Humoresque (1946): Crawford and the Sea of Love
Thrilled to be writing this for the 2023 CMBA fall blogathon, because Humoresque is a classic Second Sight movie where the riches it offers mostly get eclipsed. In this case it's by Crawford's dazzling diva turn, which sweeps all before it. Hoping to stir you to see...
Jack Carson, International Man of Mystery
First, pick a Jack. Jack #1: Sad Sack Jack Never nominated, he worked a lot but wasn’t taken seriously, was given few chances to stretch beyond comedies. He was a depressive who drank too much and was awkward and distant in intimate relationships. Died at 52, weeks...
Giant (1956): Can This Marriage Be Saved?
Oh boy, I get to write about Giant! Or rather the marriage therein, between Texan Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson), rich, powerful, and beautiful scion of a 595,000 acre ranch, and Leslie Lynnton (Elizabeth Taylor), daughter of an old money Maryland family. Giant spans 25...
Alistair Sim’s Christmas Carol (1951): the “full-bodied” Scrooge
“An ant is what it is, and a grasshopper is what it is, and Christmas is a humbug.” —E. Scrooge “ As so often happens when I choose a movie to write about, a movie I dearly love, I pass through a period of thinking there's not really that much to say about it. That's...
Of Monocles and Mystery: Charles Douville Coburn
He’s one of the preeminent character actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and, like Sydney Greenstreet and Marie Dressler, among the small club of performers who started hugely successful movie careers around age 60, which at the time was not “the new 50,” it was...
Raw Deal (1948): Crashing Out of Corkscrew Alley
"I believe in the nobility of the human spirit. It is that for which I look in a subject I am to direct. I do not believe that everybody is bad, that the whole world is wrong. The greatness of Shakespeare's plays is the nobility of the human spirit, even though he may...
All Twisted Up Inside: Arthur Kennedy and Frank Sinatra in Some Came Running (1958)
This is about Kennedy's performance in Some Came Running (1958), directed by Vincente Minnelli. Kennedy scored his fourth Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Frank Hirsh, the embodiment of small-town small-mindedness and hypocrisy. I am...
Love Letters: Dear Thomas Mitchell
"I didn't know I was that good" ?what you said upon accepting your Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Stagecoach (1939) Dear Tom, or Dear Kid Dabb (Only Angels Have Wings, 1939) ...Diz Moore (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939) ...Doc Boone (Stagecoach, 1939) ...Clopin...
Love Letters: Dear Mr. Rains
Dear Mr. Rains, Or perhaps I should say Dear Captain Renault, ...Jack Griffin (The Invisible Man), ...Alex Sebastian (Notorious), ...Adam Lemp (Four Daughters), ...Prince John (The Adventures of Robin Hood), ...Nutsy (Moontide), ...Senator Paine (Mr. Smith Goes to...
Sex, Shoes, Brows and Gowns: Now, Voyager (1942)
"My mother didn't think Leslie was suitable for a Vale of Boston. What man is suitable, Doctor, she's never found one.... What man would ever look at me and say 'I want you'? I'm fat. My mother doesn't approve of dieting. Look at my shoes. My mother approves of...
?Acting is a ridiculous profession?? ?notes on Peter Lorre
This post is part of the 2014 What a Character! blogathon. To see more, click graphic (above).? ?Acting is a ridiculous profession unless it is part of your very soul.? ??Peter Lorre Even people who have never seen Peter Lorre in a movie know his nasal, dreamy voice...
Sublime and Underseen: Peter Ibbetson (1935)
Yes. We do love each other. We?ve loved each other all our lives, and there isn?t anything anyone can do about it.? ??But?it isn?t real.? ?Who is to say what is real and what is not real? We?re dreaming true, a dream that is more than a dream.? ?Peter, listen...
A Viewer’s Guide: How to Watch Grand Hotel (1932)
Grand Hotel, always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens. courtesy Pre-Code.com Grand Hotel took home the Best Picture Oscar for MGM in 1933, beating another MGM release,The Champ, as well as Samuel Goldwyn’s Arrowsmith, Fox’s Bad Girl, First...
Day 6: Order in the Court! The Classic Courtroom Movie Blogathon concludes (in extra innings)?
Oyez, oyez! Welcome to Day 6, the final day of our courtroom extravaganza! In the first five?days we saw, among others, posts on Hitchcock worth knowing better (The Paradine Case), lynching (Fritz Lang?s?Fury), Louise Brooks?s Lulu in?Pandora?s Box,?Kramer vs. Kramer,...
Disembodied: Waldo Lydecker, the Voice in the Dark in Laura (1944)
“McPherson, if you know anything about faces, look at mine. How singularly innocent I look this morning. Have you ever seen such candid eyes?” “Laura considered me the wisest, the wittiest, the most interesting man she’d ever met. I was in complete accord with her on...
TCMFF 2016 Sunday: Church: Sirk, Chaplin, Ford, Minnelli, Final Wrap and Coda
And so we come to the last day of TCMFF 2016. I was already feeling it on Saturday, and of course Saturday?s events and pace and the least sleep yet went a long way toward creating a detour from my still excited but increasingly weary mind and my mouth, which began to...
TCMFF 2016: Recap of Saturday, Day 3: Vitaphone, Reiner, Gould, Karina
From my comfortable perch back at my friend?s house in North Hollywood, ?the intensity, mad dashes, glorious experiences, and occasional frustrations of TCMFF 2016 seem rather remote, Gentle Reader, but at this time a little over one?week ago I was watching?Dead Men...
TCMFF 2016: A Breathless Diary
Greetings, gentle reader! After another refreshing 5 hours of sleep I?m off to the day?s delights and trials, of which more in a moment. Here?s what happened yesterday: I hot-footed it down to breakfast at Club TCM, where I got to shake Leonard Maltin?s hand, miss...
A Viewer?s Guide: How to Watch The Invisible Man (1933)
The Invisible Man?is a bit of a?stepchild among James Whale?s Universal horror films, which is understandable since?Frankenstein?(1931) and even more?Bride of Frankenstein?(1935) were not just sensationally successful at the box office but embedded themselves...
Anatomy of a scorcher: Mary Astor on Filming the Steamy Kiss in Red Dust
Mary Astor?s memoir?A Life on Film?is fantastic?she?s a wonderful writer, and her sharp observations on the industry and what went on behind the cameras are fascinating and incredibly useful to anyone who writes about classic film. Astor writes of being asked by a...