By Movie StarAlfred HitchcockAudrey HepburnAva GardnerBarbara StanwyckBasil RathboneBette DavisBilly WilderBob HopeBoris KarloffBurt LancasterBuster KeatonCarole LombardCary GrantCharlie ChaplinClara BowClark GableClaudette ColbertDana AndrewsDeanna DurbinDebbie ReynoldsDoris DayElizabeth TaylorErnst LubitschErrol FlynnEsther WilliamsFranchot ToneFred AstaireFred MacMurrayGary CooperGene KellyGeorge CukorGinger RogersGloria SwansonGrace KellyGreer GarsonGregory PeckGreta GarboHarold LloydHedy LamarrHenry FondaHoward HawksHumphrey BogartIda LupinoIngrid BergmanIrene DunneJack BennyJack LemmonJames CagneyJames StewartJane RussellJean ArthurJean HarlowJeanette MacDonaldJeanne CrainJoan CrawfordJoan FontaineJohn FordJohn WayneJudy GarlandKatharine HepburnKay FrancisKirk DouglasLana TurnerLauren BacallLillian GishLon ChaneyLoretta YoungLouise BrooksMae WestMarilyn MonroeMarion DaviesMarlene DietrichMary AstorMary PickfordMickey RooneyMiriam HopkinsMyrna LoyNatalie WoodNorma ShearerOlivia de HavillandOrson WellesPaul NewmanPaulette GoddardPreston SturgesRichard WidmarkRita HayworthRobert MitchumRudolph ValentinoShirley TempleSidney PoitierSpencer TracySteve McQueenTeresa WrightTyrone PowerVincent PriceVivien LeighWilliam HoldenWilliam PowellWilliam WylerWoody Allen By HolidayNew Year's DayPresident's DayValentine's DayEasterMother's DayFather's DayMemorial DayJuly 4thLabor DayColumbus DayHalloweenThanksgivingChristmasBlack History MonthWomen's History Month All Blogs4 Star Films (3507)50 Most Influential Disney Animators (58)A Person in the Dark (367)All Good Things (815)Backlots (412)Caf? Muscato (572)Caftan Woman (904)Carole & Co. (3081)Cary Grant Won't Eat You (493)Cinema Crossroads (42)Cinematic Catharsis (932)Cinematically Insane (268)CineMaven's Essays from the Couch (152)Classic Cinema Gold (319)Classic Film & TV Cafe (1287)Classic Film Review (14)Classic Movie Hub Blog (1970)Classic Movie Man (979)Classic Movies (3247)Classic Reel Girl (95)Comet Over Hollywood (1342)Creme de la Creme (32)Criterion Blues (770)Critica Retro (1467)Curtains (58)Durnmoose Movie Musings (1105)Film Reviews and Anything Else I Get Inspired by (27)Finding Franchot: Exploring the Life and Career of Franchot Tone (161)Flickers in Time (2221)GlamAmor (587)Hitchcock Master (147)Hollywood Revue (532)Hometowns to Hollywood (859)How Sweet It Was (86)In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood (154)Lady Eve's Reel Life (733)Le Mot du Cinephiliaque (945)Love Letters to Old Hollywood (150)MacGuffin Movies (362)Movies Silently (1029)Noir and Chick Flicks (1998)Noirish (1273)Once Upon a Screen (420)Outspoken and Freckled (140)Phantom Empires (60)Pop Culture ImagineMDD (103)Serendipitous Anachronisms (82)Shadows and Satin (1011)Silver Scenes - A Blog for Classic Film Lovers (1938)Smum County (115)Stardust and Shadows (120)Studies in Cinema (118)The Baz (163)The Blonde At The Film (331)The Bogie Film Blog (147)The Cinema Dilettante (110)The Giddy Blog (152)The Great Katharine Hepburn (240)The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog (1773)The Jeanette MacDonald Blog (94)The Man on the Flying Trapeze (643)The Old Hollywood Garden (464)The Timothy Carey Experience (1181)The Vintage Cameo (134)The Wonderful World of Cinema (630)Timeless Hollywood (73)True Classics (573)Virtual Virago (1634)Where Danger Lives (136)Wolffianclassicmoviesdigest (640)

If it weren’t for the needlessly racist finish from Lois (Joan Alexander), The Mummy Strikes would probably get a pass. Maybe. The action isn’t particularly impressive, but the Egyptian history lesson is pretty cool. Even if it’s all about young King Tush. Jay Morton’s script is (mostly) strong–it, read more

Destruction Inc. is nearly a success. It’s frustratingly not, particularly because the only thing holding it back is the animation itself. Thomas Moore and Dave Tendlar lack detail on the action, lack detail on the background, and don’t composite the two well. But Sparber’s direction is fantastic. read more

