Sometimes one scene is all that’s needed for an actor to show her stuff.  Margaret Lindsay in the 1940 film version of The House of the Seven Gables gets that chance.  As young Hepzibah Pyncheon—whose fiancé Clifford has been accused of and then imprisoned by his own brother for murder—Lindsay’s character learns she is to inherit the title dwelling, the seven-gabled House that, like a genetic disease, has rotted her family from within. At first, Lindsay doesn’t react.  She stares blankly at greedy brother Jaffrey, who’s been wanting possession of the House for himself.  T ..read more

What price proximity?  That’s what made me watch the almost-unknown cult film The Zodiac Killer.  It’s based on a true story, about a real crime spree by a real serial killer calling himself The Zodiac, who terrorized northern California circa 1969.  But what piqued my cinematic interest was that the film came out in 1971, almost right after these crimes happened.  Talk about ripped from the headlines.  How timelier, how more “there,” could a film get?   Or, on a dingier note—how more opportunistic? The real-life Zodiac killer murdered (viciously) at least f ..read more

You know, I thought of writing this post—all about the Marx Brothers’ 1946 film, A Night in Casablanca (only it really isn’t)—anyway, I had this idea of writing it from the point of view of Sig Ruman’s film toupee. Sig Ruman is the film’s baddie.  And to make sure other characters don’t recognize him as the baddie he is, he wears a toupee for disguise.  That makes his toupee important.  So important that the hairpiece in the part even has a name.  Sewn right into its lining: Now that interested me.  Whoever heard of a toupee with a moniker?  But there it is, ri ..read more

A fundraising boss of mine once defined the Rich to me:  There are the Wealthy, she said, and then there are the Immensely Wealthy.  And the most telling moment in Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut illustrates just that.  That’s at the end, when Tom Cruise, a merely Wealthy doctor, is told by Sydney Pollack, his Immensely Wealthy patient, that all the ‘right’ people arrived at a fabulously decadent Christmas-time orgy in limousines—all but Cruise.  Who came in—a taxi.  So of course, sneers Pollack, his crowd all knew Cruise didn’t ‘belong.’ Just whatta y ..read more

I had heard good things about The Hunted of 1948.  An Allied Artists (previously Monogram) noir cheapie, it was directed by Jack Bernhard, who had helmed one of the wildest, bleakest, and wackiest noirs of the 1940s, Decoy, featuring an unforgettable performance by the amazing Jean Gillie (Bernhard’s ex-wife).  I think I was hoping for something even wilder and wackier from this later effort.  The beginning promised that—a pre-credit sequence starting with two bright lights manifesting onscreen, which then float into the E’s of the film title: ThE HuntEd.  It’s as if the s ..read more

A drinking game, per Google dictionary, is defined as “a game or contest involving the consumption of alcoholic drinks, typically…in response to a specified cue or prompt.”  In past posts I’ve recommended several opportunities for drinking games when watching films—this being a blog about old movies, that is what I recommend to my readers—such as every time Zsa Zsa Gabor bares a gam or every time Paul Frees dubs a hunk.  And now I’m recommending another film, specifically for Thanksgiving.  And it’s a real turkey.  The film, I mean.  Being that it fits the holiday.&nb ..read more

Okay—so this here right down below is a screenshot from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon. In it you sees Humphrey Bogart on the left, and that’s Ward Bond there on the right, and they’ve just found the extinct body of Sam Spade’s partner, Miles Archer. However, that’s not why this here screenshot is—here.  It’s here ‘cause I want you to look at what’s on that there wall between Bogie and Bond.  Look real close now. Wait, I’ll make it a bit larger. You sees it? All right, here it is in color: Ahhh….. So, this here’s a poster for a 1938 Warner Bros. B-movie (and about as ‘B’ as y’all can ..read more

The Beast of Yucca Flats is not a film I would want on my resume.  Though I won’t judge anyone who does; one takes one’s chances as they come, and Tor Johnson, as the film’s title character, was probably doing just that.  Yes, it’s deservedly considered one of the worst movies of all time:  Scott Weinberg over at Rotten Tomatoes warns “Beware of any Z-grade schlock that contains the phrase “yuck” in the title”; while a TV Guide critic was said to have awarded the film 1.5 stars.  That .5 makes me wonder—was the reviewer, perhaps moved by an embarrassed compassion, reluctan ..read more

Well, the things you learn at the movies… I never knew—never heard of—never would have suspected—that such an entity existed named The Department of Weights and Measures. Until I saw it in a movie. Yes, there really is a movie about The Department of Weights and Measures.  That’s what amazes me about Cinema—if something’s Out There, sooner or later it’ll end up on celluloid.  Hence this 1936 low-budgeter, Great Guy, with James Cagney as the Departmental head, and produced by the outlier studio Grand National during one of Cagney’s spats with Warner Bros. over tough-guy typecasting ..read more

I’m not claiming classic status, or any kind of status, for Columbia’s 1950 comedy The Good Humor Man.  It’s a film strictly for the kiddies, with goofy, slapstick humor and a scrubbed-clean plot and characters right outta Leave It To Beaver.  But that’s my point:  The film’s a visual time capsule, from literally midway through the 20th century, of the United States or, more likely, what was promoted about the U.S. and maybe even believed by that era’s inhabitants.  It preserves a time when gentlemen opened doors for ladies, when ladies wore white gloves to work (which my ..read more