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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO - 1948: BERLIN EXPRESS & THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR

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

Release Date: 12/13/2024

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....

Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Fox Film Corporation – 1930: CITY GIRL and JUST IMAGINE

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

The first episode of our second Studios Year by Year round with Fox, the "Rube" according to Ethan Mordden, is a real ridiculous/sublime contrast: the sci-fi musical comedy Just Imagine (directed by David Butler), a vehicle for vaudevillian El Brendel, in whom Dave may have found his comedy bête noir; and the F. W. Murnau masterpiece City Girl, which reworks Sunrise with (we speculate) a Borzagean twist. Come for the idiotic, stay for the profound? Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Fox Recap 0h 12m 41s: CITY GIRL [dir. F.W. Murnau] 0h 48m 02: JUST IMAGINE [dir....

Acteurist Oeuvre-view - Diana Wynyard – Part 4: ONE MORE RIVER (1934) and ON THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE (1940)

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

In this Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we finally come to the source, James Whale's One More River (1934), the movie that inspired Dave to schedule this series, and don't worry, we still think it's a masterpiece. We recap how we've watched the Wynyard onscreen persona evolve and how Whale's new context for it gives it an unforgettable impact. And then we watch Wynyard discard that persona in On the Night of the Fire (1939), playing the supportive but stymied wife of Ralph Richardson's beleaguered Everyman in this ultra-despairing British noir. Two...

More Episodes

In this 1948 Studios Year by Year episode, we look at two artefacts from Dore Schary's brief tenure as Head of Production at RKO, Berlin Express (directed by Jacques Tourneur), an early Cold War curiosity in which Robert Young and Merle Oberon try to save Paul Lukas from the clutches of Nazis in war-torn Frankfurt, and The Boy with Green Hair (directed by Joseph Losey), the pacifist fantasy, starring Dean Stockwell and Pat O'Brien, over which Schary clashed with the Elon Musk of studio-era Hollywood, Howard Hughes. We discuss the films' historical context, as well as the non-political pleasures they have to offer.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: The RKO Story summary of 1948 at Radio-Keith-Orpheum

0h 05m 08s: BERLIN EXPRESS [dir. Jacques Tourneur]

0h 24m 19s: THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR [dir. Joseph Losey]

0h 46m 49s: Listener mail with Amy

Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin

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

Link: For 'KL': The Boy With The Green Hair

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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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