There's Sometimes a Buggy: Irresponsible Opinions About Classic Film
Join Dave and Elise every week for a buggy-ride of cinematic exploration. A bilingual Montreal native and a Prairies hayseed gravitate to Toronto for the film culture, meet on OK Cupid, and spur on each other's movie-love, culminating in this podcast. Expect in-depth discussion of our old favourites (mostly studio-era Hollywood) and our latest frontiers. We like to bring attention to neglected figures and dig into little-known corners of film history and popular culture, and we hope that we can also bring new perspectives to the familiar. The podcast will be comprised of several potentially never-ending series: - Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto: Our Perspectives on Choice Local Retrospectives (PAUSED BY PANDEMIC) - Hollywood Studios – Year by Year: Deep-cut dishing on Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, RKO, Fox, and Universal items from 1930 to 1948. - Acteurist oeuvre-views/spotlights on worthy on-camera creatives, beginning with Jennifer Jones and Setsuko Hara. - And a big parade of special subjects hand-chosen by whichever of your hosts happens to have a handle on this buggy that week.
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Special Subject: Christmas 2025 – S & X-Mas – EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) & ELLE (2016)
12/25/2025
Special Subject: Christmas 2025 – S & X-Mas – EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) & ELLE (2016)
Our S&xMas episode looks at two provocative, controversial, and not very sex-positive works made by aging auteurs after a long hiatus, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Paul Verhoeven's Elle (2016). Join us as we trace Tom Cruise's all-American odyssey of sexual paranoia and Isabelle Huppert's very European journey away from sex with men, asking such important questions as "Is Paul Verhoeven the most masochistic male feminist director?" and "Is there a significance to Christmas in these movies beyond irony?" And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, just one Naruse, Wife (1953), another uninspiring look at marriage that extends a surprising amount of sympathy toward Ken Uehara, the Japanese George Brent. Is there a significance to covering these movies in our Christmas episode beyond irony? Listen and find out! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) [dir. Stanley Kubrick] 0h 25m 30s: ELLE (2016) [dir. Paul Verhoeven] 0h 47m 34s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Mikio Naruse’s Wife (1953) 0h 51m 36s: ELLE (2016) returns! +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 13: RIDE OUT FOR REVENGE (1957); ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959) and RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE (1966)
12/19/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 13: RIDE OUT FOR REVENGE (1957); ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959) and RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE (1966)
It's our final Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, with which we also say goodbye to our comprehensive approach toward attaining a privileged vantage point on an actor's entire oeuvre. Of course, we cheated a little on this one and stopped short of Gloria's exploitation film era. Our oeuvre-view ends with two Westerns, Ride Out for Revenge (1957) and Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966), entirely unrelated despite their similar titles, which we liked for very different reasons, and a last Gloria Grahame left-wing film noir appearance in Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), produced by Harry Belafonte's production company with a screenplay secretly written by blacklistee Abraham Polonsky at Belafonte's behest. After we reveal our Top 10 Gloria Grahame movies, Fear and Moviegoing returns with a vengeance (in keeping with the episode's themes) with three by Mikio Naruse from the TIFF Lightbox retrospective (Floating Clouds, Repast, and Mother) and two Carlton 90s retro screenings, Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects and Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: RIDE OUT FOR REVENGE (1957) [dir. Bernard Girard] 0h 22m 08s: ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959) [dir. Robert Wise]. 0h 32m 36s: RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE (1966) [dir. Bernard McEveety] 0h 45m 32s: Gloria Grahame Top 10s 0h 49m 44s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects (1995) & Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers (1997) at The Carlton Cinema; Part I of TIFF Cinematheque’s Mikio Naruse Retrospective - Floating Clouds (1955); Repast (1951) & Mother (1952) +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1933: FAST WORKERS & QUEEN CHRISTINA
12/12/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1933: FAST WORKERS & QUEEN CHRISTINA
