Starring: Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Victor McLaglen, Sam Jaffe, Joan Fontaine Director: George Stevens Based very loosely on work by Rudyard Kipling, Gunga Din is the story of three soldiers who go on one last adventure before one of them will be leaving the British Army in India to get married. They wind up… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Gunga Din (1939)
Starring: William Hurt, Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks, Joan Cusak, Jack Nicholson Director: JL Brooks Structured around a love triange between an intense news producer, her best friend who is in love with her, and the new news anchor that she loves, this film is a witty look into the world of broadcast news and the… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Broadcast News (1987)
Starring: Lana Turner, Hope Lange, Lee Philips, Director: Mark Robson Based on Grace Metalious dark and controversial expose of American life and culture, this book caused huge furor in it's day. The film was a huge success, and is largely a forgotten soapy phenonemon and cult classic. https://youtu.be/tMNdoQdXnPU
Starring: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Shirley MacLaine, Eva Gabor, Anita Ekberg Director: Frank Tashlin Rick (Martin) is an artist who lives in an apartment with his friend Eugene (Lewis), who loves comic books and always somehow seems to sabotage the jobs they get. Eugene's comic book reading leads him to have nightmares that Rick turns… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Artists and Models (1955)
Starring: Robert Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Charles Crumb Director: Terry Zwigoff Imdb describes this film as "an intimate portrait of controversial cartoonist Robert Crumb and his traumatised family." Which I think is a really good summation, so I'm borrowing it. Robert Crumb is a cartoonist who became very popular in comic book circles in the 60's… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Crumb (1994)
Starring: Elizabeth Moss, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Harriet Dyer, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid Director: Leigh Whannell Cecilia (Moss) manages to leave her controlling, abusive boyfriend, but because she knows he won't let her go, she hides in the house of James (Hodge), a policeman who lives with his teenage daughter. When Cecilia's husband commits suicide, everyone thinks… Continue reading Invisible Man (2020)
Starring: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley Director: Edward Dmytryk Dick Powell stars as the classic hard-boiled detective Phillip Marlowe, adapted from Raymond Chandlers story Farewell My Lovely. This time, the detective gets in over his head when he's approached by an ex-con who wants to find his old flame, but finds a platinum blonde… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Starring: Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, John Loder Director: Alfred Hitchcock https://youtu.be/GNCh_QEHhqQ Perhaps one of Hitchcocks lesser known movies, Sabotage is the story of a woman caught between her kind husband, the ring of spies he's involves with and the handsome detective trying to investigate. It has some great set peices, expecially a tense scene involving… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Sabotage (1936)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish Director: Charles Laughton https://youtu.be/sFO_odagSDg Charles Laughton was a well established actor when he took on directing this classic. Sadly, it was the only film that he would direct, and one rich in imagery, religosity and drama. And a plot based on a real like serial killer..... Such a… Continue reading Classic Movie Of The Week: Night Of The Hunter (1955)
Starring: Jean Marais, Josette Day Director: Jean Cocteau, Rene Clement https://youtu.be/Z-7oesSsZ_w Jean Cocteau's magical classic fairytale is beautiful and strange, and definitely ahead of it's time. Lavish and surreal, it's an art film that's also accessible to the everyman, and one that has influenced many film makers since. Watch the video above for my thoughts.
