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 – Against Interpretation – LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961), 3 WOMEN (1977) and Susan Sontag’s essay “Bergman’s Persona”
09/18/2026
Special Subject – Against Interpretation – LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961), 3 WOMEN (1977) and Susan Sontag’s essay “Bergman’s Persona”
For our September 2026 Special Subject we read Susan Sontag's essay "Bergman's Persona" and applied its ideas to Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, mentioned in the essay, and Robert Altman's 3 Women, which owes a great deal to Persona. Following Sontag, we ask what it would mean to try to approach a narrative film without needing to know "what happens in the story" and what other modes of response are available for films that resist plot synopsis. And for those who are still trying to figure out the occult connection of Henry James to our podcast, there's lots of Sacred Fount talk (started by Sontag). But just like us with these movie plots, you will probably be no wiser. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: Sontag on narrative complexity/opacity 0h 07m 21s: LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961) [dir. Alain Resnais] 0h 33m 18s: 3 WOMEN (1977) [dir. Robert Altman] 1h 06m 25s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris’s The American Cinema) – John Cromwell Susan Sontag’s essay “Bergman's Persona: An Essay on Tragedy,” published in Styles of Radical Will (1969) +++ 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 – 1935: ENCHANTED APRIL & IN PERSON
09/11/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1935: ENCHANTED APRIL & IN PERSON
For this RKO 1935 episode, FOTP Ann Harding returns in Enchanted April (directed by Harry Beaumont), based on a novel by Elizabeth von Armin that Elise declares, based on the cinematic evidence, to be the missing link between Jane Austen and Jane Bowles. Then we turn to one of Dave's favourites, In Person (directed by William A. Seiter), a Ginger Rogers comedy that paired her with an unusually lively George Brent. We discuss the very unusual chemistry between their characters, a Hollywood actress in disguise and an outdoorsman who cures her agoraphobia in a curious way. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: 1935 & RKO 0h 04m 33s: ENCHANTED APRIL (1935) [dir. Harry Beaumont] 0h 25m 40s: IN PERSON (1935) [dir. William A. Seiter] +++ 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 1935 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 Spotlight – Sandra Dee – Part 2: STRANGER IN MY ARMS (1959) and GIDGET (1959)
09/04/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Sandra Dee – Part 2: STRANGER IN MY ARMS (1959) and GIDGET (1959)
For our second Sandra Dee episode we watched two films from 1959 (March 1959, to be exact): the Ross Hunter family melodrama A Stranger in My Arms (directed by Helmut Käutner), from a novel by the author of Written on the Wind, and the infamous Gidget (directed by Paul Wendkos), based on Frederick Kohner's novel about his daughter. We do our best to reconstruct the movie Stranger could have been while marveling at Dee's exhausting performance of a neurotic rich girl, and then turn our flabbergasted attention to Gidget, a movie with much more on its mind (particularly concerning gender roles and alienation) than we could ever have imagined based on its reputation. And in our So This Is Sarris section we get sensitive about Sam Fuller's visual forms. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: STRANGER IN MY ARMS (1959) [dir. Helmut Kautner] 0h 20m 54s: GIDGET (1959) [dir. Paul Wendkos] 1h 00m 32s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris’s The American Cinema) – Samuel Fuller +++ 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/20th Century Fox – 1935: THE GAY DECEPTION and THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK AT MONTE CARLO
08/28/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Fox Film Corporation/20th Century Fox – 1935: THE GAY DECEPTION and THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK AT MONTE CARLO
In this 1935 20th Century-Fox Studios Year by Year episode, Friend of the Pod William Wyler, in his only appearance at Fox during the studio era, hits it out of the park again with The Gay Deception. This is one of two comedy masterpieces by Wyler in 1935, both woefully neglected, although this one foreshadows his one well-known comedy, Roman Holiday, in certain of its plot elements. But it's recognizably a 1930s screwball comedy, albeit with Francis Lederer as the madcap heiress (or prince) driving Frances Dee screwy. And we also watched The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (directed by Stephen Roberts), which is a very good use of Ronald Colman and also features Joan Bennett, which is no cause to complain. Finally, in our So This Is a Sentence? segment, Andrew Sarris enlightens us about lechery, longing, sophistication, sexual humour, and malice in the movies of Lowell Sherman. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: 1935 & Fox 0h 05m 52s: THE GAY DECEPTION [dir. William Wyler] 0h 44m 26s: HE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK AT MONTE CARLO [dir. Stephen Roberts] 0h 58m 55s: So This is Sarris (from Andrew Sarris’ The American Cinema) – Lowell Sherman +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of 20th Century Fox (Aubrey Solomon and Tony Thomas) and The Fox Film Corporation, 1915-1935: A History and Filmography (Aubrey Solomon) Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1935 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.
