Classic and James Bond films unite
Dark Passage is Bogie and Bacall's penultimate film together, coming after To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep. It's a film that seems to divide their fans and those who enjoy film noir, due to its subjective camera perspective for the first half of the movie, as well as Bogie's more subdued performance.… Continue reading A tangled web: Agnes Moorehead in “Dark Passage” (1947)
The Dr Kildare movies only came on my radar fairly recently, as I was more familiar with the Richard Chamberlain series than with the nine films that starred Lew Ayres as the titular Dr Kildare and Lionel Barrymore as his cynical, but secretly caring, mentor, Dr Gillespie. Dr Kildare is a young doctor who wants… Continue reading A Grump With A Heart of Gold: Lionel Barrymore as Dr Gillespie
The year that Mannequin had its nationwide release, Joan Crawford was featured on the list of actresses termed as "Box Office Poison". It was a list that featured Katherine Hepburn, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer and John Barrymore, to name but a few. It was a list that is now largely seen as being inaccurate, or… Continue reading The Working Man: Spencer Tracy in “Mannequin” (1937)
This review contains major plot point spoilers. Don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the film. Frenzy is, in my humble opinion, Hitchcock’s most intense and disturbing film. Because it was made long after the production code had folded, it has all the graphic imagery that the 1970s, with its lack of overarching censorship,… Continue reading The intensity of “Frenzy” (1972)
To say what Alan Ladd means to me is almost impossible, but I will try in my own awkward, inadequate way. Alan is a classic film star that I discovered about three years ago, thanks to the You Must Remember This Podcast, which spoke about one of his best film noirs, The Blue Dahlia, co-starring his perfect match,… Continue reading Tribute to an Icon
The Reckless Moment (1949) is a Christmas film as Batman Returns or Die Hard is. It takes place during the holidays, but this happy time is marred by strife and tragedy. A coal in one's stocking for sure. For Lucia Harper (played by Joan Bennett) the coal comes in the form of borderline child sexual… Continue reading Unlikely kindred spirits: Joan Bennett in “The Reckless Moment” (1949)
The women's pictures of the 1940s seemed to have been defined by mental illness. Women who could not carry on as they were, and broke psychologically, terribly unmoored in a world which seemed to provide them with little support. Often the source of these women's mental illness was the cruelty of men, such as in… Continue reading The Mental Kaleidoscope: Olivia de Havilland in The Snake Pit (1948)
And so The Calls of Cornwall: Daphne du Maurier Blogathon has come to an end. I would like to thank all of the bloggers who contributed. I cannot WAIT to go through everyone's posts and read all about du Maurier and her works. I would also like to ask the bloggers who participated, or bloggers… Continue reading Finn…or will she come back?
This idea is thanks to the lovely Gill at Realweemidget Reviews As many (if not the entire world and perhaps some extraterrestrial life) know, I am just mad about Ladd. Alan was an incredibly talented and beautiful actor, who went far too soon, but left such an incredible legacy behind him. Not only in the… Continue reading Mad About Ladd 💖
Strange Cargo (1940) is not an easy film to describe. It has elements of drama, romance, adventure and tragedy. It is all these things, but it does not fit neatly into any of these genres. It could perhaps be compared to I Was A Fugitive of a Chain Gang, with its frank depiction of prison… Continue reading Into the Wilderness: Clark Gable in “Strange Cargo” (1940)
Pale Writer 