This post is part of the Second Van Johnson blogathon, hosted by Love Letters To Old Hollywood. See the other posts here. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” -‘Anthem’, Leonard Cohen In Miracle in the Rain, two strangers meet during a New York City downpour and fall in love. […]
A Very English Haunting: ‘Blithe Spirit’ (1945)
This post is part of the David Lean blogathon, hosted by Maddy Loves Her Classic Films. See the other posts here. When the ouija board made its commercial debut in the 1890s it was marketed as a parlour game. Charles Condomine takes a similarly playful approach to the supernatural in Blithe Spirit and unleashes havoc. […]
Death in the Snow: ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (1974)
This post is part of the Winter in July blogathon, hosted by Moon in Gemini. See the other posts here. The phrase ‘all-star cast’ can seem hackneyed these days, done to death alongside trailers that begin “in a world” and posters with faces overlaid with text. Yet Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express is […]
The Good Fight: ‘Foreign Correspondent’ (1940)
The post is part of the Second Annual Alfred Hitchcock blogathon, hosted by Maddy Loves Her Classic Films. See the other posts here. When it was released in August 1940, Foreign Correspondent was the most topical film Alfred Hitchcock had ever made. British troops had evacuated Dunkirk in May and early June. France and Norway […]
Hammer’s House of Horror: ‘The Brides of Dracula’ (1960), ‘The Gorgon’ (1964) and ‘Dracula: Prince of Darkness’ (1966)
Summer in New York and the streets are baking. Luckily, the Quad has been offering film buffs air-conditioned refuge, plus chills of a different kind: a series dedicated to Hammer, the British studio synonymous with Gothic horror. Founded in 1934, Hammer Film Productions churned out mysteries and adaptations of radio serials before finding its niche […]
The Walk to the Paradise Garden: ‘A Month in the Country’ (1987)
As the hundredth anniversary of the Armistice approaches the First World War slips further away. The last veterans are gone. A collective memory of trenches, poppies, lions led by donkeys, and Rupert Brooke giving way to Wilfred Owen remains. Yet the Great War, fought by those who never imagined there would be a greater one, […]
Songs of Enchantment: ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ (1951)
The Tales of Hoffmann exists in defiance of the commonplace. Steeped in magic, bright with beauty, it explodes like a flare, dazzling you with colour and sound. You emerge dazed and longing to see it all over again. Only Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger could have made it. In the 1940s and ‘50s Powell and […]
The Riddle Called Married Life: ‘Two for the Road’ (1967)
Two for the Road begins with a love affair gone sour then cycles back to when it began, skipping back and forth in time and through different phases: flirtation, rancour, complacency and newly-wedded bliss. The film is a non-linear slide into heartache. Driving through a small town, Mark (Albert Finney) and Joanna Wallace (Audrey Hepburn) […]
In the Mouth of Madness: ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ (1961)
How does a man go mad? In The Pit and the Pendulum the answer is inch by inch, like shadows creeping up a stair. A disintegrating mind is as terrifying as a haunted house. Francis Barnard (John Kerr) isn’t interested in ghosts. They interfere with facts. Sent word that his sister Elizabeth (Barbara Steele) has […]
To Boldly Spoof: ‘Galaxy Quest’ (1999)
This post is part of the Outer Space on Film Blogathon, hosted by Moon in Gemini. See the other posts here. Resistance is futile. Live long and prosper. By Grabthar’s hammer. The last of these is not like the others. Grabthar hails from Galaxy Quest, a cinematic love letter to Star Trek that boldly parodies […]
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