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Special Subject – Max Ophuls in Italy and the Netherlands – LA SIGNORA DI TUTTI (1934) and KOMEDIE OM GELD (1936)
08/21/2026
Special Subject – Max Ophuls in Italy and the Netherlands – LA SIGNORA DI TUTTI (1934) and KOMEDIE OM GELD (1936)
For this Special Subject episode, we looked at a couple of interventions in European national cinemas by Max Ophüls, La signora di tutti (1934), made in Italy, and Komedie om geld (1936), made in the Netherlands. Although not generally associated with radical politics, or politics at all, in these two early, lesser-known films Ophüls uses melodrama and comedy respectively to explore commodification, reification, and commodity fetishism. But don't worry, there's also a five-star melodrama staircase death and a con artist with a cute dog. And in our So This Is Sarris segment, we're moved to ask Why So Sarri(ou)s, Andrew? Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: Brief Ophuls Opener 0h 03m 50s: LA SIGNORA DI TUTTI (1934) [dir. Max Ophuls] 0h 41m 13s: KOMEDIE OM GELD (1936) {dir. Max Ophuls] 0h 59m 34s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris’s The American Cinema) – Jacques Tourneur +++ * Previous Max Ophuls discussions * * 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 Spotlight – Sandra Dee – Part 1: THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (1958) and THE RESTLESS YEARS (1958)
08/14/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Sandra Dee – Part 1: THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (1958) and THE RESTLESS YEARS (1958)
For our inaugural Sandra Dee Acteurist Spotlight we examined two pairings with John Saxon from 1958, The Reluctant Debutante (directed by Vincente Minnelli), with Rex Harrison and Kay Kendall displaying their talents for farce, and The Restless Years (directed by Helmut Käutner), in which Dee gets to display her talent for psychological drama. Whether contending with aggressive peers and neurotic parents or making the first move with Saxon, Dee proves that there's much more to her screen persona than ammo for Stockard Channing to use against Olivia Newton-John. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: Brief Introduction – Sandra Dee 0h 03m 53s: THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (1958) [dir. Vincente Minnelli] 0h 27m 32s: THE RESTLESS YEARS (1958) [dir. Helmut Kautner] 0h 47m 12s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris’s The American Cinema) – Preston Sturges +++ * 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 – 1935: THE RIGHT TO LIVE & I FOUND STELLA PARISH
08/07/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1935: THE RIGHT TO LIVE & I FOUND STELLA PARISH
For this Warner Bros. 1935 episode we watched a couple of melodramas that show a side of the studio's 1930s output less familiar than its fast-talking gangster and proletarian dramas: The Right to Live (directed by William Keighley), a love triangle story set among the rich and ableist, starring Josephine Hutchinson and Colin Clive; and I Found Stella Parish, a spin on the Stella Dallas maternal sacrifice theme starring Kay Francis and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. We learn about the importance of Stella Parish to Warner Bros. and Francis, right before the relationship between studio and star was about to go sour, and argue that Francis deserves her place alongside Davis, Cagney, Muni and Robinson in discussions of Warner Bros. in the 1930s. (Although the conversation about Francis seems to be changing.) Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: 1935 & Warner Brothers 0h 06m 37s: THE RIGHT TO LIVE (1935) [dir. William Keighley] 0h 27m 59s: I FOUND STELLA PARISH (1935) [dir. Mervyn Leroy] 1h 04m 08s: So This is Sarris (from Andrew Sarris’ The American Cinema) – Gregory La Cava +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1935 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 Spotlight – Jennifer Jason Leigh – Part 3: GEORGIA (1995) and BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA (1996)
07/31/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Jennifer Jason Leigh – Part 3: GEORGIA (1995) and BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA (1996)
We say farewell to Jennifer Jason Leigh for now with two more harrowing works: Georgia (1995), written by Leigh's mother, Barbara Turner, and directed by Ulu Grosbard, and Bastard Out of Carolina (1996), directed by Anjelica Huston and based on the semi-autobiographical novel by CSA survivor Dorothy Allison. We talk about the endless ambiguities of Georgia, a rare gripping dramatic work concerned with clashing ideas about art, and Bastard's queer perspective on patriarchal dynamics. Leigh again shows her talent for playing paradoxically resilient, self-destructive women. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we got to see the brand-new 4K restoration of Letty Lynton, which has not been seen in theatres or by any legal means in the nearly 100 years since the copyright ruling against it. This batshit Clarence Brown melodrama, brimming with sexual psychosis, surely must have gone a long way toward establishing the highly unique Joan Crawford sound-era screen persona. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: GEORGIA (1995) [dir. Ulu Grosbard] 0h 30m 37s: BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA (1996) [dir. Angelica Huston] 0h 51m 30s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Clarence Brown’s Letty Lynton (1932) at Revue Cinema (Designing the Movies) 0h 59m 43s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris’s The American Cinema) – Clarence Brown +++ * 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 - Elise’s Family Freak-Outs – Part 3 - LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962) and WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974)
