One of my favorite stories of all time is the tale of Alice and her journey down the rabbit hole. I’ve read the Lewis Carroll Alice books (1865’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the 1871 sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There) more times than I can remember over the years, and every…
Nothing makes me smile more than when I’m watching a movie on TCM that I have never seen before and the smiling, round face of Cuddles Sakall appears on the screen. And this past Friday’s lineup had double the Cuddles; the network’s night of Gordon MacRae films featured two movies co-starring Sakall, Tea for Two…
The much-parodied and endlessly dissected Strangers on a Train (1951) marks a return to form for director Alfred Hitchcock. His four previous films over the four previous years–The Paradine Case, Rope, Under Capricorn, and Stage Fright, each more lackluster than the last–had not met with quite the same success and acclaim as some of his…
Frank Capra’s indelible brand of feel-good morality tales, sprinkled with romance and humor, has led to his films being labeled as “Capra-corn” by some critics. And it’s true that some of his most beloved and well-known movies tend toward the sentimental. But to deride Capra’s work as mere schmaltz is to ignore the sheer talent…
Being an inveterate Alfred Hitchcock fan, when someone asks me to name my favorite film from the prolific director, I find it a difficult question to answer at first. I can give a top five quite easily: North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, Notorious, Rear Window, and Shadow of a Doubt. Each of these,…
It’s been a while since my last Feminist Fridays post, so I thought today I’d take a crack at one of my favorite minor Bette Davis dramas—1943’s Old Acquaintance, costarring Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young, John Loder, and Dolores Moran. Davis plays Kit Marlowe, a celebrated author who returns to her hometown to give a lecture.…
If there is one movie that I really wish TCM would play sometime in the near future, it’s The Farmer’s Daughter, an absolutely delightful comedy starring Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, and Ethel Barrymore. The movie’s never been released on DVD as far as I can tell (drats!), and I’m seriously jonesing for a fresh viewing.…
To kick off our Maudlin Mondays series, which looks at some of the biggest, most manipulative tearjerkers ever to grace a screen, I want to begin with a look at a relatively recent film–one that many down here in the South (well, many women, anyway) consider a modern classic–1989’s Steel Magnolias. Let me insert a…
True Classics 