THE LAST DAYS OF GENE KELLY - The decision by Gene Kelly’s widow not to organise a funeral for her late husband when he died in 1996 no doubt surprised many, but she has now revealed t...

Pre-Code Crazy for September 2026 - Pre-Code Crazy is the monthly series here at Shadows and Satin and over at the blog of my pal Kristina, Speakeasy, where each month we recommend a pre-Code...

College Coach (1933) - Time once again for Pre-Code Crazy, my monthly pre-Code pick with my friend Karen of Shadows & Satin. We each choose a film that’s on this month’s TCM sche...

Ten Books With Nationalities In The Title - Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is: Books With Nationalities In The Title (e.g. The French Lieutenant’s...

An Oscar for Ingrid Bergman! – Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944) - My review of George Cukor's Gaslight (1944), a film for which Ingrid Bergman won her first Oscar! Continue reading →

Smooth as Silk (1946) - *Smooth as Silk** is included in the same Blu-ray set, published by Kino Lorber, as The Great Gatsby and Dr. Broadway, but this one seems the most noir o...

3 Fun Facts about The Big Sleep (1946) - 3 Fun Facts about The Big Sleep Released on August 31, 1946, The Big Sleep stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in one of classic Hollywood’s most famou...

Film Noir, Classic Hollywood merchandise and more… - Summer’s nearly over and there’s a lot to catch up on! My Substack, The Losers of Film Noir, is still going strong, thankfully. My last post, about Claude ...

Announcing Back in Black: Another Film Noir Blogathon - Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-In and I are both fans of film noir. You know, the movie "genre" revolving around crimes, cynicism, and the people who live in...

Announcing The Back in Black: Another Film Noir Blogathon - Anyone who has been a reader of *The Midnite Drive-In* knows how much I like the film noir theme. It is one of the types of movies that inspired me to...

Seven Types of Lost Films: Show Notes - [image: SevenStagesofLostFilmsTHUMBNAIL] Estimates suggest that as many as 90% of silent films made before 1929 are now lost—but the line between lost, s...

How a Horseshoe Upset a Happy Family (1912) A Silent Film Review - An Irish American woman finds a lucky horseshoe and brings it home, only to discover that it has lots of luck– bad luck! Home Media Availability: Stream co...

Anastasia 1956 – Ingrid Bergman’s Hollywood Comeback! - Ingrid Bergman is one of my top actresses so when the Ingrid Bergman Blogathon came back around, I knew I wanted to dive into one of her performances I h...

The Big Red Book - My copy of Red and Black: Hollywood Left and the Blacklist, edited by Ehsan Khoshbakht, just arrived! I’m in here, blabbering on about Bernard “Mad” Vorhau...

The Girl Most Likely (1958) - In *The Girl Most Likely*, Jane Powell stars as Dodie, a young woman who dreams of marrying a millionaire and living "the life." Her current steady Buzz ...

Getting Down With Ingrid - Welcome back, Miss Ingrid… The movie opens in a dinky prewar apartment in New York City, where Toni (Goldie Hawn) has a nice candlelight dinner all laid ou...

O Rolls-Royce Amarelo (1964) / The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) - ESTA CRÍTICA TEM SPOILERS *THIS ARTICLE HAS SPOILERS * Quem só assiste a filmes clássicos geralmente diz que não se fazem filmes como antigamente. E...

‘Jail Bait’ (1954) – Part Four - We have now reached the penultimate part of our journey movie. Behold! The next-to-the-last part of this bizarre badly-written/acted weird movie. Don’t wor...

New Review Page - *"Nobody will ever understand what this did to people, how (Hollywood) destroyed them, made them hollow ... Jesus Christ, I don't want to become an agel...

BOYER . . . CHARLES . . . BOTD - Charles Boyer with his 1935 Packard, c. 1935 ​As today marks the birthday anniversary of Charles Boyer, born August 28, 1899, I want to share a compilation...