07/24/2026
Special Subject - Elise’s Family Freak-Outs – Part 3 - LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962) and WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974)
Elise's final Family Freak-Out, as promised, is the peak of the climb: two emotional marathons totalling 316 minutes and featuring some of the finest acting in the history of American cinema, Sidney Lumet's adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962), starring Katharine Hepburn as Mary Tyrone, and John Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence (1974), starring Gena Rowlands as Mabel Longhetti. We examine these two films focused on what happens to the family when the mother, its centre, collapses, and ask what is at the heart of the North American family nightmare. Whatever it is, it's productive of some great drama, melodrama, and psychodrama, onscreen and off! Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962) [dir. Sidney Lumet] 0h 43m 53s: A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974) [dir. John Cassavetes] 1h 28m 34s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris’s The American Cinema) – Victor Fleming +++ * 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 – 1935: BIOGRAPHY OF A BACHELOR GIRL & THE FLAME WITHIN
07/17/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1935: BIOGRAPHY OF A BACHELOR GIRL & THE FLAME WITHIN
For this MGM 1935 Studios Year by Year episode we again explored the screen persona of forgotten star Ann Harding in a double feature, Biography of a Bachelor Girl (directed by Edward H. Griffith) and The Flame Within (produced, written, and directed by Edmund Goulding). We discuss the changes from S.N. Behrman's 1932 play Biography and how well its liberal political message survives them and then turn to making the auteur case for Edmund Goulding, while remaining riveted by Harding's liberated but dignified persona, whether she's playing a psychiatrist caught up in counter-transference or a broad-minded portraitist who's become infatuated with a Communist. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we discuss Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own (1992) and the meaning of Geena Davis' enigmatic central performance. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: 1935 & MGM 0h 06m 00s: BIOGRAPHY OF A BACHELOR GIRL (1935) [dir. Edward H. Griffith] 0h 32m 30s: THE FLAME WITHIN (1935) [dir. Edmund Goulding] 0h 59m 07s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own (1992) at the Carlton Cinema 0h 00m 00s: So This is Sarris (from Andrew Sarris’ The American Cinema) - Frank Capra Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1935 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 Spotlight – Jennifer Jason Leigh – Part 2: SHORT CUTS (1993) and MRS. PARKER & THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (1994)
07/10/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Jennifer Jason Leigh – Part 2: SHORT CUTS (1993) and MRS. PARKER & THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (1994)
For Part 2 of our Acteur Spotlight on Jennifer Jason Leigh we watched Robert Altman's cinematic embodiment of the Raymond Carver universe, Short Cuts (1993), and one of Dave's all-time faves, Altman collaborator Alan Rudolph's portrait of Dorothy Parker, her loves, and her milieu, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). We grapple with exactly why Altman wants us to spend so much time with these "automaton" characters what kind of stakes are behind the dissociative, self-destructive behaviours, and compare Leigh's sex worker to Isabelle Huppert's in Chabrol's Une affaire de femmes, then turn to pondering why the darkest and most "saintly" comedic spirits of the Algonquin Round Table were drawn to each other, at least according to the lore of Rudolph's film. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: SHORT CUTS (1993) [dir. Robert Altman] 0h 45m 49s: MRS. PARKER & THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (1994) [dir. Alan Rudolph] 1h 20m 05s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris’s The American Cinema) – John Brahm +++ * 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 – 1935: THE PRESIDENT VANISHES and THE GLASS KEY
07/03/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1935: THE PRESIDENT VANISHES and THE GLASS KEY
