Reviews

Displaying 1 - 20 of 210

  • Colorama: The Black Swan

    The Black Swan (1942) is a classic pirate film featuring scenes of pillage, barrels of grog, a grizzled but loyal first mate, and duels with ships and swords; tropical locations captured in Technicolor delight the eye, and a tempestuous relationship between a handsome pirate and the Governor's beautiful daughter checks the romance box. If The Black Swan sounds like a collectio...

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  • Where's That Been? - You Can't Have Everything

    Comedy is subjective. What makes me laugh like a hyena succumbing to a tickling fit is liable to leave someone else completely poker-faced. With that in mind, classic movie fans are generally in agreement as to which funsters are considered the finest practitioners of mirth on the silver screen: Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, etc. Still, there'll always be one individual who's not afra...

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  • Teen Scene: The Woman in the Window

    The work of author-director Fritz Lang has an established notoriety among cinephiles, particularly for his innovative masterpieces, Metropolis and M. One most not forget that the German director also had an important career in the United States in the '40s and '50s, and his American films are now considered Hollywood classics, among them his collaborations with Joan Bennett. T...

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  • Colorama: It's a Pleasure

    Sonja Henie was a virtuoso who conquered the world of competitive figure skating. She competed at the 1924 Olympics at the ripe old age of eleven (she came in 8th out of 8), and won her first of ten consecutive World Figure Skating Championships in 1927 when she was only fourteen. The next year, she took home her first of three consecutive Olympic gold medals, a record still unbeaten. But after...

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  • Where's That Been? - Children of Divorce

    'Isn't anyone ever going to come for us?' wails young Kitty Flanders (Joyce Coad) to her best pal Jean Waddington (Yvonne Pelletier) as the two of them watch their classmates reunite with visiting family members. Both girls, 'children of divorce,' have been housed in a Paris convent school so that their presence doesn't become an inconvenience to their neglectful parents.It...

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  • Where's That Been? - The House of Mystery

    Mention 'cliffhangers' or 'serials' to a classic film fan and chances are they'll conjure up images of Saturday matinees, where kids gathered every week to see heroes like Flash Gordon and Dick Tracy battle it out with villains before they ended up in a precarious situation that would require attendance at that same theater the following week ('To be continued...'). But before becoming entertai...

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  • Where's That Been? - Deadline U.S.A.

    In the bustling newsroom offices of The Day, a major metropolitan newspaper, managing editor Ed Hutcheson (Humphrey Bogart) is sandbagged by an AP wire report announcing the paper will be sold to a competing tabloid by the heirs of The Day's founder, John Garrison. Garrison's widow Margaret (Ethel Barrymore) and her daughters Alice (Fay Baker) and Katharine (Joyce Mackenzie) c...

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  • Don't Be Afraid of the Panic in Year Zero

    Released mere months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, Panic in Year Zero! is a compelling Cold War drama with a fascinating blend of elements, combining disturbing adult-oriented themes with some of the more juvenile-focused hallmarks of its studio, American International Pictures (AIP). Kino Lorber's video release is an excellent presentation of a fine film that takes us through some ...

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  • Teen Scene: Little Women

    Christmas is waiting impatiently at the door, which means hot chocolate, cookies and, of course, Christmas movies made to be watched with friends and family. The movies of this holiday season make us smile and put us in the holiday spirit. Many excellent Christmas films have been made through the ages, but my choice is George Cukor's Little Women. It might not be the most 'Chrismasy' o...

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  • Colorama: White Christmas

    In September 1954, Variety wrote that 'White Christmas should be a natural at the box office, introducing as it does Paramount's new VistaVision system with such a hot ensemble as Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and an Irving Berlin score.'Variety was right: White Christmas became the highest grossing film of 1954, raking in 2 million (that's over 02 mil...

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  • Where's That Been? - Cover Up

    As she boards a bus for Cleberg, the picaresque town she calls home, Anita Weatherby (Barbara Britton) is told by the driver that Cleberg resident Roger Phillips committed suicide. The death is of great interest to Anita's traveling companion (she met him on the train, and he's proved most helpful assisting her in carrying some Christmas presents), an insurance investigator named Sam Donovan (D...

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  • Teen Scene - Singin' in the Rain

    This month, I'll explore the world of the musical, a movie genre too often underestimated by the people of the Y generation. Singin' in the Rain is the kind of movie that even people who normally don't like musicals can enjoy! There's something magical about this film and it's through the combination of its many positive points.Singin' in the Rain is a glorious tri...

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  • Colorama: Nothing Sacred

    An unscrupulous reporter takes advantage of a tragic story to sell papers and manipulate the world -- sound familiar? This is a common tale, but it was seldom told with such comic flair as in 1937's Nothing Sacred. Starring Fredric March as the reporter and Carole Lombard as the heroine of his sad story, the movie deftly layers its screwball comedy with biting cynicism to take aim at n...

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  • Where's That Been? - Flying Luck

    On May 20, 1927, a 25-year-old aviator named Charles Lindbergh skyrocketed to international fame by piloting a single-seat, single-engine plane (The Spirit of St. Louis) from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, N.Y. to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France. Lindbergh was not, as commonly believed, the first person to make a Transatlantic flight (there were eighteen people ahead of him), but he...

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  • Colorama: How to Steal a Million

    Audrey Hepburn plays a chic Parisian woman who meets a handsome stranger -- but beware! -- he is not quite what he seems. Together they gallivant around the City of Lights, trading quips, kisses, and mischief. No, it's not Charade (1963). It's not Paris When It Sizzles (1964), either. It's How to Steal a Million (1966) starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole.

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  • Teen Scene: The Day the Earth Stood Still

    Some of the most worthy movies are both intelligent and entertaining because they attract people for the good reasons. Robert Wise's 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still is the exceptions to the rule. The film is considered one of the best science-fiction films of the '50s (the golden decade for the genre).Teens might be more familiar with 2008's mediocre remake starring...

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  • Colorama: The Birds

    Despite a lukewarm reception upon premiere in 1963, The Birds is now considered one of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpieces. The follow-up to Psycho (1960), a film that would be difficult to top for anyone, Hitchcock didn't release a movie for three years after his visit to the Bates Motel, making it the longest break between pictures in his career. But The Birds was certainly worth the wai...

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  • Standing By The Defenders, Season One

    From 1961 to 1965, CBS Television was the home of The Defenders, an hour-long drama that become the gold standard of 'courtroom' shows, since the series eschewed the 'whodunit' premise of programs like Perry Mason in favor of tackling serious legal and social issues of the era (capital punishment, euthanasia, child abuse, etc.). The Defenders went on to score a total ...

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  • Teen Scene: Dead End

    Known as one of Hollywood's most prolific movie directors, William Wyler had a career that began in the '20s and ended in the '70s. He was a favorite of the Academy and won no less than three Best Director Oscar for his tremendous work on Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives and Ben-Hur. Today, Wyler is mainly remembered for

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  • It's All in a Day's Work: Death Valley Days, Season 1

    With eighteen seasons and well over 500 episodes, Death Valley Days is one of the longest-running television programs never to receive a legitimate season set on DVD...until now! Through its Timeless label, Shout Factory has brought the first season of this half-hour Western anthology in a 3-disc set containing all eighteen half-hour episodes.Death Valley Days was ...

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