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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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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Acteurist Spotlight - Delphine Seyrig – Part 3: JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (1975) and GOLDEN EIGHTIES (1986)
02/20/2026
Acteurist Spotlight - Delphine Seyrig – Part 3: JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (1975) and GOLDEN EIGHTIES (1986)
We bid a fond farewell to our Acteurist Spotlight on Delphine Seyrig with the greatest movie of all-time (as of the most recent BFI critics' poll), Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai de Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and its "sequel," Golden Eighties (1986), Akerman's retro-80s-while-it's -still-happening musical. We give our latest thoughts on anxiety, oppression, and orgasms in Jeanne Dielman before turning to a very different Jeanne played by Seyrig and a different aspect of Akerman's grappling with her family history. In Golden Eighties, Akerman takes a wistful snapshot of the moment when postwar capitalism was undeniably failing but denial hadn't yet failed, smuggling social commentary and emotive dramaturgy into goofy musical comedy. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (1975) [dir. Chantal Akerman] 0h 41m 06s: GOLDEN EIGHTIES (1986) [dir. Chantal Akerman] +++ * 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 - Valentine’s Day 2026 – Adam Sandler Valentine – THE WEDDING SINGER (1998) and PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)
02/13/2026
Special Subject - Valentine’s Day 2026 – Adam Sandler Valentine – THE WEDDING SINGER (1998) and PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)
Our 2026 Valentine's Day episode explores the romantic appeal of Adam Sandler through his first rom com pairing with Drew Barrymore, The Wedding Singer (1998), and his celebrated collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson, Punch-Drunk Love (2002). While The Wedding Singer pursues a sweetness and sincerity alien to the studio-era romantic comedies it in some ways emulates, Anderson's enigmatic fairy tale riffs on the combination of terrifying vulnerability and terrifying rage in Sandler's persona, positioning him between the grace of romantic salvation and the gravity of a punitive superego (who owns a mattress store). May you say: "That's that!" to your superego this Valentine's Day. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: THE WEDDING SINGER (1998) [dir. Frank Coraci] 0h 34m 05s: PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002) [dir. Paul Thomas Anderson] +++ * 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 – 1933: SWEEPINGS & FLYING DOWN TO RIO
02/06/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1933: SWEEPINGS & FLYING DOWN TO RIO
This 1933 RKO Studios Year by Year episode takes us from the sweepings on the floor of a palatial early 20th century department store to celestial shenanigans high above Rio de Janeiro. Lester Cohen's adaptation of his Dreiseresque novel Sweepings (directed by John Cromwell), another failson saga strongly anticipating HBO's Succession, struggles to translate generational saga into a coherent 80 minutes, but Gregory Ratoff's performance as a hired man trying to get his dues in spite of anti-Semitism is one of the things that make it worth watching; and while a climactic bevy of aerial showgirls can't make Flying Down to Rio the equal of either the 1933 Warner Bros. Busby Berkeley musicals or the Fred and Ginger musicals at RKO to come, the Astaire and Rogers team film debut does offer a curious glimpse of an alternate universe in which they were comic buddies instead of love interests at odds. But already setting the world on fire when they put their heads together as a dance team. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1933 and RKO 0h 04m 02s: SWEEPINGS (1933) [dir. John Cromwell] 0h 26m 14s: FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933) [dir. Thornton Freeland] 0h 45m 16s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Final Screening of the Naruse Retrospective at TIFF Lightbox – Untamed (1955) 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 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 Spotlight - Delphine Seyrig – Part 2: INDIA SONG (1975) and BAXTER, VERA BAXTER (1977)
01/30/2026
Acteurist Spotlight - Delphine Seyrig – Part 2: INDIA SONG (1975) and BAXTER, VERA BAXTER (1977)
For the second part of our Delphine Seyrig Acteurist Spotlight we disregarded chronology to discuss two intensely experimental Marguerite Duras films, India Song (1975) and Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977). We enumerate Duras' peculiarities as a writer and filmmaker and their effects in these studies of sexual and existential crisis, set against the backdrop of European colonialism and the second-wave feminist movement, respectively; and consider the range of qualities Seyrig brings to them, from ghoulish abstraction to salutary warmth. Then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, the TIFF Lightbox Naruse continues with two starkly different family melodramas, the raw and electric Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953) and the lush and star-studded Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960), in which a vacuum cleaner brings out a new side of Setsuko Hara; and Elise realizes she was wrong about Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: INDIA SONG (1975) [dir. Marguerite Duras] 0h 32m 39s: BAXTER, VERA BAXTER (1977) [dir. Marguerite Duras] 0h 51m 04s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Mikio Naruse’s Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953) and Daughters, Wives and a Mother (1960) at TIFF Lightbox; Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) at The Carleton 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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Special Subject - The Archers in Technicolor – THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COL. BLIMP (1943), BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) and THE RED SHOES (1948)
