Nosferatu 1922’s reputation grew down the years, especially among film lovers. One of these was German master director Werner Herzog. As the 70s ended, Herzog determined that he wanted to remake the film --- an homage to what he felt was the greatest film ever to come from Germany. In Season 1 of the pod, we’ve looked at the scope of Herzog’s work, and up close at one of his most moving films, Fitzcarraldo. Herzog is well-known for his capture of humans surviving under trying conditions, acco...

For Scary Season 2024, we’re harkening back to a founding film in the genre of horror. In this era of the 21st Century, fans of horror are rich in the types of film they view to give themselves the creeps --- body horror, slasher films, psychological fear, the supernatural. But a film had to be the forerunner for Hollywood and the rest of the world to understand that the public wanted to be scared for their 25 cents (in 1931, probably now more like $25 --- Junior Mints included). Horror would...

Send us a textDoesn’t seem like much of a bargain. An uber-being shows and coincidentally knows what you want --- merely sign away your post-existence --- usually in blood, that might be a clue! But repeatedly, people actually sign away their souls --- in the form of their pride, their morality, their sense of worth, friendships, family. Come on --- it’s an allegory! But what a tale! Why does it occur in the stories and representations of numerous cultures, religions, and nations? Perhaps bec...

Send us a Text Message.The middle and lower classes, so-called, ultimately flocked to the message of fascism, not just in Germany but even earlier, in Italy in the ‘20s under Mussolini. For a class of people who had little or less than in the past, who felt powerless, the allure of fascism was intense and compelling. But what of the intellectual class, of the already powerful capitalist members of society, what of the artists for whom fascism might lead to straited circumstances and censorshi...

Send us a Text Message.It’s the end of season one, or cycle one, or Earth one, whatever you want to call it, for the pod… We wanted to end the season on something special and this film is just so --- a veritable treasure chest of recognizable and quotable lines for film fans. Tight as a drum, unfolding an incredibly well-written story in less than two hours, with a cast of three memorable headliners and fantastic support. It’s definitely noir, though some reviewers characterize it as black co...

Send us a Text Message. You may have seen Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and if so, you know the moment in the film when Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton sees himself in a role on TV and points at the screen excitedly --- it’s a meme now. I do it all the time watching film, at least in my mind. I mentally point at the screen, and shout to myself --- “Yeah, there’s that guy! He’s great!” But who is that guy? Sometimes, I’ve seen the actor so many times I have his name committed to memory, but...

My top noirs are Double Indemnity and Out Of The Past, in that order, but Falcon is special. Right out of the hard-boiled school of writing, the character of the unstoppable but human private detective as a noir mainstay, one of the more fatale of the femmes in the genre, the moody lighting and framing, the inevitability of the conclusion of a twisted scheme. Hey, all it lacks is a voice-over and flashbacks! Oh well. Falcon launched from one-time Pinkerton agent Dash Hammett’s typewriter in...

We’ve gone through quite a few pods on film, especially film noir and police procedurals, but this might be the first that has a female protagonist as the main character! More’s the pity! But what a protagonist! Perhaps to make up for the previous imbalance, we’re going to encounter one of the fiercest, most insightful, and action-oriented characters yet, regardless of gender. She has high EQ, high IQ, empathy, but she’s also tough as nails, and wise. Nicely enough, she was the character that...

When film fans speak about directors, they often go on about idiosyncratic styles or bellwether looks and techniques. You can rapidly identify a Hitchcock film. Same for something from Orson Welles. Scorsese has tendrils that can be traced through most of his films. But few directors inject themselves into the films they create to the extent that the trials and agonies of the production become legendary. Or become immortalized in a documentary. These are directors who encourage their crew to...

Film is such a wonderful art form --- in some instances, almost the entirety of the world may be encompassed. Or the artist makes the attempt to capture the world. And thereby capture timeless subjects that are repeated down the years. Imagine developing a film that looks at the humanity of man. Classism. Racism. Antisemitism. War. The rise of fascism. Nationalism. Accomplished nearly one hundred years ago now --- and the ugly elements portrayed in the film are still around to plague us....

Many of us strive to accomplish great things in our lives. A smaller group reach the heights in terms of those dream accomplishments. Then what do you do? How do you follow that when you’ve climbed a steep hill and, perhaps exhausted, look back? Where do you go now? Some, accomplished though they are, will turn away and pursue other, but less vaunted goals. Others will try to replicate the initial success, riffing on it until it’s a pale imitation of what was once beautiful. And the smallest,...

But there was the antithesis of noir as well. A small movement to capture some feelings of life, of positivity. People went to the movies weekly, and often they simply wanted one thing --- hope. That things would be better, that life would go back to normal, whatever that was. That things would work out, for society and individuals. There was a small ripple of films, also of the 40s and 50s, that took this viewpoint. And while noir went straight at the ugliness of the world, the small area of...

