The Girl from 10th Avenue (1935) is one of those quickie Warner Bros programmers that at times rises above its mediocre goals. But many of these Warner Bros weeklies do, truth be told, and between cost-cutting and bored actors, so many of these films just do not impress. Bette Davis …
Why The Great Lie wasn’t made in 1933 with Kay Francis is beyond me, because this is so obviously a Kay vehicle that it’s impossible to see it any other way. The fact is, however, that it never could have been a Kay movie: it’s based on a Polan Banks …
“Hell’s House” (1932) is an odd film. It’s part drama, part social commentary /exploitation, part juvenile delinquency film, and all badly-made quickie. For evidence of the quality of this film, just check out the title screen. Who did that, the director’s 8-year-old nephew? More than anything, this is a boring …
“Party Girl” is a 1930 social drama slash exploitation flick that was written, directed, and produced by Victor Halperin. It’s available on about a million public domain disks, even in the UK where it was banned until 2003. The film was notable as being the movie that spent the longest …
Kay Francis made a lot of movies that should have been mediocre, but Kay’s presence and her influence at the studio meant she often had great costars and a decent director at her disposal, elevating what was supposed to be a woman’s weepy into a classic film. Unfortunately, neither of …
The Dark Horse (1932), a goofy political satire, aired on TCM last November during their series of films about political elections. In Dark Horse, the Progressive Party of an unnamed state finds themselves deadlocked between two choices when nominating their gubernatorial candidate. The delegates who support one candidate get the …
“Camille” is ridiculous, melodramatic, unbelievable, silly, amazing, wonderful, beautiful, and mesmerizing. This 1921 film is a thin version of the Dumas classic, mildly modified for a modern audience, used only as a means to showcase glamour, style, and expression. I first heard about “Camille” when shahn at sixmartinis mentioned it …
This post contains spoilers for “The Racket” (1928), so if you want to wait until you see the movie for yourself, don’t read any further! Marie Prevost and Bette Davis are the objects of my two current movie projects, but unfortunately I’ve learned a tough lesson while trying to watch …
There are a lot of classic and must-see films I haven’t seen yet. Time and life has its limits, and that’s the excuse I’m going to stand by when I’m asked why it took me until 2010 to watch “Scarface” (1983). I am quite chagrined by this fact, don’t get …
Spoilers, adult concepts, and bad language abound. The Civilization of Maxwell Bright is a movie that tries hard to do the right thing, but it falls back on the old, lazy, entrenched bigotries so prevalent in Hollywood that, despite being an indie film, it might as well have been a …
