Art imitates art pretty frequently on stage and screen. It’s as if one business is the farm team for the other, with constant talent trades, back and forth – whether you’re talking actors, writers, directors, or composers. Hollywood takes material from Broadway and turns it into a movie. Broadway lifts stories from film and re-imagines them for the theater.Read More
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Growing up in a small town, local culture consisted of a drive-in theater (which featured more naughty action in the back seat of any given Buick than on screen) and a bowling alley (locatable beneath the toxic cloud of shoe deodorizer spray that hung over it).Read More
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Two gangster classics, released four months apart in 1931, didn’t just launch the careers of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. They doomed the pair to being typecast as tough guys. It didn’t matter that Cagney never actually said “You dirty rat!” on film, or that he won an Oscar singing, dancing, and playing Broadway legend George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy.Read More
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...and by “some,” I mean “me.”
I know, I know. I should be crazy about any film that tops most critics’ lists of classic comedies. Trust me, I’ve tried. What’s not to like about Marilyn Monroe at the height of her fame? Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in drag? The best closing line since “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”?Read More
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So there you are, watching a classic movie, when suddenly, a familiar man or woman walks into a scene and promptly swipes it from the star. You think to yourself, “I know that face,” but can’t come up with the name.Read More
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Myrna Loy and William Powell made marriage look fun – and acting look easy. So easy, in fact, that neither performer ever won an Academy Award.Read More
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From Jane Austen to J.K. Rowling, many famous writers have had their novels transformed into movie hits. But for a classic film noir fan like me, nobody spins a sordid tale into cinematic gold like James M. Cain.Read More
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