We’re excited to announce our latest Classic Couple Academy course offering. The Three Stooges: A Crash Course is now available. The Three Stooges: A Crash Course shares who’s who in the Stooges comedy troupe, showcases their early years as performers and highlights the principles of Stooges comedy. The Stooges’ 50+-year career spanned short-subject films, feature…
Category Archives: The Film Detective
An Essential Film in Black History: The Duke Is Tops (1938)
The Duke Is Tops (1938) is an American musical film released by Million Dollar Productions, a production company noted for advancing Black filmmaking in the late 1930s. Ralph Cooper, one of the three heads of Million Dollar Productions, scripted, co-directed and starred in the film. The Duke Is Tops is a B-musical featuring a mostly…
Fright Night Masterpiece – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
The 1920 silent film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde directed by John S. Robertson is known as one of the great film performances by John Barrymore. Filmed during the day while at the same time the great theater actor appeared on the stage at night, Barrymore’s performance is an acting tour de force. Barrymore plays…
An Enchanting Romance: Love Affair (1939)
The remake. This history of film is raft with remakes, many sparking debates around which version is considered the best. Every remake beckons the true film aficionado to seek out the original. Love Affair (1939) is one such original. It stars Charles Boyer as French painter Michel Marnet and Irene Dunne as American singer Terry…
Myrna Loy’s First Starring Role: Indecent (1932)
Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray, follows the lives of two friends Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley as they move through British high society. First published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, its popularity led to the publishing of a single volume in 1848. Today the book is regarded as a classic…
Girls! Girls! Girls! Lady of Burlesque (1943)
Lady of Burlesque (1943) is based on The G-String Murders a 1941 detective novel written by famous burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee. The film, directed by William A. Wellman and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Michael O’Shea, is a faithful and fun-to-watch adaptation of the novel. It’s the story of Dixie Daisy the hot up-and-coming star…
Grab Your Hot Cocoa: The Holiday Specials Are On
Each year, the changing of the seasons is signaled by the airing of the seasonal television specials. Since the 1960s, the arrival of the Christmas season means it’s time to watch the Rankin/Bass animated films: The Little Drummer Boy (1968), Frosty the Snowman (1969), Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970), and The Year Without…
Capra Christmas Noir: Meet John Doe (1941)
Director Frank Capra is perhaps best known for making films about the redemption of the common man and the goodwill of communities. These themes are omnipresent in his most iconic Christmas movies—It’s a Wonderful Life from 1946 and Meet John Doe from 1941. Both films showcase Christmas Capra noir style as the director’s darkest films…
Spooky Spoof: Bela Lugosi in The Gorilla (1939)
The Gorilla (1939) is billed as a horror comedy. When released that may have felt accurate. Eighty years onward, it shows more as a spooky spoof than anything, especially when watched with an eye on Bela Lugosi. The Gorilla is one of Lugosi’s lesser known films, released at a time when his career was in…
“Road to” Movie Must-See: Road to Bali (1952)
The “Road to” series of seven comedy films featuring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour spanned from 1940 to 1962. Each movie was set in an exotic location designed to spoof popular film settings—from “natives in the jungle” and “Arabian desert nights” to “hijinks on the high seas” and “treasures of the Orient.” Since…