For this 1933 MGM episode we focus on rehabilitating John Gilbert's sound-era reputation with a double feature of underrated gem Fast Workers, a construction worker love triangle melodrama directed by Tod Browning, and Gilbert's most famous sound movie, Rouben Mamoulian and Greta Garbo's very serious (but also very sensual) costume drama Queen Christina, about a woman whose ideals clash with her society. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss one of Dave's faves, Paul Thomas Anderson's morally enigmatic first feature, Hard Eight. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1933 and MGM 0h 07m 46s: FAST WORKERS (dir. Tod Browning] 0h 33m 11s: QUEEN CHRISTINA [dir. Rouben Mamoulian] 0h 54m 22s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto: Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight (1996) at The Paradise Cinema +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 12: OKLAHOMA! (1955) and THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956)
12/05/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 12: OKLAHOMA! (1955) and THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956)
In this week's episode of our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view, we explore the unique casting of unmusical Gloria in Fred Zinnemann's film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1955) and follow the thread that leads (through Jud Fry) from the supposedly "wholesome" musical to Charlie Kaufman's dark, experimental I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Then we switch over to British espionage curiosity The Man Who Never Was (1956), starring Gloria and Clifton Webb... although they never share a scene. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, another curious pairing: Cameron Crowe's quintessential 90s romantic comedy Singles (1992) and Luc Moullet's weirdo Western A Girl Is a Gun/Une aventure de Billy le Kidd (1971) offer wildly divergent perspectives on the problem of love. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: OKLAHOMA! (1955) [dir. Fred Zinnemann] 0h 32m 04s: THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956) [dir. Ronald Neame] 0h 40m 38s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Cameron Crowe’s Singles (1992) at The Revue Cinema and Luc Moullet’s A Girl is a Gun /Une aventure de Billy le Kid (1971) at TIFF Lightbox +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1933: ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON & DUCK SOUP
11/28/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1933: ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON & DUCK SOUP
This Paramount 1933 Studios Year by Year episode features two of the studio's defining stars of the era: the Marx Brothers, in their final, most famous, and (maybe) most nihilistic Paramount film, Duck Soup, directed by Leo McCarey, and Gary Cooper, miscast (or maybe not) in One Sunday Afternoon in the role that would go to James Cagney in the Warner Bros. remake, The Strawberry Blonde. We zero in on Groucho's authoritarian anti-authoritarianism and Cooper's embodiment of a charismatic man's class resentment. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we share our first experience with the cinema of Nouvelle Vague primitivist Luc Moullet, his quirky and candid examination of second-wave feminism's effect on his relationship (and anatomy), Anatomie d'un rapport (1976) Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1933 and Paramount 0h 06m 53s: ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON (1933) [dir. Stephen Roberts] 0h 27m 01s: DUCK SOUP (1933) [dir. Leo McCarey] 1h 01m 22s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Luc Moullet and Antonietta Pizzorno’s Anatomie d’un rapport (1976) +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Special Subject - Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel Series – LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959); ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962); BAISERS VOLÉS (1968); DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) and L'AMOUR EN FUITE (1979)
11/21/2025
Special Subject - Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel Series – LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959); ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962); BAISERS VOLÉS (1968); DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) and L'AMOUR EN FUITE (1979)
