This blog is a companion to my “Almost Noir” posting. I listed Eddie Muller as a noir expert, he is a film historian, host on TCM and keeper of the noir genre. Muller published a fascinating book on film noir, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, in 1998, and has updated and expanded … More Dark City: Film Noir
Back in the late 1950s through the late 1970s, Walt Disney Productions employed many of the same actors and crew on many films. Sometimes you saw the same characters on screen, like Professor Brainard and his Flubber, or young Dexter Riley at Medfield College, the ruthless businessman Alonzo Hawk or Merlin Jones in several films. … More Familiar Disney Film Actors and Crew
I am going to present you two stacks of DVDs (no Blu-ray disks mixed in). You are going on a trip and these are the only entertainment you will have. No TV, cable or internet. Which one would you choose? No trading between stacks. Stack 1 Roman Holiday (1953) – Reporter Gregory Peck and Princess … More DVDs: Which Stack?
I admit, I’m generally against armed conflict, unless we are combating aggression or Nazis. As a child of the 1960s, Combat was one of my favorite television shows, not for the violence, but the human stories. Vic Morrow and Rick Jason alternated as episode leads. Both was wonderful in those roles, and both struggled after … More Vic Morrow: After Combat
This is Sally Field’s film, she was at the height of her film clout. A two-time Academy Award winner, yeah we like her, and Murphy grew to love her. Murphy’s Romance was a surprise hit, not because it was good, but because it told a mature love story and found an audience. A few decades … More Murphy’s Romance (1985)
On a rainy day or when you’re not feeling yourself, curling up with a movie is good company. Is it Love Story or The Dirty Dozen? In Sleepless in Seattle, there is actually a scene about guy movies, as a response to An Affair to Remember, which is pivotal to the plot of Sleepless in … More Comfort Movies
The Western film was a big part of my early life. I formed much of what I believed about our country’s westward expansion and taming of the frontier from what I saw on the screen. We should not rely on learning history from Hollywood, but it was hard not to in those days. Films and … More The Legacy of the Western
James Garner was the king of silly, suggestive films of the mid 1960s. In the first half of the decade, Garner had starred in the comedies Boys Night Out, The Thrill of It All, The Texas Wheeler Dealers, Move Over Darling and The Americanization of Emily. He could be a debonair and a cad at … More The Art of Love (1965)
Stephen J. Cannell was one of the most successful television writer/producers in the history of the medium. His list of credits is amazing, everything from Columbo to Adam-12 to The Rockford File to the A-Team to Silk Stockings. Using his success, he created a television production company, which was really a full range production studio … More Remembering Stephen J. Cannell
Back when Hallmark sponsored the making of really good films for television, these were special events, James Garner was talked into making several of them, one of which is the superior Decoration Day. These were not sudsy, bright-eye, greeting card type films. Mostly, these were in-depth dramas that stirred the heart and stirred your emotions. … More Decoration Day (1990)
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