It’s kind of a shock to realize a zany movie that came out when you were a teenager is now considered one of the great enduring cinema classics. That’s particularly true when said movie is
Joan Crawford was a rarity among Hollywood’s glamorous Golden Age stars. She wasn’t afraid to play, well, shall we say, aggressive characters. You know, calculating, two-faced characters. Hypocritical, double-dealing characters. Okay, I’ll just say it. She wasn’t afraid
Screwball comedy is a fragile genre. If you have wacky characters, you need a realistic scenario, and vice versa. If both the characters and the story are bizarre, there’s nothing for the audience to cling
In the 1950s producers of less-expensive, lower budget horror films (yes, I mean the below B-grade cheapies) used ingenious gimmicks to sell tickets. Probably the most famous was 1959’s The Tingler. No, it’s not about a
It was a night for another made-it-this-far-without-seeing-it-before movie, the 1949 film version of the Broadway hit On the Town, directed by Gene Kelly (who also choreographed and played one of the leads) and Stanley Donen. While just fine, even quite good
Sometimes while watching an older film you’ve never heard of, like 1932’s drama Hell’s House, you don’t expect a lot, but then you’re wowed by an incredibly well-made and riveting film. Although a young Bette Davis and Pat O’Brien,
So how is it possible I hadn’t seen The Magnificent Seven before? This 1960 epic is widely considered to be one of the greatest westerns of all time (but then, I’m not a huge western fan, so
Frank Capra, one of Golden Age Hollywood’s finest directors, helmed a fantastic film version of the stage hit Arsenic and Old Lace in 1942, however Warner Brothers had agreed to not release the film until the comedy had
Rewatching director John Huston’s 1951 masterpiece, The African Queen, which I hadn’t seen in a very long time, I discovered it not only holds up, but looks like it could have been filmed yesterday. Almost nothing about it
Looking for an engaging, classic Christmas movie? How about the delightful, if eccentric, 1934 musical comedy Babes in Toyland (aka March of the Wooden Soldiers). It stars the iconic comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as toy makers who muck
Every Halloween season I try to watch one classic silent horror film I’ve never seen before, so it was only a matter of time before I got to The Golem: How He Came into the World (Der
A rainy afternoon means it’s classic movie time. Today it was the Marx Brothers starring in 1933’s zany and biting Duck Soup. Many people consider this to be the brilliant comedy team’s finest film, and I certainly
Considered the last of the great Universal horror films, the moist 1954 classic Creature from the Black Lagoon, originally filmed in 3-D, involves scientists exploring a swamp, a romantic triangle amongst those explorers, and the mysterious
I’ve always loved kaiju (giant monster) films, and when I was a teenager King Kong vs. Godzilla was one of my absolute favorite movies in any genre. I can’t tell you how often I saw
You know those movies you’ve wanted to see for years but for whatever reason you can’t find them, and then when you finally do, you’re terribly disappointed? That is not the case with 1955’s The
I hadn’t seen it since I sat in a theatre in 1986, so I figured why not? Rewatching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I was surprised I found it less laugh-out-loud funny than I remembered, but
