It’s impossible to love musicals and not revere Fred Astaire. The epitome of elegance, Astaire was an actor, singer, choreographer, fashion icon and one of the greatest dancers in film history, whose 76 year-career encompassed 10 Broadway and West End shows, 31 musical films and dozens of recordings and TV appearances. He entered show business […]
Strike a Pose: Women’s Fashion at the Movies
Fashion Week recently descended on New York, which got me thinking about women’s clothes in film. The best costumes reveal a character’s tastes and temperament, the way she sees herself and the world sees her, before a single word is spoken. In The Blue Angel, cabaret singer Lola Lola’s top hat and tights embody Weimar […]
Gene Kelly in Motion
“Why don’t you and me do some fancy stepping tonight?” —Gabey (Gene Kelly) to Ivy (Vera-Ellen) in On the Town Grab your tap shoes: today is Gene Kelly’s 105th birthday. I’ve been a Kelly fan almost since infancy and after decades of assiduous viewing, it’s easier for me to name the musicals I haven’t seen […]
A Shortlist of Films I Wish Were in the Criterion Collection
The biannual Barnes and Noble Criterion Collection sale is now on. Or as I like to think of it, Christmas in July. Founded in 1984 the Criterion Collection, as the back of each of its DVDs and Blu-rays will tell you, is “a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films.” It’s a bespoke label […]
In Celebration of John Williams
Film music lovers, rejoice: John Williams, one of cinema’s greatest composers, turns 85 today. Born in Floral Park, New York, in 1932, Williams served in the Air Force, studied music at Juilliard and played jazz in New York City night clubs before moving to Los Angeles to work in film. He soon got a job […]
Once upon a midnight dreary: How to tell if you’re in a Poe cycle film
It’s Friday the 13th, day of dread, when mirrors shatter, all ladders are left suspiciously unattended and black cats leap from dark corners to startle the unwary. What better day to curl up with a little Edgar Allan Poe, courtesy of the good people at American International Pictures? Starting with House of Usher in 1960, […]
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang: Femme Fatales
“She was bad. She was dangerous. I wouldn’t trust her any further than I could throw her. But, she was my kind of woman.” -Rod Riley (Fred Astaire) in the ‘Girl Hunt’ ballet, The Band Wagon Happy Valentine’s Day! And what better day to celebrate femme fatales, those sinuous, cold-hearted, duplicitous sirens who lead hardboiled […]
A Brief History of Short Timespans
Monday was Groundhog Day, the quirky winter holiday that’s also synonymous with Bill Murray, timeloops and Sonny and Cher. In honour of Phil Connors’ endlessly repeating day, here are a few films which prove just how much can happen in twenty four hours. On the Town (1949) “There’s just one thing necessary in Manhattan/ When […]
The Six People You Meet in a Screwball Comedy
Watch enough screwball comedies and you might notice a pattern: the same people turn up over and over again. I don’t just mean actors—though Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Jean Arthur and Melvyn Douglas were ubiquitous—but characters. Blame it on endless plot recycling or the assembly-line nature of the studio system, but in the thirties and […]
Love, Laughter and Lubitsch: ‘Trouble in Paradise’ (1932), ‘Design for Living’ (1933) and ‘Ninotchka’ (1939)
Red roses, paper hearts and pink, pudgy teddy bears. Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but fear not. For those of you still in a romantic mood, might I suggest the work of legendary writer-director Ernst Lubitsch? Sly and sophisticated, the German émigré’s films offer an irresistible concoction of wit and intelligence- all delivered […]