4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 19, 2018

Douglas Sirk films almost by design seem to always revolve around the most uncomfortable thematic ideas that you can think of and whether that is Sirk’s own wry sense of irony or more so the material that was provided him, there’s always something to be gleaned from what he does....   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 17, 2018

This is the type of film that when the inevitable happens and a character mentions the title phrase a swell of angels voices begin to murmur and in one sense Magnificent Obsession is a sentimental even spiritual endeavor wrapped up in a soapy melodramatic morality tale. But the key is...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 15, 2018

It’s the curse of a childhood watching too many reruns of Get Smart but I can’t seem to get Don Adam’s impersonation of Ronald Colman out of my head while watching The Prisoner of Zenda. There are worse curses to be stricken with though I suppose. This classic adaptation of...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 14, 2018

There’s a moment in the film that can’t help but draw us back to Genesis where Joseph (of technicolor dream coat fame) has risen in the ranks of Egypt and finds himself with the lives of his brothers in the palm of his hands. He’s able to toy with them...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 12, 2018

There were three reasons to watch this film. Their names are Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, and Veronica Lake. Yes, this picture directed by Mark Sandrich was fairly groundbreaking in its day for telling a story about nurses during WWII but there might be mixed feelings across the board about   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 10, 2018

“You’re in a fine mess! You got to get a divorce from a man you’re not even married to!” It was only a recent revelation that Claudette Colbert at times feels far too sophisticated to be playing beautiful hitchhikers or penniless taxi passengers as she does in It Happened On   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 8, 2018

The law offices of Simon and Tedesco are at the core of this film but it’s really George Simon who’s of particular interest to us. Based off a play by Elmer Rice, Counselor at Law is a self-contained office drama of great energetic verve. It’s handled assuredly by a young...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 6, 2018

It’s an alarming cold open. Allison Courtland (Claudette Colbert) wakes up on a train to Boston with a gun in her purse and no recollection of how she got there. It drives her into a fit of hysterics that riles up the whole train, though a fellow passenger (Queenie Smith)...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 4, 2018

Kings Row is apparently a good place to live. The billboard in town says as much. It’s the goings-on in the community that tells a different story — providing a conflicting more subversive view of small-town America. The story starts out with 5 children. It feels like we hardly get to k   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 2, 2018

From a corny title comes a  wonderfully corny opening complete with Tony Randall playing the opening notes of the 20th-Century theme and reading off a few cue cards to introduce the film. What follows is much in the same vein. I sense this is all the doing of Frank Tashlin —...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 30, 2018

We enter a newsroom that feels like it could be ripped out of His Girl Friday (1940). The editor is lining up his copy for the following day with a big front-page spread on the renowned millionaire Jonathan Reynolds (Charles Laughton). They just need him to die and they can print...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 28, 2018

The Universal dream team of Deanna Durbin, producer Joe Pasternak, and director Henry Koster are back at it again in this follow up to the wildly popular comedy that propelled Durbin to international stardom. The Craig sisters are back too and this one begins with a unique and rather hilarious openi   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 27, 2018

Here is a comedy born of a certain time and age when they made such trifles. It’s the kind of plot where you can read it off in a single sentence but it’s further cushioned by cutesy moments and musical asides. Where growing girls say “Mummy” and “Daddy,” always   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 25, 2018

Bob Hope was one of the 20th centuries greatest personalities but sometimes his pictures weren’t always up to par. The most obvious exceptions would be the majority of the Road pictures with Bing Crosby, The Paleface films with Jane Russell, and this fun addition pairing our beloved funnyman   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 23, 2018

I’ll lay my cards right on the table. I’ve never been a huge fan of Robert Montgomery. He just doesn’t have a charisma or a delivery that I much care for so as far as carrying a whole picture I’m not quite sold. Still, with Here Comes Mr. Jordan, it...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 22, 2018

When I was watching the film I distinctly remember one instance I threw my head back in the air and just smiled to myself. How I love Douglas Sirk. He gives us something seemingly so superficial and decadent that plays so perfectly into those expectations and simultaneously steamrolls them with a no   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 20, 2018

With the name Douglas Sirk, Technicolor opulence no doubt springs to mind but his black and white pictures are no less diverting and still extremely attractive to look at with photography once more courtesy of longtime collaborator Russell Metty. The cinematography is crisp monochrome filmed in vol   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 19, 2018

Douglas Sirk’s films are always lovely to look at, almost to the point of making you sick. The panoramas swell with color. They’re too perfect. The sets are gaudy — the cars the same — to the point of almost being unsightly in their over the top artificiality. Try to find an   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 18, 2018

The film begins with that old storytelling standard, Once upon a time in sunny California…and it’s raining outside. Not a minute has gone by and the tone of the picture has already been set with this opening taste of irony. It unravels on a smaller, less grandiose scale than other...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on August 17, 2018

It’s summertime and the living is easy. It makes me think of sultry summer days and cool summer nights and George Gershwin. But summertime also means travel. It did for my family when we were growing up as kids and it took us to many places near and far off....   read more