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Up until this point in time, The Marx Brother’s all-out assault on humanity had still mostly been geared at the likes of stuffy socialites, gangsters, college campuses, authority figures, etc. Albeit entertaining but fairly straightforward worlds where there was not that much to be navigated read more

At Paramount Pictures The Marx Brothers released a row of comedies with seemingly arbitrary names evoking fauna like Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and of course Duck Soup.  The phrase  “Horse Feathers” is essentially a variation on “Nonsense” though it so read more

Ernst Lubitsch made a name for himself and his “touch” in silents as well as leaving an indelible mark on the 1940s with the likes of Shop Around The Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942), Heaven Can Wait (1943), and Cluny Brown (1946). But for me, no film better personifies his wit read more

“Love flies out the door when money flies innuendo.” – Groucho Marx To call on an unforgivable quip worthy of The Marx Brothers, this film is a barrel of laughs. Hardy Har Har. I promise. Never again. I’ll leave it to the professionals. I never was much for comedy anywayR read more

It’s the old story. A pompous old coot is bragging proudly about his new unstoppable, indestructible system of invisible lights he has put in place to stop even the most skilled burglars. No sooner have the words left his mouth and we already know he’s doomed. Sure enough, not a moment read more

Animal Crackers usually makes me think of the soggy little critters floating in Shirley Temple’s soup but the joke’s on me because that tune didn’t come out until 5 years after this film. In fact, legend has it that Harpo purportedly offered Temple’s parents $50,000 to adopt read more

There’s a myth that makes the rounds every so often suggesting that films of yore were always stagnant affairs. You only have to look at the opening bar sequence directed by Tay Garnett in this picture to confirm that such an assertion is an unequivocal falsity. The camera is alive and well read more

I came to this film for Kay Francis and I stayed because of Kay Francis, George Cukor, Joel McCrea, Eugene Pallette, and Lilyan Tashman. All to say, it is a supreme pleasure to watch this cast in action and already Cukor seems capable of handling the material in a way that intuitively understands t read more

“Did anyone ever tell you that you look like the Prince of Wales?” ~ Kay Francis, Chico, and Groucho. The Marx Brothers were modern comedians. Out of Groucho Marx alone, there are numerous comics spawned and basking in his incomparable shadow. When certain jokes come out you can all but read more

The title Good News means next to nothing to me but it does suggest a certain sunny disposition we tend to equate with MGM musicals of the period. That assumption is fairly well-founded. Furthermore, I am well aware of Adolph Green and Betty Comden, that screenplay dream team, an integral part of A read more

DON’T BE SURPRISED IF THE SITE LOOKS DIFFERENT IN THE UPCOMING DAYS AS I TRY TO UPDATE THE LAYOUT AND DESIGN. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND UNDERSTANDING! -Tynan at 4 Star Films read more

Does this film glorify those who cheat and deceive taking advantage of others through the advances of modern science? Certainly not! Well, maybe a little but this is one of those ludicrous stories that never makes a pretense of being real life or a moral tale for that matter. It’s just a zany read more

Laurel and Hardy had better films with better gags and more iconic moments but Babes in Toyland, or The March of The Wooden Soldiers as it was also known as develops the most immersive fantastical world that they ever had the privilege of gallivanting through. It’s almost fitting that we find read more

In the Hebrew Pentateuch, the Levitical law lays out a framework of precepts quite clearly that the people were meant to follow. One iteration can be paraphrased like so: If a man marries both a woman and her mother it is perversion. There must be no wickedness among you. Doing a once over of the S read more

Luis Bunuel made a name for himself ever since his early work on Un Chien Andalou (1929) as king of the surrealist filmmakers. That and bashing the bourgeoisie. Some might be surprised in finding that Diary of a Chambermaid, adapted from the eponymous 1900 novel of Octave Mirbeau, is a fairly strai read more

The opening narration of Los Olvidados asserts that the great modern cities of the world including New York, Paris, and London all mask issues of poverty and delinquency amid their magnificent structures. This is a universal problem that plagues Mexico as well. In Los Olvidados a test case is being read more

It’s easy to infer there is an innate kinship between famed director Jean Renoir and the folks within this picture. Certainly, he was no peasant, by any means related to those found in Millet’s The Gleaners. However, like his painterly father Auguste Renoir (a figure I always find mysel read more

If Bunuel’s well-remembered adaptation of this material is considerably darker and biting as his pictures always seem to be, then Jean Renoir’s version is fittingly consistent with his own sentiments and oeuvre. Celestine, as played by the ever precocious Paulette Goddard, looks to be read more

The Woman on the Beach is ripe with subject matter that feels akin to Jean Renoir as much as any Hollywood picture possibly could be. Since the beach, in his specific case, initially evokes not the California coasts but the shores that might have so easily cropped up in the paintings of his renowne read more

May 25th, 1945. That’s when The Clock was originally released. To save you doing all the mental calculations V-E Day was on Tuesday, May 8th and the folks at home were ready for the war to be over. So in such an environment, this is hardly a war film and it can’t even claim to be a post read more