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is far from the ultimate trip. It’s not even a very good trip. It’s the kind of trip where you go somewhere, go somewhere else, then somewhere else, then go back to the second place, then go back to the first place, then go back to the third place, then go back to the read more

Despite taking place in a very English hotel with very English residents–all of them long-term residents, not temporary guests–Separate Tables hinges almost entirely on the Americans. Burt Lancaster is one such American. He’s a regular resident (even ostensibly engaged to manager Wendy Hiller; read more

An Eye for an Eye is a disappointing finish for Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars but maybe not an unexpected one, not given the serial’s trajectory. The cliffhanger resolution is quick–Buster Crabbe gets away from Charles Middleton due to Middleton’s lack of observational prowess. They’re fitting read more

While Eleventh Hour posits Superman as some kind of American war hero–he’s in Yokohama doing all sorts of damage, usually to ships–the cartoon actually portrays him as a big doofus who’s more lucky than anything else. Clark (Bud Collyer) and Lois (Joan Alexander) are under house arrest. In a read more

The showdown in Showdown is… not much of a showdown. A hapless–if nimble-fingered–thief dresses up like Superman and commits a bunch of crimes. He doesn’t do it on his own, he does it because his boss commands it. His boss looks a little like Edward G. Robinson. No, there’s no showdown between read more

A Beast at Bay could just as easily be called We Give Up, There’s One More. After a lackluster cliffhanger resolution, Buster Crabbe’s plan to save the Clay kingdom fails because he couldn’t control one unarmed prisoner and then couldn’t beat him in a fistfight. The thirteen chapters of Crabbe read more

Outside the racism, there’s not much to distinguish Japoteurs. There’s a lot of potential for the finale, when Superman (Bud Collyer) has to stop a crashing airplane–the world’s biggest bomber, which Japanese saboteurs have stolen and intend to take to Tokyo–but it’s not an impressive sequence. read more

The Miracle of Magic is a funny title for the chapter since nothing really miraculous happens. There’s some anti-miracles. Maybe it refers to the curse of the Clay people getting lifted, which involves magical receptacles, but not really magic itself. It’s a strange sequence where the still suspici read more

Terror on the Midway has some mediocre animation, some bad animation, and some excellent design and direction. It’s also got a gratuitous Superman butt shot, which angles to show his curves in the red tights. It’s a weird shot. Especially since it keeps angling. The cartoon starts with Clark (Bud read more

It’s a good thing Ming (Charles Middleton) loves to carelessly gloat because if he didn’t, there’s no way Buster Crabbe could’ve got the upper hand this chapter. Ming the Merciless is, sort of, about Martian queen Beatrice Roberts finding out Middleton isn’t really her pal. But she doesn’t read more

Smiley Face is something of an endurance test. How long can the film keep going before falling apart due to its own flimsiness. Thanks to star Anna Faris, it pretty much does make it to the finish. The third act–thanks to the bookending device (the film is told in flashback, narrated by Roscoe Lee read more

Outside the racist–though not exceptionally racist all things considered–characterization of the villain, a Native American engineer who’s going to level Manhattan because it was stolen from his people, Electric Earthquake is pretty much great. Well, it’s outstanding. For what it does, it’s read more

And it’s back to the Martian imperial city or whatever it’d be called this chapter. After a surprising cliffhanger resolution–brainwashed Jean Rogers does indeed stab Buster Crabbe in the back–Crabbe and his male sidekicks (Frank Shannon, Donald Kerr, and Richard Alexander) go running around read more

The Magnetic Telescope is about a power-mad astronomer who builds an observatory with a giant magnet on top so he can attract meteors and comets to the Earth for further study. The device, in attracting meteors, is an obvious public safety issue but the astronomer doesn’t care. He’s willing to let read more

Okay, Incense of Forgetfulness might be where Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars starts getting into… well, travel trouble. After an exceptionally bad cliffhanger resolution (Buster Crabbe just manages to break free of his bonds, nothing else), there’s about ten minutes of circular narrative. Crabbe, read more

Three genius mechanical engineers come up with a flying, rocket-powered bullet car, with a penetrating nose, and try to extort millions from Metropolis. When their extortion fails, they attack. After some trouble, Superman stops them. The Bulleteers is nothing if not concise. The cartoon starts int read more

Nine chapters in, Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars hasn’t had any majorly repetitive chapters. The overall story moves along, at least moderately, by the end of the chapter. But not so with Symbol of Death. The chapter opens with Buster Crabbe escaping Charles Middleton’s imprisonment and death ray; read more

A lot goes unspoken in The Big Sleep. It’s very much set in a wartime Los Angeles, but there’s never much said about wartime conditions or Los Angeles. When private detective Humphrey Bogart goes around the city, investigating, he’s only ever encountering women (beautiful women at that, because read more