In 1934, director Frank Capra released the seminal classic It Happened One Night, a picture that helped define the relatively new genre of screwball comedy. On the heels of that film’s monumental success, Capra followed up with another comedy, Broadway Bill. But while Night became a perennial favorite, Bill virtually disappeared for decades after its release; according to the TCMdb entry on…
The Americanization of Emily (1964) is a wonderfully satirical, dark comedy about a “dog robber” in the US Navy serving during WWII. Starring James Garner as Charlie, a self-proclaimed coward, the film tells the story of this unscrupulous officer who prefers to avoid heroism in lieu of self-preservation. Although deemed unpatriotic by some critics, The…
In 1956, UPA released the final of four cartoons featuring Dr. Seuss’s adorably strange, noise-making little boy, Gerald McBoing-Boing. This last cartoon in the series deviates from the typical McBoing-Boing short in one important way: the creative, sometimes nonsensical rhyming meter of the previous Gerald entries is gone, replaced by a straightforward narrative. And while I find myself…
A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True, 1907-1940 Victoria Wilson Release Date: November 12, 2013 Simon & Schuster Hardcover, 1044 pages The word “exhaustive” gets thrown around quite a bit when talking about biographies. But never has that term been more aptly used than when referring to Victoria Wilson’s stunning recent biography of film legend Barbara Stanwyck.…
Last weekend (June 6-8) I was able to check out some of the fabulous events at the Gone With the Wind Festival in Marietta, GA. In celebration of the 75th anniversary, this festival was made up of some great events, including a costume ball complete with dinner and dancing to Civil War Era music. Some…
On June 9, 1934, the Walt Disney animation studios released The Wise Little Hen, a Silly Symphony adapted from a classic fairy tale. As with most of the Silly Symphonies, the cartoon did not feature any of Disney’s stock recurring characters, such as the already-legendary Mickey Mouse. But one member of Hen’s supporting cast–a petulant, musical, sailor suit-clad duck–would…
To finish up the month of May, the Month of Mothers (hey, we changed a lot of diapers; we deserve more than just one day of recognition!), we’re delighted to feature a guest post analyzing the role of Mrs. Danvers in the 1940 film version of Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Over the years, some critics have…
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),…
True Classics 