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Bicycle Thieves (1948)
The Prize Picture They Want to Censor!
Filmmaker(s): Vittorio De Sica

Unemployed Antonio is elated when he finally finds work hanging posters around war-torn Rome. However on his first day, his bicycle—essential to his work—gets stolen. His job is doomed unless he can find the thief. With the help of his son, Antonio combs the city, becoming desperate for justice.

Stolen is a film about a child, one who is both IN the film and watches it. Hard as it is to imagine today, the world of film was had ideas on the surface, and lively controversies. Men took risks and sometimes survived. Here is an experiment...


Published July 27, 2023
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Appointment with Crime (1946)
Filmmaker(s): John Harlow

Small-time jewel thief Leo Martin is deserted by his partners-in-crime, club owner Gus Loman and driver Hatchett, when the robbery they are committing goes wrong. After serving his prison sentence, Leo emerges with an intricate plan for revenge. Leo implicates Loman, as well as his amoral boss, Gregory Lang, for murder -- but Inspector Rogers suspects Leo.

Hands Off me, noir is a very specific form. It is as pervasive and important an invention as Jazz. The thing that distinguishes it is a main character who is put through the wringer in circumstances that would never occur if there were not us...


Published May 1, 2023
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Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Three wonderful loves in the best picture of the year!
Filmmaker(s): William Wyler

It's the hope that sustains the spirit of every GI: the dream of the day when he will finally return home. For three WWII veterans, the day has arrived. But for each man, the dream is about to become a nightmare.

Slow Meditation on Observation treacly story hides some masterful filmmaking. Film is all about observation, except the observed usually contrive to make the observer feel unobtrusive. During this period, intelligent filmmakers were playing with the form so that often films were not only engineered observations but the...


Published July 14, 2023
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And Then There Were None (1945)
Filmmaker(s): René Clair

Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island and while they are waiting for the mysterious host to appear, a recording levels serious accusations at each of the guests. Soon they start being murdered, one by one. As the survivors try to keep their wits, they reach a disturbing conclusion: one of them must be the killer.

Dame Agatha's Dead has been as profoundly influential in film as Shakespeare. We can't take too lightly how often we see the effects of her experiments in tweaking the identity of the reader/ viewer. This is one of her most interesting constructions: presented quite differently...


Published September 18, 2022
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Double Indemnity (1944)
It's love and murder at first sight!
Filmmaker(s): Billy Wilder

A rich woman and a calculating insurance agent plot to kill her unsuspecting husband after he signs a double indemnity policy. Against a backdrop of distinctly Californian settings, the partners in crime plan the perfect murder to collect the insurance, which pays double if the death is accidental.

The Match is Out is like most things in life: there are a few predefined roles among which it is convenient to pick. Once you define who you are in the world of cinema, it determines a lot of what you think about what you...


Published September 20, 2022
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The Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
A Slight Case Of Murder... Solved by Jimmy Wong!
Filmmaker(s): Phil Rosen

In the middle of a pictorial lecture on his recent expedition to the Mongolian Desert, Dr. John Benton,the famous explorer, drinks from the water bottle on his lecture table, collapses and dies. His last words "Eternal Fire" are the only clue Chinese detective Jimmy Wong and Captain Street of the police department have to work on.

Conspiratorial Filmmaking maintain that some very important conventions were worked out in 30s mysteries. The Charlie Chan series was instrumental in some of these, and this is the last of them. It incidentally has Charlie’s son as the detective, the first Asian playing the character. The...


Published December 6, 2022
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Another Thin Man (1939)
Their Merriest Hit! Mr. and Mrs. Thin Man Have a B-A-B-Y!
Filmmaker(s): W.S. Van Dyke

Not even the joys of parenthood can stop married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles from investigating a murder on a Long Island estate.

Another Side of Thin the third of the series, the producers decided to move a little more into the world of Hammett and nudge away from the cutesy cute banter. It is only a little in that direction, but noticeable with the fairly complex plot. Hammett...


Published April 4, 2023
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Baby Daze (1939)
Filmmaker(s): Charles E. Roberts

Edgar starts out in a non-unfamiliar grumpy mood and tells some people off obnoxiously, then becomes overcome with joy and kindheartedness when he discovers that his wife is about to have a baby.

Slow Burn is included as an extra on the “The Southerner” DVD and is much the better experience. Both films represent a lost attitude in film. This one is worth re-experiencing: the Slow Burn flummox that was invented by this guy, continued in many radio...


Published May 16, 2023
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Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938)
15 Sensational Sense-Staggering Episodes!
Filmmaker(s): Ford Beebe, Robert F. Hill

When a deadly Nitron ray strikes Earth, Flash Gordon and his friends travel to Mars to battle Ming the Merciless and his new ally Queen Azura.

Magical think I’d take a dozen of these for one Star Wars sequels. When you get down to it, Star Wars was four things: Kurosawa, Williams and Campbell folded into science fiction, but it was quite thin scifi. It posited a Manichean world — at least...


Published November 28, 2022
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Anabel Takes a Tour (1938)
Filmmaker(s): Lew Landers

Annabel Allison, star of Wonder Pictures, is irked at her poor publicity, especially when a rival gets engaged to a Marquis; so she makes studio head Webb re-hire disgraced publicity agent Morgan for her personal appearance tour. The trip proceeds with a flurry of Morgan's crazy, slapstick publicity stunts. Then Annabel has her chance to "bag" a real Viscount.

Sometimes It Is People film nuts are out there. I get mail from waves of them every day as I run in the dark, stepping on feet with my comments. There seem to be two kinds of zealots: those attached to genres and archetypes and those...


Published April 2, 2023
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