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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – 20th Century Fox – 1942: FOOTLIGHT SERNADE and SPRINGTIME IN THE ROCKIES + Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

Release Date: 03/10/2023

Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 1: BLONDE FEVER (1944) and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

Welcome to our inaugural Gloria Grahame episode, which is also our final Acteurist Oeuvre-view! In this episode we consider Gloria's first significant movie role, as the cause of Blonde Fever (1944), in which she and Philip Dorn confuse each other and provide occasion for Mary Astor's multiple levels of irony. We then turn to Gloria's breakthrough role in one of our very favourite movies, It's a Wonderful Life (1946), examining it through the lens of Gloria's iconic character, Violet Bick. We consider Violet's thematic link to George at a crucial moment, Capra's...

Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1931: 24 HOURS and LADIES OF THE BIG HOUSE

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

Our streak of finding gynocentric crime film gems continues with our second Paramount 1931 episode, featuring two movies directed by Sylvia Sidney specialist Marion Gering. 24 Hours pairs a despairing Clive Brook and Miriam Hopkins, haunted by marriages they can't escape in one way or another. And Ladies of the Big House, starring a radiant Sidney as a hapless shopgirl who (like Hopkins' nightclub singer) becomes the target of a gangster's obsession, depicts life in prison as a curious quasi-utopia of racial equality and solidarity among American's socioeconomically oppressed....

Acteurist Oeuvre-view - Diana Wynyard – Part 7:AN IDEAL HUSBAND (1947) and THE FEMININE TOUCH (1956)

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

Our final Diana Wynyard episode has arrived all too soon! We look at her two final key roles, in Alexander Korda's film of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1947) and The Feminine Touch (1956), a nurse drama that's better than its silly title. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we cover the 2025 Toronto Silent Film Festival, focusing on three films built around miraculous performances, Victor Sjostrom's The Wind (1928), starring Lillian Gish, Victor Fleming's Mantrap (1926), starring Clara Bow, and Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928),...

Retro Re-issue [August 23, 2019] - Ethan Mordden’s The Hollywood Studios (1989) - Now With No Introductory Song!

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

**** [Retro Re-issue Alert!] **** Turns out it wasn't such a great idea to use Le Tigre's "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" as our podcast's theme song in 2019 and 2020! Anyway, Spotify (and presumably Le Tigre) don't seem to think so. Accordingly, please find the attached re-issue of one of our foundational episodes, minus the intro music + a couple of words of greeting from Elise. Consider it a fragment shored against our (Julie) Ruin. First issued: August 23, 2019 This week’s episode serves as both a prolegomenon to our imminent Hollywood Studios Year By Year series and as...

Special Subject - Farrow vs. Allen – Part 2: THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985); HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) & RADIO DAYS (1987)

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

In this Farrow vs. Allen Special Subject episode we dig into a strong set of films, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Radio Days (1987), united by their examination of art, popular culture, and fantasy, the possibilities they offer for transcendence, and the conditions of that transcendence. We also, of course, particularly examine Mia Farrow's role in these films, from Allen avatar to intimidating enigma, wistful waif to materfamilias. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) [dir. Woody...

Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1930: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT & OUTSIDE THE LAW

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

We complete our second round of 1930 on Studios Year by Year with Universal. This time around we've got two auteur entries, Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front, and a much deeper cut, Tod Browning's eccentric crime drama Outside the Law. We discuss All Quiet as emblematic of the Laemmele Jr. era before turning to Browning's tense, messy melodrama, with a powerhouse performance by the scandal-plagued Mary Nolan. A fine finale to another trip through 1930 with the Hollywood Studios! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Universal Recap 0h 15m 58s: ALL...

Acteurist Oeuvre-view - Diana Wynyard – Part 6: THE PRIME MINISTER (1941) and KIPPS (1941)

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

In our penultimate Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, our acteur supports two of the greats of her age, John Gielgud as Benjamin Disraeli in Thorold Dickinson's The Prime Minister and Michael Redgrave as the titular innocent of Carol Reed's Kipps, based on the novel by H.G. Wells. We discuss 19th century British politics (enfranchisement vs. empire), Wells' hope and despair for humanity, and the qualities that suit Wynyard to play women who are motivated to improve their partners. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we wrap up March's TIFF Lightbox retrospectives...

Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1930: FRAMED & THE RUNAWAY BRIDE

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

In this week's RKO Studios Year by Year episode, we discuss our favourite movies from our first round with the studio and how that round shaped our impression of RKO, and then turn to two new 1930 movies: Framed (directed by George Archainbaud), a gangster movie focused on Evelyn Brent's tough/tender mixed-up moll, and The Runaway Bride (directed by Donald Crisp), a shaggy showcase for Mary Astor's affability. But wait, there's more! In Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we debate the meanings and merits of two daring films by Mai Zetterling, Amorosa (1986)...

Special Subject – Stanning for Anna Sten: NANA (1934), WE LIVE AGAIN (1934), THE WEDDING NIGHT (1935), & LET’S LIVE A LITTLE (1948)

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

We've got a big one for you this week: four main movies plus four Fear and Moviegoing viewings. Our main feature is Stanning for Sten: Anna Sten's three movies for Samuel Goldwyn, Nana (1934), based on (more like inspired by) the Zola novel, We Live Again (1934), with a Tolstoy source, and The Wedding Night (1935), plus a glimpse at one of her later supporting roles in Let's Live a Little (1948), a Robert Cummings comedy vehicle. Goldwyn infamously brought Sten to Hollywood with the intention of creating his own Dietrich-Garbo hybrid and lavished the...

Acteurist Oeuvre-view - Diana Wynyard – Part 5: GASLIGHT (1940) and FREEDOM RADIO (1940)

There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film

In this Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we look at probably her best-known film, Gaslight (directed by Thorold Dickinson), and consider its pros and cons relative to the Cukor/Selznick Hollywood version of a few years later, as well as the question of how "gaslighting" became an internet meme and how well the source fits the popular meaning. Then we turn to an oddball film with an anti-nationalism message, Freedom Radio (Anthony Asquith), set in Nazi Germany but with a broader application, and consider how Wynyard's screen persona informs her tricky role....

More Episodes

Our Fox 1942 episode explores two different modes of Betty Grable Fox musical (both choreographed by Astaire collaborator Hermes Pan) that draw on the Hollywood musical modes established in the 1930s:in black and white, the Warneresque backstager Footlight Serenade, shot by Lee Garmes; and the Technicolor farce Springtime in the Rockies, with comic support by Edward Everett Horton and Carmen Miranda, whose eccentric comedic styles confront one another and produce what might be chemistry.

Elise comes around a little on Betty Grable, whose persona we discuss, along with the covert feminism of Footlight Serenade's plot. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we Siskel and Ebert Claudia von Alemann's feminist filmic essay Blind Spot (1981), but agree that the sandwich-eating and pickle-refusing scenes are great.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 45s: FOOTLIGHT SERENADE [dir. Gregory Ratoff]

0h 48m 11s: SPRINGTIME IN THE ROCKIES [dir. Irving Cummings]

1h 15m 19s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Blind Spot (1981) by Claudia von Alemann

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of Twentieth Century-Fox by Aubrey Solomon and Tony Thomas

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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