Today, Summer Under the Stars on TCM features Katharine Hepburn–all day, all night, hooray! It would be wise to set your DVR to record the entire day or, better yet, just cancel any plans you may have. Get some snacks and a blanket and just get comfortable in front of the television. It’s no mystery…
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter has apparently long stymied filmmakers, because there has yet to be a cinematic version that fully adapts the material without changing the tone or intent of the author’s original novel. Not to be overly sarcastic about it or anything. It’s a damn shame, too, because Letter is truly a masterwork of American…
Biff Grimes (James Cagney) is an ex-con living in turn-of-the-century New York City who has not found much success in his post-prison career as a dentist. One Sunday afternoon, while preparing to go for a walk with his wife, Amy (Olivia de Havilland), Biff gets a call from the president of the local bank: one…
To Sir, with Love (1967) is probably my favorite Sidney Poitier movie. What’s not to love about Sidney Poitier? He’s credited with opening up the world of film for African-Americans by expanding the nature of their roles. Of all of his memorable characters, Mr. Thackeray is my favorite. He steps in as an instructor at…
Today, it just feels appropriate to borrow a quote from one of the funniest screenwriters of all time, the great Preston Sturges. His 1941 opus Sullivan’s Travels, from which the title of this post derives, remains one of the best comedies of all time–incisive, witty, keenly observational, and filled with moments of rolling-on-the-floor hilarity. We…
The legendary blonde bombshell, Marilyn Monroe, has for some time been a mystery to me. The handful of movies that I’ve seen of hers have left me unimpressed. While unarguably beautiful, she always seems to play an unintelligent, gold-digger type, which is unappealing to me (personally, I’ve always been more of a Katharine Hepburn fan: I…
“It’s a conspiracy, I tell you. The minute you start, they put you on the all-American sucker list. You start out to build a home and wind up in the poorhouse. And if it can happen to me, what about the guys who aren’t making $15,000 a year? The ones who want a home of…
McLintock! (1963) is my favorite John Wayne movie. Not being a big fan of Westerns in general, this hardly may be great praise, but perhaps it is. It is on my short list of “westerns worth watching.” I love the humor, the banter, and the playfulness of this movie. My grandmother loved Westerns, and she…