For our November 2025 Special Subject we watched the Antoine Doinel films of François Truffaut: The 400 Blows (1959), Antoine et Colette (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), and Love on the Run (1979). In addition to the charms of star/auteur avatar Jean-Pierre Léaud, we focus on the films' evolving style and increasing interest in the women in Doinel's life. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto section we discuss Paul Leni's horror comedy The Cat and the Canary (1927) and a Hitchcock double feature, Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Saboteur (1942). Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS / LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959) [dir. François Truffaut] 0h 28m 50s: ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962) [dir. François Truffaut] 0h 37m 30s: STOLEN KISSES / BAISERS VOLÉS (1968) [dir. François Truffaut] 0h 54m 42s: BED AND BOARD / DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) [dir. François Truffaut] 1h 05m 15s: LOVE ON THE RUN / L’AMOUR EN FUITE (1979) [dir. François Truffaut] 1h 19m 32s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Paul Leni’s The Cat and the Canary (1927) at TIFF Lightbox and Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur (1942) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943) at The Paradise +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 11: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) and THE COBWEB (1955)
11/14/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 11: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) and THE COBWEB (1955)
Our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view continues with two 1955 liberal institutional melodramas: Stanley Kramer's Not as a Stranger, starring Robert Mitchum as a monomaniacally idealistic doctor, Olivia de Havilland as the wife he takes for granted, and Gloria as the Other Woman; and Vincente Minnelli's underrated The Cobweb, starring Richard Widmark as a monomaniacally idealistic psychiatrist, Gloria (in one of her best roles) as the wife he takes for granted, and Lauren Bacall as the Other Woman. The relatively counter-intuitive casting of the latter film is an indication of its greater subtlety, but the pairing of the two makes (so we hope) for interesting discussion. And then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we say goodbye to Diane Keaton (belatedly, by the time this episode will go up) with a viewing of Annie Hall and ask whether either its "feminist" or its "misogynous" reputations are deserved. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) [dir. Stanley Kramer] 0h 36m 29s: THE COBWEB (1955) [dir. Vincente Minnelli] 1h 03m 33s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Annie Hall (1977) by Woody Allen (Diane Keaton tribute at The Carlton Cinema) +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1932: THE OLD DARK HOUSE and THE MUMMY
11/07/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1932: THE OLD DARK HOUSE and THE MUMMY
We've got a Halloween Hangover on this week's episode, with two Universal 1932 horror movies, James Whale's The Old Dark House (based on a novel by J. B. Priestley) and Karl Freund's The Mummy, starring Karloff. We explore the curious tone, social themes, and stellar cast (including Charles Laughton, Ernest Thesiger, Eva Moore, Melvyn Douglas, and the excellent Lilian Bond) of Whale's Gothic oddity and The Mummy's connection to Dracula movie history. Then the hangover continues in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: we discuss our latest theatrical viewing of the great Dead of Night (1945) as well as a Canadian Thanksgiving viewing of the boomer classic The Big Chill (1983) for a different kind of grappling with mortality and confrontation with horror. Time Codes: 0h 00m 35s: THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932) [dir. James Whale] 0h 35m 45s: THE MUMMY (1932) [dir. Karl Freund] 0h 58m 08s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Dead of Night (1945) by Basil Dearden, Cavalcanti, et al and The Big Chill (1983) by Lawrence Kasdan Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Special Subject - Halloween 2025 – Solo Freakouts - HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) and VAMPIRE’S KISS (1988)
10/31/2025
Special Subject - Halloween 2025 – Solo Freakouts - HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) and VAMPIRE’S KISS (1988)
Our 2025 Halloween episode is a double feature in the "mentally disintegrating men" genre: in Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf, Max von Sydow is beset by some unusual vampires, and in Robert Bierman's Vampire's Kiss, Nicolas Cage becomes an even more unusual one. If people attempting to bite each other to death without proper vampire fangs is your idea of horror, this is the right Halloween film podcast episode for you. (And if it's not, watch these movies and you may change your mind.) If your idea of horror is desperately needing other people without being able to stand being around them then you've also come to the right Halloween episode. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) [dir. Ingmar Bergman] 0h 27m 18s: KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1988) [dir. Robert Bierman] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 10: HUMAN DESIRE (1954) and NAKED ALIBI (1954)
10/24/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 10: HUMAN DESIRE (1954) and NAKED ALIBI (1954)
