Some of the most lasting works of art are those than can be appreciated on a variety of levels. Such is the case with Victor Erice’s 1973 film The Spirit of the Beehive. A masterpiece of Spanish cinema, the movie is set in 1940, a year after the Spanish Civil War ended with the authoritarian,…
Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s is a box set of work by Dorothy B. Hughes, Vera Caspary, Patricia Highsmith, Margaret Millar, Charlotte Armstrong, Dolores Hitchens, Helen Eustis, and Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. The website for the collection is worth exploring, with galleries, also essays from Sarah Weinman, the editor, and…
One approaches Citizen Kane slowly because of the enormous reputation that surrounds it like the vast fields, cages, and lagoons that lead up to Xanadu. Almost no one sees it for the first time without being over-prepared for it. All the plaudits, all the scholarly works, all the pop culture references—they sprawl about the film…
Jeff Donnell just seemed nice. Maybe that’s why she was the resident Nice Girl of film noir. She was always cast as the chipper best friend, or the perky wife, or the goofy roommate. No matter the role, she was almost always called upon to project a certain affability and intrinsic kindness. Maybe it came…
By most measurements, Robert Wise didn’t just succeed as a director—Robert Wise crushed it. He made West Side Story, which, if you adjust for inflation, made about half a billion dollars at the American box office. Then he made The Sound of Music. 2015 will mark the 50 year anniversary of that movie and many…
Alexis Smith (June 8, 1921 – June 9, 1993) was a versatile, Canadian-born actress who was equally at home playing in Hollywood Westerns, comedies, and noirs or just about any genre Tinseltown tossed her way. She played opposite many of the biggest Silver Screen draws including Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Errol Flynn, and Cary Grant.…
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