When Hollywood (as Gloria Swanson rapturously proclaimed in SUNSET BOULEVARD) “had the eyes of the world,” it also had the power as a Culture Industry to discriminate in representing other forms of American popular entertainment that competed with filmdom’s market share. For example, Putt-Putt Golf was a hugely popular entertainment during the Great Depression, drawing [...]

“BOOBIES!! BOOBIES!! BOOBIES!!” shouted the inebriated Neely O’Hara (Patty Duke) to no one in particular as she stumbled down a scuzzy street of strip bars and adult theaters in 1967′s VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.  Self-consciously appraising her own dimensions against the aggressive images of the adult-entertainment placards, she summed up the state of show business [...]

There’s one obsession I’ve long pursued, while another obsession — for decades — has followed me around.  They finally collided. Artwork influenced by movies has been a personal obsession:  in the days before home video, I searched eight years for a public screening of Joseph Cornell’s ROSE HOBART; I spent last Christmas Eve at the [...]

“Who was Frank Ryan??” I’ve been asking that question for a decade and haven’t come up with an acceptable answer. Ryan co-directed a comedy at RKO, then helmed four features at Universal.  One of the few verified facts I’ve found on him only increases the Ryan Enigma:  he died a few weeks after his 40th [...]

If I were using the old rule of judging a book by its cover, I shouldn’t be able to tolerate this movie. For most of the studio era, Twentieth Century-Fox generated tons of awful musicals, with listless plots, sexless dancing, and brassy orchestrations.  When Veronica Lake told Joel McCrea in SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS that “musicals hurt [...]

I’m in Houston today:  North America’s fourth largest city, frequently named an overlooked gem in the New York Times’ travel section, and home to many cultural treasures including the Mark Rothko Chapel. I just left the Rothko Chapel, where I had a strong, cleansing meditation — sitting twixt a frail, elderly Asian woman in a [...]

As with all culture industries, the Third Reich’s movies had genres to reinforce values and control popular sentiment.  Those films were frequently categorized as Heimat (“home / homeland”) movies which emphasized the cozy feeling of families and home, Blut und Boden (“blood and soil”) films which promoted pride and romantic feelings about one’s lineage and [...]

I once went on record as saying that Frank Borzage’s Deanna Durbin vehicle HIS BUTLER’S SISTER can give you a headache.  During this Borzage-rich year (the release of the Borzage/Murnau boxed DVD set, good Borzage programming on TCM, and even finding a legitimate copy of I’VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU on VHS), I’ve decided to re-evaluate [...]

I was talking with a teller at my bank where I was withdrawing money to go on a getaway.  “Where to?” she asked.  “San Francisco.”  “Oh!” she replied, “Something very interesting happened to me in San Francisco.  I was on a subway train that made an unexpected stop, and then it started moving backwards.”  I [...]

Over 50 people were killed in the Leftist Riots of Hong Kong, which exploded on its streets in the Spring of 1967.  Fueled by the fervor of the mainland’s Cultural Revolution, pro-Communist demonstrations and bombing attacks destabilized the city’s social and economic fabric.  In order to restore the status quo, a concerted effort by the [...]

The Malaysian films of actor / singer / songwriter / orchestrator / screenwriter / director P. Ramlee are gems:  disarming, humorous, tuneful treasures needing to be discovered by Western cinephiles. On a cursory look Ramlee’s Cinema may look like Bollywood-on-a-Budget, but as the viewing unfolds what emerges is a picaresque slapstick world with a common [...]

For a couple of decades, producers in Turkey cranked out unlicensed ripoffs of Hollywood movies:  RAMBO, STAR TREK, E.T., THE EXORCIST, STAR WARS, etc. Aysecik ve sihirli cüceler rüyalar ülkesinde (literally, Aysecik in the Land of the Magic Dwarfs) was the Turkish take on THE WIZARD OF OZ.  It’s pretty primitive filmmaking:  there’s even a [...]

I caught the new Carlos Saura movie FADOS in NYC on the way to Lisbon a few weeks ago. At that time, the air traffic fates seemed against me since my flight was delayed and I had a 24 hour stayover in New York before leaving for Europe. Fortunately the Cinema Goddess gave me the [...]

How can it be?? BELLS ARE RINGING: a butt-ugly, proscenium-bound, stand-and-deliver musical film directed by that most polished, chic, and painterly of all studio-era filmmakers, Vincente Minnelli??? In this delish-ly digital DVD, the glaringly phony sets and the consciously theatrical performances almost kill the pleasure of viewing this film. I say almost because despite its [...]