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Archive for July, 2022

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In this week’s Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we look at two more movies from 1935, Public Hero No. 1 (directed by J. Walter Ruben for MGM) and Diamond Jim (directed by A. Edward Sutherland for Universal, with a screenplay by Preston Sturges). In the first, Arthur injects some screwball swagger into a Code-era gangster drama with an FBI agent hero; in the second, she has a dual role as the love(s) of Edward Arnold’s life. We consider the qualities Arthur brings to these films, for which she was loaned out by Columbia, and marvel at the dark oddity of Diamond Jim, made not long before the advent of the post-Laemmle banker regime at Universal that thwarted Preston Struges’ first shot at directing. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:  PUBLIC HERO NO. 1 (1935) [dir. J. Walter Ruben]

0h 30m 17s:  DIAMOND JIM (1935) {dir. A. Edward Sutherland]

+++

* 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 therebuggy@gmail.com

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

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »

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Our Special Subject for this month, Duels in Max Ophüls, covers films from all three decades of the itinerant filmmaker’s career: Liebelei (1933), made in Germany; Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), made in Hollywood; and Madame de… (1953), made in France. We consider the proposition that Ophüls’ films are about superficially superficial people, and examine the evolution of a certain set of characters and scenarios in these three films dealing with the subject of tragic love and its (futile?) transformative effects. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:  LIEBELEI (1934) [dir. Max Ophüls]

0h 37m 18s:  LETTER FROM AN UNKOWN WOMAN (1948) [dir. Max Ophüls]

0h 59m 41s:  THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE… (1953) [dir. Max Ophüls]

 

+++

* 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 therebuggy@gmail.com

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

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »

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Our Warner Bros. 1940 episode this time is a Bette Davis double feature in which Bette plays the Other Woman in two melodramas based on real-life sex-and-murder scandals, but the Wronged Woman in only one. We discuss the combination of sexual repression and critique of colonialism in Wlliam Wyler’s The Letter and Anatole Litvak’s study of societal constraints and thwarted romance with the very different setting of the last years of the Orléans monarchy in mid-19th century Paris, All This, and Heaven Too. Then, in a quick and dirty Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we evaluate David Cronenberg’s mind-fuck gaming movie, eXistenZ, from 1999 (with spoilers, so skip it if you want your mind to be a virgin for the experience). 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:      THE LETTER [dir. William Wyler]

0h 41m 01s:      ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO [dir. Anatole Litvak]

1h 10m 09s:      Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – eXistenZ (1999) by David Cronenberg

 

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers 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 therebuggy@gmail.com

 

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

 

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »

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In our second Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, Arthur moves into her A-picture period at Columbia with John Ford’s curious comedy/crime melodrama, The Whole Town’s Talking, starring Edward G. Robinson in a dual role, and Erle C. Kenton’s Children’s Hour-reminiscent Party Wire. While we see more of the familiar Arthur comedy persona emerge in The Whole Town’s Talking, she gets to show off her quiet moral authority and perspicacity in Party Wire, playing a woman who becomes the victim of town gossip. We make the case for Party Wire as a small-town satire worthy of standing alongside Stevens’ Alice Adams, Sturges’ The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, and Billy Wilder’s Kiss Me, Stupid, and find more evidence for the secret feminism of Harry Cohn. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:  THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING (1935) [dir. John Ford]

0h 25m 41s: PARTY WIRE (1935) [dir. Erle C. Kenton]

0h 55m 31s:  Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto

 

+++

* 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 therebuggy@gmail.com

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

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »