Special Subject – Heavy Metalious Hallowe’en – Peyton Place (Novel), PEYTON PLACE (1957) & PEYTON PLACE TV series

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For our Halloween 2023 episode, we take you on a tour of Peyton Place—the 1956 novel by Grace Metalious, 1957 Fox movie starring Lana Turner, and the mid-late-60s TV series starring Dorothy Malone and Mia Farrow (among many others) that reinvented television. We discuss the strange journey of Metalious’s scabrous and scathing vision from satire to soap opera, in the course of which the story of shack-dweller Selena Cross’s violation by her stepfather becomes the story of lower-middle-class Betty Anderson’s resentful ambition, while ostensible protagonist Allison MacKenzie goes from being a bit of a jerk to being a nightmare of willfulness. But which versions of the story influenced David Lynch the most? We give our surmises. 

 

Time Codes:

0h 00m 45s:    Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

0h 42 m 52s:   PEYTON PLACE (1957) [dir. Mark Robson]

1h 02m 26s:    PEYTON PLACE – TV SERIES (1964 to 1969)

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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! 

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! 

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Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – RKO – 1944: PASSPORT TO DESTINY & NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART

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This week’s RKO 1944 episode brings a Hollywood slant to an English working-class perspective on the war. In her only first-billed feature film role, in Passport to Destiny, Elsa Lanchester plays an indomitable charwoman who embarks upon a self-appointed mission to assassinate Hitler after coming to believe that she’s magically protected, while in None But the Lonely Heart, American playwright Clifford Odets’ directorial debut, Cary Grant plays a Cockney dreamer who struggles with the reality of lower-class life during the Depression after trying to settle down and take care of his dying mother. We discuss the similarity in style and subject matter between None But the Lonely Heart and the poetic realist films of 1930s French cinema, and the curiosity of this underrated art movie being made by RKO so soon after its infamous entanglement with Orson Welles’ similarly grim and poetic Magnificent Ambersons. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Dave start crying by recounting a crying scene, this is your chance. 

Time Codes:

0h 00m 45s:      RKO in 1944

0h 05m 12s:      PASSPORT TO DESTINY [dir. Ray McCarey]

0h 19m 22s:      NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART [dir. Clifford Odets]

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

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 – Lilli Palmer – Part 2: COMMAND PERFORMANCE (1937) & CRACKERJACK (1938)

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Our second Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode sees the rising young star second-billed as the love interest in a couple of strange enterprises: Command Performance (1937), a vehicle for popular American tenor Arthur Tracy, and Crackerjack (1938), an unhinged crime comedy starring Aldwych farces alumnus Tom Walls as a criminal superhero. As Lilli tries to orient herself in film acting, Dave and Elise try to orient themselves in this unfamiliar territory of 30s British cinema and its popular figures. 

Time Codes:

0h 00m 45s:    General Lilli Palmer talk + a little from Change Lobsters and Dance (Palmer’s autobiography)

0h 04m 17s:    COMMAND PERFORMANCE (1937) [dir. Sinclair Hill]

0h 25m 12s:    CRACKERJACK (1938) [dir. Albert de Courville]

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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! 

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 »

Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – 20th Century Fox – 1944: THE EVE OF ST. MARK & IN THE MEANTIME, DARLING

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Our Fox 1944 episode features a prestige production, The Eve of St. Mark, based on a Maxwell Anderson play and directed by John Stahl, and a modest marital drama, In the Meantime, Darling, directed by Otto Preminger just before he makes a name for himself in noir with Laura. Between the two, the problems facing the men at the front and the women who love them are covered, as well as the kinds of moral dilemmas each might face. We discuss Preminger’s handling of Jeanne Craine’s character, and Bosley Crowther (back to being Nemesis of the Pod) inadvertently describes John Stahl’s distinctive style/outlook.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 45s:      THE EVE OF ST. MARK [dir. John M. Stahl]

0h 33m 04s:      IN THE MEANTIME, DARLING [dir. Otto Preminger]      

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of 20^th Century-Fox by Aubrey Solomon & Tony Thomas  

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 »