Another Kind of Distance: A Spider-Man, Time Travel, Twin Peaks, Film, Grant Morrison and Nostalgia Podcast

This round of Warner Bros. 1931 brings us two gems by a couple of Pre-Code masters, Roy Del Ruth's Blonde Crazy and William A. Wellman's Night Nurse, showing off the early star charisma of Jimmy Cagney (oozing vulnerability) and Barbara Stanwyck (spitting fire), ably supported by Joan Blondell in both cases. Bonus: Young Clark Gable shows up for another, even nastier 1931 turn. Dave makes the case for Blonde Crazy as a proto-screwball comedy (Warner Bros. does Trouble in Paradise?). And in another Fear and Moviegoing discussion of Now, Voyager, we discuss the Bette Davis melodrama's authentic ties to Transcendentalism and what it means to not have sex for the right reasons.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    NIGHT NURSE [dir. William A. Wellman] 0h 31m 33s:    BLONDE CRAZY (dir. Roy Del Ruth] 0h 46m 59s:    Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto –Irving Rapper's Now, Voyager (1942) at TIFF Lightbox +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our second Gloria Grahame Acteur-Oeuvre-view episode includes a curious under-use of our acteur in the all-around baffling musical comedy It Happened in Brooklyn (nevertheless memorable for the chemistry between Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante), and a judicious use of her by RKO in Edward Dmytryk's anti-fascist noir Crossfire (also 1947). We try to work out just what Grahame's ongoing avant-garde skit with Paul Kelly (as "The Man") brings to Dmytryk's portrait of a dysfunctional post-war America. One thing's for sure: she sure hates him!  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    IT HAPPENED IT BROOKLYN (1947) [dir. Richard Whorf] 0h 21m 30s:    CROSSFIRE (1947) [dir. Edward Dmytryk] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For this MGM 1931 episode we watched The Easiest Way, a feminist subversion of melodrama tropes by director Jack Conway and screenwriter Edith Ellis, starring Constance Bennett as the fallen woman and a young Clark Gable, verging on stardom, as her judgemental brother-in-law; and possibly the most sentimental movie ever made, King Vidor's The Champ, starring Wallace Beery as a ne'er-do-well ex-boxing champ dad and Jackie Cooper as his passionately devoted son. MGM delivers again in this new round of 1931! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: The Easiest Way (1931) [dir. Jack Conway] 0h 43m 55s: The Champ (1931) [dir. King Vidor] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our Farrow v Allen series continues with four more collaborations: September (1987), Another Woman (1988), Oedipus Wrecks (1989, part of the anthology movie New York Stories), and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). We count the ways in which Allen mashes up his favourite playwrights, filmmakers, and Russian novelists, trace the development of Allen's "survivor" theme through these movies, and discuss the different flavours of invisible that Farrow brings to them. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, Charles Burnett, in town to present De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and a 4K restoration of his own Killer of Sheep, tells us about the cost of art and the time someone stole his bicycle.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: SEPTEMBER (1987) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 24m 17s: ANOTHER WOMAN (1988) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 44m 29s: “Oedipus Wrecks” segment of NEW YORK STORIES (1989) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 57m 33s: CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989) [dir. Woody Allen] 1h 20m 24s:  Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep (1978), both introduced by Charles Burnett at TIFF Lightbox ++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Welcome to our inaugural Gloria Grahame episode, which is also our final Acteurist Oeuvre-view! In this episode we consider Gloria's first significant movie role, as the cause of Blonde Fever (1944), in which she and Philip Dorn confuse each other and provide occasion for Mary Astor's multiple levels of irony. We then turn to Gloria's breakthrough role in one of our very favourite movies, It's a Wonderful Life (1946), examining it through the lens of Gloria's iconic character, Violet Bick. We consider Violet's thematic link to George at a crucial moment, Capra's invention of a "wholesome small-town siren" trope that's essential to David Lynch's universe, and the qualities that enable Gloria Grahame to embody this concept.   Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    A Short Introduction to Gloria Grahame 0h 12m 48s:    BLONDE FEVER (1944) [dir. Richard Whorf] 0h 34m 09s:    IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) [dir. Frank Capra]   ++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our streak of finding gynocentric crime film gems continues with our second Paramount 1931 episode, featuring two movies directed by Sylvia Sidney specialist Marion Gering. 24 Hours pairs a despairing Clive Brook and Miriam Hopkins, haunted by marriages they can't escape in one way or another. And Ladies of the Big House, starring a radiant Sidney as a hapless shopgirl who (like Hopkins' nightclub singer) becomes the target of a gangster's obsession, depicts life in prison as a curious quasi-utopia of racial equality and solidarity among American's socioeconomically oppressed. We give you our take on Gering as unsung auteur! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Hollywood, 1931 and Paramount 0h 07m 09s: 24 HOURS [dir. Marion Gering] 0h 40m 51s: LADIES OF THE BIG HOUSE [dir. Marion Gering] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our final Diana Wynyard episode has arrived all too soon! We look at her two final key roles, in Alexander Korda's film of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1947) and The Feminine Touch (1956), a nurse drama that's better than its silly title. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we cover the 2025 Toronto Silent Film Festival, focusing on three films built around miraculous performances, Victor Sjostrom's The Wind (1928), starring Lillian Gish, Victor Fleming's Mantrap (1926), starring Clara Bow, and Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928), starring Emil Jannings (ably supported by Evelyn Brent), before turning our attention to a film that was entirely new to us, the blatantly anti-capitalist The Johnstown Flood (1926), featuring Janet Gaynor in her first major role.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    AN IDEAL HUSBAND (1947) [dir. Alexander Korda] 0h 23m 27s:    THE FEMININE TOUCH (1956) [dir. Pat Jackson] 0h 41m 54s:    Diana Wynyard – The Summing Up 0h 48m 01s:    FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Toronto Silent Film Festival 2025 at The Revue Cinema [The Wind, Mantrap, The Last Command, The Johnstown Flood, Leap Year, Assistant Wives] and Easter Parade (1948) at TIFF Lightbox.    +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

