An entertainer from the rural south rises to become a political demagogue. And he’s played by Andy Griffith. This is all kinds of messed up! It’s actually a great film, with A LOT to say to us in the 21st Century. It’s directed by Elia Kazan, and also stars Patricia Neal....

In 1970, Arthur Hailey’s blockbuster book, Airport, became the first film in that decade’s disaster movie cycle. It also led to three more Airport films, and the adaptation of Zero Hour (also a Hailey story) into Airplane!. This second installment, Airport 1975, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. It straddles the line between big budget, all-star A picture (the original), and implausible 70s schlock, as observed in the final two Airport films. Here, we’re also treated to appearances...

We close out International Summer Vacation with a film most of us haven’t seen, or even heard of. It comes to us from Argentina, and director Carlos Hugo Christensen. It’s based on a story by noir stalwart, Cornell Woolrich, and consists of two stories involving the door of the title. It’s also notable for incredible cinematography from Pablo Tabernero. The Film Noir Foundation restored, and is showing the film around the country at FNF’s Noir City festivals this year....

We return to France for King of Hearts, directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Alan Bates and Geneviève Bujold. The suggestion to see this film comes from our own Erika Ensign, who praises its anti-war message, among other attributes. The film is set in a small French town during World War I, after the locals have fled the battle. Residents of a nearby asylum escape and take over the town. The film was made in 1966, in the shadow of French involvement in the Vietnam War....

Tokyo Story is on numerous lists of the best films of all time. It’s in my personal top five. This movie is considered the masterpiece by legendary filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, and it stars his luminous muse, Setsuko Hara. Tokyo Story is a black and white time capsule of life in Japan after World War II and depicts how the war and Japan’s modernization disrupted its family dynamic. Compared with the boldness of Akira Kurosawa’s movies, it’s sedate and thoughtful, and you may easily find yourself...

Starring Joan Crawford is Samuel Garza Bernstein’s new appreciation of the screen queen. It’s a great book, and I wanted you to meet the author, Samuel Garza Bernstein. We’ve known each other since I was 16. These two things are only partially related....

Forgive a film noir detour during our international vacation season. This is episode 100, and so I’ve picked a movie I love, and that feels right in the collective LTS wheelhouse. James M. Cain’s story of betrayal and murder was directed by Billy Wilder, and stars Barbara Stanwyck (natch), Fred McMurray and Edward G. Robinson. This film is full of dynamite lines, crazy sexual chemistry, and noir lighting for days....

Our summer travels continue this week to Italy, where Federico Fellini is our guide. The title translates to “the sweet life” in English, and that’s what star Marcello Mastroianni seeks in Rome, over the course of seven days. Mastroianni is a tabloid journalist, and we follow him through seven stories, during the film. Anita Ekberg is the female star probably most known to American film fans. La Dolce Vita ranks among Fellini’s best, and the movie also gives us a glimpse of modern Italy, a...

Shot in the postwar ruins of occupied Tokyo, Akira Kurosawa’s early buddy-cop thriller will make you feel every drop of sweat in its sweltering summer heat wave. A rookie cop (Toshiro Mifune) loses his gun to a pickpocket; the gun ends up in the hands of a desperate ex-soldier with nothing to lose. As his weapon gets used in a series of escalating, awful crimes, the young detective and his savvy mentor (Takashi Shimura) must race through the underworld to track down the shooter and get it...

We begin our International Summer Vacation season with a prime example of the French New Wave. Breathless is directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. The film is notable for its visual style, and the impact it had on the careers of its leading actors. Belmondo plays a criminal who wants to be Humphrey Bogart. He spends much of the film on the run, and with his American girlfriend. Problems ensue....

Down in the depths of precode cinema, where Shelly likes to spend torrid nights, there’s a depiction of how a department store can be a little Peyton Place, and how Warren William is never to be trusted. The great precode lothario stars with very young Loretta Young and Wallace Ford (who we just saw as a middle-aged creep in The Breaking Point) as her love interest. Aside from the sleaze, it’s kind of fun to see how a department store works in the 1930s....

Here are Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift at their hottest, with an adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. Just as in Night of the Hunter, Shelley Winters maybe ought to watch her back. George Stevens directs, and here, he’s beginning his epic period. In the 50s, he’ll direct Giant and Shane, among others. This one is full of melodrama and social aspiration and also has a bunch of Oscars, including Stevens’ first for directing. It’s nice to look at....