I can see him coming out of a run-down building, into a rain-swept, darkened street. He’s wearing a fedora pulled down over his forehead, with a large, rumpled trench coat to match. He moves wearily, a big man, not plodding, but not stepping lively either. If he speaks, it’s laconic, with a somewhat slow pace to the words, seldom rising above a conversational tone. Not much bothers him. Oh, the occasional clue that’s out of place, the occasional femme who means to do him wrong. Sometimes, he...

Sales is often spoken of as the tip of the spear for any enterprise. That’s not true --- marketing is the tip of the spear. But we’ll leave that alone. Sales is often the first time a customer or buyer experiences a company --- the ethic, the product, the approach. Sales as a career attracts a certain type of person --- driven, very focused, sometimes with big but usually at least a healthy ego. Many focused on the needs of their customers. Many focused on the bucks. Some even focused on...

History repeats first as tragedy --- radio evangelism and the good, hard business sense of Christianity in the 1920s, but next the farce --- the co-opting of religion for political and financial purposes in the 21st Century. And, in both cases, railing at, to quote a fictional preacher, “Harvardism, Yaleism, and Princetonism.” The shadowy and evil elites, of course. Woops, throw in one more “ism,” Darwinism. It’s on repeat play now. And it was all seen clearly in 1926 by a guy named Sinclair...

But the way Hollywood of the classic era liked it best was for the actor to be “discovered.” That’s right. You’re sitting at Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard in 1937 and the next thing you know, you’re Lana Turner and making $1000 a week. By the way, it wasn’t Schwab’s, it was the Top Hat Malt Shop. Hollywood even has a genre for this, the films of “You’re going to be a star, kid.” As an example, all twenty versions of A Star Is Born, under various titles. Singin’ In The Rain. Day Of The...

Take that impossible set of circumstances to make a film described at the top. Now, place over those hurdles the desire to change up a recognized genre. To take a fixed idea and make it new, fresh, and vibrant. Not so easy, is it? Try to make something old work in a new and exciting way in any part of life, let alone something as evanescent as film. It doesn’t happen often. When it does, it hits like an explosion. By the end of the 60s, the Western had exploded, again. It was once more in...

Scary Season Part Two! The guest hosts and I spent some time last week on a true classic of the horror genre, House Of Wax… now let’s be frightened out of our wits by… well, it’s actually a Scary Season “so bad, it’s good” classic from the master of inexpensive horror, the Orson Welles of the Bs, the ne plus ultra employer of marketing gimmicks --- it’s a William Castle film! And it’s one of his greats --- The Tingler! Even the title is great! Released in 1959 and distributed by Columbia,...

It’s Scary Season here on the pod and we have a double feature to frighten you this year, two classics of the screen that star the inimitable Vincent Price. The first is a true classic, that helped to launch a trend in film in the 50s and Price’s career as the King of the Horror Bs. The second is so bad it’s good --- a thriller that was even more impactful in its marketing than in its making, but still a lot of fun to watch. Plus, we have guest hosts to help dissect, laugh, and scream at this...

Picture Show is absolutely authentic, due to two behind-the-scenes craftspeople and two actors who transform the film. The story of Picture Show began with the novella of the talented, but at the time, little-known author, Texan Larry McMurtry. McMurtry worked on the screenplay with the director, who had only released one pretty good previous film, after moving on from researching and writing about film --- Peter Bogdanovich. Bogdanovich was brilliant in utilizing the talents of two disparate...

The person of Orson Welles is a loaded one for an observer of film --- he was so many things in his lifetime, he wore so many hats. Welles had incredible triumphs and unbelievable lows in his chosen work. He was such a consummate actor that it was hard to tell when he was serious and when he was still acting, when seen outside a theater, radio studio or soundstage. If you ask him to be recalled by people in the 21st Century, many will be able to cite two aspects, at polar opposites of his...

It’s a small, grimy, smoky, desperate film, just like the arena in which much of the action takes place. It’s either a prime example of film noir, or some form of noir with boxing and drama  thrown in. It has the heroic performances of two noir stalwarts who were more often cast as the miscreants in their films. It has a director who was successful in almost every genre and honored by his peers, but near the start of his directing career. Plus, a wonderful cast of supporting characters, the...

The films I talk about on the pod are usually ones that I saw when I was younger and then returned to over and over because they struck an emotional chord with me. A very few are films that I’ve heard about due to their impact and finally got around to watching when I was middle-aged (or older!). Today, allow me to wander around a film that, while we may in 2023 need to interpret the effectiveness of the silent film actors, plus a certain admitted goofiness of the story, will allow us to...

I’ve made fun of film sequels, universes, and series on the pod, accusing Hollywood of taking anything that’s successful and knocking it off repeatedly, for the dollars. As well as the yuan; many of the cinematic universes are action/hero/comic book films, which are short on plot and long on thrills and special effects, thus not needing extended passages of subtitled exposition. Which is not to excuse Hollywood, don’t get me wrong! It’s a lousy use of film, talent, and time, but I suppose an...