**** [Retro Re-issue Alert!] **** Turns out it wasn't such a great idea to use Le Tigre's "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" as our podcast's theme song in 2019 and 2020! Anyway, Spotify (and presumably Le Tigre) don't seem to think so.  Accordingly, please find the attached re-issue of one of our foundational episodes, minus the intro music + a couple of words of greeting from Elise.  Consider it a fragment shored against our (Julie) Ruin.  First issued: August 23, 2019 This week's episode serves as both a prolegomenon to our imminent Hollywood Studios Year By Year series and as a wistful look back to Dave's teen years, when he picked up Ethan Mordden's freewheeling speed date with Old Hollywood History and discovered a new way to split the difference between Adornian culture industry theory and auteurist ontology. Journey back to a time when oligopoly really meant something and most entertainment companies weren't somehow beholden to Disney. We quote from and quibble with Mordden's characterizations of the quintessential qualities of Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, Fox, RKO, and Universal (Dave gets particularly riled up about yet another slight to the sacred memory of Carl Laemmle Jr.). What's your favourite Golden Age Studio? We want to know! Time Codes: 0h 0m 00s:   The Hollywood Studios 2h 14m 43s    Listener Mail with Todd Murry +++ *Read Elise's Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.* Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

In this Farrow vs. Allen Special Subject episode we dig into a strong set of films, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Radio Days (1987), united by their examination of art, popular culture, and fantasy, the possibilities they offer for transcendence, and the conditions of that transcendence. We also, of course, particularly examine Mia Farrow's role in these films, from Allen avatar to intimidating enigma, wistful waif to materfamilias.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 31m 01s:    HANNAH & HER SISTERS (1986) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 54m 18s:    RADIO DAYS (1987) [dir. Woody Allen]   ++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

We complete our second round of 1930 on Studios Year by Year with Universal. This time around we've got two auteur entries, Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front, and a much deeper cut, Tod Browning's eccentric crime drama Outside the Law. We discuss All Quiet as emblematic of the Laemmele Jr. era before turning to Browning's tense, messy melodrama, with a powerhouse performance by the scandal-plagued Mary Nolan. A fine finale to another trip through 1930 with the Hollywood Studios!  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Universal Recap 0h 15m 58s: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT [dir. Lewis Milestone] 0h 53m 51s: OUTSIDE THE LAW [dir. Tod Browning] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

In our penultimate Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, our acteur supports two of the greats of her age, John Gielgud as Benjamin Disraeli in Thorold Dickinson's The Prime Minister and Michael Redgrave as the titular innocent of Carol Reed's Kipps, based on the novel by H.G. Wells. We discuss 19th century British politics (enfranchisement vs. empire), Wells' hope and despair for humanity, and the qualities that suit Wynyard to play women who are motivated to improve their partners. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we wrap up March's TIFF Lightbox retrospectives with a viewing of Binka Zhelyazkova's The Tied-Up Balloon.     Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    THE PRIME MINISTER (1941) [dir. Thorold Dickinson] 0h 32m 44s:    KIPPS (1941) [dir. Carol Reed] 0h 48m 27s:    FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: The Tied-Up Balloon (1967) by Binka Zhelyazkova +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

In this week's RKO Studios Year by Year episode, we discuss our favourite movies from our first round with the studio and how that round shaped our impression of RKO, and then turn to two new 1930 movies: Framed (directed by George Archainbaud), a gangster movie focused on Evelyn Brent's tough/tender mixed-up moll, and The Runaway Bride (directed by Donald Crisp), a shaggy showcase for Mary Astor's affability. But wait, there's more! In Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we debate the meanings and merits of two daring films by Mai Zetterling, Amorosa (1986) and Night Games (1966), and dissect the post-WWII ennui of two by Binka Zhelyazkova, Life Flows Quietly By... (1957) and The Big Night Bathe (1980).  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: RKO Recap 0h 14m 54s: FRAMED [dir. George Archainbaud] 0h 31m 49s: THE RUNAWAY BRIDE [dir. Donald Crisp] 0h 52m 06s: FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Mai Zetterling's Night Games (1966) & Amorosa (1986) + Binka Zhelyazkova's Life Flows Quietly By (1957) & The Big Night Bathe (1980) +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story he RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