In this week's Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode our heroine reunites with Fritz Lang and Glenn Ford in Human Desire (1954), based on the Zola novel La bête humaine, which was more faithfully filmed by Renoir in 1938. We debate the relative merits of the two adaptations as well as the potential weakness that links them. Then we turn to the quirky little noir Naked Alibi (also 1954, co-starring Sterling Hayden), in which Gloria gets to be the hero against a thoroughly incoherent backdrop to which we apply some scattershot social analysis. Irresponsible opinions galore await the courageous listener! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: HUMAN DESIRE (1954) [dir. Fritz Lang] 0h 28m 43s: NAKED ALIBI (1954) [dir. Jerry Hopper] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1932: What Price Hollywood? and The Animal Kingdom
10/17/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1932: What Price Hollywood? and The Animal Kingdom
In this RKO 1932 Studios Year by Year episode we discuss a couple of trademark Selznick productions: What Price Hollywood?, the first iteration of the A Star Is Born story, starring Constance Bennett as the rising star Mary Evans, "America's pal," and Lowell Sherman as her tormented director mentor; and The Animal Kingdom, based on the Philip Barry play, with Leslie Howard, Ann Harding, and Myrna Loy in a highbrow Pre-Code love triangle. Marriage takes a real beating in these rare movies exploring alternative kinds of loving relationships between women and men. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we cover the second new movie we've seen in 2025, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. Time Codes: 0h 00m 35s: WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (1932) [dir. George Cukor] 0h 28m 33s: THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (1932) [dir. Edward H. Griffith] 1h 00m 00s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025) Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell and Vernon Harbin Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 9: PRISONERS OF THE CASBAH (1953) and THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954)
10/10/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 9: PRISONERS OF THE CASBAH (1953) and THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954)
This week's Gloria Grahame episode sees our acteur making some questionable career decisions: a rare headlining role in Columbia's Orientalist stinker Prisoners of the Casbah (1953), displaying a phenomenal lack of chemistry with Turhan Bey; and a micro-role in intriguing British heist noir The Good Die Young (1954) as a pragmatic actress tormenting husband John Ireland with her indifference. We find what there is to like in this quality dip, or, failing that, what there is to mock. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: PRISONERS OF THE CASBAH (1953) [dir. Richard L. Bare] 0h 18m 43s: THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954) [dir. Lewis Gilbert] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Fox Film Corporation – 1932: YOUNG AMERICA & PASSPORT TO HELL
10/03/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Fox Film Corporation – 1932: YOUNG AMERICA & PASSPORT TO HELL
For this 1932 Fox Studios Year by Year episode we watched Frank Borzage's unloved Young America, an idiosyncratic, primitive melodrama starring Spencer Tracy as a wealthy drugstore owner at odds with a disadvantaged delinquent, and Passport to Hell, Fox's surprisingly good take on the Sternberg-Dietrich formula, starring Elissa Landi as a woman of ill repute at odds with the colonial authorities in German West Africa. No rural themes in sight in this episode, just the tribulations and heroism of the underdog. Time Codes: 0h 00m 35s: YOUNG AMERICA (1932) [dir. Frank Borzage] 0h 28m 14s: PASSPORT TO HELL (1932) [dir. Frank Lloyd] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Fox Film Corporation: 1915-1935 by Aubrey Solomon Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 8: MAN ON A TIGHTROPE (1953) and THE BIG HEAT (1953)
09/26/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 8: MAN ON A TIGHTROPE (1953) and THE BIG HEAT (1953)
In this week's episode of the Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, our heroine battles an organized crime ring in Fritz Lang's classic noir The Big Heat and the Soviets, or in any case her beleaguered circus capitalist husband, Fredric March, in Elia Kazan's Man on a Tightrope (both 1953). Dave and Elise are somewhat at odds about the effectiveness of Tightrope's anti-censorship message, but united on the effectiveness of Lang's use of the noir genre, and Grahame, to depict heroism in a world familiar with the horrors of fascism. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Man on a Tightrope (1953) [dir. Elia Kazan] 0h 22m 10s: THE BIG HEAT (1953) [dir. Fritz Lang] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Special Subject - Accents on Olivier – THE 49th PARALLEL (1941) and THE DEMI-PARADISE (1943)
09/19/2025
