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Things I Read Off the Screen in “The Shining”

To Edinburgh Filmhouse (last week) to see ROOM 237: BEING AN INQUIRY INTO THE SHINING IN 9 PARTS. Rodney Ascher’s essay film is a perpetual joy, cunningly assembled from (sometimes manipulated) bit of...

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Another fine messiah

How do you cast Jesus? It seems a difficult thing to do. Paul Schrader pointed out that THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST attempted something quite rare — most Christfilms tend to take a view which is...

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Tentacular Spectacular

Words cannot express the sheer clammy grip of 1919 serial entertainment TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS! But I’ll try. We begin in the desert — not perhaps the most fitting location for an octopus, but the serial...

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The Sunday Intertitle: Quake Thinking

Censored scene, via GoneMovie.com. OLD SAN FRANCISCO is what I call an epic. Also, it’s a bit racist. Not as much as BIRTH OF A NATION, but every time you find some kind of excuse for it, it redoubles...

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Outdoors

In LA, at the home of our pal Randall William Cook, we caught a little of THE BLACK SWAN on TCM. Randy noticed that it featured both Tyrone Power and Laird Cregar — “I didn’t know they made a movie...

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The Monday Intertitle: Broken Hearts and Flap Shoes

The intertitle is brilliantly insane, and only enhanced by the fact that Nil Asther in this movie shares a character name with Chico Marx (no stranger to a life of self-indulgence). “Cut down on the...

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The Sunday Intertitle: Quaker Boats

I was reminded of 1922’s DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS by a Guardian article about whaling in the movies, prompted by Opie’s recent HEART OF THE SEA. There is a great deal of whaling — actual whaling, with...

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The truth, the whole truth, and nothing like the truth

Why did it take us so long to watch TRUE CONFESSION? Maybe, being a part-time auteurist, I let it sink down the viewing pile on account of director Wesley Ruggles not being a Big Name, but he’s...

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The Sunday Intertitle: Another Fine Pyckle

What’s with the mania for replacing the title cards on silent films? The YouTube version above of this early Stan Laurel parody seems authentic, but the version I initially got off the Internet Archive...

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The Sunday Intertitle: Moriarty-craftsy

I watched the John Barrymore SHERLOCK HOLMES because I’m going to be doing something about Buster Keaton’s SHERLOCK, JR and I wanted to see if this film, released just a couple of years previously, had...

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Chromophobia

Well, I figured Peter Sellers’ only film as director would be of SOME interest. The fact that, after the film flopped, he tried to destroy every copy, made it more intriguing. I’m not sure how he was...

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Dyspeptic in Elsinore

Asides from my making-of Caesar and Cleopatra book, I also have a lovely, if tattered volume entitled The film HAMLET, covering Olivier’s 1948 production. Various heads of department contribute short...

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Hoot Spa

THE CURE is generally admired, and genuinely good, but coming after EASY STREET as we watch in sequence, it seems a far less ambitious work. The narrative is super-slight, there’s no real drama. But...

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Pig Race 2000

Sorry, the whole of PORKY’S ROAD RACE isn’t on YouTube, so you’ll just have to believe me when I tell you this Loony Tune by Frank Tash(lin) is the Warners 1937 animated version of DEATH RACE 2000....

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