We've got a big one for you this week: four main movies plus four Fear and Moviegoing viewings. Our main feature is Stanning for Sten: Anna Sten's three movies for Samuel Goldwyn, Nana (1934), based on (more like inspired by) the Zola novel, We Live Again (1934), with a Tolstoy source, and The Wedding Night (1935), plus a glimpse at one of her later supporting roles in Let's Live a Little (1948), a Robert Cummings comedy vehicle. Goldwyn infamously brought Sten to Hollywood with the intention of creating his own Dietrich-Garbo hybrid and lavished the most prestigious Hollywood talent (Arzner, Mamoulian, Vidor, Gregg Toland, and co-stars like Frederic March and Gary Cooper) and literary source material on her, only to have the public reject her; but we argue that Goldwyn's care didn't go to waste. And in Fear and Moviegoing, we look at the career of actress/director Mai Zetterling, discussing two movies directed by her, and two early films in which she appears (one directed by Ingmar Bergman, the other written by him).      Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    A Few Words About Sten and Goldwyn 0h 08m 02s:    NANA (1934) [dir. Dorothy Arzner] 0h 28m 11s:    WE LIVE AGAIN (1934) [dir. Rouben Mamoulian] 0h 58m 08s:    THE WEDDING NIGHT (1935) [dir. King Vidor] 1h 27m 28s:    LET'S LIVE A LITTLE (1948) [dir. Richard Wallace] 1h 39m 20s:    FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Mai Zetterling's Loving Couples (1964) & Scrubbers (1982); Ingmar Bergman's Music in Darkness (1948); Alf Sjoberg's Torment (1944) +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

In this Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we look at probably her best-known film, Gaslight (directed by Thorold Dickinson), and consider its pros and cons relative to the Cukor/Selznick Hollywood version of a few years later, as well as the question of how "gaslighting" became an internet meme and how well the source fits the popular meaning. Then we turn to an oddball film with an anti-nationalism message, Freedom Radio (Anthony Asquith), set in Nazi Germany but with a broader application, and consider how Wynyard's screen persona informs her tricky role. Then, in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we battle it out over Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (cluttered or perfect screenplay by Charlie Kaufman?) and find accord on John Cassavetes' revealing potboiler, Gloria (love story between a tiny man and a deadly goddess).  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    GASLIGHT (1940) [dir. Thorold Dickinson] 0h 29m 52s:    FREEDOM RADIO (1940) [dir. Anthony Asquith] 0h 48m 27s:    FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) & John Cassavetes' Gloria (1980)        +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

The first episode of our second Studios Year by Year round with Fox, the "Rube" according to Ethan Mordden, is a real ridiculous/sublime contrast: the sci-fi musical comedy Just Imagine (directed by David Butler), a vehicle for vaudevillian El Brendel, in whom Dave may have found his comedy bête noir; and the F. W. Murnau masterpiece City Girl, which reworks Sunrise with (we speculate) a Borzagean twist. Come for the idiotic, stay for the profound?  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Fox Recap 0h 12m 41s: CITY GIRL [dir. F.W. Murnau] 0h 48m 02: JUST IMAGINE [dir. David Butler]   Studio Film Capsules provided by The Fox Film Corporation, 1915-1935: A History and Filmography by Aubrey Solomon Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

In this Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we finally come to the source, James Whale's One More River (1934), the movie that inspired Dave to schedule this series, and don't worry, we still think it's a masterpiece. We recap how we've watched the Wynyard onscreen persona evolve and how Whale's new context for it gives it an unforgettable impact. And then we watch Wynyard discard that persona in On the Night of the Fire (1939), playing the supportive but stymied wife of Ralph Richardson's beleaguered Everyman in this ultra-despairing British noir. Two must-watches! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    ONE MORE RIVER (1934) [dir. James Whale] 0h 54m 37s:    ON THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE (1940) [dir. Brian Desmond Hurst] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For the first episode of our second round of Warner Brothers 1930, we've got a thoughtful, ambitious gangster movie from the mind of little-known auteur Rowland Brown, The Doorway to Hell (directed by Archie Mayo), and a truly dismal melodrama, A Notorious Affair (directed by Lloyd Bacon), rescued from total worthlessness by Kay Francis's turn as a maneating countess. (Doorway to Hell is also notable for a very early appearance by another rising star, James Cagney, who, however, doesn't steal his movie as effectively as Francis does.) Plus, we give our lists of favourite Warner Brothers movies from Round One and offer our thoughts about the studio as auteur going into Round Two.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:                Warner Brothers Recap 0h 28m 05s:                A NOTORIOUS AFFAIR [dir. Lloyd Bacon] 0h 43m 50s:                THE DOORWAY TO HELL [dir. Archie Mayo] Year in Film information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For our Valentine's Day 2025 episode, we plunge deep into the nature of relationships by discussing two films whose romantic pairings are arguably not relationships at all: Spike Jonze's Her (2013) and his sometime collaborator, Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). Isolation, loss, misogyny, male fantasies, hope and despair: we've got all of the Valentine's goodness for you. And it continues with our Fear and Moviegoing discussion of Mike Leigh's Hard Truths (2024).  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    HER (2013) [dir. Spike Jonze] 0h 54m 53s:    I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020) [dir. Charlie Kaufman] 1h 30m 24s:    Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Mike Leigh's Hard Truths (2024) Related content: ·       Our immensely long and under-edited discussion of Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Our Town (1940) ·       Our second ever podcast: Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2003) +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

