When I was eight or nine, I wandered into the living room and found my mother watching a film I didn’t recognize. Grace Kelly was pleading with a man not to reveal their affair to her once distant, now much-reformed husband. Then, ‘Mr. Kelly’ arrived. He was charming, witty, impeccably dressed and secretly plotting to […]
Gene Kelly in Motion
“Why don’t you and me do some fancy stepping tonight?” —Gabey (Gene Kelly) to Ivy (Vera-Ellen) in On the Town Grab your tap shoes: today is Gene Kelly’s 105th birthday. I’ve been a Kelly fan almost since infancy and after decades of assiduous viewing, it’s easier for me to name the musicals I haven’t seen […]
Not-so-silent cinema: The Art of Silent Film Music
This article was originally published on Starring NYC (now sadly defunct) and has been dusted off and spruced up for its Retro Movie Buff debut. Ben Model believes silent cinema is the worst name for a film genre. Not only is it patently misleading, it’s also a little dull. “It sounds like you’re going to […]
A Shortlist of Films I Wish Were in the Criterion Collection
The biannual Barnes and Noble Criterion Collection sale is now on. Or as I like to think of it, Christmas in July. Founded in 1984 the Criterion Collection, as the back of each of its DVDs and Blu-rays will tell you, is “a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films.” It’s a bespoke label […]
Hollywood East
This article was originally published on Starring NYC (now sadly defunct) and has been dusted off and spruced up for its Retro Movie Buff debut. The thumbnail history of American cinema goes something like this: In the beginning, there was Edison. In the 1890s, Thomas Alva Edison—or rather his employee, W.K.L. Dickson—developed the Kinetograph, […]
We’ll Always Have Paris: ‘Casablanca’ (1942)
Occupied French Morocco. Stolen letters of transit. A smoky café. An airport shrouded in fog. Everybody comes to Rick’s. This Valentine’s Day, curl up with Casablanca, one of the most beloved and (mis)quoted films of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Its plot is deceptively simple. Relentlessly cynical Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) presides over ‘Rick’s Café Americain’, Casablanca’s […]
In Celebration of John Williams
Film music lovers, rejoice: John Williams, one of cinema’s greatest composers, turns 85 today. Born in Floral Park, New York, in 1932, Williams served in the Air Force, studied music at Juilliard and played jazz in New York City night clubs before moving to Los Angeles to work in film. He soon got a job […]
Anything Goes: ‘The Front Page’ on Broadway
As anyone who’s been following the news knows, the fourth estate has taken quite a beating lately: fake news, accusations of bias, trial by Twitter and the arrival of ‘alternative facts’. Seen in this climate, the magnificent Broadway revival of The Front Page, now in its last week at the Broadhurst Theatre, is more than […]
Biography of a Hit: The Success of ‘My Man Godfrey’ (1936)
This essay was originally published on ArtsandCrit.com (now sadly defunct) and has been dusted off and spruced up for its Retro Movie Buff debut. In 1936, the Great Depression was in its fifth year, the average movie ticket cost $0.25 and a film review in trade magazine Variety made history by christening a new genre: […]
Phantasmagoria: ‘Spirits of the Dead’ (1968)
If you’re obsessed with films and potter about Twitter, you might have seen director Edgar Wright’s list of his 1000 favourite movies, an inventory both admirable in scope and staggering in content. I’ve seen only about 40 percent of the films on the list (predictably, most of them made before 1970) and since I adore […]
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