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Final Resting Places It’s time for another of my periodic tributes to Western filmmakers through sharing visits to their final resting places. This is one of the ways I reflect on what each person’s work has contributed to the Western genre, giving all of us many happy hours of entertainment. read more

A Closer Look At The Wind (1928) Lillian Gish, The Wind In 1927, cinema was famously experiencing a time of transition from the silent to talkies, kickstarted by the popularity of Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927). Directors and stars would soon be faced with a decision, whether deliberate read more

Oh, the horrors of 1950s B-movies. And I’m not talking scary good, but scary bad. So many of the creative ideas for monsters were never realized because of low budgets and ridiculously short shooting schedules. Viewers accept that the creatures in these films might look cheap and even laughable, read more

Veda’s Villainy – Mildred’s Fault? One of my many favorite podcasts is Front Row Classics – the host, Brandon Davis, covers a wide variety of classic films, with a spate of first-rate guests, and in such interesting ways. An episode I heard recently centered on villains in classic films, read more

Classic Movie Travels: James Shigeta James Shigeta James Saburo Shigeta was born in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, on June 17, 1929, to Satoko Tamura Shigeta and Howard Koichi Shigeta. His father was a contractor who immigrated from Japan. Shigeta was a third-generation Japanese American, g read more

Love and Language in Ball of Fire (1941) With a title like Ball of Fire, you expect real fireworks, and this 1941 screwball comedy delivers them with spectacular energy and skill. There’s so much to love about the film that it’s hard to know where to start, much less how to boil it down to a read more

Classic Movie Travels: Vera-Ellen Vera-Ellen Vera-Ellen was born Vera-Ellen Rohe on February 16, 1921, in Norwood, Ohio, to Alma Westemeier and Martin Rohe. Her father worked as a piano tuner. Both parents were of German descent. Her mother wished to one day have a girl named Vera-Ellen, i read more

Cowboy Museums Over the last few months two prominent Southern California museums have featured exhibits on cowboys. To varying degrees, the exhibits included memorabilia about Western movies and movie cowboys.  In this month’s column I’ll be sharing photos from my visits. In Decem read more

Buster Keaton’s Motion Picture Debut: The First Five Films From our 21st century perspective, Buster Keaton’s upbringing was certainly unusual. Born to parents who made a modest living performing in travelling medicine shows, he became a performer himself at a very young age. Arguably a child read more

Noir Nook: Ripped from the HeadlinesShadow of a Doubt (1943) If you know your Alfred Hitchcock, you might be aware that of all the movies he directed between 1925 and 1976, he considered his favorite to be Shadow of a Doubt (1943), starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. What you might not read more

Silver Screen Standards: The Mirror Crack’d (1980) While it’s not actually a film from the Golden Age of Hollywood, the 1980 Miss Marple whodunnit, The Mirror Crack’d, is set in 1953 and boasts a cast of powerhouse classic stars from that era, including Angela Lansbury as Agatha Christie’s read more

Just because we love classic horror – especially low-budget B-movies – doesn’t mean we have to watch bad prints of the films that we’re used to seeing online or in a public domain version. While searching for new video releases of old horror films to add to my collection, I was surpr read more

Walk the Proud Land (1956) Every year or so I like to review a new-to-me Audie Murphy film in my Western RoundUp column.  My previous Murphy review, Apache Rifles (1964), was published last April.  This year I’ve watched one of Murphy’s more unusual Western films, Walk the Proud read more

Silent Superstars: Rudolph Valentino, The Ultimate Screen Idol Rudolph Valentino How fortunate it was that a young Italian movie actor christened Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguella settled on the elegant “Rudolph Valentino” for his screen name. read more

At an isolated Antarctic research station, scientists battle a deadly alien with such extraordinary shape-shifting capabilities that the men don’t know if the person next to them is still human. The truth is only revealed when the alien is threatened and violently abandons its current inhabitant. read more

75th Anniversary Noir – 2026 Edition It’s about that time, y’all! February at the Noir Nook means our annual look at the noirs that are celebrating their 75th anniversary, and have I got four winners for you from 1951! Before I proceed, I’d like to toss a few honorable mentions your way read more

Two Silent Comedies from Ernst Lubitsch Ernst Lubitsch is celebrated as the director of many of Hollywood’s great comedies, including Ninotchka (1939), To Be or Not to Be (1942), and Heaven Can Wait (1943), but he directed films in his native Germany for nearly a decade before his transition to read more

Classic Movie Travels: Dorothy Mackaill Dorothy Mackaill Dorothy Mackaill was born on March 4, 1903, in Kingston upon Hull, England, to John Mackaill and Florence Pickard Mackaill. She was primarily raised by her father after her parents separated in 1914. He owned a dance academy nearby. D read more

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance As I’ve shared in previous columns, we’re fortunate to have a variety of venues showing classic films in the greater Los Angeles area. One of those theaters is The Autry Museum of the American West, cofounded by cowboy star Gene Autry. Autry Museum, Los read more

A Closer Look At The Gold Rush (1925) Charlie Chaplin, The Gold Rush By the mid-1920s, Charlie Chaplin had spent nearly a decade being one of cinema’s most beloved performers, a familiar face to movie lovers across the globe. His humor and performance style transcended cultural boundaries and read more