Here’s a delicious little film noir, where greed is breathtaking, and you’ll wonder who’s the evilest - until you know for sure.

We watch "Too Late for Tears."

Shelly Brisbin with Annette Wierstra and Nathan Alderman

Title

Old Movies, New Things: discs, books and other physical objects

Sightings: classics on TV, streaming, and (someday) the festival circuit

The Movie: _ review/commentary on a single classic film_

Next time, we’ll watch:

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This is the film that should have won Judy Garland the Oscar. It was both her greatest triumph, and a comeback film. It’s directed by George Cukor, the “woman’s director” of so many female-centered studio films. There’s a whole book about the making of “A Star is Born,” in fact. Also, this is the three-hour one.

Considering Judy Garland's A Star is Born

Shelly Brisbin with Jean MacDonald

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Welcome to another crossover where I join the Agents of S.M.O.O.C.H. for a timey-whimey road trip for our Virtual Vacation series. Our agents tease apart the five(?) timelines in Two for the Road (1967), starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney using the cars the characters drive. Join us as we criss-cross through ten years of time and space while road-tripping through France towards the Mediterranean coast. Sometimes it’s smooth sailing, sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes there are too many people in the car. Make sure you pack the sunscreen.

Virtual Vacation: Two for the Road

Annette Wierstra with Shelly Brisbin and Jean MacDonald

If you want to catch up on our other Agents of S.M.O.O.C.H. Crossover episode join us in Rome with Roman Holiday!

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Preston Sturgess was in top form in 1941 for this comedy starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake - in one of her first films. McCrea is a movie director, looking for a way to make a “socially relevant” film, instead of the comedies he’s been making. McCrea travels as a hobo, trying to “know trouble” in a way he can’t while living his life as a Hollywood director. Like Orson Welles, Sturges used a stock company of character actors, and many of them are along for the ride.

Sullivan's Travels: Class Tourism, with a Little Sex

Shelly Brisbin with Erika Ensign, Dr. Drang and David J. Loehr

Old Movies, New Things: discs, books and other physical objects

Sightings: classics on TV, streaming, and (someday) the festival circuit

The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

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We offer you a summer movie set in Rome. Directed by William Wyler, and starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, Roman Holiday tells the story of an American newspaper reporter who meets a princess and liberates her from the confinement of her royal station for a romantic adventure in 1950s Rome for a classic royal and the commoner tale. The people and the scenery are beautiful, and the actors have lovely chemistry. The is among the earliest, and best of the 1950s-60s films that took Americans to a Europe that had finally begun recovering from the horrors of World War II.

We could all use a Roman Holiday

Shelly Brisbin with Annette Wierstra and Sage Young

Old Movies, New Things: discs, books and other physical objects

Sightings: what’s coming on TCM, streaming services, and the festival circuit

The Movie

Next Time

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James Cagney is a bootlegger. This is the story of his rise and fall. Warner Brothers had been producing gangster yarns since the early 30s, many featuring Cagney. But late ’30s filmmaking had become better and more watchable, with studio stalwarts like Cagney, Bogart and Frank McHugh now pros at the genre. Add in the wonderful and underrated Gladys George, and you’ve got yourself a movie! Raoul Walsh, whose career went back to silents, and who would later direct Cagney in “White Heat,” directed. “The Roaring Twenties” is part social commentary, crime movie and melodrama. And it’s one of the most entertaining movies of this genre.

The Roaring Twenties

Shelly Brisbin with Dr. Drang and Nathan Alderman

Old Movies, New Things: discs, books and other physical objects

Sightings: what’s coming on TCM, streaming services, and the festival circuit

The Movie: review/commentary on a single classic film

* Next time, we’ll watch Roman Holiday (1953) available to stream via subscription, purchase or rental. *

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Here’s the film, based on James M. Cain’s story, that won Joan Crawford an Oscar, and began the Warner Brothers phase of her career, after MGM sent her packing. It tells the story of Mildred, who begins a new life when her marriage ends by building a restaurant empire. But her selfish daughter (Ann Blyth) and her lover (Zachary Scott) don’t make things easy for the proprietor of Mildred’s Fatburger. Bonus? Film noir with a female protagonist.

Mildred Pierce

Shelly Brisbin with Nathan Alderman

Old Movies, New Things: discs, books and other physical objects

Sightings: what’s coming on TCM, streaming services, and the festival circuit

The Movie

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Screwball comedy and Depression-era inequity meet in “My Man Godfrey” (1935). William Powell is experiencing the Depression first-hand, from under a bridge, when a society swell arrives and offers him a few dollars to help her win a scavenger hunt. Before you know it, Powell is buttling in the house of a dysfunctional wealthy family. Hilarity, and the politics of class follow. Carole Lombard, William Powell, Alice Brady and Gail Patrick are all marvelous, as is the rest of the supporting cast. “My Man Godfrey” was nominated for six Oscars, including the first two supporting actor statues ever awarded, but won none.

We recap My Man Godfrey (1935)

Shelly Brisbin with Erika Ensign, Nathan Alderman and Jean MacDonald

Old Movie News

Sightings

Into the Nitrate Vault

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Action, adventure and noir at the border, with Ricardo Montalban, before he went into space.

Border Incident

Shelly Brisbin with Philip Michaels and Nathan Alderman

Old Movie News

New Blu-rays

Sightings

Into the Nitrate Vault

Border Incident (1949) trailer

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We’re watching James Whale’s “The Invisible Man.”

The Invisible Man

Shelly Brisbin with Jean MacDonald and Dr. Drang

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