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Is there anything scarier than Bette Davis playing nice? I see that sunny face, that sugary smile, and I’m just waiting for the other sledgehammer to drop. It’s unnerving in films like Three on a Match (1932) that she acts like a sweetheart throughout. It’s a terrible waste, of co read more

In the opening scenes of TCM’s new 14-episode documentary series Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema, narrator Tilda Swinton says that “most of the so-called movie classics have been directed by men.” Each episode includes this in the introduction, acknowledging an exc read more

 I’m especially impressed with the quality of the podcasts I listened to this month. This wide variety of shows all had something extra interesting or new to offer. Episode titles link to the show: The Marx Brothers Council Podcast “The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell” I read more

It is now about a month away from the September 29 launch of my book Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s! The first review is in and it's a big one. Publishers Weekly is the "bible of the book industry" and informs librarians, book sellers, consumer media, agents, and other industry stakeholders aroun read more

One of the things that I've loved about the latest crop of new podcasts is that creators have been coming up with original and compelling ideas for shows. I hope this inspires aspiring podcasters out there to think big and go for it with unusual ideas. Here's what I loved this month: The Amer read more

I’m sorry, my readers, for being so tardy with my posts. I’m still recovering from an overloaded June. But while I was buried in projects, something very nice happened! Thank you, Brittaney of The Story Enthusiast, for honoring me with the Sunshine Blogger Award! It’s an award for read more

I’m sorry, my readers, for being so tardy with my posts. I’m still recovering from an overloaded June. But while I was buried in projects, something very nice happened! Thank you, Brittaney of The Story Enthusiast, for honoring me with the Sunshine Blogger Award! It’s an award for read more

This type of content is very popular (!) on YouTube channels, and I thought I would take it on WordPress for a (hopefully) fun article. Hey, I’m not claiming that I’m reinventing the wheel and that nobody has ever done that on their blog before (actually, I’m sure tons of people h read more

While I am in the habit of celebrating black excellence in my podcast round-ups, we are living in a difficult, but remarkable moment, one which I hope leads to positive change and justice, and in response I wanted to send a little more love out there this month by focusing entirely on black hosts an read more

TCM is going film noir nutty, y’all!! If you like film noir (and, really, would you be reading these words if you didn’t?), you’ll want to tune into TCM on Friday, June 19th – the lineup is practically bursting at the seams with shadowy goodness. Or badness, as the case may be. You can literally read more

“Leave Her to Heaven”: a film noir in glorious Technicolor Leave Her to Heaven (1945) is a Technicolor film noir directed by John Stahl, produced by William A. Bacher and Darryl F. Zanuck, and starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, and Jeanne Crain. It is based on the best-selling nov read more

Classic Film Stars and Television There is a scene in Joseph Mankiewicz’ classic 1950 film All About Eve between George Sanders’ acerbic critic, Addison DeWitt, and Marilyn Monroe’s Miss Casswell, a “Graduate from the Cocacabana School of Dramatic Art,” in which Casswell has just performed read more

It's still hard to believe a book was dedicated to me, but it happened some years ago when Michelle Morgan wrote "Carole Lombard: Twentieth-Century Star." (I assisted her with research at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library.)Since becoming a Lombard fan three and read more

Western RoundUp: Western Film Book Library – Part 3 A silver lining to spending this spring at home has been time to watch more Westerns – and also more time to read about them! I previously shared recommendations of titles from my “Western Film Book Library” last summer  read more

The more time I spend at home, the more meaningful podcasts have been for me as a way to connect to the outside world. This is the first time in a while that every podcast in my roundup has been new to me. I'm expecting to find many more in the months to come. The episode titles link to the shows: read more

Until I watched it recently to prepare for this post, I’d only seen Pickup on South Street (1953) once, and that was almost 20 years ago. But it made enough of a lasting impact that as soon as I saw that it was airing this month on TCM, I knew that it would be my noir recommendation. Pickup tells read more

“Nightmare Alley”—a pet project becomes a film noir classic Nightmare Alley (1947) is a film noir directed by Edmund Goulding, produced by George Jessel and starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker. The plot surrounds Stanton “Stan” Carl read more

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) is that rare documentary that is somehow uplifting–even when its tale is not. The fact that Bombshell is a story of triumph amidst adversity makes it a perfect film for our time. I knew the bare outlines of Lamarr’s story: the scandalous film that read more

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) is that rare documentary that is somehow uplifting–even when its tale is not. The fact that Bombshell is a story of triumph amidst adversity makes it a perfect film for our time. I knew the bare outlines of Lamarr’s story: the scandalous film that read more

Since I've been at home for over a month, I've had a lot more time to listen to podcasts. As a result, I have more episodes than usual to share this month. I've already seen some eyerolling on social media over the prospect of there being even more podcasts sprouting due to social distancing, but I read more