Special Subject - Accents on Olivier – THE 49th PARALLEL (1941) and THE DEMI-PARADISE (1943)
Our Special Subject for September 2025 led us to watch a couple of wartime British films starring Laurence Olivier and his amazing accents: Québécois in Powell and Pressburger's The 49th Parallel (1941), which opposes a Platonic Idea of Canada to Nazi ideology, and Russian in Anthony Asquith's The Demi-Paradise (1943), an alarmingly Soviet-friendly use of the romantic comedy genre to promote cross-cultural understanding. The accents may lack technical accuracy (much like the films' depictions of various cultures), but the ideas on display are worth grappling with and the presentation entertaining, while Olivier himself is rivetingly eccentric and weirdly endearing. Other notable players include FOP Penelope Dudley-Ward, Margaret Rutherford, Glynis Johns, Leslie Howard, Felix Aylmer and Powell/Pressburger regulars Eric Portman and Anton Walbrook. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: The 49th Parallel (1941) [dir. Michael Powell] 0h 43m 38s: THE DEMI-PARADISE (1943) [dir. Antohny Asquith] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! st drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1932: TAXI! & THREE ON A MATCH
09/12/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1932: TAXI! & THREE ON A MATCH
This Warner Bros. 1932 episode is a double feature of Glasmon-Bright scripts directed by Pre-Code wizards: Mervyn LeRoy's Three on a Match, a tight little melodrama about the cryptic and arbitrary nature of self-destruction with Ann Dvorak as a wealthy housewife beset by ennui; and Roy Del Ruth's Taxi!, in which Loretta Young has to stand up to James Cagney's hot-headed cab driver, although neither his violence nor her self-control is going to help them fight those who have more power under capitalism. At 63 and 69 minutes respectively, they pack a Cagney-style punch--no flab, just Warners Pre-Code energy! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Warner Brothers and 1932 0h 05m 08s: TAXI! [dir. Roy Del Ruth] 0h 33m 09s: THREE ON A MATCH [dir. Mervyn Leroy] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 7: THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952) and THE GLASS WALL (1953)
09/05/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 7: THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952) and THE GLASS WALL (1953)
Our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvreview recovers from last week's rough spot with two excellent roles in two excellent films that display her range as a character actress. In Vicente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), for which Gloria won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, she's a sweet but silly Southern belle curiously sacrificed by Kirk Douglas' relentlessly driven movie producer; and in Maxwell Shane's The Glass Wall (1953), she's a fed-up proletarian who rediscovers her humanity by helping Vittorio Gassman's Hungarian refugee. Our conversation moves from the opaque depths of Minnelli's Hollywood melodrama to the cruel but redeemable America of Shane's leftist docu-noir, which somehow slipped under the radar of the blacklist. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952) [dir. Vincente Minnelli] 0h 28m 48s: THE GLASS WALL (1953) [dir. Maxwell Shane] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1932: BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES & FAITHLESS
08/29/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1932: BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES & FAITHLESS
This 1932 MGM Studios Year by Year episode is a Robert Montgomery double feature, although the spotlight is on his leading ladies: an incandescent Marion Davies in Blondie of the Follies (directed by Edmund Goulding), and a distraught Tallulah Bankhead in Faithless (directed by Harry Beaumont). We discuss the strengths and incoherencies of Anita Loos' and Frances Marion's screenplay for Blondie of the Follies (spoilers: it may have been tampered with by some guy named Hearst) and then turn to our strong reactions to MGM's intense Depression melodrama, in which Hugh Herbert plays a sexual predator so convincingly it gave Elise a nightmare! Speaking of nightmare fuel: in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we discuss Mike Figgis' Leaving Las Vegas (1995), starring Elisabeth Shue and Nicholas Cage in a kind of reverse Vertigo, which was playing as part of the TIFF Story in 50 Films series. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1932 and MGM 0h 05m 41s: BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES [dir. Edmund Goulding] 0h 37m 26s: FAITHLESS [dir. Harry Beaumont] 01 00m 20s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas (1995) ++++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Special Subject - Orson Welles and Jeanne Moreau – THE TRIAL (1962); CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (1965); and THE IMMORTAL STORY (1968)