Johnny Guitar (1954): It’s unusual, it’s weird, and it’s unlike any other film made by these stars. And it’s our first LTS western. Because maybe your show runner has a slightly twisted appreciation for the genre. Nicholas Ray, whose directorial chops we last experienced with In A Lonely Place, directs Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge. It’s a story that centers female characters, and gives Joan a chance to stomp around in great western wardrobe. Poor Sterling Hayden is...

Every once in awhile, your host takes a flier, choosing a film for us to watch that I’ve seen once or twice, if at all. Also arising from the 2022 draft episode is this English romance from 1945. It’s from the filmmaking team of Powell and Pressburger, and stars Wendy Hiller, so on credentials alone, it’s worth your attention. A young woman travels to the Hebrides to marry an older, wealthy man. But circumstances change her thinking...

Gene Kelly was at the height of his powers in 1951, starring in musicals for MGM, and choreographing some of them. Here, Vincent Minelli directs, but the dancing is by Kelly. Leslie Caron makes her film debut, and the rest of the cast has a decidedly continental vibe. The film is “inspired” by George Gershwin’s 1928 musical of the same name, but the writing credit here goes to Alan Jay Lerner, aka half of the celebrated Lerner and Lowe musical composing team. An American in Paris won a...

Unlike the mid-40s film that first brought us Bogie and Bacall, The Breaking Point is a relatively faithful adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s story, To Have and Have Not. This one stars John Garfield (in one of his final films) and Patricia Neal. Michael Curtiz directs, but if that suggests a routine Warner Bothers potboiler (I love those) it is not. Garfield is a boat captain talked into doing some smuggling. There’s a love triangle and an ending that’ll just wrench you....

This 1936 film is based on the well-known novel of the same name, by Sinclair Lewis. It’s the story of a successful middle-aged man (Walter Huston) who wants something new from his life. That’s what his wife (Ruth Chatterton) wants, too, but their ideas are very different, and not compatible. And there’s Mary Astor, living her best life in an Italian villa, being all awesome and stuff. It’s fun to watch these three actors work. The writing is good, too. William Wyler (who we last heard from...

If the Jeopardy answer is “A Christmas-themed film of the mid-1940s”, you might expect the question to be “What is ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’” or “What is ‘Miracle on 34th Street.’” But on this year’s LTS holiday episode, those questions would be wrong! Our movie this year comes with stars like Victor Moore and Don DeFore, not Jimmy Stewart or Donna Reed. But our little holiday movie has a lot to recommend it. There’s found family, a budding love story, a challenge to capitalism and...

I hear that Alec Guinness made a couple of movies in the 1970s or 80s that you may know. This is not that. This is a classic Ealing Studios comedy in which Alec plays eight characters. Because it’s a British comedy, I was not surprised to find that it dealt with social class. Robert Hamer directs, and Dennis Price is the actual star. This episode is full of connections to other things we like. Everyone brought the trivia....

This is a disturbing film: also a good one. Charles Laughton’s only directorial outing focuses on a con man (and worse) terrorizing a pair of children as they run from him. He’s attempting to secure some money he covets, and to shut up those meddling kids. Robert Mitchum is our charismatic villain and star, along with Shelley Winters and silent luminary Lillian Gish, also turning in worthy performances. Buckle up, friends. You’ve been warned. Ish....

For me, this movie answers some important LTS questions: what did that Ernst Lubitsch guy direct besides To Be Or Not To Be? How was Herbert Marshall ever a romantic lead? And finally, where are the precodes? It’s been forever! TIP also give me the chance to introduce Kay Francis and Miriam Hopkins, the fashion-forward queen of Warner Brothers before Bette Davis, and Miss Davis’ later southern belle nemesis in several films - respectively. Trouble in Paradise is a romantic triangle comedy...

For this episode, we’re breaking format a bit. Instead of focusing on one film, we’ll talk about several: all from the silent film era. It’s not a draft, but each panelist has picked a movie, and we’ve all watched them! Our guide is guest host, Micki Maynard!...

Nicholas Ray directs Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Graham. Bogie is Dix Steele, who should not be confused for Captain Picard’s hollowdeck alter ego, Dixon Hill. (Am I the only one who does that?) Bogie is not a detective, but a screenwriter suspected of murder. In A Lonely Place is considered one of the best film noir made, and Bogart and Graham give excellent performances....