Jan 27, 2023

Our Dorothy McGuire Acteurist Oeuvre-view begins with Claudia (1943) and The Enchanted Cottage (1945), in both of which she's paired with Robert Young. We talk about the qualities McGuire imported to the screen from the stage role she made famous, in the 1941 play Claudia, by Rose Franken, David O. Selznick's marketing...

Jan 20, 2023

Our January Special Subject is Part 2 of our look at the films of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, for which we watched Follow the Fleet (1936), Shall We Dance (1937), Carefree (1938), and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). Fred and Ginger's popularity was on the decline in his period, but these movies include...

Jan 13, 2023

For our Paramount 1942 episode, we hit the road with a comedy with a lot on its mind, Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and a comedy without any mind, the Hope/Crosby road movie Road to Morocco. We debate just how much deep thinking a comedy should do and consider what kind of thinking comedy itself can do without...

Jan 6, 2023

There's Sometimes a Buggy says hello to 2023 and goodbye to Acteur Jean Arthur with three movies by three auteurs (Virginia Van Upp, Billy Wilder, and George Stevens): The Impatient Years (1944), A Foreign Affair (1948), and Shane (1953). Elise decides in real time that The Impatient Years, a sour mid-40s comedy of...

Dec 30, 2022

For our Universal 1941 Studios Year by Year episode we looked at two films about love and sex by a couple of master filmmakers, Rene Clair's The Flame of New Orleans, a terrific Bruce Cabot vehicle (Marlene Dietrich is also in it), and Gregory La Cava's Unfinished Business, a sexually daring romantic drama (with some...