Holiday Classics: “And So They Were Married” (1936)

Children scheming to bring their divorced parents back together has become a familiar plot for family comedies, especially with the popularity of The Parent Trap and all its subsequent iterations, but 25 years before Hayley Mills played twins, Edith Fellows and Jackie Moran played rivals trying to keep their parents apart in the breezy 1936 […]

Holiday Classics: “Desk Set” (1957)

Desk Set, the 1957 office-set romantic comedy from director Walter Lang, received a middling critical response at the time of its initial release, and while it has become much more well-received decades later, a common criticism from viewers is that it seems “dated.” It’s easy to see why people would reach that conclusion: Desk Set’s […]

Holiday Classics: “Roadblock” (1951)

You’ll rarely see a man fall so hard so fast as the lead in a classic film noir, and insurance investigator Joe Peters (Charles McGraw) in Roadblock is no exception. A taut, 73-minute noir from RKO released in 1951, Roadblock may be helmed by a relatively unknown director (Harold Daniels), but it has a ton […]

Review: “Maestro”

“Great gowns, beautiful gowns.” The comment thrown by Aretha Franklin in reference to Taylor Swift in a 2014 interview that has often been read as god-tier shade is the first reaction that popped into my head as the credits rolled on Bradley Cooper’s sophomore feature, Maestro. Cooper’s portrait of legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein […]

Holiday Classics: “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?” (1972)

When we first meet Rosie Forrest (Shelley Winters), she’s sitting by a child’s bed wearing a lavish burgundy gown and white gloves, rocking it softly as she sings. She appears sweet, maternal. But when she finishes her song, we discover that Rosie hasn’t been singing to a human child, but to the mummified remains of […]

Holiday Classics: “Hell’s Heroes” (1929)

If you like your holiday movies bleak and uncompromising, look no farther than 1929’s Hell’s Heroes. The early talking picture is a western based on the 1931 novel The Three Godfathers by Peter B. Kyne, but it’s actually one of several screen adaptations of the story, whose Christmas setting, religious imagery (look no further than […]

Holiday Classics: “Cash on Demand” (1961)

Hammer Film Productions is the British studio primarily known for breathing new life into classic movie monsters that were generally Universal’s forte over in the States with their gory color productions beginning in the late 1950s such as The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, and many others. But while in the decades since Hammer horror has […]

Review: “Eileen”

When we first meet Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie), she’s sitting in her car by the chilly New England seaside, shoving a handful of snow down her skirt after witnessing a couple making out in another car parked nearby. Later, at her job at a local corrections facility, she fantasizes about the attractive guard on duty, […]

Holiday Classics: “My Reputation” (1946)

Barbara Stanwyck’s roles in the romantic holiday comedies Christmas in Connecticut and Remember the Night are more than enough to cement her as Old Hollywood’s Christmas queen, but if you dig a little deeper, several of her other films boast seasonal settings that make them perfect annual watches. One of Stanwyck’s most underrated, in terms […]

Review: “May December”

Most cinematic retellings of true stories traffic in impersonation. And we, as a culture, reward that. Praise isn’t necessarily heaped on an actor for the soulfulness and honesty of their performance, but for how closely they arrive at an approximation of what we perceive to be real. Think about how so many of the most […]