For this round of Paramount 1935 we watched William A. Wellman's The President Vanishes, based on the pacifist anti-fascist novel by Rex Stout, and the first film version of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key, directed by Frank Tuttle and starring George Raft as the devoted and unlucky friend of a criminal political boss. Elise is startled by Raft's liveliness (even as he spends a good stretch of the movie half-dead) and Dave avidly discusses two of his favourite topics, 20th century American politics and Dashiell Hammett (together and separately). A brisk round of So This Is Sarris provides a satisfying conclusion to the proceedings. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: 1935 & Paramount 0h 09m 50s: THE PRESIDENT VANISHES (1934) [William A. Wellman] 0h 36m 53s: THE GLASS KEY (1935) [dir. Frank Tuttle] 0h 55m 12s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) – Edgar G. Ulmer Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1935 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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* Corrected - Acteurist Spotlight – Jennifer Jason Leigh – Part 1: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982) and FLESH + BLOOD (1985) -
06/28/2026
* Corrected - Acteurist Spotlight – Jennifer Jason Leigh – Part 1: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982) and FLESH + BLOOD (1985) -
For the first episode of our Acteurist Spotlight on Jennifer Jason Leigh, we watched Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Paul Verhoeven's Flesh + Blood (1985). We explore the possibility of Heckerling's portrait of a young woman's existential journey through the good, the bad, and the ugly of sexual discovery influencing an early draft of the Verhoeven heroine, and the young JJL's unique combination of vulnerability and poise. Then we turn to an extra-long Fear and Moviegoing dealing with a 10-movie retrospective of radical leftist independent filmmaker John Sayles’ career at the TIFF Lightbox Cinematheque, attended by Sayles and his producer/ life partner, Maggie Renzi. Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s: Very brief intro to Jennifer Jason Leigh 0h 03m 46s: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982) [dir. Amy Heckerling] 0h 30m 11s: FLESH + BLOOD (1986) [dir. Paul Verhoeven] 1h 02m 05s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Declarations of Independence: The Cinema of John Sayles at TIFF Lightbox. Programmed and hosted by Adam Nayman. John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979), Baby It’s You (1983), The Brother From Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), City of Hope (1991), Lone Star (1996), Men With Guns (1997), Silver City (2004). Also: The Howling (1981), directed by Joe Dante and scripted by Sayles and Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), directed by Jimmy T. Murakami and scripted by Sayles. +++ * 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 – Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 and its Informal Antecedents - DAYS OF BEING WILD (1990); IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000) and 2046 (2004)
06/19/2026
Special Subject – Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 and its Informal Antecedents - DAYS OF BEING WILD (1990); IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000) and 2046 (2004)
Our Special Subject for June is Wong Kar-wai's so-called "Love Trilogy": Days of Being Wild (1990), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004). Our discussion walks a tightrope of abstraction as we consider the philosophical implications of Wong's treatment of the theme of love: whether it can be consummated and how time, secrets, androids, and epistemology are involved. Proust, Tarkovsky, and of course FOTP Henry James get their due mentions. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: DAYS OF BEING WILD (1990) [dir. Wong Kar Wai] 0h 29m 47s: IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000) [dir. Wong Kar Wai] 0h 46m 55s: 2046 (2004) [dir. Wong Kar Wai] 1h 05m 06s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) – Garson Kanin +++ * 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 – 1934: THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW & THE MAN WHO RECLAIMED HIS HEAD
06/12/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1934: THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW & THE MAN WHO RECLAIMED HIS HEAD
In this Universal 1934 Studios Year by Year episode, we discuss the original There's Always Tomorrow, starring Frank Morgan and Binnie Barnes (remade by Douglas Sirk in the 50s with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck) and the bizarre Claude Rains vehicle The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. The middle-class American nuclear families of the 30s and 50s curiously converge, and future Hollywood Ten screenwriter Samuel Ornitz tries to reclaim his mind from the studio heads (or so we irresponsibly conjecture). And in Fear and Moviegoing, we briefly discuss Bitter Rice, a feminist/Marxist/crime/erotic/neorealist melodrama directed by Giuseppe De Santis. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1934 & Universal 0h 03m 19s: THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW [dir. Edward A. Sloman] 0h 27m 01s: THE MAN WHO RECLAIMED HIS HEAD [dir. Edward Ludwig] 0h 41 m 35s: FEAR AND MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO – Bitter Rice (1949) by Giuseppe DeSantis at TIFF Lightbox 0h 47m 03s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) – Mitchell Leisen Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1934 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 Spotlight – Isabelle Huppert – Part 3: UN BARRAGE CONTRE LE PACIFIQUE (2008) and WHITE MATERIAL (2009)
