All John Garfield wanted was to own a small fishing fleet.  First, he has to pay off the only boat he has.  Stores have stopped giving him credit.  The deposit Ralph Dumke paid him for his next voyage only covered the gas he’ll need to take this customer on a fishing trip to Mexico. Garfield […]

Two film archivists are deep in a former salt mine, cataloging film canisters stored deep underground there. “Hey, what are these reels?  The Blood Secret?  What the hell is that?” “Let me see that.  I bet these are the reels for 1971’s Blood and Lace, a low-budget proto-slasher starring Gloria Grahame and F-Troop’s Melody Patterson.  […]

Two Tron action figures are sitting on top of the Tomy LED Tron game, which is on top of the 35mm film canister containing a print of the film’s trailer.  Nearby is a full set of Tron trading cards, and a Japanese 7” single of “Only Solutions”, one of two songs Journey contributed to the […]

There are so many potential threats to the continuation of human existence on the planet at this time that I’m surprised to see one nobody has had the bad idea to implement in the present day.  For example, there’s a giant concave mirror in 1954’s Gog which can concentrate the sun’s rays so intensely that […]

A potential pandemic has struck New York City.  The government is encouraging the use of masks to help prevent infection.  There’s talk of an Asian flu development in a lab over there.  But this isn’t the COVID era we’re talking about.  To my complete shock, these are elements of the 1968 comedy What’s So Bad […]

In 1940’s They Drive by Night, George Raft and Humphrey Bogart play independent long-haul truckers just trying to finish paying off their rig.  They are heckled by company driver Roscoe Karns, saying he is comfortable making a steady paycheck as a company driver, while guys like Raft and Bogart “can’t make no dough drinking coffee.”  […]

It has to be difficult to do anything innovative with the found footage genre, yet 2018’s Butterfly Kisses manages to do just that.  Whether it is successful in doing so can only be determined by the viewer. The twist on the concept is, in the present day, filmmaker Seth Adam Kallick has supposedly found a […]

I find it odd how the term “gaslighting” has become so prevalent, when I’m betting the vast majority of people who use the word haven’t seen the film which inspired its current use.  I further assume most of them haven’t even heard of that 1944 picture starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.  In its own […]

Boris Karloff is being brought back to life by a pioneering scientist as a great deal of odd equipment in the laboratory bubbles fluids or shoots bolts of electricity.  Successful in the resuscitation, the scientist marvels, “It’s alive!” But this isn’t Frankentein, and the scientist isn’t even of the mad variety, even if it he […]

Peggie Castle had an unfortunate career, largely in supporting roles and rarely given the opportunity to do more significant work.  A typical part for her was as a duplicitous wife in 1953’s 99 River Street, where she stole the scenes she was in, only for her character to be killed early in the second act.  […]

1968 must have been an interesting year for Elizabeth Taylor, having made back-to-back films with director Joseph Losey.  Boom!, though filmed in 1967, was getting eviscerated by American critics while the next Taylor/Losey collaboration, Secret Ceremony, was in production.  I wondered how that news may have affected the shoot of this film. Given the vibe […]

Not being a fan of role playing games, I don’t really know what fans of those games would expect from a Dungeons & Dragons movie.  I know neither fans of the game, nor of movies in general, had been thrilled with the releases under that brand leading up 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.  […]

Joseph Cotten is running around an old European country, his life in danger from mysterious forces.  Among the places he stumbles through is a seedy nightclub.  Can any of the mysterious strangers in his orbit be trusted?  Are the government officials on the level?  What about the beautiful foreign woman who seems to have a […]

Faye Dunaway is a high-fashion photographer whose work is causing an uproar in the media.  A reporter intercepts her on the way into her gallery show, confronting her with whether she knows “just how offensive her artwork is to women.”  Another reporter: “The violence if your photos—don’t you think you’re making people desensitized to this […]

1937’s Internes Can’t Take Money is an odd title and the film bearing it takes place in a strange world where that rule seems to be the primary law of the land.  This is the stated reason Joel McCrea’s Dr. Kildare refuses to take gangster Lloyd Nolan’s money as thanks for saving his life.  Nolan […]