Episodi

  • In this Paramount 1948 episode we dig deep to get the stories behind the stories of two great film noirs starring Ray Milland: The Big Clock (directed by John Farrow), based on a novel by Depression-era poet and Communist Party fellow traveler Kenneth Fearing, and So Evil My Love (directed by Lewis Allen), a historical noir/Gothic melodrama based on a novel by the prolific and many-pseudonymed Marjorie Bowen. We discuss the ways in which the source authors' viewpoints make for fascinating deviations from standard Hollywood treatment of capitalism and gender.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: SO EVIL, MY LOVE [dir. Lewis Allen]

    0h 33m 22s: THE BIG CLOCK [dir. John Farrow]

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

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • For our second Paul Robeson Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we watched The Emperor Jones (1933), a film by Dudley Murphy loosely based on the Eugene O'Neill play, and the Kordas' Sanders of the River (1935), an experience that proved crucial in Robeson's own political education. We discuss the Modernist appropriation of African culture and the figure of the African American, methods of rationalizing British colonialism, and the kinds of protagonist roles available for a Black actor of Paul Robeson's popularity with white audiences in the first half of the 20th century.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: THE EMPEROR JONES (1933) [dir. Dudley Murphy]

    0h 23m 45s: SANDERS OF THE RIVER (1935) [dir. Zoltan Korda]

    +++

    * 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!

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  • We devoted our 2024 September Special Subject to American silent film auteur Lois Weber. We discuss four films, the allegorical Hypocrites (1915), which created a sensation at the time with its full-frontal female nudity, and three films that showcase Weber's progressive Christian social vision, Where Are My Children? (1916), which confusedly tackles the subjects of birth control and abortion, and the masterpieces Shoes (1916) and The Blot (1921), dramas centered on the consciousness of women that deal respectively with working-class and genteel poverty.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: Brief Introduction: Lois Weber

    0h 05m 07s: HYPOCRITES (1915) [dir. Lois Weber]

    0h 18m 09s: WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN? (1916) [dir. Lois Weber]

    0h 27m 56s: SHOES (1916) [dir. Lois Weber]

    0h 40m 26s: THE BLOT (1921) [dir. Lois Weber]

    +++

    * 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 1947 Universal Studios Year by Year episode, a little Ella Raines never hurt no one: we struggle to understand her role in the intermittently riveting Gothic melodrama Time Out of Mind (stylishly directed by Robert Siodmak), while Edmond O'Brien struggles to understand her role in Vincent Price's life in The Web, a white-collar film noir directed by future blacklistee Michael Gordon.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: TIME OUT OF MIND [dir. Robert Siodmak]

    0h 20m 07s: THE WEB [dir. Michael Gordon]

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • The first episode of our Paul Robeson Acteurist Oeuvre-view series has a high context-to-text ratio, as we introduce one of the most important figures in entertainment and political activism of the 20th century. The two movies we look at, Oscar Micheaux's Body and Soul (1925) and Kenneth Macpherson's Borderline (1930), by auteurs from radically different backgrounds with radically different aims, provide a fascinating glimpse of the spectrum of possibilities for independent cinema in the late silent era.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: Brief Introduction to Paul Robeson

    0h 08m 53s: BODY & SOUL (1925) [dir. Oscar Micheaux]

    0h 34m 03s: BORDERLINE (1930) [dir. Kenneth Macpherson]

    References:

    Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary by Gerald Horne

    “The Homesteader” article in The Believer by Will Sloan

    +++

    * 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 been waiting for this episode, a 1947 RKO noir double bill with two of the all-time greats, Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past, in which Robert Mitchum's cool detective and Jane Greer’s psychopathic moll work at cross purposes in their attempts to escape their shady pasts so that they can be free to love, and Robert Wise's Born to Kill, in which Claire Trevor's morally flexible social climber and Lawrence Tierney's paranoid psychopath just work at cross purposes. Elise agrees with Bosley Crowther that Born to Kill, one of her Top 10 favourite movies, "is not only morally disgusting but is an offense to a normal intellect," but will Dave be able to convince her that Out of the Past is "flawless"?

