In the opening credits for 1958’s Lonelyhearts, I noticed this was based on a novel by Nathanael West, author of Day of the Locust.  That novel was a nasty piece of work, and the 1975 film adaptation stayed true to its spirit.  I have not read the source material for Lonelyhearts, but I was curious […]

The boy who cried wolf is one of those tropes used consistently through the history of film.  It was given a contemporary spin few times in the 80’s in such horror films such Fright Night, where you had the boy who cried vampire.  1989 film Night Visitor takes this trope even further, with the boy […]

In her prime, Elizabeth Taylor had more influence than almost any other actress in Hollywood.  I greatly admire her for some of the bizarre roles she chose at that time, including such curiosities as Reflections in a Golden Eye or Boom!, two movies I first learned about from the book The Worst Movies of All […]

I find it interesting how sports invented for movies are always a tad ridiculous.  The titular game in 1975’s Rollerball seemed to me to have elements of roulette, roller derby, motorcycle racing, jai alai and basketball.  The game the Whos play in How the Grinch Stole Christmas feels saner in comparison, and that one was […]

1947’s Time Out of Mind is largely a forgettable melodrama, but it has one scene I suspect I will remember for quite some time.  I’ll probably remember it long after I have forgotten which movie it’s from.  In this scene, a concert pianist (Robert Hutton) is on the stage of a New York City symphonic […]

If the movie studios in the 50’s and 60’s were so concerned about competing with television, why did they insist on releasing so many theatrical films that were of the quality and nature of small screen fare?  If somebody wanted to see a comedy where the humor is largely people shouting at each other, and […]

I’m just going to come out a say something: Joel Grey is a creepy motherfucker.  He’s perfectly cast in 1974’s Man on a Swing, where he plays an alleged clairvoyant who insists on helping the police investigate the murder of a young woman.  He may or may not have such powers, he may or not […]

1950’s Panic in the Streets is a noir about trying to stop a possible epidemic of pneumonic plague.  That is an interesting idea for the genre, and the only other film I can think of that did this is the same year’s The Killer That Stalked New York.  But that one was about smallpox, as […]

Oliver Reed once wrestled Alan Bates naked on the screen in Ken Russell’s Women in Love.  I wonder if that was more than, or a less than, embarrassing experience when compared to starring in 1980’s Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype.  I’m still trying to figure out why Reed took this role at all.  It is […]

James Cagney specialized in playing brutal criminals.  He completely dominated such pictures as The Public Enemy and White Heat.  His characters in those were completely despicable, but fascinating to watch.  But those can’t hold a candle compared to how much of a louse he is in 1950’s Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. What’s novel about this picture […]

Say the name Nigel Kneale to sci-fi fans in the know, an you’ll probably get a nod acknowledging you are part of the inner circle of his fans.  This Manxman wrote some stellar scripts, ones that focused more on ideas than action.  His Quatermass character is especially popular, having been in three legendary BBC series […]

It’s hard to pick a favorite moment from the series The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, as it had nearly as many great bits as the prime seasons of The Simpsons.  But there’s one I couldn’t stop thinking of recently, and that’s the fake 1938 musical Daddy’s Boy, a clip of which cuts off in mid-song because […]

It’s odd how there can be somebody who has been in the credits for a great many movies you’ve seen, but never noticed it until a different form of media makes you aware of them.  For example, I never really noticed the wealth of movies Edith Head worked on until the They Might Be Giant’s […]

I don’t know if audiences of the 1970’s were clamoring for films set four decades prior, but the studios delivered a ton of them.  Paramount, especially, seemed to have a hard-on for making films set in the 1930’s, among them Paper Moon, Lady Sings the Blues and The Last Tycoon.  Well, it worked with Chinatown, […]