James Stewart

  • Anthony Mann – The Glenn Miller Story (1954)

    1951-1960Anthony MannClassicsDramaUSA

    Synopsis:
    Glenn Miller (James Stewart) is a poor trombone player with dreams of fame. Eventually, through years of hard work and determination, he is able to start his own band, and they become one of the most successful groups of the big-band era. With a beautiful wife (June Allyson) and one of the biggest songs in America, “Moonlight Serenade,” Miller has it all. But at the onset of World War II, Miller enlists, giving up his fame and success to help entertain the troops stationed in Europe.Read More »

  • Henry Koster – No Highway AKA No Highway in the Sky (1951)

    1951-1960DramaHenry KosterThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Theodore Honey is an aeronautical engineer being sent to Labrador from London to examine the wreckage of a new passenger plane designed by his company. His theory is that the planes are susceptible to metal fatigue after a specific amount of time in the air. The absent minded Honey boards the Reindeer class plane and only realizes that this plane is due to fail in the next few hours after the plane is airborne. He decides to warn the crew and creates an incident regardless of whether he is right or wrong.Read More »

  • Anthony Mann – The Man from Laramie (1955)

    1951-1960Anthony MannClassicsUSAWestern

    Synopsis:
    Mysterious Will Lockhart delivers supplies to storekeeper Barbara Waggoman at Coronado, an isolated town in Apache country. Before long, he’s tangled with Dave Waggoman, vicious son of autocratic rancher Alec and cousin of sweet Barbara. But he sticks around town, his presence a catalyst for changes in people’s lives, searching for someone he doesn’t know…who’s been selling rifles to the Apaches.Read More »

  • William Keighley – No Time for Comedy (1940)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyScrewball ComedyUnited KingdomWilliam Keighley

    Synopsis:
    Playwright Gaylord Esterbrook scores a hit with his first Broadway play, both with the critics and with leading lady Linda Paige. He and Linda are happily married until a patroness of the arts convinces Esterbrook to forget about comedy and concentrate on writing a tragedy. The end result nearly destroys his career and his marriage.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

    1951-1960Alfred HitchcockThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Ben McKenna (James Stewart), his wife Jo (Doris Day) and their boy Hank ride a bus bound for Marrakech. When the boy accidentally yanks the veil off a Moroccan woman, a smooth talking Frenchman diffuses the situation. Ben reveals that he’s a doctor, attended a medical convention in Paris and is visiting North Africa for a change of scenery. The Frenchman invites the couple to dinner, but Jo confides to her husband that she finds the man suspicious.Read More »

  • Richard Quine – Bell Book and Candle (1958)

    1951-1960ComedyRichard QuineRomanceUSA


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    A Witch in Love; ‘Bell, Book and Candle’ at Fine Arts, Odeon

    THE magic in “Bell, Book and Candle,” which opened at the Fine Arts and Odeon Theatres on Christmas, is not so much black as chromatic. It’s the color that’s bewitching in this film.

    Actually, its story of a young lady who possesses some supernatural power, which she uses to inveigle a gentleman into falling in love with her, is neither as novel nor engaging as you might expect it to be. Pretty young ladies in movies are bewitching gaga fellows all the time with enticements and devices that are magic, so fas as the audience can tell. So the gimmick of John van Druten’s stage play, which has been used as the basis for this film — the gimmick of a woman endowed with witchcraft—is really rather silly and banal.Read More »

  • Ernst Lubitsch – The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

    USA1931-1940ClassicsErnst LubitschRomance

    The Budapest department store run by Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan) is a happy little society of salesclerks, where assistant manager Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and salesgirl Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) don’t at all see eye to eye. But in secret pen-pal letters they’re madly in love with one another, each hardly guessing who their mysterious secret admirer might be.Read More »

  • Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo [+Extras] (1958)

    1951-1960Alfred HitchcockAmos Vogel: Film as a Subversive ArtMysteryThrillerUSA

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    Review
    One of Hitchcock’s most discussed films. Retired police detective Stewart, who has a fear of heights, is hired by old school chum in San Francisco to keep an eye on his wife (Novak), eventually falls in love with his quarry and that’s just the beginning; to reveal more would be unthinkable. Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor scripted, from the novel D’entre les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Haunting, dream-like thriller, with riveting Bernard Herrmann score to match; a genuinely great motion picture that demands multiple viewings.Read More »

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