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: BORN TO KILL [dir. Robert Wise]

    1h 07m 09s: OUT OF THE PAST [dir. Jacques Tourneur]

    1h 35m 31s: Listener Communiqué

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

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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 went deep for our second King Vidor Special Subject episode, looking at four films from the 1930s: Street Scene (1931), adapted by Elmer Rice from his famous stage play about working-class New Yorkers; the little-known Cynara (1932), starring Ronald Colman as a kindly upper-middle-class man who stumbles into adultery and the abyss; Our Daily Bread (1934), Vidor's eccentric, self-produced response to the Great Depression; and Stella Dallas, one of the great woman's pictures, centered on one of Barbara Stanwyck's greatest performances. Class, gender, transformation of consciousness, and how they're served by melodrama story structures all come in for examination as we find links with the films of other auteurs, from Ozu to Lynch. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we take a quick look at monster movie tropes and James Cameron's masochistic feminism in The Terminator. All this and more feedback on our Lilli Palmer series!

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: More general musings on Vidor

    0h 05m 49s: STREET SCENE (1931) [dir. King Vidor]

    0h 26m 44s: CYNARA (1932) [dir. King Vidor]

    0h 45m 32s: OUR DAILY BREAD (1934) [dir. King Vidor]

    1h 00m 46s: STELLA DALLAS (1937) [dir. King Vidor]

    1h 39m 13s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984)

    1h 45m 23s: Listener Communiqués

    +++

    * 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 final Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode is an odd one, with Dave arguing for the value of John Frankenheimer's The Holcroft Covenant (1985), a Nazi conspiracy thriller from a novel by Robert Ludlum, and Elise arguing for the value of The Other Side of the Wind (2018), Orson Welles' startling comeback film-that-never-was. Then we give our favourite Lilli Palmer films, with rationales, and respond to some listener communiqués.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: THE HOLCROFT COVENANT (1985) [dir. John Frankenheimer]

    0h 22m 19s: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (2018) [dir. Orson Welles]

    0h 58m 27s: Lilli Palmer Top 10s; Letter from Listener Steven

    +++

    * 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!

  • This Fox 1947 Studios Year by Year episode looks at two examples of the docu-noir: Boomerang! (directed by Elia Kazan), starring Dana Andrews as a prosecuting attorney who has to decide between morality and political expedience; and Kiss of Death (directed by Henry Hathaway), in which Victor Mature's sympathetic gangster is menaced by Richard Widmark's psychopathic gangster and the legal system. Then another oddball assortment of movies in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), and Spellbound (1945).

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: BOOMERANG! [dir. Elia Kazan]

    0h 27m 35s: KISS OF DEATH [dir. Henry Hathaway]

    0h 54m 55s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022) by Daniel Scheinert & Daniel Kwan; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) by Mike Nichols and Spellbound (1945) by Alfred Hitchcock

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of Twentieth Century-Fox by Aubrey Solomon and Tony Thomas

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • Our penultimate Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode brings us Lilli as a protagonist again at last, in Lotte in Weimar (1975), based on the Thomas Mann novel, and Lilli Lite in The Boys from Brazil (1978), an outrageous anti-Nazi sci fi story in which Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck wage an epic battle (and also get into a very brutal girl-fight). And this week's Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto is a real smorgasbord: Saturday Night Fever, Coffy, It Happened One Night, and Beverly Hills Cop. From the charm of young John Travolta to screwball brutality and from exploitation auteurism to... the charm of young Eddie Murphy. We've got the movie talk you crave!

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 35s: LOTTE IN WEIMAR (1975) [dir. Egon Gunther]

    0h 32m 51s: THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978) [dir. Franklin J. Schaffner]

    0h 50m 08s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Saturday Night Fever (1977) by John Badham; Coffy (1973) by Jack Hill; It Happened One Night (1934) by Frank Capra; and Beverly Hills Cop (1984) by Martin Brest

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of Twentieth Century-Fox by Aubrey Solomon and Tony Thomas

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • This Warner Bros. 1947 Studios Year by Year episode features two gems that put their own particular slant on noir's familiar theme of murderous conflict between women and men: Curtis Bernhardt's Possessed, starring a more-than-usually deranged Joan Crawford, with Van Heflin as the rakish object of her obsession, and Delmer Daves' Dark Passage, starring an unusually passive Humphrey Bogart as a man convicted of killing his wife, with Lauren Bacall as an eccentric socialite who decides to help him. And in our Fear and Moviegoing segment, a real clash of moods: Ridley Scott's terrifying sci-fi/horror classic Alien and Wong Kar-wai's whimsical romantic comedy (of a sort) Chungking Express. Though admittedly it also has its terrifying aspects. (If only Van Heflin had been charmed by Crawford's fixation, how differently it could have gone!)

