There's Sometimes a Buggy

In our inaugural Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we join Gladys Georgianna Greene as she signs on at Columbia Pictures, two years before her star-making team-up with Frank Capra. Her first two films for Columbia, Whirlpool and The Most Precious Thing in Life, are a couple of curious weepies with missing-parent plots that allow Arthur to play first the daughter, then the mother, but never the love interest. First, Dave gives us an account of why Jean Arthur is so important to him, and Elise explains what it has to do with Shakespeare's Rosalind. Then, in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we briefly discuss the first two Kinuyo Tanaka films where she takes on a real auteur role, Forever a Woman, based on the true story of a poet who died of breast cancer, which we saw as a kind of cross between Dark Victory and My Left Foot, and the political epic The Wandering Princess, which shows the events of WWII from the perspective of a Japanese noblewoman who marries into the Manchurian puppet dynasty.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: Prolegomenon To All Future Jean Arthurs

0h 31m 06s: WHIRLPOOL (1934) [dir. Roy William Neil]

0h 59m 47s: THE MOST PRECIOUS THING IN LIFE (1934) [dir. Lambert Hillyer]

1h 31m 02s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Kinuyo Tanaka's FOREVER A WOMAN (1955) & THE WANDERING PRINCESS (1960)

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For this 1940 Paramount episode, an Akim Tamiroff (and Muriel Angelus) double feature in which we unlock the secrets of Preston Sturges' inspiration. First, we look at The Way of All Flesh (directed by Louis King), a little-known proto-noir Christmas movie that seems to have taken its inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne, as filtered through the sensibilities of top screenwriters Lenore Coffee and Jules Furthman. Then we move on to the first movie directed by dynamo screenwriter-turned-sui generis-director Preston Sturges, The Great McGinty, which directly references the plot of The Way of All Flesh in its prologue. We make our case for the evolution of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek out of both movies and talk Sturges, artificial families, and lost fathers.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: THE WAY OF ALL FLESH [dir. Lewis King]

0h 36m 26s: THE GREAT MCGINTY [dir. Preston Sturges]

1h 06m 00s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Kinuyo Tanaka's Love Letter (1953) and The Moon Has Risen (1955)

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

In our final Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Oeuvreview episode, we look at a commercial and critical flop, Rob Marshall's Nine (2009), a musical based on Fellini's celebrated semi-autobiographical film 8 1/2, and a commercial and critical triumph, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012), covering the final four months of Abraham Lincoln's life and especially the process of passing the Thirteenth Amendment. We consider how these roles relate to Day-Lewis's screen persona, then launch into a discussion of his entire career as we each give our Top 10 Daniel Day-Lewis performances. Has Day-Lewis been "typecast" by critics? And how do his best roles serve his unique qualities as an actor and personality? Find out what we think (and feel free to tell us what you think)!

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: NINE (2009) [dir. Rob Marshall]

0h 22m 37s: LINCOLN (2012) [dir. Steven Spielberg]

0h 50m 04s: Daniel Day-Lewis Wrap-Up & Top 10s

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

Join your hosts as they race the clock to adumbrate the myriad merits of French Golden Age Master, Jacques Becker! We key in on the director's ingenious use of diverse genres to drop diegetic depth charges into the abyss of gendered subjectivity at midcentury. From the nerve-wracking rom-complications of Antoine et Antoinette to the Bert n' Ernie gangster pyjama party of Touchez pas au grisbi, no four films have ever done a better (or more rapturously entertaining) job of laying bare the unbecoming banality of being under Patriarchy.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947) [dir. Jacques Becker]

0h 36m 27s: RENDEZ-VOUS DE JUILLET (1949) [dir. Jacques Becker]

0h 56m 15s: CASQUE D'OR (1952) [dir. Jacques Becker]

1h 21m 51s: TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954) [dir. Jacques Becker]