06/05/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Isabelle Huppert – Part 3: UN BARRAGE CONTRE LE PACIFIQUE (2008) and WHITE MATERIAL (2009)
For the final episode of our Isabelle Huppert Spotlight, we watched two movies with a colonial setting: Rithy Panh's The Sea Wall (2008), based on the novel by Marguerite Duras, and Claire Denis' White Material (2009). Disturbing eroticism as a lens on colonial class and racial dynamics is something the films share, as well as white colonial failure, while Huppert in White Material emerges as an AU Scarlett O'Hara whose indomitable capitalist will has become delusional monomania. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss a couple of indie movies, current release Mile End Kicks (set in 2011) and Big Night from the mid-90s (set in the 1950s). Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: UN BARRAGE CONTRE LE PACIFIQUE (2008) [dir. Rithy Panh] 0h 21m 13s: WHITE MATERIAL (2009) [dir. Claire Denis] 0h 40m 23s: FEAR AND MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO – Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks (2025) and Stanley Tucci & Campbell Scott’s Big Night (1996) +++ * 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 – 1934: WE’RE RICH AGAIN & THE RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD
05/29/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1934: WE’RE RICH AGAIN & THE RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD
Our text for this 1934 RKO Studios Year by Year episode is a William A. Seiter double feature distinguished by ultra-manipulative heroines and a simultaneous fascination with and unsubtle criticism of the rich: the comedy We're Rich Again, which earns a comparison to Preston Sturges for its innovative use of comedy tropes (particularly the high-concept heroine, brilliantly embodied by Marian Nixon), and the comedy-melodrama The Richest Girl in the World, with a demented Jamesian plot courtesy of noted screenwriter Norman Krasna and Miriam Hopkins in the title role. If Marian Nixon is playing six-dimensional chess with her wealthy relatives, Miriam Hopkins is moving her friends and love interest around like chess pieces. If that's not enough, we're also introducing a new segment in this episode: So This Is Sarris! (Dave's title; Elise wanted "Sarris It Ain't So!") In this Letterman-inspired segment, we use AI to randomly pick an entry from Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema and then riff on his opinion of the director. Who's our first director? Listen and find out! (If you look at the time stamps, that's cheating!) Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1934 & RKO 0h 06m 31s: WE’RE RICH AGAIN [dir. William A. Seiter] 0h 29m 01s: THE RICHEST GIRL IN THE WORLD [dir. William A. Seiter] 0h 51m 31s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) - Frank Borzage 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 1934 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.
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Special Subject - Elise’s Family Freak-Outs – Part 2 - WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016)
05/22/2026
Special Subject - Elise’s Family Freak-Outs – Part 2 - WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016)
Our Family Freak-Outs series continues to go from strength to strength as we examine Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind (1956) and Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea (2016), a couple of masterpieces of American cinema in radically different modes: Technicolor melodrama and micro-realism. We discuss the curious myth of America in Written on the Wind, as embodied in the Hadley family's tortured relationship with Rock Hudson, and the enormous pressure of trauma on the quotidian surface of Manchester by the Sea, and, of course, the key freak-out moments within the family freak-outs. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) [dir. Douglas Sirk] 0h 33m 28s: MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016) [dir. Keneth Lonergan] +++ * 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 Spotlight – Isabelle Huppert – Part 2: UNE AFFAIRE DE FEMME (1988) and THE PIANO TEACHER (2001)
05/15/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Isabelle Huppert – Part 2: UNE AFFAIRE DE FEMME (1988) and THE PIANO TEACHER (2001)
