We’re not even though the opening credits of Dracula A.D. 1972 (from, um, 1972) when the average viewer will know whether or not this is for them.  By the time the word “Dracula” is on the screen, we will have seen Christopher Lee, as the titular vampire, and Peter Cushing’s Dr. Van Helsing, wrestling on […]

1946’s The Man I Love crams a lot of movie and too many characters in only 97 minutes.  It combines film noir, musical, various domestic dramas and a PTSD storyline, each given such brief coverage as to undermine the effectiveness of the others.  I was only surprised nobody worked in western and science fiction and […]

1935’s Hands Across the Table puts a slight spin on the screwball comedy trope of the female gold digger and puts a small spin on it by adding a male opportunist and having the two schemers fall in love.  These roles are filled by Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray.  She’s a manicurist at an upscale […]

Record labels have always appealed to me, especially ones with a catalog that is the vision of one person.  Consider Jac Holzman, who founded Elektra Records, and those early, iconic logos (both of the label of such artists as Love and The Doors) and the musicians he initially hand-picked.  Or 4AD, which had a roster […]

It astonishes me how most people are almost desperate to be conned.  One particular huckster comes to mind, somebody who seduced the American public with their everyman demeanor, only to fleece them for every cent they’re worth.  This is a monster whose appetites have grown to monstrous proportions.  Initially, they only wanted money and women.  […]

I have never been to Paris, but I wonder what it is about the place that lends itself to films about assorted, unrelated characters.  The first one that comes to my mind is 2006’s Paris, Je T’aime, but that may be supplanted by 1953’s Innocents in Paris now that I have seen it. This charming […]

There is some odd slang involving cats, the more I think about it.  Why “cat burglar”, for example?  I found myself thinking this while watching the first scene of Hitchcock’s 1955 picture To Catch a Thief, in where we see a montage of items being stolen by such a sneak thief, interspersed with shots of […]

When I think of actors from Hollywood’s golden era who were best in tough guy roles, my mind immediately goes to Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, and in that order.  From today’s perspective, I find it odd one of the hottest actors of the time for such parts was George Raft. My […]

White elephant gift exchanges are a fad that has lasted longer than I thought possible and which can die whenever it feels like it.  I always wondered how it started and, though it is unlikely it was inspired by 1940’s The Shop Around the Corner, it has what I think might be the first item […]

To my surprise, 1959’s 4D Man is not about my grades for the first quarter of my senior year of high school, when I was at my most disillusioned and unmotivated.  Instead, it is about a scientist (Robert Lansing) who discovers he can move through solid surfaces.  Naturally, this drives him mad and makes him […]

The preposterously titled Place Title Here: A Collection of Ramblings About Movies from the First Two Years of Place Logo Here is now available. This compendium is a curated selection of more than 200 movie reviews from this blog, all with corrections and many with rewritten portions. Doubtlessly, some new errors have also been introduced. […]

I have seen films that adaptations of, or inspired by, a wide variety of works, but 1946’s Bedlam is the first picture I have seen which contains a credit like this: “suggested by the Williams Hogarth painting Bedlam: Plate #8 ‘The Rake’s Progress’”. Given the title of that work, I can only assume it depicts […]

An eleven-year-old Brooke Shields is wearing all white while holding a sparkler and reclining on a padded stretcher being held aloft by an adult on each end, paraded around a dining room where a group of wealthy men are appraising her.  This feels like something out of Pasolini’s Salo as, like something out of that […]

Some movies stretch to find content to occupy the screen for 90 minutes.  Then there are films such as 1932’s Chandu the Magician which cram so much into 71 minutes that you feel like you have just watched every installment of a serial of the time, but in one sitting. In fact, almost every aspect […]