We start off our second round of MGM Studio Year by Year episodes with these 1930 films: the Marion Davies comedy vehicle The Florodora Girl (directed by Harry Beaumount) and Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan, which Elise decides is something like Eyes Wide Shut if it was made by James Cameron (but, alas, not as interesting as that sounds). (It's still pretty interesting, though, if only for the Art Deco Lightning Dancers. Yes, you read that right.) Plus, we give our impressions of MGM based on our first round of viewings and draw attention to some of the highlights from it.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: MGM Recap 0h 28m 41s: THE FLORODORA GIRL [dir. Harry Beaumont] 0h 45m 29s: MADAM SATAN [dir. Cecil B. DeMille]   Year in Film information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For this episode of our Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, our featured acteur plays a disillusioned modern woman in two 1934 movies, Where Sinners Meet and Let's Try Again, that are cynical about marriage in a way that (we argue) screwball comedy would soon render archaic. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we give our impressions of three more Marco Bellocchio films, Devil in the Flesh, Vincere, and the especially enigmatic Blood of My Blood.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    Where Sinners Meet (1934) [dir. J. Walter Ruben] 0h 18m 20s:    The Marriage Symphony (1934) [dir. Worthington Miner] 0h 43m 00s:    Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Marco Bellocchio retrospective at TIFF – part 2: Devil in the Flesh (1986), China is Near (1967), Vincere (2009) and Blood of My Blood (2015) +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our Special Subject this month is the start of a series on the cinematic collaboration of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen. In this first episode we look at A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Zelig (1983), and Broadway Danny Rose (1984), paying particular attention to the relationship between the Allen and Farrow characters and to the question of what each partner in the collaboration brings to the other's career. Both of these areas of inquiry yielded some surprises for us; plus, Dave gets to wax lyrical about Broadway Danny Rose, one of his favourite Allen movies. We also have a revival of Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto thanks to the TIFF Lightbox Cinematheque's Marco Bellocchio retrospective, briefly discussing Good Morning, Night (2003), Dormant Beauty (2012), and My Mother's Smile (2002). Discussion of the latter occasioned many mentions of David Lynch, as often happens on the pod, although we did not know at the time that he would be taking leave of this plane of existence.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    Intro: Farrow v. Allen 0h 06m 53s:    A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 23m 09s:    Zelig (1983) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 31m 58s:    Broadway Danny Rose (1984) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 48m 29s:    Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Another Year (2010) by Mike Leigh; part 1 of TIFF Cinémathèque's Marco Bellocchio retrospective: Good Morning, Night (2003), Marx Can Wait (2021), Dormant Beauty (2012) and My Mother's Smile (2002)   +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

It's time for another round of Studios Year by Year, starting over with Paramount 1930! And this time Dave has brought even more nostalgic reading material to give some context for this studio content. We also launch another new series feature: a review of our favourite movies from the previous 1930-1948 round. Turning to the Paramount movies we watched for this episode, we struggle to come to terms with the pointless battle of the sexes in Lubitsch's The Love Parade, starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, who are having a lot of sexy Pre-Code fun until the dictates of storytelling demand conflict; and struggle through a nigh-unwatchable transfer/copy of the sturdy operetta The Vagabond King, starring MacDonald and Dennis King. In both films, the adorable Lillian Roth delights. And finally, as if all of that weren't enough, a New Year's Eve throwback (by the time this is posted) in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: we watched the beloved When Harry Met Sally and the cult classic 200 Cigarettes at the Revue Cinema.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: 1930 in film + Paramount Recap 0h 21m 10s: THE LOVE PARADE [dir. Ernst Lubitsch]          0h 43m 24s: THE VAGABOND KING [dir. Ludwig Berger] 0h 56m 50s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: When Harry Met Sally (1989) by Rob Reiner & 200 Cigarettes (1999) by Risa Bramon Garcia Year in Film information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our second Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode brought two real oddball pre-Codes to our attention: Men Must Fight (1933), a hardcore pacifist film that predicts the upcoming world war in certain ways, in which Wynyard more or less reprises her Cavalcade role; and Reunion in Vienna (1933), based on a Robert E. Sherwood play, which could have been the first screwball comedy if Wynyard and John Barrymore had been playing Americans (but then, the movie's entire premise—the psychosexual allure of authoritarianism—would be removed). We make the probably indefensible case (more like an irresponsible opinion) that the latter handles a naughty love triangle in a more interesting way than Lubitsch's Design For Living from the same year. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we watch a 65th anniversary screening of Sleeping Beauty, the most visually radical animated Disney film, and discuss whether it lives up to our childhood memories.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    Men Must Fight [dir. Edgar Selwyn] 0h 23m 48s:    Reunion in Vienna [dir. Sidney Franklin] 0h 45m 10s:    Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Sleeping Beauty (1959) by Clyde Geronimi +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our first round of Studios Year by Year comes to an end with these Universal 1948 movies: A Woman's Vengeance (directed by Zoltan Korda with a screenplay by Aldous Huxley, based on his short story "The Gioconda Smile") and Larceny (directed by George Sherman). Huxley's philosophical concerns add unexpected dimensions to familiar Gothic tropes and gives great material to Charles Boyer and Ann Blyth, while Cedric Hardwicke deals with Jessica Tandy. In the second half of our double bill, John Payne's con man tries his best to deal with Shelley Winters in honey badger mode (he's the honey and the bees).  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE [dir. Zoltan Korda] 0h 29m 24s:      LARCENY [dir. George Sherman]     Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler               +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the next two decades * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!   