For our second Isabelle Huppert Acteurist Spotlight we have another first encounter with an auteur, Claude Chabrol, with the unfortunately translated Story of Women (1988), and take on Huppert's iconic performance in the also inaccurately translated The Piano Teacher (2001). Be prepared for harrowing subject matter and enigmatic behaviour as we discuss the inescapability of moral complicity, sexual aberration, and anti-romance. Then things get slightly lighter in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto with our discussion of a 4K restoration of Howard Hawks' comedy masterpiece His Girl Friday. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: UNE AFFAIRE DE FEMME aka STORY OF WOMEN (1988) [dir. Claude Chabrol] 0h 27m 11s: LA PIANISTE (2001) aka THE PIANO TEACHER [dir. Michael Haneke] 0h 56m 19s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday (1940) at The Revue Cinema ( series) +++ * 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 – 1934: CHANGE OF HEART & MARIE GALANTE
05/08/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year - Fox Film Corporation – 1934: CHANGE OF HEART & MARIE GALANTE
For this round of Fox Studios 1934 we watched Change of Heart (directed by John G. Blystone), Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell's final pairing, co-starring with James Dunn and a brink-of-stardom Ginger Rogers as college friends in unrequited love configurations; and Marie Galante (directed by Henry King), from source material by Jacques Duval best known as the basis for Kurt Weill's songs for the stage musical version, with young French actress Ketti Gallian paired with a visibly perplexed Spencer Tracy. The latter lacks atmosphere and the former lacks story, but we find lots to like/talk about in the performances. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1934 & Fox Film Corporation 0h 03m 46s: CHANGE OF HEART [dir. John G. Blystone] 0h 24m 36s: MARIE GALANTE [dir. Henry King] 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 1934 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer Also referenced: Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry by Mel Watkins +++ * 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 Spotlight – Isabelle Huppert – Part 1: LOULOU (1980) and COUP DE TORCHON (1981)
05/01/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Isabelle Huppert – Part 1: LOULOU (1980) and COUP DE TORCHON (1981)
For our first Isabelle Huppert Acteurist Spotlight episode, we watched Maurice Pialat's Loulou (1980), in which Huppert stars with Gérard Depardieu, and Bertrand Tervanier's Coup de Torchon (1981), in which she supports Philippe Noiret in a transposition of Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280 to French West Africa. We discuss our first impressions of these two late 20th century French auteurs, the cross-class romance and punk ethos of Loulou, and Huppert's venture into broad black comedy in Coup de Torchon, playing a pragmatist whose gradual awakening to the moral dimension of life is occasioned by her lover's descent into moral insanity. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Intro. Isabelle Huppert 0h 05m 01s: LOULOU (1980) [dir. Maurice Pialat] 0h 33m 43s: COUP DE TORCHON aka CLEAN SLATE (1981) [dir. Bertrand Tavernier] +++ * 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 – 1934: I AM A THIEF & I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER
04/24/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1934: I AM A THIEF & I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER
On this week's Warner Bros. 1934 Studios Year by Year episode, we look at some of the studio's mid-30s B-output: the jazzy, Modernist, montage-ist, telephonic I've Got Your Number, starring Pat O'Brien as an insouciant and sometimes insolent Everyman (in a comedy team-up we never knew we needed with fuming mentor Eugene Pallette) whose redemption arc is sparked by beleaguered working girl Joan Blondell; and I Am a Thief, with Mary Astor and Ricardo Cortez playing hot potato with the title's claim. Do either of these films qualify as "termite art"? Do both? Listen and learn! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1934 & Warner Brothers 0h 03m 17s: I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER [dir. Ray Enright] 0h 26m 41s: I AM A THIEF [dir. Robert Florey] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1934 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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The Archers in Black and White – A CANTERBURY TALE (1944); I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! (1945) and THE SMALL BACK ROOM (1949) + 2026 Toronto Silent Film Festival
04/17/2026
The Archers in Black and White – A CANTERBURY TALE (1944); I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! (1945) and THE SMALL BACK ROOM (1949) + 2026 Toronto Silent Film Festival