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 35s: POSSESSED [dir. Curtis Bernhardt]

    0h 41m 53s: DARK PASSAGE [dir. Delmer Daves]

    1h 11m 24s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Alien (1979) by Ridley Scott at the TIFF Lightbox and Chungking Express (1994) by Wong Kar-wai at the Revue Cinema

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • Our second Anna Magnani Sampler includes three Hollywood films, two with parts written for her by her friend Tennessee Williams, as well as the second film directed by Pasolini: The Rose Tattoo (1955), Wild is the Wind (1957), The Fugitive Kind (1960), and Mamma Roma (1962). Paired with a wacky Burt Lancaster, a bullying Anthony Quinn, a quietly intense Brando, or a nihilistic teenager, Magnani takes on such enemies as the racist South, patriarchy, and the class system with varying results, but always with ferocity and gusto.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: THE ROSE TATTOO (1955) [dir. Daniel Mann]

    0h 23m 03s: WILD IS THE WIND (1957) [dir. George Cukor]

    0h 37m 34s: THE FUGITIVE KIND (1960) [dir. Sidney Lumet]

    0h 52m 55s: MAMMA ROMA (1962) [dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini]

    +++

    * 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 episode of our Lilli Palmer Acteur-ist Oeuvre-view series, we watched a couple of 1969 movies somewhere on the horror spectrum: De Sade, a movie of ideas that doesn't live up to them, written by famed horror/sci fi author Richard Matheson; and The House That Screamed, an Italian slasher with a twist or two to recommend it. Good parts for Lilli Palmer in a couple of seriously silly movies. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, Fast Times at Ridgemont High leads Elise to go on a weird despairing rant about teenagers and sex (if she does say so herself). Come for the irresponsible opinions, stay for the bumper butt orgies.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: DE SADE (1969) [dir. Cy Endfield]

    0h 26m 13s: THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (1969) [dir. Narciso Ibanez Serrador

    0h 42m 03s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) by Amy Heckerling

    +++

    * 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 MGM 1947 Studios Year by Year episode, we discuss Cynthia, a gentle family melodrama starring a luminous 15-year-old Elizabeth Taylor as an over-protected teenager, and High Wall, a psychiatric film noir with great roles for Robert Taylor and Herbert Marshall as sweaty noir protagonists at cross purposes. Our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, meanwhile, features discussion of two radically different films: James Cameron's Terminator 2 and a 4K restoration of Vittorio de Sica's influential early neorealist drama Shoeshine. Realist horrors or horror fantasy, take your pick!

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: CYNTHIA [dir. Robert Z. Leonard]

    0h 38m 15s: HIGH WALL [dir. Curtis Bernhardt]

    1h 01m 44s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) by James Cameron at TIFF Lightbox and Shoeshine (1946) by Vittorio De Sica at The Revue Cinema

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

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • After some rocky episodes, our Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view uncovers a couple of gems: Nobody Runs Forever aka The High Commissioner (1968, directed by Ralph Thomas), a spy thriller bursting at the seams with the charms of Rod Taylor and Christopher Plummer, and Hard Contract (1969, the only feature film made by writer-director S. Lee Pogostin), one of the most eccentric movies we've ever seen, a meditation on love, murder, and modern life with Lee Remick and James Coburn as an improbably moving pair of lovers. Lilli Palmer adds her own flavour of eccentricity to Hard Contract as Remick's "immorally innocent" friend and makes a big impact as Christopher Plummer's wife in Nobody Runs Forever.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: NOBODY RUNS FOREVER (1968) [dir. Ralph Thomas]

