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  • Don Siegel – Night Unto Night (1949)

    1941-1950ClassicsDon SiegelDramaUSA

    Stunning photography and Don Siegel’s direction make the most of an unusual overly melodramatic story starring Ronald Reagan as a scientist with epilepsy who goes to south Florida on doctor’s orders and meets a young woman, (Viveca Lindfors) recently widowed, who is haunted by the voice of her dead husband. Reagan rents her slightly dilapidated beach mansion and experiences several epileptic episodes, but tries his best to keep his condition a secret. Broderick Crawford’s role as an artist who lives close by verges on annoying as he goes on and on about art and life. Ossa Massen gives the film a boost as Lindfor’s scheming, jealous sister who tries seducing Reagan and later drunkenly blurts out his secret when she realizes that she can’t have him. The concluding hurricane arrives just in time, with all the main characters assembled for dinner in the creaky old mansion, and Reagan pushed to verge of suicide by the shame of his medical condition, while Lindfors begs him to reconsider.Read More »

  • Edward F. Cline – Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)

    1941-1950ClassicsComedyEdward F. ClineUSA

    One of 1941’s trio of great satires about filmmaking in Hollywood (along with Sullivan’s Travels and Hellzapoppin’) and probably the craziest of the lot. W. C. Fields wrote the story himself (under the pseudonym Otis Criblecoblis) and the film, which is coincidentally about W. C. Fields peddling a script he wrote himself to a frustrated studio boss (Franklin Pangborn), is probably the purest expression of his comic sensibility, starting with the iconic title.Read More »

  • George Sherman – New Frontier AKA Frontier Horizon (1939)

    1931-1940ActionGeorge ShermanUSAWestern

    The state government plans to build a flood-control dam and condemns the property of the local farmers and ranchers, including The Three Mesquiteers. The state intends to compensate the land-owners fairly, but a crooked real-estate promoter complicates things. The ranchers, led by Stony Brooke (‘John Wayne’ (q)), Tucson Smith (‘Ray Corrigan’) and Rusty Joslin (Raymond Hatton) fight back against both the law and the crooks.Read More »

  • Victor Saville & George White – My Gun Is Quick (1957)

    1951-1960CrimeGeorge WhiteMysteryUSAVictor Saville

    Million-Dollar DAMES…A Million-Buck HEIST!…A Million Volt SHOCKER!

    Detective Mike Hammer’s investigation of a murder puts him in the middle between warring jewel thieves.Read More »

  • Gene Fowler Jr. – Gang War (1958)

    1951-1960CrimeDramaGene Fowler Jr.USA

    Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
    In a seminal version of his Death Wish characterization, Charles Bronson plays Alan Avery, a mild-manned L.A. schoolteacher who elects to stay mum after witnessing a gangland slaying. Forced to testify against the killers by the cops, Avery is turn terrorized by the Mob, who subsequently bring about the death of Avery’s pregnant wife Edie (Gloria Henry). Meek and mild no longer, the outraged Avery embarks upon a one-man vendetta against the villains. The climax occurs in the posh mansion of gang boss Maxie Matthews (John Doucette)–who, as it turns out, isn’t really worth killing. Based on a novel by Ovid Demaris, Gang War was one of a group of inexpensive second features released by 20th Century-Fox for the drive-in crowd.Read More »

  • John Ford – My Darling Clementine (1946)

    1941-1950DramaJohn FordUSAWestern

    Quote:
    Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil ride into Tombstone and leave brother James in charge of their cattle herd. On their return they find their cattle stolen and James dead. Wyatt takes on the job of town marshal, making his brothers deputies, and vows to stay in Tombstone until James’ killers are found. He soon runs into the brooding, coughing, hard-drinking Doc Holliday as well as the sullen and vicious Clanton clan. Wyatt discovers the owner of a trinket stolen from James’ dead body and the stage is set for the Earps’ long-awaited revenge.Read More »

  • Rick Schmidt – Morgan’s Cake (1989)

    1981-1990ComedyCultRick SchmidtUSA

    Morgan is about to turn 18, he lives in a small room with his father, his girlfriend may be pregnant, his mother is indifferent, and he doesn’t want to register for the the draft. His dad shares a story of how he avoided military service in the late 1960’s.Read More »

  • Robert Downey Sr. – No More Excuses (1968)

    1961-1970ArthouseComedyRobert Downey Sr.USA

    Quote:
    Following the 1966 underground success of CHAFED ELBOWS, and before his (comparatively) mainstream trio of PUTNEY SWOPE, POUND and GREASER’S PALACE, director Robert Downey [a prince] and ELBOWS-editor Robert Soukis concocted this 46-minute cinematic goulash, which finally emerged from decades of obscurity thanks to The Criterion Collection, with a newly-restored print struck from the film’s only remaining 16mm copy.Read More »

  • Carol Reed – The Stars Look Down (1940)

    1931-1940Carol ReedDramaUnited Kingdom

    Plot Summary:
    Davey Fenwick leaves his mining village on a university scholarship intent on returning to better support the miners against the owners. But he falls in love with Jenny who gets him to marry her and return home as local schoolteacher before finishing his degree. Davey finds he is ill-at-ease in his role, the more so when he realises Jenny still loves her former boyfriend. When he finds that his father and the other miners are going to have to continue working on a possibly deadly coal seam he decides to act.Read More »

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