Meadowland - MEADOWLAND, a somber 2015 drama, was the directing debut of Reed Morano, who also served as the cinematographer, a skill she had honed in a dozen films, in...

Gossip Friday: Found His Voice - From March 1947: Clark Gable is out of bed and back with “The Hucksters.” I asked Clark how he cured his cold. Said he, “I got to thinking of a love scene ...

Charulata(1964) - Charulata(The Lonely Wife) is my favourite film from the great Indian director Satyajit Ray. With the exception of directors such as Hitchcock, Chaplin, Ku...

TV / FILMS MUSIC LISTS… Some Uplifting, Straight Talk About the Movie Multi-Talented Dolly Parton - What a way to make a living in music, remembering Dolly Parton's career not just from 9 to 5... Revisiting Dolly's outstanding on-screen performances and o...

90 YEARS OF SWING TIME! - On this day, in 1936, Swing Time opened in theaters! If you know me, you know Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers have a very special place in my classic-fil...

The 8th Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blogathon is here! - The Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blogathon is back for a 8th edition! On the occasion, a group of talented bloggers have written articles about her films. We i...

Pretty Babies (2026) - Zachęcająca do głębokich analiz i interpretacji, a przy tym chwilami wyjątkowo płytka opowieść o dziewczynach źle lokujących swoje marzenia. Artykuł poch...

Ingrid Bergman’s Slow-Mo Power Struggle - Ingrid Bergman always gives an audience their money’s worth. The legendary actress, born in Stockholm, Sweden, came to Hollywood in 1939, where she made su...

From Chicago to California: The Wagon Train of “Westward the Women” - Directed by William A. Wellman, *Westward the Women* opens in 1851 with California rancher Roy Whitman hiring veteran trail guide Buck Wyatt (Robert Tayl...

A rare advertisement for Pandora's Box from 1929 Ukraine - This is a follow-up post to the August 22 blog, "A newly uncovered article about Louise Brooks - from war-torn Eastern Europe," I teased this post in tha...

Ann Blyth - Summer Theatre - Before summer ends, here's another memory of summer theatre from long ago. Lovely Ann Blyth, whom we lost earlier this summer, stars as Maria in *The ...

Summer Under the Stars: Katharine Hepburn - *Star of the Day: *Katharine Hepburn *Rooster Cogburn *(1975): "Marshal Rooster Cogburn unwillingly teams up with Eula Goodnight to track down her father...

The Importance of Being Earnest - Michael Redgrave & Michael Denison.It's surprising that Oscar Wilde's most beloved stage play, *The Importance of Being Earnest*, has only been adapted f...

NEW CD: BING CROSBY - KRAFT MUSIC HALL TIME volume 3 - This 2 CD set is a time capsule of Bing's halcyon radio days, drawing together a selection of songs from 1937-1946 that have never appeared on CD. Kraft ...

The 8th Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blogathon: Journey to Italy (dir. Roberto Rossellini, 1954) - NOTE: This post spoils the whole movie. If you have not seen this film and plan to, don’t read this until you do. The collaboration between Ingrid Bergman ...

10 Things I Love About 'To Catch a Thief’ 1955 - *Golden beauty Grace Kelly and darkly handsome Cary Grant make a sizzling screen team in Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 hit "To Catch a Thief."* I’ve only s...

Princess Mononoke (1997) - “The Forest Spirit gives life and takes life away. Life and death are his alone.” One of the most beautiful things about Princess Mononoke is the magnitude...

Season Three Episode Thirteen --- The Long Goodbye - Lucky episode 13. We’ve come to the end of the train tracks of our season of film noir. Fate has led us here and dropped us — we’re not responsible for whe...

Ronnie Schell - “I didn’t get the big break, but I got lots of little breaks.” –Ronnie Schell Ronald Ralph Schell was born on December 23, 1931, in Richmond, California, t...

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - Brain vs. brawn. Good guys vs. outlaws. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may focus on a fatal duel, but it’s definitely not a typical shoot-‘em-up Western....

Chicago Deadline - According to Aristotle, our characters are the result of our conduct. Supposing that to be true, what better way then to arrive at the measure of an unknow...

The Mask 1961 Sunday Nite Surreal “I tried to stop, I can’t, I don’t want to! - Put the Mask On…Now!: Glimpses into the Abyss: Descent and Desire, Depth and Despair – The Mask (1961) “I MUST EXPERIENCE THE GREATEST ACT OF THE HUMAN MIN...

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Triggers in Leash (Shamley Productions, 1955) - The great British director Alfred Hitchock was a ubiquitous presence in United States pop culture from the mid-50’s into the 60’s. He was most famous, of ...

196. THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX, 1939 - An unforgettably majestic melodrama of romance, rivalry, and royal intrigue "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" A romance between a powerful older w...

Quel Rêve: Beauties of the Night (1952) - A sunny day. A house in the country. A music lesson. On the wall by the piano where the daughter of the family (Yannick Malloire) is dutifully executing he...

The Suburban Jungle: When Noir Bled Out of the City - Many American films noir of the early 1940s were anchored to big cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York. So were a number of returning World War II ...

Announcing: The Return Of The Silent Movie Day Blogathon! - Hello everyone, I hope you’ve been enjoying the ‘Merica themed posts so far this summer! Let’s kick off August with some happy news–the Silent Movie Day bl...

Panic in Year Zero: Father knows best - "You keep your gun handy. Our country is still full of thieving, murdering... patriots."

A Terrible Shock: August 1926 - One hundred years ago this month, Grace Kingsley was writing about the usual assortment of casting news and Hollywood party-going, and she debunked some go...

Pre-Code Movies on TCM, August 2026 - Hello again everybody! I apologize for the missing months there– my move from Germany to Colorado has been tumultuous, from having to re-purchase every app...

Summer Under the Stars 2026: TCM Festival Highlights - It has been quite a while since I visited with you on Once...

The Small Town Hell of WIDOW'S BAY (2026) - *Widow's Bay*, the 2026 horror-comedy series on Apple TV, gives viewers plenty of reasons to shudder with its darkly funny evocation of 70s and 80s horro...

Buffalo-made ‘Trouble with Christmas Mistletoe’ has July premiere - Grab a frozen hot chocolate – Christmas is coming early with another Buffalo-made holiday movie premiere. “The Trouble with Christmas Mistletoe,” which fil...

Blanche Grady - Incredibly beautiful, with a superb figure, Blanche was a sought-after model, working with prestigious photographers and modeling for publications like Vog...

Losing Her Mind in Africa: THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) - Despite Kate Hepburn’s reputation for relishing a good challenge and competitively pushing herself towards personal excellence, she couldn’t have possibly ...

Ann Blyth (1927/1928-2026) - This evening, The Hollywood Reporter broke the sad news that Ann Blyth passed away yesterday, Wednesday, June 24, at the age of 98. Some other sources had ...

How You Know Your Friends Know You - Two water bottles arrived for me today, with a movie camera on front and quotes on the back. This is one is, of course, a quote from my favorite actress,...

Three Strangers (1946) - Premiered January 23, 1946: THREE STRANGERS, starring Sidney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Peter Lorre. Directed by Jean Negulesco (The Mask of Di...

“Screen Guild Theater”: Hollywood Radio Series - Of all the drama anthologies from old time radio, Screen Guild Theater was one of the most varied and unique radio shows. Every week, Hollywood actors came...

BREATH (Kim Ki-duk, 2007, South Korea) - Kim Ki-duk has a way without words. *BREATH* is exhaled into the cold mo(u)rning air, its life quickly fading and becoming intangible. Yeon is apathet...

Pre-Code Girl Summer Line - Just in time for summer, I've launched a new design in the Spellbound with Beth Ann Threadless shop. Check-out my Pre-code Girl Summer line! The post Pre...

La Poison (1951): A Venomous Comedy - This post is my contribution to the CMBA 2026 Spring Blogathon "Make 'em Laugh." Not long ago I was discussing *The Banshees of Inisherin* in a film gro...

The Awful Truth 1937 - Tonight's Cary Grant fix is by way of the excellent screwball comedy, 1937's The Awful Truth. Also starring Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy, directed and ...

Somewhere in Time (1980) - Director: Jeannot Szwarc Writer: Richard Matheson, based on his novel *Bid Time Return* Stars: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour and Christopher Plummer In...

Woman Under the Influence, A (1974) - “Mabel is not crazy; she’s unusual.” Synopsis: When a construction worker (Peter Falk) finds himself unable to handle the increasingly unconventional beh...

Painful Pilots: "Dream Wife" - It started with a martian. The success of *"My Favorite Martian,"* which premiered on CBS in the fall of 1963, kicked off a parade of supernatural sitcoms...

Employees' Entrance: The Monsters We Make - This is my entry in *The Classic Movie Blog Association Early Shadows and Pre-Code Horror Blogathon*. Click *HERE* for more monstrous fun. This store is ...

Coming Up Shorts! with… The Little Rascals: The Restored Silents, Volume 1 - Welcome back for another full post of Coming Up Shorts! This time, I’m going with the Hal Roach theatrical shorts featuring The Little Rascals, and some of...

BLOGGER’S NEWS - It was on September 14, 2017 that I was one of eight speakers at the first one-day conference dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The conference was...

Buster Keaton’s Cops and Laurel & Hardy 1928 Year Two - Buster Keaton’s masterpiece Cops (1922) is one of his seven films inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry as a work of “enduring impor...

Silent Cinema Of Latin America; Pt.1 Mexico - [image: imageedit-1-8609976754] Reading any standard film history of the silent era one would easily get the idea that the early days of film were limite...

“Sarah Jane—Don’t!” - This is an entry for “Cry Me a River,” the CMBA 2025 Spring Blogathon. Note: If you’re new to Imitation of Life, you might want to start with a viewing or ...

Book Review: The Carry On Companion, by Robert Ross - The Carry On Companion by Robert Ross is a reasonably comprehensive look at a British comedy institution, the Carry On films. Beginning with Carry On Serge...

Cinematic Blindspots — 1945 in Film - Happy 2025, classic film fans! I’m beyond delighted to head into this new year as I have so much to look forward to, particularly the upcoming birth of my ...

Audio Commentary for 1933's THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN - This past summer I was honored to be asked by Sony to record the audio commentary for *The Bitter Tea of General Yen* (1933). This feature is part of t...

2024 Holiday Gift Guide - The holiday season is upon us once again and the countdown to Christmas is underway! As you plan to gather with friends and family over the holidays, let...

Sailing the Golden Era seas - Come aboard, Aaron Spelling is expecting you! * Published specifically for The Spellingverse Blogathon hosted by Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews. * ¤¤¤ I ...

Eternally Marilyn - photo by Milton Greene Like so many summer days in Los Angeles, this one began as a balmy and sunlit morning. It would grow warmer and sunnier, but the l...

Publication Day - Not movie related but… TRANSGESSIONS, my latest collection of short stories is out now as an eBook and paperback. You can order your copy here. If you like...

Dear "Ginge", Love Fred: Fred and Ginger's Correspondence - For one of cinema's most beloved screen partnerships, we don't know a whole lot about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers's offscreen relationsh...

“His Name is Engraved in the Ripple Hall of Fame” — Season One, Episode Ten: Springtime in the Ghetto (April 19, 1974) - As the episode opens, Florida is at her sewing machine, working on a new slipcover for the living room sofa. The whole household is abuzz as the family pre...

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