Lions, Towers & Shields

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

Host 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

Host 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

Host 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

Host 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

Host 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

Host 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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Johnny Guitar (1954): It’s unusual, it’s weird, and it’s unlike any other film made by these stars. And it’s our first LTS western. Because maybe your show runner has a slightly twisted appreciation for the genre. Nicholas Ray, whose directorial chops we last experienced with In A Lonely Place, directs Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge. It’s a story that centers female characters, and gives Joan a chance to stomp around in great western wardrobe. Poor Sterling Hayden is just along for the ride. I picked this because I wanted a Joan Crawford vehicle, and because at least two LTS regulars were excited when I mentioned it.

Johnny Guitar

Host Shelly Brisbin with Micheline Maynard, Nathan Alderman, and Randy Dotinga.

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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Every once in awhile, your host takes a flier, choosing a film for us to watch that I’ve seen once or twice, if at all. Also arising from the 2022 draft episode is this English romance from 1945. It’s from the filmmaking team of Powell and Pressburger, and stars Wendy Hiller, so on credentials alone, it’s worth your attention. A young woman travels to the Hebrides to marry an older, wealthy man. But circumstances change her thinking

I Know Where I'm Going

Host Shelly Brisbin with Randy Dotinga, Micheline Maynard, and Nathan Alderman.

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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Gene Kelly was at the height of his powers in 1951, starring in musicals for MGM, and choreographing some of them. Here, Vincent Minelli directs, but the dancing is by Kelly. Leslie Caron makes her film debut, and the rest of the cast has a decidedly continental vibe. The film is “inspired” by George Gershwin’s 1928 musical of the same name, but the writing credit here goes to Alan Jay Lerner, aka half of the celebrated Lerner and Lowe musical composing team. An American in Paris won a boatload of Oscars, including Best Picture.

An American in Paris

Host Shelly Brisbin with Micheline Maynard and David J. Loehr.

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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Unlike the mid-40s film that first brought us Bogie and Bacall, The Breaking Point is a relatively faithful adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s story, To Have and Have Not. This one stars John Garfield (in one of his final films) and Patricia Neal. Michael Curtiz directs, but if that suggests a routine Warner Bothers potboiler (I love those) it is not. Garfield is a boat captain talked into doing some smuggling. There’s a love triangle and an ending that’ll just wrench you.

The Breaking Point

Host Shelly Brisbin with Randy Dotinga and Nathan Alderman.

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

Support this show and other shows like it on The Incomparable network by becoming a member. Members get early access to podcasts, bonus episodes, and more.