Happy New Year's, everyone! In honor of 2021 coming to a close, we're discussing George Cukor's appropriately named Holiday (1938).

Cary Grant plays Johnny, a self-made man who is engaged to Julia, the daughter of a wealthy man of business. Johnny is an independent spirit who sees business only as a means to an end, and has no interest in accumulating wealth. He hopes to amass enough money to "retire" young, giving him time to go on adventures and discover more about himself, and then return to the workforce later in life once his money has run out. He finds the family he is poised to marry into less-than-accommodating to this plan, however, as his fiancee and her father begin trying to disabuse him of such ideas. He finds an accomplice, however, in Julia's sister Linda (Katharine Hepburn), a kindred spirit who feels constrained and unhappy within the confines of her family. It isn't long before Johnny begins to wonder if he picked the wrong daughter to marry.

Holiday is one of four films Grant and Hepburn made, all of which are classics. The Philadelphia Story, which reunited them with this film's director and writers, is probably the more famous film, but Holiday is just as urbane, witty, and moving. It's a complicated and bittersweet film, but ultimately uplifting and life-affirming in spite of that, and is one of the few truly quintessential New Year's films.

Merry Christmas, everyone! We hope you're having a lovely holiday. On that note, we're continuing our series on holiday movies with arguably the biggest one of all, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.

George Bailey (James Stewart) is a would-be adventurer and entrepreneur who has, throughout his life, continually postponed and sacrificed his ambitions for the betterment of the people around him. He has suffered for years from bitterness over those sacrifices, as well as insecurity over his perceived failure to make an impact on the world. Then, one night he's driven to suicidal thoughts over misplaced company funds and the prospect of scandal, financial ruin, and prison. But through the prayers and intervention of the people whose lives he has touched over the years, an angel comes to Earth to show him just how big of an impact he has in fact made on the world, and what it would actually look like without him.

But, of course, you already knew all of that. It's a Wonderful Life is one of the most beloved and iconic films in the history of Hollywood cinema, a staple on television every Christmas season. Capra's trademark brand of hard-earned sentimentality and wholesome Americana finds its purest distillation here, and in George Bailey, the film gives us one of the most interesting and complex characters of Classic Hollywood - a flawed and at times unattractive protagonist who is nevertheless a Great Man, despite the modesty of his position, and one whose greatness is directly tied to the sacrifices he thinks have made him a failure. The film's emotional impact becomes overwhelming by the film's end, when the audience is invited to see themselves in George, and to perhaps reassess how success in life is actually determined. It's a monumental film, a classic in every sense of the word, and the only possible choice for our official Christmas episode.

Sorry about the delay! Today, we're beginning our series on holiday films with everyone's favorite sorta kinda Christmas movie, Die Hard, directed by John McTiernan.

We all know the story - a group of well-heeled European terrorists-turned-thieves take over an LA skyscraper during a Christmas party, and it's up to one good cop on the loose in the building to muck up their plans. The story itself is well-trodden territory, but there's novelty in the protagonist, a fallible and vulnerable everyday cop who finds himself in an extraordinary situation, during an era in which action movie heroes were more commonly super-human killing machines.

Everything about Die Hard just works. It's every action movie cliche working in perfect synchronicity. It's the film that would be shown if aliens landed on Earth and inexplicably asked what a Hollywood action movie is. It turned Bruce Willis into a bonafide movie star out of nowhere, gave us one of Hollywood's most indelible villains in Hans Gruber (an incomparable Alan Rickman), and spawned a whole genre of copycat movies over the next couple decades (including four direct sequels). And at the center of it all is Nakatomi Plaza itself, the building becoming a central character in the film. Nearly the entire movie takes place within its walls, and the audience becomes intimately familiar with the building's layout throughout the film's runtime. It's one of the most memorable locations in recently Hollywood cinema, and appropriately took center stage in the film's marketing campaign.

We're finishing up our series on Audrey Hepburn with one of her last roles, in Peter Bogdanovich's They All Laughed (1981).

Hepburn plays Angela, the wife of a wealthy European businessman who has hired John Russo (Ben Gazarra) to spy on her out of suspicion of infidelity. Russo and Angela wind up becoming involved, however, which parallels Russo's colleague Charles (John Ritter) falling in love with the woman he is tailing, Dolores (Dorothy Stratten). All manner of other hijinks ensue, in a film that mixes screwball comedy with hardboiled noir and brings the trappings of Classic Hollywood to the 1980s.

They All Laughed marked the tail end of Bogdanovich's most creative run, which began in the 1960s, and also coincided with the end of the 1970s halcyon period in which filmmakers were afforded an unprecedented level of freedom. It buckled under the burden of the tragedy that befell Stratten prior to the film's release, but in recent years and has been rediscovered as a minor classic. It's a key film for Bogdanovich, and Hepburn, despite not having a lot of screen time, brings a huge amount of gravitas and understated melancholy to her role.

Happy belated Thanksgiving! We apologize about the delay in getting this episode up. For our penultimate Audrey Hepburn film, we're talking about Charade (1963).

Hepburn plays Regina Lampert, who returns home from vacation to find her husband has been murdered and her house has stripped clean. She soon becomes harassed by a trio of thugs who claim she has $250,000 that belongs to them, and is told by the CIA that they want the money, as well. To make matters worse, her one supposed accomplice throughout this order (played by Cary Grant in one of his last, great roles) keeps changing his identity, to the point where she can't tell who he is or if he can be trusted.

