Dec 21, 2018
Join a radically divided panel as they discuss and dissect the biggest film Ronald Reagan made during "Hollywood's Golden Year" of 1939 - Dark Victory. Is this a prime example of "Prestige""/"Too-Extra-By-Half""/"Middlebrow"/"White Elephant" filmmaking? Or is it a gossamer haymaker born of the nearly miraculous fusion of Edmund Goulding's auteurist preoccupations and Bette Davis' acteurist ambitions? Are we to interpret Judith Traherne's autumnal days in "that pinched up little state on the wrong side of Boston" as evidence of a sad capitulation to heteronormativity? Or as an Emersonian triumph of open-air gladness to the brink of fear?
One thing we did agree on is the Gipper's "epicene" effectiveness in the role of "funny old Alec", despite the moral majority darling's latter-day disdain for his own performance.
What's your prognosis?
Novel suggestion:
Peter Delacorte's Time on My Hands
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