No one can dispute that contemporary Hollywood has little room for movies with leading roles for female movie stars.  And, those few that do exist are treated as anomalies, as though it is completely strange for a film with a woman protagonist to be of interest to any movie-goer. Most of the time, female stars are stuck in badly written romantic comedies, which are giving the genre a bad name. I am movie-sick (like being “homesick” except it’s a longing for certain types of movies) for the studio days when films showcased a variety of actresses who looked older than 18, weighed more than 90 pounds, and had more than one facial expression.

In addition to enjoying the onscreen talent of the likes of Hepburn, Davis, Crawford, Hayward, Loy, Grable, Harlow, Russell, and countless others, the roles and storylines developed for female movie stars in past Hollywood eras serve as a window into the issues and problems of the women of the day. One of my favorite periods for women’s roles is the post-WWII era, when the film noir and melodrama genres offered some fascinating glimpses into living in a man’s world, circa 1950. My thoughts on the dismal state of contemporary cinema and longings for past leading ladies were stirred up recently when I watched My Name Is Julia Ross, a notable, little b-movie directed by Joseph H. Lewis in 1945, years before his string of well-known noirs such as Gun Crazy and The Big Combo.

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As is well known, Morlocks like to steal time machines every now and then. With this in mind I decided to hop in one for a quick ride through the decades to see how cinematic entertainment unfurled through the decades here in my particular corner of Colorado. As I span the last 120 years there are no major shifts in human physiology, from say knuckle-draggers to childlike-Eloi to furry hopping herbivores. But when it comes to their clothes and social graces there are major shifts; it’s the difference between hanging out in Deadwood versus sitting next to The Man With the X-Ray Eyes.   READ MORE

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. This is especially true at my office where people are always discarding CDs, DVDs, books and other collectibles they don’t want anymore. For most, it’s easier to just put stuff out in the hall for the gleaners instead of trying to sell it on eBay. That’s how I came across a discarded screener of THE BUTTERFLY BALL (1976), buried beneath a pile of other unwanted DVDs in a crate by the elevator.

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Since my wife and I started a family within the past five years, I’ve become acutely attuned to the performances of child actors in movies and on TV.  Although I was born a softie, I find myself tearing up a lot more now as a father of two… and not just during scenes of sadness or tragedy.  Sometimes a kid’s performance just nails some aspect of being one in a way that cuts through the treacle and sentimentality of which the movies are so often guilty.  (You know, because we are.)  Here is a handful (let’s just pretend we all have eight fingers) of recent kid performances that wiggled their way into my heart… READ MORE

Moonrise (1948), which has its TCM premiere this evening, Feb. 3rd, at 10pm EST, is a film that is as hard to categorize neatly as the rest of the movies in director Frank Borzage’s long career. Despite the fact that many movie buffs might associate Borzage with a gauzy, passé sentimentality in classic silent films such as Street Angel (1928), this movie begins with a dramatic sequence that tells the tragic background of the leading character Danny Hawkins (Dane Clark) in one of the most powerful opening sequences I’ve seen. I don’t normally tell people to watch something only from the beginning, but with this movie, you would be missing a dynamic part of the movie as well as an introduction to the compelling dreamlike atmosphere of this most modern of Frank Borzage’s movies.If spoilers are not something you want to know before seeing a movie, you may want to stop reading now.

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Moira Finnie, one of the contributing writers here, wrote a long and fascinating comment in response to my post on My Son John below. It is a searching and heartfelt take that goes into detail about the conflicting emotions and ideas the film dredges up, and one that captures the multiplicity of positions it places the viewer in regards to its politics and narrative. It’s a hard movie to pin down, and I think Moira does an exemplary job of explaining just how slippery of an object it is. Here are her words in full, which I thought deserved their own post, and to which I hope to add my response in the coming days. -R. Emmet Sweeney

Hi RES,
You’ve made an excellent and challenging argument for seeing MY SON JOHN as an essential part of Leo McCarey’s career, even if it is a bit disturbing– like seeing a fondly remembered uncle fall asleep with his face in the stuffing at Thanksgiving after drinking too much elderberry wine.

I was thinking about writing about this powerful movie too, but not having seen this film since childhood, I was surprised at how compelling the film was in certain ways, almost reminiscent of Eugene O’Neill and William Inge’s more acidic portraits of families that refuse to face certain realities, though in this case it is seen through one of the most distorted lenses of the McCarthy era.

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Image From Greenbriar Picture Shows

Last Wednesday, TCM presented the first television screening of Leo McCarey’s MY SON JOHN in decades. It screened as part of the “Shadows of Russia” series, which tracked Hollywood’s depiction of the country from Tsarist times through Soviet rule. Programmed by the NY Post’s Lou Lumenick and the Self-Styled Siren’s Farran Smith Nehme, it offered a wonderful chance to catch up with McCarey’s underrated rarity. The reason for its obscurity lies in its politics. Produced during the height of the House Un-American Activities Committee (for which McCarey was a friendly witness), it is strongly anti-communist, and has been dismissed in many corners as mere McCarthy-era hysteria. As Robin Wood wrote in Sexual Politics and Narrative Film, the film is generally presented in a condescending manner: “typically introduced with an apologetic chuckle signifying, ‘Nowadays, of course, we can laugh at this.’” The usually sage Robert Osborne adopted this attitude in his introduction to the telecast, referring to it as an embarrassment, and our own astute Morlock Jeff emphasizes the “hysteria” over its other virtues in his article on the movie.  I have to respectfully disagree with my colleagues.

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My colleagues at Facets Multi-Media and I are gearing up for another session of Night School, our truly unique and downright odd midnight movie series that is unlike any other alternative film series in the city. The next session starts this coming Saturday, February 6, at midnight and runs through March 27.

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Sundance 2010 came to a close this weekend and I’m very happy to report that the best dramatic film that I saw there was Blue Valentine – directed by my good friend Derek Cianfrance. It was acquired two days ago by The Weinstein Company for somewhere near one million dollars; a steal for a film of this caliber with such a clear shot at future awards. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams both put in powerhouse performances in a story that interweaves the blossoming love of their relationship in full bloom along with its unraveling demise. TCM viewers will be glad to note that Cianfrance is one of us; a serious disciple of the classics. During his Q&A at Sundance he cited both The Godfather II and D.W. Griffith as influences, and I can personally attest to his dedication as both a film student and general film enthusiast. I remember he attended a campus screening of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Il vangelo secondo Matteo, 1964) and he was so moved by the film that during the screening he had problems breathing and felt a constriction in his chest. He later told me that he wondered if maybe he’d had some kind of mini-heart-attack brought on by the experience of watching that film.

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