There's Sometimes a Buggy

For our November 2025 Special Subject we watched the Antoine Doinel films of François Truffaut: The 400 Blows (1959), Antoine et Colette (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), and Love on the Run (1979). In addition to the charms of star/auteur avatar Jean-Pierre Léaud, we focus on the films' evolving style and increasing interest in the women in Doinel's life. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto section we discuss Paul Leni's horror comedy The Cat and the Canary (1927) and a Hitchcock double feature, Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Saboteur (1942).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS / LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959) [dir. François Truffaut]

0h 28m 50s: ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962) [dir. François Truffaut]

0h 37m 30s: STOLEN KISSES / BAISERS VOLÉS (1968) [dir. François Truffaut]

0h 54m 42s: BED AND BOARD / DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) [dir. François Truffaut]

1h 05m 15s: LOVE ON THE RUN / L'AMOUR EN FUITE (1979) [dir. François Truffaut]

1h 19m 32s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary (1927) at TIFF Lightbox and Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943) at The Paradise

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 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!

Our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view continues with two 1955 liberal institutional melodramas: Stanley Kramer's Not as a Stranger, starring Robert Mitchum as a monomaniacally idealistic doctor, Olivia de Havilland as the wife he takes for granted, and Gloria as the Other Woman; and Vincente Minnelli's underrated The Cobweb, starring Richard Widmark as a monomaniacally idealistic psychiatrist, Gloria (in one of her best roles) as the wife he takes for granted, and Lauren Bacall as the Other Woman. The relatively counter-intuitive casting of the latter film is an indication of its greater subtlety, but the pairing of the two makes (so we hope) for interesting discussion. And then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we say goodbye to Diane Keaton (belatedly, by the time this episode will go up) with a viewing of Annie Hall and ask whether either its "feminist" or its "misogynous" reputations are deserved.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) [dir. Stanley Kramer]

0h 36m 29s: THE COBWEB (1955) [dir. Vincente Minnelli]

1h 03m 33s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Annie Hall (1977) by Woody Allen (Diane Keaton tribute at The Carlton Cinema)

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 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've got a Halloween Hangover on this week's episode, with two Universal 1932 horror movies, James Whale's The Old Dark House (based on a novel by J. B. Priestley) and Karl Freund's The Mummy, starring Karloff. We explore the curious tone, social themes, and stellar cast (including Charles Laughton, Ernest Thesiger, Eva Moore, Melvyn Douglas, and the excellent Lilian Bond) of Whale's Gothic oddity and The Mummy's connection to Dracula movie history. Then the hangover continues in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: we discuss our latest theatrical viewing of the great Dead of Night (1945) as well as a Canadian Thanksgiving viewing of the boomer classic The Big Chill (1983) for a different kind of grappling with mortality and confrontation with horror.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 35s: THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932) [dir. James Whale]

0h 35m 45s: THE MUMMY (1932) [dir. Karl Freund]

0h 58m 08s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Dead of Night (1945) by Basil Dearden, Cavalcanti, et al and The Big Chill (1983) by Lawrence Kasdan

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

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

1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

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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

Write to us at [email protected]

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

Our 2025 Halloween episode is a double feature in the "mentally disintegrating men" genre: in Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf, Max von Sydow is beset by some unusual vampires, and in Robert Bierman's Vampire's Kiss, Nicolas Cage becomes an even more unusual one. If people attempting to bite each other to death without proper vampire fangs is your idea of horror, this is the right Halloween film podcast episode for you. (And if it's not, watch these movies and you may change your mind.) If your idea of horror is desperately needing other people without being able to stand being around them then you've also come to the right Halloween episode.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) [dir. Ingmar Bergman]

0h 27m 18s: KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1988) [dir. Robert Bierman]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 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!

In this week's Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode our heroine reunites with Fritz Lang and Glenn Ford in Human Desire (1954), based on the Zola novel La bête humaine, which was more faithfully filmed by Renoir in 1938. We debate the relative merits of the two adaptations as well as the potential weakness that links them. Then we turn to the quirky little noir Naked Alibi (also 1954, co-starring Sterling Hayden), in which Gloria gets to be the hero against a thoroughly incoherent backdrop to which we apply some scattershot social analysis. Irresponsible opinions galore await the courageous listener!