08/22/2025
Special Subject - Orson Welles and Jeanne Moreau – THE TRIAL (1962); CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (1965); and THE IMMORTAL STORY (1968)
Our August Special Subject is Literature vs. Welles vs. Moreau: we discuss the three finished films that Orson Welles made with Jeanne Moreau, whom he considered "the greatest actress in the world." The Trial (1962) stars Anthony Perkins in an adaptation of the Kafka novel; Chimes at Midnight (1965) stars Welles as Falstaff in an adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad focused on the Prince Hal/Falstaff relationship; and The Immortal Story (1968) stars Welles and Moreau in an adaptation of a Karen Blixen story. Come for Welles' handling of these immortal stories, stay to find out how Moreau assisted the magician. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: THE TRIAL (1962) [dir. Orson Welles] 0h 35m 24s: CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (1965) [dir. Orson Welles] 0h 52m 19s: THE IMMORTAL STORY (1968) [dir. Orson Welles] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 6: MACAO (1952) and SUDDEN FEAR (1952)
08/15/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 6: MACAO (1952) and SUDDEN FEAR (1952)
In this episode of our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, our protagonist is rudely shoved into the background of the movies, barely appearing in Josef von Sternberg's Macao (1950) (she would have liked to have appeared in it even less) and playing a rote schemer in David Miller's Sudden Fear (1952). The movies themselves don't make up for her under-use, despite the amiable pairing of Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell in the former and the great Joan Crawford sobbing her way to an Oscar nomination in the latter. We do our best to articulate what went wrong for us, before turning our attention to James Gunn's Superman (2025) in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment. Gunn's approach triggers Dave's superhero comics nostalgia, but Elise is skeptical. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: MACAO (1952) [dir. Josef von Sternberg] 0h 22m 52s: SUDDEN FEAR (1953) [dir. David Miller] 0h 42m 15s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – James Gunn’s Superman (2025) at the Scotiabank Theatre on Richmond Street Excerpt on Macao from Josef von Sternberg’s +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1932: THE MAN I KILLED aka BROKEN LULLABY & HORSE FEATHERS
08/08/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1932: THE MAN I KILLED aka BROKEN LULLABY & HORSE FEATHERS
For this round of Paramount 1932, we watched our first Marx Brothers movie for the podcast (hard as that is to believe), Horse Feathers (directed by Norman Z. MacLeod), alongside Ernst Lubitsch's only sound-era drama, Broken Lullaby. Lubitsch's batshit WWI melodrama, bursting with intensity and unease, claims our attention first, and then we turn to the detached anarchy of the Marx Brothers. Elise probes Dave's obsession with their antics and offers her outsider's take on the poetics of their personas for his contemplation. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Paramount and 1932 0h 08m 41s: THE MAN I KILLED aka BROKEN LULLABY [dir. Ernst Lubitsch) 0h 41m 01s: HORSE FEATHERS [dir. Norman Z. McLeod] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 5: IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952)
08/01/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 5: IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952)
This week in our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view we watched one of her best-known films, In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray and co-starring Humphrey Bogart, alongside the unpromising Cecil B. DeMille circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). This may be the only time you find these two movies discussed together with roughly equal enthusiasm. Ray's portrait of a romance doomed by male violence may have psychological perception and stylish writing, but DeMille's Technicolor spectacle has a clown with a dark secret (played by Jimmy Stewart no less), Cornel Wilde shirtless in tight pants, a train wreck, the blood transfusion bonding trope, and of course, a love-crazed Nazi dangling an elephant's foot over Gloria Grahame's face. Unhinged Bogart meets unhinged DeMille, brought together by our Acteur giving restrained performances as wary observers. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) [dir. Nicholas Ray] 0h 41m 24s: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH [dir. Cecil B. DeMille] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1931: BAD SISTER & STRICTLY DISHONORABLE
07/25/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1931: BAD SISTER & STRICTLY DISHONORABLE
