Wyler’s ‘House Divided’ rises from the vaults @ MoMA
A House Divided — it’s one of those handy generic titles that has lent itself to half a dozen movies and a whole lotta TV episodes over the years. Back in 1931, it was an especially apt name for an early talkie starring Walter Huston, neatly encapsulating the drama’s dark oedipal stew. It’s a work ...
TCM Fest: Stacy Keach recalls his fighting form for ‘Fat City’ 1
“I was a hero that day,” Stacy Keach told a TCM festival crowd Sunday afternoon. He was talking about the time, on the movie set of “Doc” in Almeria, Spain, when the legendary filmmaker John Huston paid him a visit, hoping he would star in his next feature, Fat City. There may be no conventional ...
Dark doings under SoCal sun in “Private Property” at TCM Fest
The Big Sleep and Horse Feathers are among the treasured favorites unspooling in spiffed-up restorations at the TCM Classic Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday night in Hollywood. But it’s not all starry A-listers on this year’s lineup. The vintage-film faithful will have a chance to discover an obscure and deeply weird independent film from ...
Delon and Gabin crime story a highlight of COLCOA Classics
Brenda Blethyn’s performance as a devoted parole officer was the best thing about Two Men in Town, but it wasn’t enough to bring the drama fully to life. An adaptation of a 1973 French film that transplanted the action from Montpellier to the U.S.-Mexican border, the recent release also starred Forest Whitaker and Harvey Keitel. ...
Lost and found: Houdini has ‘Game’
Among the many mysteries surrounding Harry Houdini is the question of whether he might have parlayed his charismatic stage persona into sound-era movie stardom. The peerless illusionist and escape artist died almost precisely a year before the release of the first feature-length talkie, The Jazz Singer. His filmography consists of five silent films, the second ...
Lizabeth Scott a ‘Tigresse’ to die for
A take-no-prisoners film noir, “Too Late for Tears” is saddled with a title that has all the clout of an unused tissue. Its alternate title, “Killer Bait,” is marginally less flimsy. But it was under the far more fitting French handle, “La Tigresse,” that a duplicate negative of the 1949 low-budget picture, which had badly ...
TCM & Starline partner for movie lover’s ramble through Los Angeles
There are two in every crowd, and they usually end up sitting near me: the people who keep talking throughout the movie — or, in this case, the Movie Locations Tour. But on a bright spring morning, when I had the rare chance to play tourist in the city where I live, the gabfest behind ...