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 […]

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 […]

Holiday Classics: “Larceny, Inc.” (1942)

If you were to hear the title Larceny, Inc., you likely wouldn’t immediately cop it as a Christmas movie. And yet, this crime comedy’s seasonal appropriateness is immediately evident from the name of its source material: The Night Before Christmas, a short-lived Broadway play penned by Laura and S.J. Perelman. Edward G. Robinson stars in […]

Cinema Classics: “The FBI Story” (1959)

In just over a week, Martin Scorsese’s highly-anticipated next film, Killers of the Flower Moon, will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The over three hour period epic is an adaptation of David Grann’s best-selling 2017 non-fiction book which details the Osage Indian murders. Occurring from roughly the 1910s through the early […]

Review: “The Taking”

John Ford. John Wayne. Cowboys and six-shooters, Native Americans and horses and epic battles to survive not only squabbles with other humans, but the unforgiving landscape they’ve settled in, one made of both towering beauty and abject terror. These elements, and dilemmas physical, moral, and spiritual, have come to define the western film genre. Just […]

Favorite Discoveries of 2022

If you don’t follow me on any other platform outside of this blog, you might not realize how many movies I watch each year outside of new releases—so many, in fact, that I wonder why I bother subscribing to any other streaming service when I increasingly spend the bulk of my time inside of the […]

Holiday Classics: “Christmas Eve” (1947)

“Christmas Eve” isn’t actually as Christmas-y of a movie as its title suggests, the holiday setting more serving as a catalyst to pull a few seemingly disparate stories together and only really becoming apparent in the final scene. The 1947 film, which was also released under the title “Sinner’s Holiday,” from director Edwin L. Marin […]

Holiday Classics: “Blast of Silence” (1961)

“Remember out of the black silence you were born in pain. You were born with hate and anger built in. Took a slap on the backside to blast out the scream. And then you knew you were alive.” Lionel Stander’s bitter opening narration to the 1961 noir “Blast of Silence” is backed by the sound […]

Holiday Classics: “Bundle of Joy” (1956)

Last week, I discussed what I referred to as a perfect romantic comedy, 1939’s “Bachelor Mother.” Today, I’m talking about its 1956 musical remake, “Bundle of Joy.” “Bundle of Joy,” also a product of RKO Studios, isn’t without its charms, but it never manages to step out of its predecessor’s shadow. The story is identical: […]

Holiday Classics: “Bachelor Mother” (1939)

Some romantic comedies are funny but not very romantic. Others are romantic but not very funny. “Bachelor Mother” is both in spades. Released in 1939, the Garson Kanin-directed comedy— a remake of a 1935 Hungarian film titled “Little Mother”—is often overshadowed in a year that also included the likes of “The Wizard of Oz,” “Gone […]