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Roman Holiday is probably the film that I attribute to the start of my love for the movies. I was about nine years old, somewhat eloquacious and bored out of my mind on a rainy day. While snooping around my parents’ movie collection (I believe I had exhausted my own pile of forgettable tween f read more

A Tale of Two Chauffeurs: “Fifth Avenue Girl” and “Downton Abbey” One of the great screwball comedies of 1939 was Gregory La Cava’s Fifth Avenue Girl starring Ginger Rogers. La Cava directed the better-known classics My Man Godfrey (1936) and Stage Door (1937). read more

Let's wish a happy birthday (her 104th, believe it or not, were she here to celebrate it) to Hollywood stalwart Ann Sothern. Sothern's career is a bit of an anomaly; thanks to a combination of longevity (she worked steadily from the late '20s to the late '70s), versatility (she did musicals, comedi read more

It's not everyday that my two greatest obsessions - classic movies and LEGO - overlap, but when they do the results are fantastic. The official unveiling of the upcoming Palace Cinema set took place at BrickFair AL in Birmingham, Alabama, on January 19, 2013, and I was there to drool all over the di read more

It's not everyday that my two greatest obsessions - classic movies and LEGO - overlap, but when they do the results are fantastic. The official unveiling of the upcoming Palace Cinema set took place at BrickFair AL in Birmingham, Alabama, on January 19, 2013, and I was there to drool all over the di read more

Desenho Retrô: A Turma da Gatolândia Antes dos longa-metragens épicos, antes dos filmes de Hitchcock e Orson Welles, antes dos musicais, antes dos filmes mudos, eu assistia a desenhos antigos. Era por volta de 2003 e eu já tinha uma quedinha por tudo que era velho. E o canal Boomerang veio read more

You would think by now that every movie ever made would officially be on DVD, but there are still plenty of films missing in action. The following is a quick list of movies that I'd like to see officially released on DVD or Blu-ray in the coming year. I'm sure some of these are available through unl read more

 Like many film fans, I like to keep lists of all the movies I watch, not just for bragging rights but also to remind me what I have seen and what I still need to watch. Here's the 2012 list of films, which is mostly classics (of course), liberally seasoned with movies I watched with the other read more

January 2013 brings, at last, the much-anticipated Noir City XI, San Francisco's 11th annual film noir festival. Presented by the Film Noir Foundation at the city’s landmark movie palace, the Castro Theatre, the festival runs from January 25 – February 3 and will showcase 27 films! read more

January 2013 brings, at last, the much-anticipated Noir City XI, San Francisco's 11th annual film noir festival. Presented by the Film Noir Foundation at the city’s landmark movie palace, the Castro Theatre, the festival runs from January 25 – February 3 and will showcase 27 films! read more

Though Vincent Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis was set at the turn of the century, there was much in the film that translated to its 1944 audience. As World War II continued to rage on, the movie brought tremendous comfort by showing an idealized America and a family sticking together thro read more

One of the most obscure World War One movies is I WAS A SPY, which was produced by Gaumont-British in 1933. The story is based on the real-life adventures of Belgian Marthe Cnockaert, who passed information to Allied agents while working as a nurse in a German military hospital during World War read more

Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (Patrick McGilligan, 2003) Of the hundreds of books, biographies, analysis, essays about the most respected and famous film director of all time Patrick McGilligan’s biography might be the most complete and essential to the Hitchcock enthusiast read more

DESK SET (1957): A Happy Hepburn Christmas Labels: Desk Set (1957), Joan Blondell, Spencer Tracy, Walter Lang Walter Lang's DESK SET (1957) is one of Katharine Hepburn's few "Christmas movies." You could possibly count LITTLE WOMEN (Cukor, 1933) or Anthony Harvey's THE LION IN W read more

We're a full week into December, and it's time to get serious about classic Christmas movies. TCM is showing 33 of them this month, including several fan favorites and a lot of less obvious choices, but I'm mostly a traditionalist when it comes to classic holiday films (with a few notable exceptions read more

We're a full week into December, and it's time to get serious about classic Christmas movies. TCM is showing 33 of them this month, including several fan favorites and a lot of less obvious choices, but I'm mostly a traditionalist when it comes to classic holiday films (with a few notable exceptions read more

Rich Koz, better known as TV's "Svengoolie", has had to take a break from his show due to some recent health issues. I thought now would be a perfect time to explain what Sven has meant to me. I've literally been watching this man for over 30 years. Rich Koz started out as "Son of Svengoolie" back read more

I've written a guest blog on VIGIL IN THE NIGHT for Lara Fowler's Carole Lombard Filmography Project. The link to it is http://backlots.wordpress.com. VIGIL IN THE NIGHT happens to be the only film which features my favorite all-time actress (Carole Lombard) and my favorite all-time actor (Peter Cu read more

Originally intended as a parody of Casablanca (1942), the Marx Brothers picture, A Night in Casablanca (1946), bears only passing resemblance to the earlier film. Not surprisingly, the picture veers off wildly from the ostensible source material, allowing Groucho, Harpo, and Chico to ply their trade read more

Originally intended as a parody of Casablanca (1942), the Marx Brothers picture, A Night in Casablanca (1946), bears only passing resemblance to the earlier film. Not surprisingly, the picture veers off wildly from the ostensible source material, allowing Groucho, Harpo, and Chico to ply their trade read more