 Our 2024 Christmas episode is devoted to all 312 minutes of Ingmar Bergman's late masterpiece Fanny and Alexander (1982); a phantasmagorical smorgasbord of genres and summary of the writer-director's obsessions. We explore the film's Keatsian and Kierkegaardian implications, its relationship to the Modernist moment, and its oneiric inquiry into the nature of reality... among the many other topics raised by this dramatically and conceptually rich movie. We hope the holiday season gives you many opportunities to eat, think, and be merry!  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    FANNY & ALEXANDER (1982) [dir. Ingmar Bergman] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our first Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view presents us with a couple of politically reactionary pre-Codes: Wynyard's Hollywood debut, Rasputin and the Empress (1932), which is mostly Rasputin (a very freaky Lionel Barrymore), not much Empress (Ethel B), and almost no Wynyard; and her Hollywood triumph, Cavalcade (1933), Noël Coward's version of the Modernist recoil from the 20th century. We find much to discuss in these movies' tortured relationship with recent history.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    RASPUTIN & THE EMPRESS (1932) [dir. Richard Boleslawski] 0h 29m 03s:    CAVALCADE (1933) [dir. Frank Lloyd] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

In this 1948 Studios Year by Year episode, we look at two artefacts from Dore Schary's brief tenure as Head of Production at RKO, Berlin Express (directed by Jacques Tourneur), an early Cold War curiosity in which Robert Young and Merle Oberon try to save Paul Lukas from the clutches of Nazis in war-torn Frankfurt, and The Boy with Green Hair (directed by Joseph Losey), the pacifist fantasy, starring Dean Stockwell and Pat O'Brien, over which Schary clashed with the Elon Musk of studio-era Hollywood, Howard Hughes. We discuss the films' historical context, as well as the non-political pleasures they have to offer.   Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      The RKO Story summary of 1948 at Radio-Keith-Orpheum 0h 05m 08s:      BERLIN EXPRESS [dir. Jacques Tourneur] 0h 24m 19s:      THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR [dir. Joseph Losey] 0h 46m 49s:      Listener mail with Amy Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin   Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler               Link:   For 'KL': The Boy With The Green Hair   +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

Sadly, it's time to say goodbye to another acteur after an all-too-short time. For our final Paul Robeson episode, we watched Julien Duvivier's Tales of Manhattan (1942), which notoriously brought an end to Robeson's career as a film actor, and two extraordinary socialist documentaries to which he contributed his voice, Leo Hurwitz's Native Land (1942) and Joris Ivens' The Song of the Rivers (1954). (Note that Robeson's contribution to Song of the Rivers was less than we supposed going in: an introductory song only. But we thought it paired well with Native Land anyway.) We make an argument for the subversive use of tropes in the Robeson Tales of Manhattan segment before moving on to discuss Robeson's involvement in the kind of cinema he wanted to make: independent, socialist, artistically ambitious. And finally, we of course Rank the Robesons, giving our 10 favourite Robeson films in order and summarizing the experience of building a comprehensive picture of this under-theorized body of work.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    TALES OF MANHATTAN (1942) [dir. Julien Duvivier] 0h 21m 54s:    NATIVE LAND (1942) [dirs. Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand] 0h 53m 33s:    SONG OF THE RIVERS (1954) [dir. Joris Ivens] 1h 04m 48s:    Ranking the Robesons 1h 13m 58s:    Listener mail from Andy   Episode specific reading: ·       Musser, Charles. Paul Robeson and the End of His ‘Movie' Career. Cinémas, Volume 19, (Number 1), Fall 2008, 147-179. ·       Klein, Jill and Michael. Native Land: An Interview with Leo Hurwitz. Cinéaste vol 6 (number 3), 1974.   +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

This 1948 20th Century Fox Studios Year by Year episode is a doozy, a doubleheader of psychotic lovelorn men with bad ideas in their heads. First, in Jean Negulesco's rural noir Road House, Richard Widmark's spoiled road house owner selects Ida Lupino's unlikely and unforgettable femme fatale as his reluctant assassin, and then, in Preston Sturges' black comedy Unfaithfully Yours, Rex Harrison's celebrated symphony conductor spins murderous melodramatic fantasies and faces a recalcitrant slapstick reality when he suspects his much younger wife (Linda Darnell) of cheating on him. We unpack the practically infinite riches of these colossi of studio-era filmmaking, one with and one without an auteur at the helm.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      ROAD HOUSE [dir. Jean Negulesco] 0h 50m 02s:      UNFAITHFULLY YOURS [dir. Preston Sturges] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of Twentieth Century-Fox by Tony Thomas & Audrey Solomon   Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Part 1 of our Oscar Levant Special Subject sees us explain our very personal relationship with this singular figure of 1940s/50s Hollywood in preparation to discuss Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue (1945), great Warner Bros. woman's picture/noir Humoresque (1946), Doris Day debut Romance on the High Seas (1948), and accidental Fred and Ginger reunion pic The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). Just a warning: if you're looking for an in-depth discussion for the latter two, this probably isn't the podcast episode you want. But if you're more interested in the relationship between Rhapsody in Blue and Humoresque (thanks to the contributions of screenwriter Clifford Odets), you've come to the right place. Levant adds his unique texture and authenticity to these stories of the cost of genius—for both the genius and those around them.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      Scraping the Surface of Oscar Levant 0h 11m 58s:      RHAPSODY IN BLUE (1945) [dir. Irving Rapper] 0h 36m 43s:      HUMORESQUE (1946) [dir. Jean Negulesco] 0h 57m 57s:      ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (1948) [dir. Michael Curtiz] 1h 11m 14s:      THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY (1949) [dir. Charles Walters] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For our penultimate Paul Robeson Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we watched Thornton Freeland's Jericho (1937), in which Robeson plays a court-martialed WWI officer who takes up a new life as the leader of a group of Saharan herders and traders, and Pen Tennyson's The Proud Valley (1940), often cited as the film Robeson was proudest of, about the struggles of a community of Welsh miners. As in our last Robeson episode, he really makes his auteur presence felt in these films, although in almost opposite ways, taking centre stage in Jericho and acting as the presiding genius of The Proud Valley, which we discuss as both Robeson's vision of socialism and a mining horror movie.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      JERICHO (1937) [dir. Thornton Freeland] 0h 28m 48s:      THE PROUD VALLEY (1940) [dir. Pen Tennyson] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For this 1948 Warner Bros Studios Year by Year episode, we watched a couple of the studio's most prestigious releases for the year, John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Jean Negulesco's Johnny Belinda. We explore some extraordinary performances by Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Jane Wyman in these tales of capitalist nihilism and rural prejudice.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE [dir. John Huston] 0h 44m 11s:      JOHNNY BELINDA [dir. Jean Negulesco] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!   

