Category: article

  • Make Your Own TCM Classic Film Festival

    The TCM Classic Film Festival returns to Hollywood beginning April 28, 2016 and running through Sunday, May 2nd. For many classic film fans, the TCM Classic Film Festival is one of the highlights of the movie year. I've written about the festival here previously, most recently in 2015.The TCM festival is a one-of-a-kind experience, a chance to enjoy movies on the big screen, with filmmakers and historians present to add context to each film screened. Attending is a terrific goal f...

    Read more

  • Rediscovered: Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle

    Roscoe Arbuckle is remembered less for his comic artistry than for the 1921 scandal that brought his acting career to an abrupt halt. Arbuckle's films were pulled from U.S. theaters in the crucial year when he, the other reigning male comedy stars, Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, were transitioning from shorts to features, becoming a study in frustration and unrealized potential.Roscoe's friends got him directing jobs, and he also wrote gags and complete scenarios for other comics. In ...

    Read more

  • Dark Cinema: The Best Bits of Blondell

    If you are of an age to remember an old Blue Bonnet margarine commercial from the 1960s, you'll know 'everything's better with Blue Bonnet on it.'Well, I apply that same line of thinking to one of my favorite pre-Code actresses: 'Every film's better with Joan Blondell in it.'Blondell appeared in more than 30 features from the pre-Code era including such classics as The Public Enemy (1932), but even in films that weren't classic, Blondell was a shining...

    Read more

  • Silent Cinema: Lost and Found Films of the Silent Era

    An enormous percentage of all silent films have been lost. There are some silent films everyone is looking for (London After Midnight, for example) but most films have faded quietly away, unmourned.Let's cheer things up a bi by talking about silent films that were feared lost for decades but were rediscovered or reconstructed and are now available for all to enjoy!The Dramatic RescuesThis was a rediscovery that made headlines aroun...

    Read more

  • April Fools' Comedies Worth Chuckling Over

    With April Fool's Day approaching, what better time of year to take a look at some favorite comedies? Here's a list of ten of the comedies I enjoy most. Some of these films aren't well known, but they're each wonderfully entertaining and deserving of discovery.If You Could Only Cook (1935) - This is a Depression-era charmer starring Jean Arthur as an unemployed young woman who meets dashing Herbert Marshall on a park bench. She assumes from his dejected attitude h...

    Read more

  • TV TIME: Top-Rated TV Episodes, Part 2

    Last time, we began an exploration of the highest-rated television episodes of the classic era, as reported by Wesley Hyatt in his excellent book Television's Top 100: The Most Watched American Broadcasts 1960-2010. This month we continue our journey in chronological order. As mentioned in Part 1, to avoid repetition, each series only gets one entry in Hyatt's book. Also, for the purposes of this piece, we are excluding specials, movies, and sporting events.The Ed Sul...

    Read more

  • The Ultimate Star: Joan Crawford

    There is no better example of a movie star than Joan Crawford. Crawford was a leading lady by 1926 and was still playing leads at the end of the '60s.Today it is easier than ever to see her films. Over 60 of her 82 features are in print, including six of her silents and virtually all of her films in sound.Crawford watching is addictive. She makes a loud screen statement in every scene and dares you to look away. Some rules of engagement:1. Expect a star per...

    Read more

  • Classics 101: Cartoonified - Forgotten Animation Studios of the 1930s

    Beyond the well-known Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, and Max Fleischer cartoons with their all-star lineups of Mickey, Donald, Bugs, Daffy, Tom & Jerry, Betty Boop, and Popeye, there exists a strange parallel universe of B-level animated cartoons from the 1930s. Nobody could ever mistake these for Disney (or even Fleischer or Warner Bros.) cartoons, yet they have a certain rudimentary charm and a bouncy sense of fun that makes them fondly regarded by cartoon fans (like us).Some of...

    Read more

  • Joan Bennett: Striking and Intelligent

    Joan Bennett's film career, which spanned decades, is interesting in that it was divided into several distinct chapters, marked by changes in her appearance and the types of roles she played. What never changed, however, was the keen intelligence she brought to each part, along with her striking beauty.Joan was born February 27, 1910, into an acting family which included her father, theatrical star Richard Bennett, and her older sister, Constance; Constance Bennett was, of course,...

    Read more

  • Dark Cinema: Good Girls in Bad Company

    The ladies of film noir, typically, are no ladies. More often than not, they're duplicitous dames, mercenary molls, and corrupt cuties, not a lady in the bunch.Still, for every rule, there's an exception, and there are numerous noirs featuring femmes who most decidedly do not fall into the 'bad girl' category -- I like to think of them as good girls in bad company. My favorite gals of this group just happen to also appear in three of my favorite noirs: Leave Her to Heaven...

    Read more
Categories
Tag cloud
Recent entries
Archive