4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 3, 2021

Middle of The Night proves instantly placeable thanks to its black-and-white, New York streets aesthetic. Although the name Paddy Chayefsky, emblazoned over the credits, gives us as much of an inclination of the story we are about to experience. Because to this day, his name carries with it a hallo   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 1, 2021

Richard Quine’s Strangers When We Meet proves to be a Technicolor feast on par with much of what Nicholas Ray, Douglas Sirk, and Vincente Minnelli were putting out at the same time. A lot of the immediate joy comes with getting a feel for life at the time. Certainly, it’s...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 29, 2021

In our ongoing series of guides for up-and-coming classic movie fans, we turn our attention to one of the most alluring and iconic actresses from the Classic Hollywood period. Kim Novak, who is still alive and well today, started out in her early 20s as an answer to Marilyn Monroe,...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 27, 2021

A raspy vocal emanates from the screen verging on spoken word as it sings to a mambo-infused rhythm. Casual tracking shots lead us by the local architecture at the pace of a car ambling along on a Sunday afternoon. I only confirmed after the fact this is Tom Waits singing...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 25, 2021

One of the most revelatory aspects about becoming more familiar with Jim Jarmusch is how international his films are. At the very least, there’s this sense of them putting a lens to a broader cross-section of society. He is unequivocally American, but whether it’s because he’s a c   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 23, 2021

“These are words of the Lord…or the federal government.” Derek Webb has a song called “Spirit.” For anyone with a religious upbringing, it might conjure up the “Holy Ghost” — the Helper meant to fill up Christian faithful as they worship God in their   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 21, 2021

Spike Lee is an incredibly intelligent and perceptive director so he probably knew what he was doing. However, when I see Alec Baldwin playing a virulent racist, spewing out slurs, there’s this odd contradiction. Somehow it loses its import if that is what it was meant to have. Because I...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 19, 2021

“Awesome. A bus driver who likes Emily Dickinson.” This sincere pronouncement comes from a young girl — a fellow poet — as she leaves to go off with her mother and sister. She leaves behind Paterson (Adam Driver), a pensive bus driver, sitting on the brick wall, having gifte   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 18, 2021

This is my entry in the CMBA’s Hidden Classics Blogathon! The movie is built out of the opening juxtaposition. A youthful nun with an angelic countenance (Barbara Britton) lifts up supplications to her triune God asking for prayers on their behalf — herself and the host of children and   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 16, 2021

Thank you to Classic Film and TV Cafe for hosting this year’s 6 Films — 6 Decades Blogathon for National Classic Movie Day! It’s been a perennial enjoyment the last few years to hear the topic and then go to work curating a personal list. In keeping with the impetus...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 13, 2021

As I continue my mini odyssey considering the differences between the melodrama of John M. Stahl and Douglas Sirk, one of the finest exhibit pieces is an early scene in Magnificent Obsession. The beloved Dr. Hudson has died because the life-saving pulmotor he needed was being used on someone else.   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 11, 2021

The opening shot of Imitation of Life is memorable for its sheer novelty and the very simplicity of the space. It’s not an establishing shot of a place or a person. Instead, it’s of a rubber duck bobbing in the bathwater as a little girl whines about wanting her “Quack...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 8, 2021

Many might best remember Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor in the 1940 version of Waterloo Bridge. It’s immediately obvious this movie has a very different flavor from the outset. It’s an earthier more boisterous version of Waterloo Bridge before the Production Codes took their axes to the   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 6, 2021

“Are you thinking of allowing her to play Roxanne to your Cyrano?” – Van Hefflin to Robert Taylor Pretty faces don’t always add up to a quality movie and if you want to find where the faults lie, you might look between the players and the script then split the...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 4, 2021

If you’re like me, Waterloo conjures up a limited array of mental images. Napoleon and The Battle of Waterloo. The Kinks and Waterloo Sunset. That’s about the extent of it. Now I can add Vivien Leigh, Robert Taylor, and Waterloo Bridge to the list. Fittingly, our opening prologue begins   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 29, 2021

Unfinished Business commences with a wedding ceremony we’re trying to place. Because it is not Irene Dunne getting married, although she stretches her famed vocal cords in lieu of a wedding march. It is her baby sister — the girl she’s mothered her entire life up to this point. No   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 27, 2021

The Lynfield Bugle, led by their fearless leader Jed Waterbury (Thomas Mitchell), keeps their nose to the proverbial grindstone printing the news as it happens in “The Biggest Little Town in Connecticut.” Their latest act of rebellion constitutes printing a spread from the latest lurid   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 22, 2021

“Surely I can be a good son and a good husband.” Whether it means to or not, the opening interlude of The Silver Cord plays like a comic inversion of typical Hollywood. It opens in Heidelberg, and they make us blink; they’re actually speaking German and Irene Dunne is one...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 20, 2021

“There’s not one woman in a million who has ever found happiness in the back streets of any man’s life.” John M. Stahl is a bit of a neglected craftsman, even by me. Like others, I became aware of him solely for Leave Her to Heaven, a noirish technicolor melodrama...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 15, 2021

“Germany’s a pretty rough sea if you’re drifting.” – Breuer “But I’m not alone anymore. There are so many drifters!” – Patricia Hollmann Erich Maria Remarque is of course most famous for his work All Quiet on The Western Front, which was adapted   read more