Our Special Subject for this month is The Archers in Black and White: A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), and The Small Back Room (1949). We discuss Powell and Pressburger's interest in the claims and sins of tradition and modernity, their handling of intense romantic relationships, and their search for transcendence in nature and the past. Then, in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we briefly discuss the films we saw at the 2026 Toronto Silent Film Festival, including the 1926 Beau Geste with Ronald Colman, Chaplin's The Kid (1921), Garbo and Gilbert in (Edmund Goulding's) Love (1927), Eisenstein's nightmarish Strike (1925), and Lewis' Milestone's romantic comedy The Garden of Eden (1928). Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: A CANTERBURY TALE (1944) [dirs.. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger] 0h 26m 31s: I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING (1945) [dirs.. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger] 0h 42m 28s: THE SMALL BACK ROOM (1949) [dirs.. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger] 0h 58m 31s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – 2026 Toronto Silent Film Festival – Herbert Brenon’s Beau Geste (1926), Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid (1921), Edmund Goulding’s Love (1927), Sergei Eisenstein’s Strike! (1925) and Lewis Milestone’s The Garden of Eden (1928); also: Laurel and Hardy in Brats (1930), Baby Peggy in Peg o’ the Mounted (1924) and the Lumière Brothers’ Aroseur et arosée (1896) +++ * 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 Spotlight – Deborah Kerr – Part 3: TEA AND SYMPATHY (1956) and BELOVED INFIDEL (1959)
04/10/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Deborah Kerr – Part 3: TEA AND SYMPATHY (1956) and BELOVED INFIDEL (1959)
We conclude our Deborah Kerr Acteurist Spotlight with a couple of her big Hollywood movies after the turning point of From Here to Eternity: Vincente Minnelli's Tea and Sympathy (1956), in which she appears as Laura Reynolds, a role she originated on Broadway; and Henry King's Beloved Infidel (1959), in which she stars as Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham in an autobiographical account of a fascinating rags-to-modest-wealth-and-influence story intersecting with F. Scott Fitzgerald's final years of alcoholic decline and exile in Hollywood. We discuss Minnelli and playwright/screenwriter Robert Anderson's very contemporary-feeling analysis of the performance of gender (masculinity in particular) and Kerr's role as a Sex Christ, and Beloved Infidel's good-bad-and-ugly, but empathetic, approach to a troubled, abusive relationship. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: TEA AND SYMPATHY (1956) [dir. Vincente Minnelli] 0h 33m 45s: BELOVED INFIDEL (1959) [dir. Henry King] +++ * 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 – 1934: A WICKED WOMAN & SEQUOIA
04/03/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1934: A WICKED WOMAN & SEQUOIA
Our MGM 1934 episode this week is a Jean Parker (Beth in RKO's 1933 Little Women) double feature. She plays the rebellious daughter in the family melodrama Wicked Woman, which features a fine central performance by noted theatre actress and blacklistee Mady Christians, and a conservationist's daughter who starts an "unlikely animal friends" experiment with a puma cub and a fawn in Sequoia. While the former treads relatively familiar territory with a mixture of pre-Code intensity and wacky domestic humour (supplied by Sterling Holloway and Betty Furness, an odder couple than the puma and fawn), the latter, we argue, is an animal protagonists movie with some genuinely original features. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1934 & MGM 0h 04m 39s: A WICKED WOMAN [dir. Charles Brabin] 0h 26m 28s: SEQUOIA [dir. Chester M. Franklin] Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1934 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 Spotlight – Deborah Kerr – Part 2: PLEASE BELIEVE ME (1950) and DREAM WIFE (1953)
03/27/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Deborah Kerr – Part 2: PLEASE BELIEVE ME (1950) and DREAM WIFE (1953)
For the 2nd part of our Deborah Kerr Acteurist Spotlight we check in on Kerr's "lost years" at MGM to see what Hollywood was finding for her to do before her breakthrough performance in From Here to Eternity. In Norman Taurog's Please Believe Me (1950) she leads a cast of oddballs, including Robert Walker and Peter Lawford, as a respectable British girl who learns how to be American by first being mistaken for, and then deciding to become, a Stanwyck-type comedy heroine; and in Sidney Sheldon's satirical Dream Wife (1953) she helps the future I Dream of Jeannie creator and bestselling trashy novelist work out some interesting ideas about gender via miserable Orientalist stereotypes and an oil crisis backdrop of unfortunate contemporary relevance. If these aren't masterpieces, it can't be said, anyway, that these are run-of-the-mill Hollywood comedies (if there is such a thing). Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: PLEASE BELIEVE ME (1950) [dir. Norman Taurog] 0h 24m 18s: DREAM WIFE (1953) [dir. Sidney Sheldon] +++ * 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 - Elise’s Family Freak-Outs – Part 1 - TO SLEEP WITH ANGER (1990) and THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS (2001)
03/20/2026
Special Subject - Elise’s Family Freak-Outs – Part 1 - TO SLEEP WITH ANGER (1990) and THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS (2001)
