Those Wonderful People Out There In The Dark

Before we get to the meeting of the minds, what about the Brothers, or as they were later known, Minnie’s boys, in honor of their mother. Minnie came from a performing family, was the sister of vaude…

As you age, you may have these half-wispy thoughts enter your consciousness --- have I done anything worthwhile? Why, if at all, will I be remembered? It may not be a subject that’s brought up in pol…

On a Saturday it was nothing for a kid to go to the theater, get a ticket, candy, popcorn, and spend all day there. And teenagers had after-school jobs. They had real dollars! So, while not all of Ho…

Now, as for most of the US, Weitzel Elementary wasn’t on the Soviet list of primary targets for a hydrogen bomb blast. The film, made in 1951 by the Civil Defense Administration, was designed to allo…

About six months ago, I did a pod on Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese’s 1990 magnum opus on the wise guys of New York, which to me was sweeping, magnetic and a triumph. And as I said then, it’s a young ma…

For me, there are some films that are so emotional and fraught that I have a difficult time watching them. Some examples from my life are A River Runs Through It, Kurosawa’s Ikiru, which I’m going to…

One of the perks, I suppose, of being a writer, is that you may get to write your own epitaph. Billy Wilder is buried at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park under a big, dark marble st…

Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State for President Truman, penned a memoir in 1969 he entitled Present At The Creation, which always struck me as a bit of hubris, but kept reoccurring to me as I thou…

What unfolded was a nightmarish world of gas explosions and eruptions, darkness stabbed by beams of light, flying cars, omnipresent rain on the ground, cops, magnificent buildings, garbage and hovels…

Out Of The Past has the coolest, most laconic, world-weary noir character ever portrayed, the standard for the type. You can’t take your eyes off him. And America never did. He’s the prototype for th…

It’s the Golden Age of Billy Wilder in this sharp, insightful, and funny comment on the wonderful, wonderful world of business (and love), The Apartment. Released in 1960 by United Artists, it’s Mad …

Haven’t you heard of the suspension of disbelief? We’re in the second part of Scary Season here on the pod and we’re diving into one of the wittier, more tender portraits ever created of a person who…

In honor of Scary Season, I’m going to do a two-fer with a lineup of two family “scary” films in two weeks and some guest commentators to talk about them. Now, the films themselves are not especially…

The music is foreboding and ponderous. We see a No Trespassing sign as we move along a chain-link and ornately wrought fence with a magnificent capital K atop the gates. We continue to move towards w…

Genius. There, I’ve said it, as so many have. Orson Welles was regarded as a genius, from his youth, a genius in the ability to weave the magic of artistic vision and technique into stories that were…

We start to hear a thumping. The guys ask each other what’s going on, what’s the sound? They pull off the roadway and, by the car lights, open the trunk from where the pounding is coming. There, a bl…

Hey man, I love a good film noir! I went on and on about it for Double Indemnity but allow me to recap. Moody lighting, voice-over narration, a femme fatale, suffocating fatalism, nihilistic conclusi…

This film is VERY personal for me on a number of levels and it’s a difficult one to talk about, as it hits so close to home on parts of my personality and behavior. Also, I like the film itself as a …

Oh, I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve seen this movie many times, but it’s like an old familiar friend that you always have time for and is so enjoyable to visit. I’ve said on Twitter that if you’ve s…

I’ve really been looking forward to this episode, as this is one of my top films ever, and the emotions it stirs are one of the reasons I started this podcast. It’s Marty, released in 1955 by United …