Hollywood Studios, Year-by-Year – MGM, 1931: Possessed and Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise
There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
Release Date: 01/03/2020
There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
This MGM 1946 Studios Year by Year episode is a Jules Dassin double feature that shows the range of the famed blacklistee even during his most constrained studio period: the noirish romantic drama Two Smart People, about two con artists (Lucille Ball and John Hodiak) and a cop who are all out to con each other; and the remarkable A Letter for Evie (starring Marsha Hunt and Hume Cronyn), a very postmodern (but also hilarious) deconstruction of gender conventions that's also a moving romance. Time Codes: 0h 00m 35s: 1946 at MGM and...
info_outline Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Lilli Palmer – Part 10: TEUFEL IN SEIDE (1956) and LA VIE À DEUX (1958)There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
For this Lilli Palmer episode of our Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, we watched another West German movie, Devil in Silk (directed by Rolf Hansen), and Life Together (directed by Clément Duhour), a tribute to famed French playwright, screenwriter, and film director Sacha Guitry with an all-star cast. We analyze the surprisingly sophisticated structure of Duhour and Guitry's horned-up middlebrow French comedy (warning: one of the comedy sequences discussed is disturbingly racist), while Devil in Silk answers a question it never occurred to us to ask: what...
info_outline Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1946: MISS SUSIE SLAGLE’S and THE BLUE DAHLIAThere's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
In this Paramount 1946 episode we look at two movies featuring Veronica Lake which otherwise could not be more dissimilar: Miss Susie Slagle's (directed by John Berry), about the trials of pre-WWI Johns Hopkins medical students living in a boarding house presided over by Lillian Gish; and famous Lake/Ladd noir outing, The Blue Dahlia (directed by George Marshall and written by Raymond Chandler). We discuss the potential influence of the leftists involved in making Miss Susie Slagle's on its portrayal of race and gender and debate the amount of...
info_outline Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1945: THE SUSPECT & LADY ON A TRAINThere's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
In this Universal 1945 episode of The Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year, we look at a couple of noir-adjacent films, Robert Siodmak's The Suspect, starring Charles Laughton as an abused husband who looks for a way out of his miserable marriage when he meets sweet and lovely Ella Raines, and the comedy/crime film Lady on a Train, which stars Deanna Durbin as an exuberant and resourceful murder mystery addict who gets involved in a real investigation when she witnesses a murder from her train window. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss three short documentaries about...
info_outline Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Lilli Palmer – Part 9: MAIN STREET TO BROADWAY (1953) and FEUERWERK (1954)There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
In this Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we discuss Tay Garnett's Main Street to Broadway (1953), a pleasant curiosity with an all-star New York theatre cast, including Palmer and Rex Harrison in a brief sandwich-themed couple cameo, but nearly stolen by Lynchian radio humourist Herb Shriner; and Fireworks (1954), Palmer's first German film, in which she plays a circus performer possessed by the guiding spirit of her clown father, as she expresses in the well-known song "O mein Papa." And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss Douglas Sirk's outlandish yet...
info_outline Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1945: JOHNNY ANGEL & CORNEREDThere's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
For this RKO 1945 episode, two beautifully filmed noirs (by Harry J. Wild), Edwin L. Marin's Johnny Angel, another noir with a femme fatale (Claire Trevor) who loves too much (and gets a very unexpected - and gory - redemption), and Edward Dmytryk's Cornered, in which Dick Powell learns why you shouldn't hunt down Nazis and kill them with your bare hands, but doesn't seem very interested. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss the 1982 documentary I Heard It Through the Grapevine, in which James Baldwin talks to the people who were there about the failures...
info_outline Valentine’s Special Subject – MARNIE (1964) & LA CAPTIVE (2000)There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
For our Valentine's 2024 episode we looked at two movies about obsession that interrogate the notion of romantic love: Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) and Chantal Akerman's La Captive (2000). If you think an extensive discussion of sexual assault and of what it would mean to be "pressed to death" by your partner's love sounds like essential Valentine's Day content, this episode is for you. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, a very brief discussion of Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, focusing on the wild performances of Robert Stack and Dorothy...
info_outline Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – 20th Century Fox – 1945: FALLEN ANGEL & LEAVE HER TO HEAVENThere's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
Our Fox 1945 episode features two of the greatest and greatest-looking film noirs: Otto Preminger's Fallen Angel and John M. Stahl's Leave Her to Heaven. We unpack the movies' love triangles, in which two strong-willed women exert their influence over a passive man; their treatment of the topics of love and obsession; the unique cinematic qualities of Alice Faye's presence and Gene Tierney's face; how Gene Tierney and Linda Darnell differ from the stereotypical femme fatale - and much more. Time Codes: 0h 00m 35s: FALLEN ANGEL...
info_outline Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Lilli Palmer – Part 8: THE LONG DARK HALL (1951) and THE FOUR POSTER (1952)There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
For this week's Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we watched two films pairing acteur Lilli Palmer with then-husband Rex Harrison. We discuss the potential relationship of thriller/courtroom drama The Long Dark Hall (1951) to the scandal plaguing their marriage at the time and consider The Four Poster (1952) as a "marriage film," and what it has to say about that social and spiritual state. And in a packed Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we talk about five films from the TIFF Cinematheque's “Alone in the Arena”...
info_outline Special Subject- Silent Ozu Sampler – TOKYO CHORUS (1931), I WAS BORN BUT… (1932), and PASSING FANCY (1933)There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
For our January Special Subject, we look at three silent "family comedies" by Ozu, Tokyo Chorus (1931), I Was Born, But... (1932), and Passing Fancy (1933), although we argue that "comedy" doesn't entirely encompass the emotional range of these films. We argue that the melancholy of late Ozu is already discernible in these tales of father-son conflict and confrontation with life's disappointing nature, although Passing Fancy offers a different kind of father-son relationship and unique brand of comedy. Then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss...
info_outlineIn our first MGM 1931 episode, we look at two very different fallen woman movies, POSSESSED (dir. Clarence Brown), starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, and SUSAN LENOX (HER FALL AND RISE) (dir. Robert Z. Leonard), with Gable supporting (in the technical sense only) Greta Garbo. POSSESSED, taking cognizance of the Depression, leans as far left as MGM will ever get, while SUSAN LENOX shows us how patriarchy can be worse for men than it is for women—and sister, is it ever bad for women. Then we talk Scorsese, historical accuracy, and why Jordan Belfort did nothing wrong, covering BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, GANGS OF NEW YORK, THE AVIATOR, and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.
Time Codes:
0h 01m 00s: Possessed (dir. Clarence Brown)
0h 52m 59s: Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise (dir. Robert Z. Leonard)
1h 26m 55s: Holiday Cinemagoing – Scorsese and History
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