For our Universal 1931 Studios Year by Year episode we took in a Sidney Fox double feature, Bad Sister (adapted from a Booth Tarkington novel, with an early role for Bette Davis as the good sister) and Strictly Dishonorable (adapted from Preston Sturges' only successful play and directed by John Stahl). Laemmle Jr.'s protegée uses her ingenue quality to good effect whether she's playing an unsympathetic Alice Adams or a complex early Sturges heroine, and in fact we argue that the latter performance is something of a tour de force, leading us to lament the brevity of her career. Lewis Stone and Paul Lukas also impress in Strictly Dishonorable, while George Meeker gives a game performance as an Ugly WASP American at home. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: BAD SISITER [dir. Hobart Henley] 0h 31m 02s: STRICTLY DISHONORABLE [dir. John M. Stahl] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Special Subject - Supported By Oscar Levant – the 1950s – AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951); THE I DON’T CARE GIRL (1953) & THE BAND WAGON (1953)
07/18/2025
Special Subject - Supported By Oscar Levant – the 1950s – AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951); THE I DON’T CARE GIRL (1953) & THE BAND WAGON (1953)
Our final Oscar Levant Special Subject episode covers his contribution to two of the greatest MGM musicals, Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris (1951) and The Band Wagon (1953), plus a 20th Century Fox curiosity, The I Don't Care Girl (1953) in which Mitzi Gaynor supposedly plays early 20th century vaudeville wild woman Eva Tanguay. Levant reaches new heights as a cinematic presence in An American in Paris, a film that, we argue, forms part of an "art life" Levant trilogy with Rhapsody in Blue and Humoresque, then flaunts some virtuoso piano performances in The I Don't Care Girl before succumbing to a heart attack prior to filming The Band Wagon. We give our general impressions of these must-see musicals while also trying to determine what quality Levant brings to An American in Paris, in particular, that it wouldn't have without him (besides self-loathing narcissism). What does Oscar Levant have to tell us about the figure of the artist? Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) [dir. Vincente Minnelli] 0h 27m 28s: THE I DON’T CARE GIRL (1953) [dir. Lloyd Bacon] 0h 38m 57s: THE BAND WAGON (1953) [dir. Vincente Minnelli] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1931: CIMARRON (dir. Wesley Ruggles) and TRAVELING HUSBANDS (dir. Paul Sloane)
07/11/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1931: CIMARRON (dir. Wesley Ruggles) and TRAVELING HUSBANDS (dir. Paul Sloane)
The movies we viewed for this RKO 1931 Studios Year by Year episode couldn't be more different: the sprawling Cimarron (starring Richard Dix as America's psychotic inner conflict) prompts us to speculate about Edna Ferber as a source auteur and the intertwining of her vision of America with Hollywood across three decades; while the tight, play-like Traveling Husbands (starring Evelyn Brent as a bitter sex worker with noble impulses), demonstrates the pressures capitalism exerts on men and therefore on women. But together, these movies show that the Pre-Code is good for a lot more than just sex-and-crime titillation. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: CIMARRON [dir. Wesley Ruggles] 0h 41m 56s: TRAVELING HUSBANDS [dir. Paul Sloane] +++ 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 Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 4: A WOMAN’S SECRET (1948) and ROUGHSHOD (1949)
07/04/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 4: A WOMAN’S SECRET (1948) and ROUGHSHOD (1949)
Our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view continues with A Woman's Secret (1949), an oddball psychological drama with a screenplay by Citizen Kane writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and directed by Grahame's new husband Nicholas Ray; and Roughshod (1949), a consciously feminist Western written by a bunch of leftists. Proving her versatility-within-typecasting yet again, Grahame moves easily from the unlikely comic centre of a noirish vortex to a sympathetic sex worker in a fallen woman melodrama that uses the Western genre to deconstruct masculinity. (And if that makes it sound dull, it's also incredibly dark at moments, with John Ireland raising the tension as a nasty villain.) And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we talk about Rear Window, voyeurism, movie-watching, and scapegoats. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: A WOMAN’S SECRET (1949) [dir. Nicholas Ray] 0h 27m 30s: ROUGHSHOD (1949) [dir. Mark Robson] 0h 43m 52s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) at The Revue Cinema +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Fox Film Corporation – 1931: A CONNECTICUT YANKEE and SURRENDER
06/27/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Fox Film Corporation – 1931: A CONNECTICUT YANKEE and SURRENDER
