Lions, Towers & Shields

We close out International Summer Vacation with a film most of us haven’t seen, or even heard of. It comes to us from Argentina, and director Carlos Hugo Christensen. It’s based on a story by noir stalwart, Cornell Woolrich, and consists of two stories involving the door of the title. It’s also notable for incredible cinematography from Pablo Tabernero. The Film Noir Foundation restored, and is showing the film around the country at FNF’s Noir City festivals this year.

Never Open That Door

Shelly Brisbin with Micheline Maynard, Nathan Alderman and Randy Dotinga

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

The fall season of LTS begins in October.

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We return to France for King of Hearts, directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Alan Bates and Geneviève Bujold. The suggestion to see this film comes from our own Erika Ensign, who praises its anti-war message, among other attributes. The film is set in a small French town during World War I, after the locals have fled the battle. Residents of a nearby asylum escape and take over the town. The film was made in 1966, in the shadow of French involvement in the Vietnam War.

King of Hearts

Shelly Brisbin with Erika Ensign, Nathan Alderman, Randy Dotinga and Micheline Maynard

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

Next time, we’ll watch

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Tokyo Story is on numerous lists of the best films of all time. It’s in my personal top five. This movie is considered the masterpiece by legendary filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, and it stars his luminous muse, Setsuko Hara. Tokyo Story is a black and white time capsule of life in Japan after World War II and depicts how the war and Japan’s modernization disrupted its family dynamic. Compared with the boldness of Akira Kurosawa’s movies, it’s sedate and thoughtful, and you may easily find yourself shedding a tear or two.

Tokyo Story

Micheline Maynard with Shelly Brisbin and Nathan Alderman

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

Next time, we’ll watch

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Starring Joan Crawford is Samuel Garza Bernstein’s new appreciation of the screen queen. It’s a great book, and I wanted you to meet the author, Samuel Garza Bernstein. We’ve known each other since I was 16. These two things are only partially related.

Starring Jaon Crawford

Shelly Brisbin with Samuel Garza Bernstein

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Author Interview

The Self-Referential LTS

Next time, we’ll watch

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Forgive a film noir detour during our international vacation season. This is episode 100, and so I’ve picked a movie I love, and that feels right in the collective LTS wheelhouse. James M. Cain’s story of betrayal and murder was directed by Billy Wilder, and stars Barbara Stanwyck (natch), Fred McMurray and Edward G. Robinson. This film is full of dynamite lines, crazy sexual chemistry, and noir lighting for days.

Double Indemnity

Shelly Brisbin with David J. Loehr, Nathan Alderman, Micheline Maynard, Annette Wierstra and Randy Dotinga

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

**Next time, we’ll talk to the author of a new film book!

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Our summer travels continue this week to Italy, where Federico Fellini is our guide. The title translates to “the sweet life” in English, and that’s what star Marcello Mastroianni seeks in Rome, over the course of seven days. Mastroianni is a tabloid journalist, and we follow him through seven stories, during the film. Anita Ekberg is the female star probably most known to American film fans. La Dolce Vita ranks among Fellini’s best, and the movie also gives us a glimpse of modern Italy, a generation removed from World War II.

La Dolce Vita

Shelly Brisbin with Micheline Maynard and Dr. Drang

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

Next time, we’ll watch

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Shot in the postwar ruins of occupied Tokyo, Akira Kurosawa’s early buddy-cop thriller will make you feel every drop of sweat in its sweltering summer heat wave. A rookie cop (Toshiro Mifune) loses his gun to a pickpocket; the gun ends up in the hands of a desperate ex-soldier with nothing to lose. As his weapon gets used in a series of escalating, awful crimes, the young detective and his savvy mentor (Takashi Shimura) must race through the underworld to track down the shooter and get it back. Stray Dog is a top-notch police procedural, but it’s also a surprisingly kind, humane, and empathetic look at a city emerging from wartime.

Stray Dog

Nathan Alderman with Shelly Brisbin, Micheline Maynard and Randy Dotinga

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

Next time, we’ll watch

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We begin our International Summer Vacation season with a prime example of the French New Wave. Breathless is directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. The film is notable for its visual style, and the impact it had on the careers of its leading actors. Belmondo plays a criminal who wants to be Humphrey Bogart. He spends much of the film on the run, and with his American girlfriend. Problems ensue.

Breathless

Shelly Brisbin with Dr. Drang and Nathan Alderman

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

Next time, we’ll watch

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Down in the depths of precode cinema, where Shelly likes to spend torrid nights, there’s a depiction of how a department store can be a little Peyton Place, and how Warren William is never to be trusted. The great precode lothario stars with very young Loretta Young and Wallace Ford (who we just saw as a middle-aged creep in The Breaking Point) as her love interest. Aside from the sleaze, it’s kind of fun to see how a department store works in the 1930s.

Employees' Entrance

Shelly Brisbin with Micheline Maynard, Nathan Alderman and Randy Dotinga

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The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

Next season on LTS, coming this summer, we’ll watch

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Here are Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift at their hottest, with an adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. Just as in Night of the Hunter, Shelley Winters maybe ought to watch her back. George Stevens directs, and here, he’s beginning his epic period. In the 50s, he’ll direct Giant and Shane, among others. This one is full of melodrama and social aspiration and also has a bunch of Oscars, including Stevens’ first for directing. It’s nice to look at.

A Place in the Sun

Shelly Brisbin with Randy Dotinga, Nathan Alderman and Micheline Maynard

Get in touch with the show at [email protected] or on the socials.

The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

The Self-Referential LTS

Next time, we’ll watch

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