Welcome to BlogHub: the Best in Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Blogs
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
How to Bridge a Gorge (1942, Ray Harryhausen)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 23, 2013
How to Bridge a Gorge isn’t just an instructional video about how to, you know, bridge a gorge… it’s Ray Harryhausen showing off the possibilities for what the short calls “three dimensional animation.” In a lot of ways, the possibilities he suggests in this short̵ read more
Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982, Joe Layton)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 22, 2013
Maybe it’s Sheldon Kahn’s editing, which doesn’t do the picture’s content justice, but Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip doesn’t feel seamless. The first twenty minutes or so do, however, which makes the change jarring. All of a sudden, the reaction shots of the read more
The Seventh Victim (1943, Mark Robson)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 17, 2013
Quite surprisingly, The Seventh Victim–in addition to being a disquieting, subtle thriller–is mostly about urban apathy and discontent. Though there aren’t any establishing shots of New York City (or of the small New England town protagonist Kim Hunter comes from), Robson and writ read more
The Leopard Man (1943, Jacques Tourneur)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 16, 2013
The Leopard Man has such beauteous production values–one would never think it was a low budget picture, not with Robert De Grasse’s lush blacks and he and director Tourneur’s tracking shots–it’s a shame the acting fails the film. A lot of the problem the script. Co-scr read more
The Jewel of the Nile (1985, Lewis Teague)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 15, 2013
If there’s a better example of why not every successful film should have a sequel than The Jewel of the Nile, I can’t think of it. Nile should be a lot of fun–Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner are still likable, Danny DeVito’s still hilarious… but it soon becomes cle read more
Murder on a Honeymoon (1935, Lloyd Corrigan)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 14, 2013
Murder on a Honeymoon is a tepid outing for Edna May Oliver and James Gleason’s detecting duo. It’s the third in the series and, while Oliver and Gleason are back, it’s clear some of the magic was behind the camera. Robert Benchley and Seton I. Miller’s script is a little to read more
The Thirteenth Guest (1932, Albert Ray)
The Stop Button Posted by on May 13, 2013
The Thirteenth Guest has a lot of problems, but its biggest failing is Frances Hyland’s script. Hyland doesn’t just have a lot of logic problems, he also has a bunch of lousy humor. There’s Paul Hurst’s moronic police detective, who Hyland relies on for Guest‘s version read more
The Money Pit (1986, Richard Benjamin)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 26, 2013
Without any subplots–and a running time, sans end credits, less than ninety minutes–it seems likely The Money Pit had some post-production issues. There are a bunch of recognizable character actors–Josh Mostel, Yakov Smirnoff, Joe Mantegna–who show up for a scene or two then read more
Disgraced (1933, Erle C. Kenton)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 19, 2013
Like most lame melodramas, Disgraced‘s plot only works because characters all of a sudden act completely differently than the story has previously established them. Disgraced concerns a department store model (Helen Twelvetrees) who starts hanging around a regular customer’s fiancé. Rom read more
Deadline at Dawn (1946, Harold Clurman)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 18, 2013
Given all the excellent components, Deadline at Dawn ought to be a lot better. It has a compelling plot–a naive sailor and erstwhile murder suspect (Bill Williams) has to solve the crime before he ships out, but he’s just met a city hardened girl (Susan Hayward) and crushing on her and read more
Please Don’t Eat My Mother (1973, Carl Monson)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 17, 2013
I don’t even know where to start mocking Please Don’t Eat My Mother. There are just too many places to start… first probably should be the pacing. Mother is a softcore–but seventies softcore, which isn’t particularly soft–remake of The Little Shop of Horrors. Buc read more
Splash (1984, Ron Howard)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 16, 2013
Splash has a strange narrative structure. The front’s heavy, likely because the filmmakers make a real effort to establish Tom Hanks as a listless young (well, youngish) man. Of course, Hanks is a listless man with an apparently great job as a produce whole seller, an amazing Manhattan apartm read more
Murder on the Blackboard (1934, George Archainbaud)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 12, 2013
As its title suggests, Murder on the Blackboard concerns a murder in a school, specifically an elementary school. Only one student appears; Blackboard concentrates on the rather shady goings-ons of the staff. There’s a drunk janitor, a lecherous principal, not to mention a love triangle betwe read more
I Married a Witch (1942, René Clair)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 11, 2013
I Married a Witch often seems to short. Director Clair rightly focuses the picture around leading lady Veronica Lake, with Frederic March getting a fair amount of attention too, but the narrative outside them blurs. And it shouldn’t blur, given the high stakes election backdrop. Clair’s read more
Murder by Death (1976, Robert Moore)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 10, 2013
Writer Neil Simon did not adapt Murder by Death from one of his plays, which I’ve always assumed he did. While the film does have a more theatrical structure–a great deal of Death is the cast in one room–the action does follow the characters around and some of their experiences wo read more
High Spirits (1988, Neil Jordan)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 9, 2013
High Spirits is another fine example of how excellent production values, earnest performances and a genial air can make even the most problem riddled film enjoyable. The studio, infamously, took Spirits away from director Jordan in the editing and the resulting version isn’t his intention. Th read more
Framed (1930, George Archainbaud)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 5, 2013
Framed feels a little like it was a silent turned into a talkie. About half the time, instead establishing shots for scene changes, there are expository title cards. Usually they’re for time changes, as though director Archainbaud couldn’t think of anything else. It’s hard to say read more
Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring (1941, James P. Hogan)
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 4, 2013
Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring‘s title confuses me for a couple reasons. First, Ralph Bellamy’s Ellery Queen disappears for long stretches of the seventy-minute runtime. When he does show up, he usually makes a mistake or overlooks something, then someone else comes in and gets the in read more
Halloween (1978, John Carpenter), the television version
The Stop Button Posted by on Apr 3, 2013
The television version of Halloween has an interesting story–the original film ran so short, when the network wanted to run it on TV, there wasn’t enough film after they cut out the violence. Carpenter was producing Halloween II at the time so he came back and filmed some more scenes to read more
Nine to Five (1980, Colin Higgins)
The Stop Button Posted by on Mar 29, 2013
Besides being extremely funny and rather well-acted, Nine to Five has a lot of narrative problems. The story isn’t a mess exactly, because there’s not enough story for there to be a mess. Higgins and co-writer Patricia Resnick have an idea (Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin are s read more