4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 25, 2020

It was during a pit stop along a cross-country trip through the Petrified Forest that I first became aware of The Harvey Girls. Because you see, The Painted Desert Inn is a bit of a relic of the past, and it preserves a history of the famous waitresses who helped...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 22, 2020

With the CMBA Spring Blogathon being themed around classic movie comfort, I busied myself considering the types of movies that act as comfort films. Here before you, without too much deliberation, are five classics I would gladly share with anyone. They are movies that I own and return to for...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 20, 2020

Stormy Weather, as a musical, is nearly unprecedented, and to my knowledge, there is only one other film to truly rival it as a spectacular showcase for African-American talents during this same period. That would be MGM’s Cabin in the Sky (1943). But it’s not simply the case that this   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 17, 2020

Thank you HOLLYWOOD GENES for having me in the Ziegfeld Blogathon! Few would claim Ziegfeld Girl to be anything close to a landmark masterpiece, but it’s got star power in spades thanks to MGMs robust lineup during the war years and that alone, followed up with a few spunky numbers,...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 16, 2020

Thank you to the Classic Film and TV Cafe for having me! Following-up last year’s ode to the 1950s, I secretly relished the addition of another film to make already tough decisions even a little bit easier. But let’s be honest… All my intellectual posturing and punditry must go out   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 14, 2020

Looking over it now, The Love Parade just might be one of the finest pre-1930s musicals, capitalizing on the rising trend thanks to the success of The Jazz Singer and Broadway Melody. Whereas many of its contemporaries are mainly interesting as historical relics, this Lubitsch comedy still has some   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 12, 2020

The arrival of a local May Fair celebration brings back a flurry of bittersweet memories for elderly Miss Morrison (a made-up Jeanette MacDonald). She fondly recalls some past romantic dreams that we have yet to discover, which color how she sees the young lovers before her, caught in a quarrel....   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 9, 2020

Recently TCM released their podcast The Plot Thickens featuring interviews with Peter Bogdanovich. He’s always been an intriguing figure of the movies, and part of this is how he’s been able to cultivate his image while also acting as a living bridge to Classic Hollywood. He was part of   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 7, 2020

The name Gershwin is synonymous with “The American Songbook” and part of the draw of Shall We Dance is how it included two of them: both the brothers, George and Ira Gershwin. Ira would tragically pass away that same year. However, together they provided the compositions and lyrics for   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 5, 2020

The plots to the Astaire and Rogers musicals are usually deceptively simple. Thus, thanks be to their dancing transcending it all. The affair opens in some posh corner of Europe where the always dithering Edward Everett Horton is sitting with Fred Astaire who has to prove his identity to get...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 3, 2020

In this column, I go back to my roots with The American Film Institute’s Top 100 Lists, a good place to start for those interested in Classic Hollywood films. It’s in concurrence with #AFIMovieClub and the 10th anniversary of becoming a classic movie fan myself.  Thanks for reading. The   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 2, 2020

As we continue to look at musicals our recent beginner’s guides have been focusing on stars at the center of some of the best films of the era. Today let’s focus on Ginger Rogers. Aside from being part of the incomparable dance partnership with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers was also...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 30, 2020

Close Encounters is built on a mystery and Steven Spielberg’s follow-up to Jaws starts off in a jarring fashion challenging us to stay with him. Because he quickly throws us into the action and suggests this is a sci-fi tale on a global scale. Bob Balaban, a cartographer-turned-French transla   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 28, 2020

Francois Truffaut has a knack for understanding children in all their intricacies. One suspects it’s because he’s never really grown up himself. He is a child at heart with even his earliest films of the Nouvelle Vague channeling the joy and the passion of a younger individual. First, th   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 26, 2020

The AFI Corner column is in concurrence with #AFIMovieClub and the 10th anniversary of becoming a classic movie fan myself.  Thanks for reading. I hinted at several things in my Introduction to this column. Namely, the AFI lists are great but hardly comprehensive. There are numerous blind spots. It   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 25, 2020

7 Women is an oddity that nevertheless deserves a more prominent reputation. Here we have the inauspicious final film of John Ford, becoming the capstone to a career spanning decades and plenty of classics. However, there’s no John Wayne in this picture nor western panoramas. Nevertheless, it   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 23, 2020

I didn’t think about it until the movie began, but the only person I’ve ever known to only go by the initial of their last name was for the sake of keeping their anonymity. If you’re a nobody, it doesn’t matter who knows your name. In this case, if you’re...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 21, 2020

The Wild Child (L’Enfant Sauvage in French) is based on “authentic events,” as it says because Francois Truffaut became fascinated by a historical case from the 1700s. A feral boy was discovered out in the forests and then taken under the tutelage of a benevolent doctor. Although h   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 19, 2020

In this column, I go back to my roots with The American Film Institute’s Top 100 Lists, a good place to start for those interested in Classic Hollywood films. It’s in concurrence with #AFIMovieClub and the 10th anniversary of becoming a classic movie fan myself.  Thanks for reading. Let   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on April 18, 2020

In our ongoing series, we try to illuminate a person in film history we believe newcomers to classic film should get to know. This week we thought it would be a nice challenge to try and acknowledge the irrefutable career of John Ford, one of the towering giants of 20th-century...   read more