Caution: Spoilers Ahead! One of the first lessons for fans of early film is perhaps also the hardest: many pre-Codes and early talkies are simply no good. The technological limitations, the era, the changing morals and styles, even when acknowledged, fail to fully excuse many of these indifferent programmers. Ladies’ …
Penelope (Natalie Wood) is a bored housewife who steals things for fun. Her inattentive husband runs a bank, which goes a long way toward explaining her kooky scheme to rob her husband’s bank of $60,000. She confesses this to her psychiatrist (Dick Shawn) and attracts the attention of a …
Many, many years ago, Kay Francis was the star of the month on TCM. I tell this story often, so I give my advance apologies to those who have heard me yammer about this before. TCM was new to our cable package at the time Kay was star of the …
William Powell plays Sherwood Nash, a con artist who fails at one con and, when he stumbles into newbie fashion designer Lynn Mason (Bette Davis), is inspired to create a new con: knock-offs of original fashion dresses. Nash’s true motivation is to irritate legitimate designers so they will hire him …
Ibetolis of Film For the Soul has taken on the monumental task of counting down the years of 2000-2009 — the Zeroes — in film. Guest reviews and commentaries celebrate the decade as it’s coming to a close. I cannot recommend the posts in the series highly enough; they are …
This post contains adult language inappropriate for kids and spoilers for the movie “3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain.” Parents, do not let your children read this post. I tell you this because I am your friend. “3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain” is the fourth and last …
“The Locked Door” is an early talkie and one of Barbara Stanwyck’s first film roles. The story was originally a stage play called “The Sign on the Door”, a melodrama by Channing Pollock that ran from 1919-1920 and which garnered very good reviews. It was spiced up for film by …
“Red Rock West” is a dreamy, neo-noir masterpiece of storytelling. Written by Rick and John Dahl, starring Nicholas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Hopper and J.T. Walsh. Michael Williams (Nicholas Cage), a former Marine from Texas, finds himself broke and in the town of Red Rock, Wyoming, looking for a …
My entry on “Alibi” was inspired by sixmartini’s wonderful post — and you are reading sixmartinis and the seventh art, right? Shame on you if you’re not. As you skim through the screencaps here you may see some very similar to what sixmartinis already posted, which I promise you was …
A young man on a bicycle rides happily through town, heading to his job at the local church and greeting passersby. This kid is far too perky for his own good. Thankfully, when he arrives at the church he finds DEATH AND BLOOD in the form of a beautiful woman …