    0h 25m 53s: HARD CONTRACT (1969) [dir. S. Lee Pogostin]

    +++

    * 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 Paramount 1947 Studios Year by Year episode we watch a couple of films by producer/director team of Seton I. Miller and John Farrow: California, starring the belligerent sexual tension of Barbara Stawyck and Ray Milland in a left-leaning fable about the establishment of law and order in the West Coast, and Calcutta, a terrific Alan Ladd/Gail Russell noir, stylishly shot by Billy Wilder fave John F. Seitz.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: CALIFORNIA [dir. John Farrow]

    0h 25m 44s: CALCUTTA [dir: John Farrow]

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

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • For our June Special Subject we revisit the work of Kenji Mizoguchi, looking at two films from earlier than his best-known (in the West) period: The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939), about cross-class lovers and what it takes to become a great artist, and The 47 Ronin (1941), based on a true story that became emblematic of samurai values. Topics discussed include King Vidor parallels, feminism, Marxism, revenge tragedy, and propaganda and its subversion.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 35s: Brief Mizoguchi briefing

    0h 08m 00s: THE STORY OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM (1939) [dir. Kenji Mizoguchi]

    0h 42m 11s: THE 47 RONIN (1941) [dir. Kenji Mizoguchi]

    +++

    * 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!

  • This week's Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view sees Lilli in two small but crucial roles: Sebastian (1968), starring Dirk Bogarde as a Cold War cryptanalyst of divided political loyalties, and Oedipus Rex (1968), starring Christopher Plummer as Freud's favourite plaything of the gods. We discuss Cold War politics, the Swinging Sixties New Woman, free will, and the perils of adapting ancient Greek tragedy. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we briefly discuss the final Powell Pressburgers of TIFF cinematheque's retrospective, A Matter of Life and Death and Canadiana curiosity 49th Parallel, as well as Elise's first big-screen Cassavetes, A Woman Under the Influence, and how no one should ever have parties.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: SEBASTIAN (1968) [dir. David Greene]

    0h 23m 17s: OEDIPUS THE KING (1968) [dir. Philip Saville]

    0h 44m 11s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and 49th Parallel (1941) by Powell & Pressburger; A Woman Under the Influence (1974) by John Cassavetes

    +++

    * 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 Universal 1946 episode, we chose a B-movie double bill, The Cat Creeps (directed by Erle C. Kenton, best known for Island of Lost Souls) and She-Wolf of London (directed by Jean Yarbrough, Abbott and Costello specialist), hoping for hidden gems. But did we find any? And in the Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, our Powell and Pressburger retrospective viewing continues with Black Narcissus and Michael Powell's notorious investigation of cinema, voyeurism, and violence, Peeping Tom.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: THE CAT CREEPS [dir. Erle C. Kenton]

    0h 12m 00s: SHE-WOLF OF LONDON [dir. Jean Yarbrough]

    0h 26m 03s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Black Narcissus (1947) by Powell and Pressburger and Peeping Tom (1960) by Michael Powell

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe 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!

  • In this week's Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we encounter more Nazis in a couple of movies very loosely based on real WWII incidents: Disney's Miracle of the White Stallions (1963), based on Operation Cowboy (but with the equine eugenics shoved into the subtext), and Operation Crossbow (1965), about the attempt by British Intelligence to stop the threat of Nazi rockets. Sophia Loren shares a great scene with Lilli Palmer in the latter, but to say more would be spoilers. In Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss our viewings of two more Powell Pressburgers, A Canterbury Tale and The Tales of Hoffman, plus an adjacent film, The Thief of Bagdad (1940), a Korda production co-directed by Powell and starring Sabu and Rex Ingram.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 30s: MIRACLE OF THE WHITE STALLIONS (1963) [dir. Arthur Hiller]

    0h 21m 17s: OPERATION CROSSBOW (1965) [dir. Michael Anderson]

    0h 35m 04s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: The Thief of Bagdad (1940) by Michael Powell, Tim Whelan & Ludwig Berger and A Canterbury Tale (1944) and Tales of Hoffman (1951) by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

    +++

    * 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!