01/23/2026
Special Subject - The Archers in Technicolor – THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COL. BLIMP (1943), BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) and THE RED SHOES (1948)
In this episode we revisit three Technicolor melodramas made by British cinema's great auteur duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, bursting with vibrant emotions and sensuality that exercise a dangerous allure over their protagonists: Clive Candy, the upper-class colonialist twerp played by Roger Livesey in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) who discovers the poetry in his soul thanks to the influence of three in-Kerr-nations of Deborah Kerr and the friendship of Anton Walbrook; Sister Clodagh (Kerr again) in Black Narcissus (1947), futilely pitting the Protestant work ethic against the infinite; and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) in The Red Shoes (1948), torn between the demands of art and mere humanity. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, more Naruse: Flowing (1956), a study of a declining geisha house through the perspective of Kinuyo Tanaka's kindly but powerless servant, and The Stranger Within a Woman (1966), a film noir about being consumed by guilt while the world just wants you to move on. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Brief Intro - Powell and Pressburger 0h 07m 11s: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943) [dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger] 0h 29m 14s: BLACK NARCISSSUS (1947) [dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger] 0h 46m 41s: THE RED SHOES (1948) [dir. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger] 1h 06m 35s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Mikio Naruse’s Flowing (1956) and The Stranger Within a Woman (1966) 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 - Fox Film Corporation – 1933: ADORABLE & THE POWER AND THE GLORY
01/16/2026
Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year - Fox Film Corporation – 1933: ADORABLE & THE POWER AND THE GLORY
This week's 1933 Fox Film Studios Year by Year episode paradoxically digs into the Hollywood beginnings of a couple of Paramount powerhouses via William Dieterle's Adorable, a musical based on a German operetta co-written by Billy Wilder (who'd be writing for Fox directly by 1934), and William K. Howard's The Power and the Glory, with an innovative screenplay by Hollywood newcomer Preston Sturges. Important early 30s Fox stars Janet Gaynor (permitted to play against type as a saucy princess who wants to play with the plebs) and Spencer Tracy (as a self-made - with a little help from his wife - tycoon) supply the charisma for the respective proceedings. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, the TIFF Lightbox Naruse retrospective continues with Hideko the Bus Conductress, The Whole Family Works, and Sudden Rain (starring Setsuko Hara), and we see a new restoration of Erich von Stroheim's famously unfinished, visually lavish, absolutely unhinged censor-baiting silent melodrama Queen Kelly. Join us as we bat the ball around – but try to keep your knickers on! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1933 and Fox 0h 06m 00s: ADORABLE (1933) [dir. William Dieterle] 0h 19m 39s: THE POWER AND THE GLORY (1933) [dir. William K. Howard] 0h 39m 17s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Naruse Retrospective at TIFF Lightbox (3 films) The Whole Family Works (1939), Hideko the Bus Conductress (1941) and Sudden Rain (1956) and Reconstruction of Queen Kelly, directed by Erich von Stroheim 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 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 Spotlight - Delphine Seyrig – Part 1: MURIEL (1963) & LA MUSICA (1967)
01/09/2026
Acteurist Spotlight - Delphine Seyrig – Part 1: MURIEL (1963) & LA MUSICA (1967)
Our Acteur Spotlight kicks off with six movies starring Delphine Seyrig, beginning this episode with Alain Resnais' Muriel (1963) and Marguerite Duras' debut as a feature film director, La Musica (1967) (co-directed with Paul Seban). We find that these two films about former couples discussing, debating, and negotiating how to live with their past make a good pairing for their existential contrasts as well as their thematic and structural similarities. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, a New Year's Eve viewing of Trading Places (1983), the Eddie Murphy/Dan Aykroyd comedy, is a reminder of a time when unabashed criticism of capitalism and white supremacy was the concern of mainstream Hollywood (coinciding with maybe the all-time historical nadir of representation of women in film); and two more Mikio Naruse films, Lightning (1952) and A Wanderer's Notebook (1962), both starring the versatile Hideko Takamine and based on works by Fumiko Hayashi, give the hopeful and despairing sides of the search for meaning in the midst of economic hardship and disappointing relationships. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: MURIEL (1963) [dir. Alain Resnais] 0h 34m 08s: LA MUSICA (1967) [dir. Marguerite Duras] 0h 57m 00s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – John Landis’ Trading Places (1983) at The Carlton Cinema + Mikio Naruse’s Lightning (1952) and A Wanderer’s Notebook (1962) 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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