to Hollywood. She worked her way up the ladder from bit roles to supporting parts, with her career finally taking off to new heights in t...

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  • The Old Corral: Heroes and Their Horses

    'A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty 'Hi-yo Silver'' - the Lone Ranger!Yup, horses were far more than the basic means of transport in the West and the Western. There is a whole myth attached to horses.In many movies, certain Western actors used the same horse again and again, and they became part of the mystique. Everyone knows Roy Rogers's horse was Trigger (who was so 'intelligent' that he could rescue Roy from scrapes), and The Lone R...

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  • TV Time: Abraham Lincoln in Sci-Fi Television

    Trivia lovers often point out the eerie similarities between two acclaimed United States presidents who were both struck down by assassins. While an amusing number of coincidences do indeed connect Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, there is at least one huge difference: While Honest Abe is all over classic TV, it's hard to find JFK.We all have a vague collective false memory of Kennedy guesting on The Dick Van Dyke Show, but alas, it never happened. Fo...

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  • Dark Cinema: Noirs of '48

    In the world of film noir, 1947 is commonly touted as a banner year -- it's the year that saw the release of such classics as Out of the Past, Kiss of Death, Nightmare Alley, and Dead Reckoning. For my money, though, there's another year that deserves just as much acclaim, 1948. Today's post shines the spotlight on five first-rate features from this stellar year of noir.Act of ViolenceVan Heflin stars as Frank Enley,...

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  • The Old Corral: The Birth of the Western Movie

    Many people regardThe Great Train Robbery (1903) as the first Western movie. It isn't, though. Cowboys had been captured on celluloid before and short Western scenes were quite common. As early as 1894 Buffalo Bill Cody's troupe had been filmed and there was already a motion picture, Lasso Thrower viewed by a single person in a kind of what-the-butler-saw device. In 1896 motion pictures were first commercially projected onto large screens in the US.In 1898 there ...

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  • June Allyson: America's Girl Next Door

    The delightful June Allyson was born in the Bronx, New York, on October 7, 1917. She overcame a hardscrabble childhood and a years-long recovery from a freak injury to emerge as a sunny and cheerful star at MGM.June was raised by a single mother after her father walked out. At the age of eight she was crushed after a tree limb fell on her when she was riding a bike; she spent years in a brace but eventually recovered and learned to dance. She appeared in a series of musical shorts...

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  • TV Time: Bizarre Sci-Fi Episodes

    You'll see many strange things in science fiction and fantasy television: space aliens, interstellar travel, super powers, and more. Yet even within the fantastic realm of genre entertainment, you sometimes encounter episodes that are just...bizarre. This month, let's look at some of the strangest episodes of popular sci-fi series. They may have their detractors, but I guarantee each is worth watching at least once.The Adventures of Superman, 'The...

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