A curious pairing for this Fox 1931 Studios Year by Year episode: an unsung WWI drama, but as good as any, William K. Howard's Surrender, starring Warner Baxter, Leila Hyams, and an almost unrecognizable (both his appearance and his performance) Ralph Bellamy; and the Will Rogers version of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which mainly seems to exist so that Rogers can lasso a lance from a knight in a joust. Spoiler: modernity proves to be more than either King Arthur's Court or Ralph Bellamy want to handle, and we dig into their discontents. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT [dir. David Butler] 0h 28m 28s: SURRENDER [dir. William K. Howard] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Fox Film Corporation, 1915 – 1935: A History and Filmography by Aubrey Solomon Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Special Subject - Farrow vs. Allen – Part 4: ALICE (1990); SHADOWS AND FOG (1991) & HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992)
06/20/2025
Special Subject - Farrow vs. Allen – Part 4: ALICE (1990); SHADOWS AND FOG (1991) & HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992)
We say farewell to Farrow and Allen (for now, although we'll probably encounter them individually on the podcast again) with this final episode on their cinematic collaboration, covering Alice (1990), Shadows and Fog (1991), and one of their very best, the ill-fated Husbands and Wives (1992). In the first two, two more Allen characters struggle to live the good life in what couldn't be more different settings, and then we join Allen in meditating on all of the different ways that romantic relationships attempting to function at a high level can go wrong. Then, on Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we briefly glance at Siodmak's 1944 Phantom Lady, covered by us before, and Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950), to be covered in detail very soon as part of our Gloria Grahame series. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: ALICE (1990) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 23m 27s: SHADOWS AND FOG (1991) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 33m 41s: HUSBANDS AND WIVES (1992) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 59m 00s: Our favourites from the Farrow/Allen canon 1h 01m 54s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Robert Siodmak’s PHANTOM LADY (1944) at TIFF Lightbox & Nicholas Ray’s IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) at The Revue Cinema (Designing the Movies) +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 3: SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947) and MERTON OF THE MOVIES (1947)
06/13/2025
Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 3: SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947) and MERTON OF THE MOVIES (1947)
In this Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we get to see more of what MGM was (not) doing with our acteur's career. Underused in Song of the Thin Man (1947), in which she brings the only real noir energy to the final Thin Man film, she gets a similarly brief but memorable role in the Red Skelton vehicle Merton of the Movies (1947), playing the most innocent nymphomaniac in cinematic history. We uncover the legacy of Harry Leon Wilson's 1922 Merton of the Movies novel and surprise ourselves with our appreciation of Red Skelton's acting. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: SONG OF THE THIN MAN (1947) [dir. Edward Buzzell] 0h 16m 33s: MERTON OF THE MOVIES (1947) [dir. Robert Alton] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – * Check out Dave’s 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers - 1931: NIGHT NURSE & BLONDE CRAZY
06/06/2025
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers - 1931: NIGHT NURSE & BLONDE CRAZY
This round of Warner Bros. 1931 brings us two gems by a couple of Pre-Code masters, Roy Del Ruth's Blonde Crazy and William A. Wellman's Night Nurse, showing off the early star charisma of Jimmy Cagney (oozing vulnerability) and Barbara Stanwyck (spitting fire), ably supported by Joan Blondell in both cases. Bonus: Young Clark Gable shows up for another, even nastier 1931 turn. Dave makes the case for Blonde Crazy as a proto-screwball comedy (Warner Bros. does Trouble in Paradise?). And in another Fear and Moviegoing discussion of Now, Voyager, we discuss the Bette Davis melodrama's authentic ties to Transcendentalism and what it means to not have sex for the right reasons. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: NIGHT NURSE [dir. William A. Wellman] 0h 31m 33s: BLONDE CRAZY (dir. Roy Del Ruth] 0h 46m 59s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto –Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager (1942) at TIFF Lightbox +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of ) * 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! Follow us on Twitter at Write to us at We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!
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