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: HUMAN DESIRE (1954) [dir. Fritz Lang]

0h 28m 43s: NAKED ALIBI (1954) [dir. Jerry Hopper]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 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!

In this RKO 1932 Studios Year by Year episode we discuss a couple of trademark Selznick productions: What Price Hollywood?, the first iteration of the A Star Is Born story, starring Constance Bennett as the rising star Mary Evans, "America's pal," and Lowell Sherman as her tormented director mentor; and The Animal Kingdom, based on the Philip Barry play, with Leslie Howard, Ann Harding, and Myrna Loy in a highbrow Pre-Code love triangle. Marriage takes a real beating in these rare movies exploring alternative kinds of loving relationships between women and men. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we cover the second new movie we've seen in 2025, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 35s: WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (1932) [dir. George Cukor]

0h 28m 33s: THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (1932) [dir. Edward H. Griffith]

1h 00m 00s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another (2025)

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

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

1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

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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

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 Gloria Grahame episode sees our acteur making some questionable career decisions: a rare headlining role in Columbia's Orientalist stinker Prisoners of the Casbah (1953), displaying a phenomenal lack of chemistry with Turhan Bey; and a micro-role in intriguing British heist noir The Good Die Young (1954) as a pragmatic actress tormenting husband John Ireland with her indifference. We find what there is to like in this quality dip, or, failing that, what there is to mock.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: PRISONERS OF THE CASBAH (1953) [dir. Richard L. Bare]

0h 18m 43s: THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (1954) [dir. Lewis Gilbert]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 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 1932 Fox Studios Year by Year episode we watched Frank Borzage's unloved Young America, an idiosyncratic, primitive melodrama starring Spencer Tracy as a wealthy drugstore owner at odds with a disadvantaged delinquent, and Passport to Hell, Fox's surprisingly good take on the Sternberg-Dietrich formula, starring Elissa Landi as a woman of ill repute at odds with the colonial authorities in German West Africa. No rural themes in sight in this episode, just the tribulations and heroism of the underdog.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 35s: YOUNG AMERICA (1932) [dir. Frank Borzage]

0h 28m 14s: PASSPORT TO HELL (1932) [dir. Frank Lloyd]

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Fox Film Corporation: 1915-1935 by Aubrey Solomon

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

1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

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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

Write to us at [email protected]

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

In this week's episode of the Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, our heroine battles an organized crime ring in Fritz Lang's classic noir The Big Heat and the Soviets, or in any case her beleaguered circus capitalist husband, Fredric March, in Elia Kazan's Man on a Tightrope (both 1953). Dave and Elise are somewhat at odds about the effectiveness of Tightrope's anti-censorship message, but united on the effectiveness of Lang's use of the noir genre, and Grahame, to depict heroism in a world familiar with the horrors of fascism.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: Man on a Tightrope (1953) [dir. Elia Kazan]

0h 22m 10s: THE BIG HEAT (1953) [dir. Fritz Lang]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 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!

Our Special Subject for September 2025 led us to watch a couple of wartime British films starring Laurence Olivier and his amazing accents: Québécois in Powell and Pressburger's The 49th Parallel (1941), which opposes a Platonic Idea of Canada to Nazi ideology, and Russian in Anthony Asquith's The Demi-Paradise (1943), an alarmingly Soviet-friendly use of the romantic comedy genre to promote cross-cultural understanding. The accents may lack technical accuracy (much like the films' depictions of various cultures), but the ideas on display are worth grappling with and the presentation entertaining, while Olivier himself is rivetingly eccentric and weirdly endearing. Other notable players include FOP Penelope Dudley-Ward, Margaret Rutherford, Glynis Johns, Leslie Howard, Felix Aylmer and Powell/Pressburger regulars Eric Portman and Anton Walbrook.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: The 49th Parallel (1941) [dir. Michael Powell]

0h 43m 38s: THE DEMI-PARADISE (1943) [dir. Antohny Asquith]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* 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 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!

st drop us a line if you'd like to join!