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

Universal, 1939: we continue the saga of John Stahl's final years with the banker regime with When Tomorrow Comes, a frankly pro-labour romance, full of eccentric charm, that rewrites the fate of Irene Dunne's Back Street character while reuniting the actress with Charles Boyer after their success in Love Affair. Then we turn to the studio's B mode with Joe May's intermittently audacious, but consistently funny, murder/haunting mystery The House of Fear, about an ill-fated stage production.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: WHEN TOMORROW COMES [dir. John M. Stahl]

0h 51m 32s: THE HOUSE OF FEAR [dir. Joe May]

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

At last we come to the Daniel Day-Lewis perhaps best known to cinephiles: the over-the-top monstrous patriarchs of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002) and Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007). Working from a couple of the best viewings we've personally had of these movies, we discuss how Bill the Butcher and Daniel Plainview build upon the Day-Lewis persona, how they radically depart from it, and how they set the stage for future developments. If you've ever been embarrassed by your dad's inability to socially interact like a normal human being, this episode is for you.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) [dir. Martin Scorsese]

0h 58m 20s: THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) [dir. Paul Thomas Anderson]

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For our RKO 1939 episode, a Directed by Garson Kanin double feature: Bachelor Mother, starring Ginger Rogers as an unwed department store clerk accused of motherhood; and The Great Man Votes, starring John Barrymore as an alcoholic intellectual struggling to raise two children, including the most precocious child actor of them all, Virginia Weidler (of Philadelphia Story fame). We discuss the "plausible deniability" structure of Bachelor Mother and the kind of social commentary it permits, and the particular brand of autobiographical pathos and dishevelled charm that Barrymore brings to the part of an eccentric, melancholy widower.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: BACHELOR MOTHER [dir. Garson Kanin]

1h 04m 48s: THE GREAT MAN VOTES [dir. Garson Kanin]

Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

We return to our Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Oeuvre-view with 1996's The Crucible (directed by Nicholas Hytner with a screenplay by Arthur Miller, based on his 1953 play) and 1997's The Boxer, reuniting Day-Lewis with writer-director Jim Sheridan and writer Terry George from In the Name of the Father and returning to the subject of Northern Ireland and the Troubles. We discuss the ways in which The Crucible serves as a liberal allegory for McCarthyism and its depiction of the jouissance of hysteria and accusation, and then turn to The Boxer's examination of an impossible personal/political situation, which leads us to consider Day-Lewis's rare but memorable turns as a romantic hero.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: THE CRUCIBLE (1996) [dir. Nicholas Hytner]

0h 43m 01s: THE BOXER (1997) [dir. Jim Sheridan]

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

This week's Special Subject takes a look at Sex, Satire, and American Culture in Frank Tashlin's Artists and Models (1955), starring Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, and Dorothy Malone, and in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), starring Dean Martin, Kim Novak, Ray Walston, and Felicia Farr. Tashlin uses comic books to portray American culture as a strangely sexless-yet-sex-obsessed idiot savant with an exuberantly violent imagination, while Wilder turns smut in a small town into an uncannily beatific examination of objectification and toxic masculinity in American popular culture. We also look at the way that Tashlin and Lewis turn signifiers of gender and sexuality into a richly indecipherable text that comments on the madness of heteronormativity and gender stereotypes.

Further Reading:

Elise's "Jerry Lewis and the Gender of Work."

Elise's "Billy Wilder and the 1930s Romantic Comedy"

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: ARTISTS AND MODELS (1955) [dir. Frank Tashlin]

0h 45m 25s: KISS ME, STUPID (1964) [dir. Billy Wilder]

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

Fox, 1939: the Greater and the Lesser John Ford Fox movies of 1939, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk, both starring Henry Fonda. We argue with Cahiers du Cinéma about the politics of Young Mr. Lincoln and find continuities between Ford's work with Will Rogers and his presentation of Lincoln, and discuss Edna May Oliver's comic theft of an otherwise pretty standard, racist settler narrative.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s: YOUNG MR. LINCOLN [dir. John Ford]

0h 35m 00s: DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK [dir. John Ford]

Studio Film Capsules provided The Films of 20th Century-Fox by Tony Thomas & Aubrey Solomon

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

+++

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at [email protected]