For our 2024 Halloween Special Subject we watched two films in the German Expressionist tradition starring one of the greatest actors to be relegated to Hollywood character actor status, Peter Lorre: Fritz Lang's masterpiece M (1931), through which Lorre came to international recognition playing a child murderer, and Lorre's first Hollywood film, Karl Freund's Mad Love (1935), to which he also brought his special blend of pathos and perversion. We discuss serial killers, scapegoats, sadism, cyberpunk zombies, love, sex, and other topics certain to terrify.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      M (1931) [dir. Fritz Lang] 0h 32m 07s:      MAD LOVE (1935) [dir. Karl Freund] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Things are looking up in this week's Paul Robeson Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, for which we watched Big Fella (directed by J. Elder Willis), in which Robeson is a dockworker who becomes involved in the search for a kidnapped rich kid, and King Solomon's Mines (directed by Robert Stevenson), the first film adaptation of the H. Rider Haggard colonial adventure epic. We make our arguments for Big Fella as an anti-Shirley Temple movie that both accomplishes and subverts its genre goals and for King Solomon's Mines' Verhoevening of its reactionary source material.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      BIG FELLA (1937) [dir. J. Elder Willis] 0h 28m 30s:      KING SOLOMON'S MINES [dir. Robert Stevenson] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our MGM 1948 Studios Year by Year episode is a Freed Unit double feature: the great Irving Berlin musical Easter Parade, starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, and Summer Holiday, a Mickey Rooney coming-of-age story based on a play by Eugene O'Neill, directed by studio-era "art director" Rouben Mamoulian. We discuss Easter Parade as a vehicle for presenting Judy Garland's "problematic" anti-star star persona and Summer Holiday's envelope-pushing leftist politics and middle-class sexual repression plot, wrapped up in cozy turn-of-the-century nostalgia.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      SUMMER HOLIDAY [dir. Rouben Mamoulian] 0h 36m 24s:      EASTER PARADE [dir. Charles Walters] Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

In this episode of our Paul Robeson Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, we consider the ways in which Robeson, as acteur, inscribes himself on James Whale's Show Boat (1936) and J. Elder Wills' Song of Freedom (1936). First, we consider the racial themes of Show Boat, and how both the writing of Robeson's character, and Robeson's playing of him, undermines the stereotype ostensibly being presented; and then we look at the way Song of Freedom struggles to present a progressivism alternative to the racial politics of The Emperor Jones, while we attempt to reconstruct the motivations behind its political confusions.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      SHOW BOAT (1936) [dir. James Whale] 0h 31m 35s:      SONG OF FREEDOM (1936) [dir. J. Elder Willis] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

In this Paramount 1948 episode we dig deep to get the stories behind the stories of two great film noirs starring Ray Milland: The Big Clock (directed by John Farrow), based on a novel by Depression-era poet and Communist Party fellow traveler Kenneth Fearing, and So Evil My Love (directed by Lewis Allen), a historical noir/Gothic melodrama based on a novel by the prolific and many-pseudonymed Marjorie Bowen. We discuss the ways in which the source authors' viewpoints make for fascinating deviations from standard Hollywood treatment of capitalism and gender.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      SO EVIL, MY LOVE [dir. Lewis Allen] 0h 33m 22s:      THE BIG CLOCK [dir. John Farrow] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For our second Paul Robeson Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we watched The Emperor Jones (1933), a film by Dudley Murphy loosely based on the Eugene O'Neill play, and the Kordas' Sanders of the River (1935), an experience that proved crucial in Robeson's own political education. We discuss the Modernist appropriation of African culture and the figure of the African American, methods of rationalizing British colonialism, and the kinds of protagonist roles available for a Black actor of Paul Robeson's popularity with white audiences in the first half of the 20th century.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      THE EMPEROR JONES (1933) [dir. Dudley Murphy] 0h 23m 45s:      SANDERS OF THE RIVER (1935) [dir. Zoltan Korda] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

