Special Subject – Noirvember Sirk – LURED (1947); SLEEP, MY LOVE (1948); SHOCKPROOF (1949) and THUNDER ON THE HILL (1951)

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Our November Special Subject is Sirk Noir-vember: four noir or noir-adjacent movies directed by Douglas Sirk in the late 1940s/early 50s: Lured (1947), Sleep, My Love (1948), Shockproof (1949), and Thunder on the Hill (1951). We discuss to what extent these films can be considered “auteur” works and in what ways they qualify as noirs; Sirk’s use of actor personas and his own “acteur” theory; the relative merits of Sam Fuller’s and Harry Cohn’s ideas about how to end a movie; nun movie tropes; and much more. 

Time Codes:

0h 1m 00s:        Sirk in Hollywood

0h 6m 34s:        LURED (1947) [dir. Douglas Sirk]

0h 31m 54s:      SLEEP, MY LOVE (1948) [dir. Douglas Sirk]

0h 45m 02s:      SHOCKPROOF (1949) [dir. Douglas Sirk]

0h 57m 39s:      THUNDER ON THE HILL (1951) [dir. Douglas Sirk]

 

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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! 

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Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – 20th Century Fox – 1941: I WAKE UP SCREAMING & CONFIRM OR DENY + FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Palm Beach Story (1942) and Melody of Murder (1944)

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American involvement in WWII is imminent at the time of these 20th Century Fox selections from late 1941 for this Studios Year by Year episode, producing what may be the first “true” noir, I Wake Up Screaming (directed by H. Bruce Humberstone), and a plea for American solidarity with England, war correspondent movie Confirm or Deny (directed by Archie Mayo, from a story co-written by Samuel Fuller). We talk about what it might mean to be a “true” noir and what might differentiate the Fox noir from the noirs of other studios, about the very special screen presence of Joan Bennett (entering her noir phase), and about cozy war films. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment we briefly discuss three movies: Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (directed by Richard Brooks), Preston Strurges’ The Palm Beach Story, and Bodil Ipsen’s Melody of Murder. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:      I WAKE UP SCREAMING (dir. H. Bruce Humberstone)

0h 42m 23s:      CONFIRM OR DENY (dir. Archie Mayo)

1h 04m 12s:      FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Palm Beach Story (1942) and Melody of Murder  (1944)

 

 

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

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

                                   

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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 therebuggy@gmail.com

 

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

 

Check out this episode!

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Acteurist oeuvre-view – Jean Arthur – Part 9: TOO MANY HUSBANDS (1940) and ARIZONA (1940)

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This week’s Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode is a directed-by-Wesley Ruggles double feature of disparate genres: the bigamy farce Too Many Husbands and the epic Western Arizona (both 1940). Although the films, both with screenplays by Ruggles’ frequent collaborator Claude Binyon, interrogate marriage and gender respectively, one ends with the reassertion of patriarchal authority, while the other… fails to stick to its (or her) guns. We talk about Ruggles’ special version of the romantic comedy triangle, Jean Arthur’s erotic face journeys, and the limits of Hollywood’s tolerance for gender nonconformity in female stars. 

Time Codes:

0h 1m 00s:        TOO MANY HUSBANDS [dir. Wesley Ruggles]

0h 25m 48s:      ARIZONA [dir. Wesley Ruggles]

 

+++

* 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!

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Warner Brothers – 1941: THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE (dir. Raoul Walsh) and MANPOWER (dir. Raoul Walsh)

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For our Warner Bros. 1941 episode we watched two Raoul Walsh love triangle movies: Manpower, in which Edward G. Robinson pines for Marlene Dietrich, who pines for George Raft; and one of Dave’s all-time faves, The Strawberry Blonde, in which Olivia de Havilland pines for James Cagney, who pines for Rita Hayworth. We discuss Walsh’s treatment of women as desiring subjects; the productive tension between acteur and studi-auteur in the pairing of Dietrich and Warner Bros.; Walsh’s unHawksian take on male dynamics in dangerous workplaces, and more. But what makes these uniquely Warner Bros. pictures? You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out. 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:      THE STRAWBERRY BLONDE [dir. Raoul Walsh]

0h 44m 26s:      MANPOWER [dir. Raoul Walsh]

 

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by John Douglas Eames

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 »