Director Raoul Walsh was not particularly known for producing lighter cinematic fare. Though his five decade-long filmography ranges from comedies to dramas to Westerns, Walsh is primarily remembered as the director of a string of successful, heavily male-driven flicks in the 1940s, beginning with a trio of Humphrey Bogart-led movies including The Roaring Twenties (1939), They Drive by Night (1940),…
It’s a lovely moonlight night, and everyone who’s anyone is making the scene at the Coo-Coo Nut Grove, the hottest nightspot in town. Ben Birdie is leading the band, the rat fink gossip columnist Walter Windpipe is looking for a scoop, and the mood is just right for stargazing. Or, at the very least, for enjoying a…
Labeling Mickey Rooney a “legend” of the screen feels something of an understatement. Though he reached the height of his fame relatively early in his career, Rooney maintained an acting career for almost nine decades–an unparalleled record that is unlikely to be matched any time soon. He began performing when he was still in diapers, and…
Peter Morgan (James Stewart) has been sent to New York City to retrieve his womanizing cousin, Keith (James Ellison), and bring him back to their small college town of Old Sharon. He finds Keith in a nightclub, but is unable to convince his love-struck cousin to come with him. However, when Peter meets the object…
Zachary Scott: Hollywood’s Sophisticated Cad Ronald L. Davis Release Date: July 24, 2013 (Reprint); February 27, 2006 (Original printing) University Press of Mississippi Softcover, 238 pages Last summer, the University Press of Mississippi reprinted Ronald L. Davis’ biography of character actor Zachary Scott, subtitled Hollywood’s Sophisticated Cad, in paperback. As today marks the centennial of Scott’s…
Connie Fuller (Ann Sheridan) has a fondness for antiques that her husband, Bill (Jack Benny), begrudgingly accepts (albeit with an air of exasperation). Connie longs to get out of the city and away from apartment living, so without telling Bill—a dedicated New Yorker if there ever was one—she purchases a dilapidated old farmhouse in the…
When I was ten years old, my parents gave me a long-awaited Christmas gift: a small television for my bedroom. A TV of my very own? I was thrilled. I could finally watch what I wanted without having to fight with my younger brothers for control of the remote. For a budding pop-culture junkie, there…
On February 7, 1914, one of the most iconic characters in the history of film made his first appearance onscreen: an odd, unnamed figure who was initially introduced to the world in the Mack Sennett-produced Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice. The creator of the “Tramp” persona, Charlie Chaplin, was as green a film performer…
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