We devoted our 2024 September Special Subject to American silent film auteur Lois Weber. We discuss four films, the allegorical Hypocrites (1915), which created a sensation at the time with its full-frontal female nudity, and three films that showcase Weber's progressive Christian social vision, Where Are My Children? (1916), which confusedly tackles the subjects of birth control and abortion, and the masterpieces Shoes (1916) and The Blot (1921), dramas centered on the consciousness of women that deal respectively with working-class and genteel poverty.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      Brief Introduction: Lois Weber 0h 05m 07s:      HYPOCRITES (1915) [dir. Lois Weber] 0h 18m 09s:      WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN? (1916) [dir. Lois Weber] 0h 27m 56s:      SHOES (1916) [dir. Lois Weber] 0h 40m 26s:      THE BLOT (1921) [dir. Lois Weber] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

In this 1947 Universal Studios Year by Year episode, a little Ella Raines never hurt no one: we struggle to understand her role in the intermittently riveting Gothic melodrama Time Out of Mind (stylishly directed by Robert Siodmak), while Edmond O'Brien struggles to understand her role in Vincent Price's life in The Web, a white-collar film noir directed by future blacklistee Michael Gordon.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      TIME OUT OF MIND [dir. Robert Siodmak] 0h 20m 07s:      THE WEB [dir. Michael Gordon] Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!     

The first episode of our Paul Robeson Acteurist Oeuvre-view series has a high context-to-text ratio, as we introduce one of the most important figures in entertainment and political activism of the 20th century. The two movies we look at, Oscar Micheaux's Body and Soul (1925) and Kenneth Macpherson's Borderline (1930), by auteurs from radically different backgrounds with radically different aims, provide a fascinating glimpse of the spectrum of possibilities for independent cinema in the late silent era.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      Brief Introduction to Paul Robeson 0h 08m 53s:      BODY & SOUL (1925) [dir. Oscar Micheaux] 0h 34m 03s:      BORDERLINE (1930) [dir. Kenneth Macpherson] References: Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary by Gerald Horne “The Homesteader” article in The Believer by Will Sloan +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

We've been waiting for this episode, a 1947 RKO noir double bill with two of the all-time greats, Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past, in which Robert Mitchum's cool detective and Jane Greer's psychopathic moll work at cross purposes in their attempts to escape their shady pasts so that they can be free to love, and Robert Wise's Born to Kill, in which Claire Trevor's morally flexible social climber and Lawrence Tierney's paranoid psychopath just work at cross purposes. Elise agrees with Bosley Crowther that Born to Kill, one of her Top 10 favourite movies, "is not only morally disgusting but is an offense to a normal intellect," but will Dave be able to convince her that Out of the Past is "flawless"?    Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      BORN TO KILL [dir. Robert Wise] 1h 07m 09s:      OUT OF THE PAST [dir. Jacques Tourneur] 1h 35m 31s:      Listener Communiqué Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin   Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

We went deep for our second King Vidor Special Subject episode, looking at four films from the 1930s: Street Scene (1931), adapted by Elmer Rice from his famous stage play about working-class New Yorkers; the little-known Cynara (1932), starring Ronald Colman as a kindly upper-middle-class man who stumbles into adultery and the abyss; Our Daily Bread (1934), Vidor's eccentric, self-produced response to the Great Depression; and Stella Dallas, one of the great woman's pictures, centered on one of Barbara Stanwyck's greatest performances. Class, gender, transformation of consciousness, and how they're served by melodrama story structures all come in for examination as we find links with the films of other auteurs, from Ozu to Lynch. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we take a quick look at monster movie tropes and James Cameron's masochistic feminism in The Terminator. All this and more feedback on our Lilli Palmer series!  Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      More general musings on Vidor 0h 05m 49s:      STREET SCENE (1931) [dir. King Vidor] 0h 26m 44s:      CYNARA (1932) [dir. King Vidor] 0h 45m 32s:      OUR DAILY BREAD (1934) [dir. King Vidor] 1h 00m 46s:      STELLA DALLAS (1937) [dir. King Vidor] 1h 39m 13s:      Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: James Cameron's The Terminator (1984) 1h 45m 23s:      Listener Communiqués +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

Our final Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode is an odd one, with Dave arguing for the value of John Frankenheimer's The Holcroft Covenant (1985), a Nazi conspiracy thriller from a novel by Robert Ludlum, and Elise arguing for the value of The Other Side of the Wind (2018), Orson Welles' startling comeback film-that-never-was. Then we give our favourite Lilli Palmer films, with rationales, and respond to some listener communiqués.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      THE HOLCROFT COVENANT (1985) [dir. John Frankenheimer] 0h 22m 19s:      THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (2018) [dir. Orson Welles] 0h 58m 27s:      Lilli Palmer Top 10s; Letter from Listener Steven +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

This Fox 1947 Studios Year by Year episode looks at two examples of the docu-noir: Boomerang! (directed by Elia Kazan), starring Dana Andrews as a prosecuting attorney who has to decide between morality and political expedience; and Kiss of Death (directed by Henry Hathaway), in which Victor Mature's sympathetic gangster is menaced by Richard Widmark's psychopathic gangster and the legal system. Then another oddball assortment of movies in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), and Spellbound (1945).    Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      BOOMERANG!  [dir. Elia Kazan] 0h 27m 35s:      KISS OF DEATH [dir. Henry Hathaway] 0h 54m 55s:      Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022) by Daniel Scheinert & Daniel Kwan; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) by Mike Nichols and Spellbound (1945) by Alfred Hitchcock Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of Twentieth Century-Fox by Aubrey Solomon and Tony Thomas Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