With this episode we launch the first of Elise's three-part Special Subject, Family Freak-Outs. We start with some musings about how to define this micro-genre, what makes it different from a standard family melodrama and its relationship to horror, and then we move into our first two freak-outs, Charles Burnett's To Sleep with Anger (1990) and Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenebaums (2001). While the problems these families are dealing with in their very specific milieus of middle-class black South Central LA and upper-middle-class white fairy-tale Manhattan are very different, the capacity to freak out may be a universal feature of the family; and in these two movies, at least, freaking out can lead to healing. Then a quick Fear and Moviegoing in honour of Catherine O'Hara's passing, Christopher Guest's Best in Show. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Microgeneric Musing Re: Freak-Outs 0h 06m 03s: TO SLEEP WITH ANGER (1990) [dir. Charles Burnett] 0h 31m 50s: THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001) [dir. Wes Anderson] 1h 03m 22s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto: Christopher Guest’s Best in Show (2000) at the Carlton Cinema (Catherine O’Hara Tribute) +++ * 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 – 1934: SEARCH FOR BEAUTY & CRIME WITHOUT PASSION
03/13/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1934: SEARCH FOR BEAUTY & CRIME WITHOUT PASSION
For this Paramount 1934 episode we watched Search for Beauty, which pits beauty-as-health (a wasted and almost unrecognizable Ida Lupino and frequently topless, sometimes bottomless, and always witless Olympic swimmer Buster Crabbe) against beauty-as-sex in a meta-commentary on pre-Codes released just before the crackdown, and the Hecht-MacArthur-Garmes Crime Without Passion, starring Claude Rains and Margo as a couple destined to destroy each other in a full-blown film noir six years before that "cycle" started. The latter adds to the evidence for Paramount as the studio of idiosyncratic auteur experimentation, while the former adds to the evidence that Paramount often flounders without its auteurs. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1934 & Paramount 0h 09m 04s: SEARCH FOR BEAUTY [dir. Erle C. Kenton] 0h 26m 53s: CRIME WITHOUT PASSION [dirs. Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur & Lee Garmes] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1934 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 Spotlight – Deborah Kerr – Part 1: LOVE ON THE DOLE (1941) and PERFECT STRANGERS (1945)
03/06/2026
Acteurist Spotlight – Deborah Kerr – Part 1: LOVE ON THE DOLE (1941) and PERFECT STRANGERS (1945)
Our Deborah Kerr Acteurist Spotlight starts strong with two entertaining progressive WWII-era British films, John Baxter's Love on the Dole (1941), a socialist portrayal of working-class life in Manchester during the Great Depression, and Alexander Korda's Perfect Strangers (aka Vacation from Marriage), a sort of comedy of remarriage that envisions a radically new kind of marriage arising out of wartime upheavals in gender roles and middle-class routine. Elise confesses and recants her previous opinion that Deborah Kerr was a solid but slightly boring choice. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Brief intro – Deborah Kerr 0h 06m 20s: LOVE ON THE DOLE (1941) [dir. John Baxter] 0h 34m 29s: PERFECT STRANGERS aka VACATION FROM MARRIAGE (1945) [dir. Alexander Korda] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on – a discussion of Late Spring * Capsule reviews from John Springer’s Forgotten Films to Remember (Citadel Press, 1980) * 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 – 1933: THE INVISIBLE MAN & COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW
02/27/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1933: THE INVISIBLE MAN & COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW
For this Universal 1933 Studios Year by Year episode we commit the sacrilege of trashing a James Whale movie, The Invisible Man, which is also Claude Rains' first major screen role, albeit mainly as a voice. A ranting, irascible voice in a movie with very little evidence (in our irresponsible opinion) of Whale's voice. But then we turn to a movie bearing a strong directorial imprint, William Wyler's Counsellor at Law, which contains probably John Barrymore's best screen performance. We discuss Wyler's contested status among auteurists and the multiple layers of Elmer Rice's adaptation of his play about early 20th century American antisemitism and how to live with the knowledge of one's moral compromises. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we took in a Valentine's weekend screening of Sternberg's The Devil Is a Woman at the TIFF Lightbox cinematheque, giving us another opportunity to grapple with its ironies and opacities. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1933 and Universal 0h 03m 51s: THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) [dir. James Whale] 0h 19m 21s: COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW (1933) [dir. William Wyler] 0h 48m 06s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Josef von Sternberg’s The Devil is a Woman (1935) at TIFF Lightbox Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn 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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