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The first time I ever saw My Darling Clementine I couldn’t get over how unimpressive it seemed. If nothing else it certainly didn’t give off any self-aware sense of its own importance. There was nothing that struck me as outright epic and monumental. And yet this western has been a hera read more

Without question, Hangover Square is in many respects analogous to The Lodger with the reteaming of director John Brahm with Laird Cregar and George Sanders. However, the biggest difference is that we have Cregar putting on on a new persona and losing over 100 pounds! Among other things, it forced d read more

“Love is very close to hate. Did you know that?” – Laird Cregar as Mr. Slade Some perceptive viewers might well know that The Lodger is based off a novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes and it garnered a fairly high profile silent adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock followed by a sound version read more

Rene Clair makes no justifications for his flights of fancy and it’s true that the stuff is unabashedly whimsical to the zenith. He made a reputation for himself in his native France for his playful cinema and for the decade or so he was in Hollywood (1935-1945) he continued much in the same read more

“Tell me the story of the foot soldier and I’ll tell you the story of all wars.” The date might seem arbitrary but we are told that this story takes place over the course of one day: Sept 6, 1950. Robert Ryan might as well be the stand-in for a Bill Mauldin G.I. as he leads a batt read more

If there was an atypical even offbeat Anthony Mann picture, then God’s Little Acre would probably fit the bill. Based on the wildly popular and vehemently decried Depression-era work of the same name by Erskine Caldwell, it essentially serves as a second outing for much of the cast and crew read more

The proverbial stranger rides into town looking for a place to wash up and grab a bite to eat. We get the sense he might be sticking around. Except, soon enough, he turns right back around and buys a ticket on the first train out of town. Because he has business to attend to. The train gets ambushed read more

“You can master a gun if you have the knack. Harder to learn men.” ~ Henry Fonda as Morgan Hickman A veteran bounty hunter rides into town with a corpse slung over the rear of his horse and gets the whole town gawking. They don’t quite fancy this entrance because they’re abo read more

What can I say? I am one of the proud and the many who loved The Beatles before they loved any other type of music. So when I watch Help! I look for all the best in it because that’s all that I can do. However, if you are familiar with this follow-up to the frenzy and the success surrounding A read more

The title says it all. James Stewart is the eponymous stranger who rides into town delivering a load of supplies to an isolated outpost called Coronado. But that’s not his main business at hand. He’s searching for someone because he has some personal matters to take care of. In this sma read more

“I don’t need help. I don’t need people. I can take care of me.” ~ James Stewart as Jeff Webster This Alaskan Northwestern opens and it’s almost like we’ve missed something. Jeff Webster (James Stewart) rides into a town with two men and promptly gives them back read more

James Stewart carries over his persona from Bend of the River (1952) to continually redefine his career in the post-war years. He is a man under a different name who nevertheless is seething with the same raw fury. In this regard, there are numerous parallel themes in this subsequent collaboration read more

Madeline’ Madeline takes the very individualistic nature of its title and boldly realizes it through POV and metaphor to begin digging around in the perplexing head-space of a teenager. The first words we hear are as follows, “The emotions you are having are not your own, they are someone read more

In Bend of The River, there are glimpses of the man we knew before the war. Joking and smiling with that same face. The affable charm and so on. But it’s also starkly different. In this picture, James Stewart is on horseback leading a wagon train preoccupied with farming, cattle, ranching, and read more

To set the scene our storytellers enlist an opening crawl that runs over the unmistakable strains of train noise. The year is 1861. The event being dramatized is the alleged Baltimore Plot and our hero is New York policeman John Kennedy (Dick Powell). Despite being common and coincidental I canR read more

Frenzied opening strings from a score by Franz Waxman assist in introducing a film that positions itself as another textured portrait of the West boasting a pair of grandiose performances from Walter Huston and Barbara Stanwyck. This particular ride down the well-trodden paths takes place in New Me read more

Right here we see the precise genesis of Anthony Mann as a director of westerns. To consider the string of modest classics that followed is nearly staggering. But he was well-suited for the transition taking his acquired skills over the years and translating them easily to the West. The Devil’ read more

“You’re always in the Garden.  Even Jesus wasn’t always in the Garden, on his knees, sweating blood. He was on the Mount. He was in the marketplace. He was in the temple. But you, you’re always in the Garden.”  Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese unknowingly formed a leg read more

Though Preston Sturges would never eclipse the heights of the early 40s again and his stellar run was slowly spiraling down, we do have Unfaithfully Yours and for my money, that’s recompense enough. It documents the life of a prestigious conductor, Sir Alfred De Carter (Rex Harrison), happily read more

I have long sought out this picture and all I can say is all hail the conquering hero! It’s everything that could have been hoped for in a Preston Sturges wartime comedy. But in order for the laughs to come along with a great deal more, there must be a setup — a watering hole for our ma read more