Our penultimate Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode brings us Lilli as a protagonist again at last, in Lotte in Weimar (1975), based on the Thomas Mann novel, and Lilli Lite in The Boys from Brazil (1978), an outrageous anti-Nazi sci fi story in which Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck wage an epic battle (and also get into a very brutal girl-fight). And this week's Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto is a real smorgasbord: Saturday Night Fever, Coffy, It Happened One Night, and Beverly Hills Cop. From the charm of young John Travolta to screwball brutality and from exploitation auteurism to... the charm of young Eddie Murphy. We've got the movie talk you crave! Time Codes: 0h 00m 35s:      LOTTE IN WEIMAR (1975) [dir. Egon Gunther] 0h 32m 51s:      THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978) [dir. Franklin J. Schaffner] 0h 50m 08s:      Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Saturday Night Fever (1977) by John Badham; Coffy (1973) by Jack Hill; It Happened One Night (1934) by Frank Capra; and Beverly Hills Cop (1984) by Martin Brest Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of Twentieth Century-Fox by Aubrey Solomon and Tony Thomas Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!         

This Warner Bros. 1947 Studios Year by Year episode features two gems that put their own particular slant on noir's familiar theme of murderous conflict between women and men: Curtis Bernhardt's Possessed, starring a more-than-usually deranged Joan Crawford, with Van Heflin as the rakish object of her obsession, and Delmer Daves' Dark Passage, starring an unusually passive Humphrey Bogart as a man convicted of killing his wife, with Lauren Bacall as an eccentric socialite who decides to help him. And in our Fear and Moviegoing segment, a real clash of moods: Ridley Scott's terrifying sci-fi/horror classic Alien and Wong Kar-wai's whimsical romantic comedy (of a sort) Chungking Express. Though admittedly it also has its terrifying aspects. (If only Van Heflin had been charmed by Crawford's fixation, how differently it could have gone!)  Time Codes: 0h 00m 35s:      POSSESSED [dir. Curtis Bernhardt] 0h 41m 53s:      DARK PASSAGE [dir. Delmer Daves] 1h 11m 24s:      Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Alien (1979) by Ridley Scott at the TIFF Lightbox and Chungking Express (1994) by Wong Kar-wai at the Revue Cinema  Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

Our second Anna Magnani Sampler includes three Hollywood films, two with parts written for her by her friend Tennessee Williams, as well as the second film directed by Pasolini: The Rose Tattoo (1955), Wild is the Wind (1957), The Fugitive Kind (1960), and Mamma Roma (1962). Paired with a wacky Burt Lancaster, a bullying Anthony Quinn, a quietly intense Brando, or a nihilistic teenager, Magnani takes on such enemies as the racist South, patriarchy, and the class system with varying results, but always with ferocity and gusto.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      THE ROSE TATTOO (1955) [dir. Daniel Mann] 0h 23m 03s:      WILD IS THE WIND (1957) [dir. George Cukor] 0h 37m 34s:      THE FUGITIVE KIND (1960) [dir. Sidney Lumet] 0h 52m 55s:      MAMMA ROMA (1962) [dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

In this episode of our Lilli Palmer Acteur-ist Oeuvre-view series, we watched a couple of 1969 movies somewhere on the horror spectrum: De Sade, a movie of ideas that doesn't live up to them, written by famed horror/sci fi author Richard Matheson; and The House That Screamed, an Italian slasher with a twist or two to recommend it. Good parts for Lilli Palmer in a couple of seriously silly movies. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, Fast Times at Ridgemont High leads Elise to go on a weird despairing rant about teenagers and sex (if she does say so herself). Come for the irresponsible opinions, stay for the bumper butt orgies.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      DE SADE (1969) [dir. Cy Endfield] 0h 26m 13s:      THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (1969) [dir. Narciso Ibanez Serrador 0h 42m 03s:      Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) by Amy Heckerling   +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For this MGM 1947 Studios Year by Year episode, we discuss Cynthia, a gentle family melodrama starring a luminous 15-year-old Elizabeth Taylor as an over-protected teenager, and High Wall, a psychiatric film noir with great roles for Robert Taylor and Herbert Marshall as sweaty noir protagonists at cross purposes. Our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, meanwhile, features discussion of two radically different films: James Cameron's Terminator 2 and a 4K restoration of Vittorio de Sica's influential early neorealist drama Shoeshine. Realist horrors or horror fantasy, take your pick! Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      CYNTHIA [dir. Robert Z. Leonard] 0h 38m 15s:      HIGH WALL [dir. Curtis Bernhardt] 1h 01m 44s:      Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) by James Cameron at TIFF Lightbox and Shoeshine (1946) by Vittorio De Sica at The Revue Cinema Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

After some rocky episodes, our Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view uncovers a couple of gems: Nobody Runs Forever aka The High Commissioner (1968, directed by Ralph Thomas), a spy thriller bursting at the seams with the charms of Rod Taylor and Christopher Plummer, and Hard Contract (1969, the only feature film made by writer-director S. Lee Pogostin), one of the most eccentric movies we've ever seen, a meditation on love, murder, and modern life with Lee Remick and James Coburn as an improbably moving pair of lovers. Lilli Palmer adds her own flavour of eccentricity to Hard Contract as Remick's "immorally innocent" friend and makes a big impact as Christopher Plummer's wife in Nobody Runs Forever. Time Codes: 0h 00m 30s:      NOBODY RUNS FOREVER (1968) [dir. Ralph Thomas] 0h 25m 53s:      HARD CONTRACT (1969) [dir. S. Lee Pogostin] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!  Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!