Charade is directed with a light touch and loads of style by Stanley Donen, best known for the musicals he made in the 50s. Despite the suspenseful subject matter, the film is immensely easy to watch, overflowing with witty banter, exotic locations, and wonderful music. It's a world class Hollywood entertainment, and one of the most sheerly enjoyable movies Audrey Hepburn was ever in.

In our second episode on Audrey Hepburn, we're taking a look at 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Hepburn plays Holly Golightly, a young, quirky "cafe society" girl in New York City in the early 60s. She catches the eye and fascination of a young writer who has just moved into the same apartment building as her. The two form a friendship over the course of the film that begins to build to romantic feelings, which jeopardizes her pursuit of a wealthy husband - as well as her preference to keep her emotions and her vulnerability at arm's length from everyone around her.

Breakfast at Tiffany's was directed by Blake Edwards (arguably best known for the Pink Panther films), adapted from Truman Capote's novella. It became one of Audrey Hepburn's most successful movies, earning her an Oscar nomination, and creating the enduring image of her as the embodiment of chic elegance and glamour. 

Hello, listeners! Today, we're kicking off a series on the iconic Audrey Hepburn, and we're starting with her Hollywood debut: Roman Holiday.

Hepburn plays a princess who feels trapped by the pressures and responsibilities of her status. While on a tour of Europe, she decides to abscond in the middle of the night, to at least briefly leave her responsibilities behind and experience Rome the way common people are able to. In the process, she meets Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), a reporter who realizes who she is and decides to manipulate the situation in order to get an explosive article. Soon, however, genuine feelings develop between the two, and they are forced to confront her status and what it means for the future of their relationship.

Roman Holiday was an immediate hit when it was released in 1953, and turned Audrey Hepburn into a star overnight. She wound up winning an Oscar for her performance. The film was directed by the legendary William Wyler, who would go on to work with Hepburn on two subsequent films. Both of those films are well regarded, but it is Roman Holiday that the duo are remembered for. It's one of Hepburn's most enduring films, and was instrumental in establishing the persona that continues to reach fans all over the world.

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Sources cited:

Snider, Eric C. “12 Royal Facts about Roman Holiday.” Www.mentalfloss.com, 8 Feb. 2016, https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75062/12-royal-facts-about-roman-holiday. Accessed 11 Nov. 2021.

We hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween! To cap our series on Universal Monster Movies, we're taking a look at the last really iconic horror creation the studio produced, The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

After partial, fossilized remains of a strange, human-like amphibious creature are found in a remote Amazonian location, a small team of researchers is dispatched to try and find the rest of the remains in hopes of it leading to a scientific breakthrough. Shortly after their arrival, however, they begin to be terrorized by a still-living creature that appears to be from the same species as the remains.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon was released in 1954, blurring the line between the iconic monster movies of the 30s and 40s, and the sci-fi horror pictures that were in vogue throughout the 50s. Regardless of the semantic debate on whether this is a monster movie or sci-fi, there's no doubting that the creature itself is absolutely one of the signature Universal Monsters, a pop culture icon that remains immediately recognizable more than six decades after its release. The film was directed by Jack Arnold, one of that era's finest genre filmmakers, and perhaps the single most important figure in 1950s sci-fi cinema.

Please send letters and get well cards to Riccou Browning (the underwater Gill-man/creature) at:

Riccou Browning

5221 SW 196 Lane

Southwest Ranches, FL 33332

For part 3 of our series on classic Universal Monster movies (and the last to actually post before Halloween!), we're taking a look at The Wolf Man (1941), directed by genre-filmmaking stalwart George Waggner.

Lon Cheney Jr. (following in his famous father's footsteps) plays Larry Talbot, who has returned home following his brother's death in a hunting accident. Shortly after doing so, he's bitten by a werewolf, and subsequently becomes one himself (but only when the moon is full and the wolf's bane is in bloom, of course). He then finds himself in the position of trying to convince his father he's not crazy, and protecting his romantic interest from himself.

The Wolf Man comes as part of the second cycle of Universal Monster movies, after a hiatus following the change in ownership at the studio. Most of the movies in this second cycle are charming but silly B-movies; typically, they were gimmicky cross-over films trying to cash in on the fading memories of the original 1930s films. The Wolf Man, then, is perhaps the last hurrah for the sort of elegant and more serious horror films that were the legacy of the pre-code Universal horrors. It is also a masterclass in the use of photography and set design to create atmosphere, with beautifully tactile and spine-tingling imagery that's as iconic as the titular monster itself.

Welcome back, listeners! For the second installment in our Halloween series, we're looking at another James Whale: The Invisible Man (1933).

Claude Rains plays Dr. Jack Griffin, a scientist whose research has resulted in him becoming invisible. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to turn himself back. Additionally, the experiment has had the unfortunate side effect of turning him completely insane. This drives him to ever-escalating displays of his power, starting with childish pranks but soon moving to murder and acts of destruction, while both the police and his former colleagues try to figure out how to apprehend a man they can't see.

The Invisible Man comes around halfway through the initial Universal Horror cycle, and is Whale's third entry in the genre. By this point, he had moved beyond the somber, tragic tone of Frankenstein, instead mashing several different registers together at once. The Invisible Man, perhaps taking its cue from the madness of its lead character, is inspired lunacy, constantly jumping back and forth between the macabre and the absurd. It's horror laced with dark comedy, a singular work within the genre. It is also the first significant film role for Claude Rains (even though we barely see him!), who soon becomes one of the greatest actors in all of Hollywood.

This podcast is intended to be educational any audio clips are utilized with gratitude under the fair use copyright law.

Clips: The Invisible Man. Universal Studios, 1933