Another Kind Of Distance: A Time Travel, Twin Peaks, Film, Doom Patrol And Nostalgia Podcast

Halloween is always a good time to ponder the horror of incarnation, familial feeling, and our alienation from God. While there are strict horror movies that tackle these subjects, Ingmar Bergman definitely puts his own twist on them, and so we bring you Halloween with Bergman. In The Silence (1963), a woman dies in a hotel room in a foreign country where the people speak no known language, abandoned by her family. In Cries and Whispers (1972), a woman dies in her family home, surrounded by her family. Guess what? It doesn't go any better. Can agonizing suffering bestow on certain individuals the ability to translate the language of God for a battered and bewildered humanity? Or when you die do you just go from one void to a bigger one? We ask the big questions--but also, Cries and Whispers is easily the most horrifying movie Elise has ever seen (with the possible exception of Fire Walk With Me), even before the part with the zombie vampire of love. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                    THE SILENCE (1963

For RKO 1937, Katharine Hepburn runs the gamut of emotions from effervescent-but-repressed to robot-with-a-heart-of-gold in the last entry in her latest series of box office bombs, the J. M. Barrie dual-identity farce Quality Street (directed by George Stevens), and her brief return to critical and commercial viability, Stage Door (directed by Gregory La Cava), with Ginger Rogers. Two films that have little in common besides their star but do both invert the typical Hollywood movie gender ratio. We discuss whether Quality Street lives up to Hepburn's reunion with either her Alice Adams director or her Little Minister source author, and dig into the class analysis of Stage Door, one of the best American comedies of the late '30s. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                       RKO Data 0h 03m 55s:                       QUALITY STREET [dir. George Stevens] 0h 24m 15s:                       STAGE DOOR [dir. Gregory La Cava]             Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vern

In this week's episode of our Margaret Sullavan Acteurist Oeuvre-view series, we look at a couple of thirds: Sullavan's third film directed by Frank Borzage - the crazed melodrama The Shining Hour (co-starring Joan Crawford) - and third (and most famous) pairing with Jimmy Stewart: the melancholy romantic comedy The Shop Around the Corner (directed by Ernst Lubitsch). We consider The Shining Hour as Borzage's "two women movie" (setting up next week's discussion of Stage Door in the bargain), with Sullavan and Crawford as his magnetic poles of female superheroism; and reflect on the qualities Sullavan brings to Lubitsch's tale of low-income workers negotiating urban isolation. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                    THE SHINING HOUR (1938) [dir. Frank Borzage] 0h 30m 30s:                    THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) [dir. Ernst Lubitsch]                                             +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Gold

In our Fox 1937 episode this time around we cover a couple of oddities that nevertheless provide a good snapshot of the studio's latter 30s. Charlie Chan at the Olympics, starring Shakespearean-trained Swedish-American Warner Oland in his final year as Honolulu's Chinese Sherlock Holmes, flaunts racially integrated American Olympic teams at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, while failing completely to acknowledge the distressing existence of Nazism (not to mention the slight problem of a white man portraying the title character). Meanwhile the musical Wake Up and Live, featuring notorious gossip columnist Walter Winchell as himself, bursts with character actors and radio in-jokes. From touring with Nazimova to translating Strindberg to embodying a beloved aphorism-spouting B-movie detective, from New Deal leftist to McCarthyite paranoiac and finally pariah, from the Klondike to the seminary to Broadway to Hollywood character actor, and from Frank Fay's comic foil to Tallulah Bankhead's "personal assistant" to th

In this week's Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we follow Margaret Sullavan to MGM, watching two films from 1938, Three Comrades and The Shopworn Angel. Borzage's film, based on Erich Maria Remarque's Lost Generation novel about Germany between World Wars, could not be more different in tone from H. C. Potter's love triangle melodrama, but both centre on a love that transcends the conventional, selfish two-lovers romance. Sullavan gives us two versions of a woman losing her disillusionment, and we reflect at some length on the meaning of Sullavan in Borzage's movies.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:      THREE COMRADES (1938) [dir. Frank Borzage] 0h 50m 44s:      THE SHOPWORN ANGEL (1938) [dir. H.C. Potter]                              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative

For this pass at Warner Bros. 1937, we have two more vehicles for Dave's favourite actress, Kay Francis: Confession, Joe May's scene-for-scene remake of the German melodrama Mazurka; and Michael Curtiz's Stolen Holiday, a version of the Stavisky affair with Francis, Claude Rains, and Ian Hunter making up the Curtiz Triangle and Orry-Kelly, as usual, fearlessly emphasizing the outré bodies of Warner's female stars. How do you prefer to see Kay Francis: as a sort of combination of Stella Dallas and the Michael Douglas character from Fatal Attraction, mowing down Basil Rathbone in the name of Sacred Motherhood? Or inspiring Claude Rains to discover unsuspected depths of decency with her talent for unconditional friendship? The beauty of this episode is: you don't have to choose.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                 Warner Bros. 1937 Studio Data  0h 04m 02s:                 CONFESSION (dir. Joe May)    0h 33m 49s:                 STOLEN HOLIDAY (dir. Michael Curtiz)             Studio Film Capsules provide

Our Summer in France series concludes with a look at the dynamic duo of poetic realism, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert. We discuss their first collaboration, Jenny (1936), and two noirish Oedipal fever dreams, Le quai des brumes (1938) and Le jour se lève (1939). We also look at a Carné film from the period in which Prévert was not involved, Hôtel du Nord (1938), and find both continuity with and difference from the surrounding films. Proletariats, perversion, the death drive, romantic love, and existential isolation: it's everything you ever wanted from a Summer in France.    0h 01m 00s:      Introduction to Carné      0h 16m 46s:      LE JOUR SE LÈVE (1939) [dir. Marcel Carné]                 0h 50m 00s:      HÔTEL DU NORD (1938) [dir. Marcel Carné]      1h 07m 52s:      QUAI DES BRUMES (1938)  [dir. Marcel Carné] 1h 29m 00s:      JENNY (1936) [dir. Marcel Carné]                                     +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

In this MGM 1937 episode, we look at two star-studded historical romances about charismatic political leaders and their mistresses: Conquest (directed by Clarence Brown), with Charles Boyer's Napoleon Bonaparte and Greta Garbo's Marie Walewska, and Parnell (directed by John Stahl), with Clark Gable's Charles Stewart Parnell and Myrna Loy's Katharine O'Shea. Despite the poor-to-terrible reputations of the films, we find a lot to recommend, from Conquest's surprisingly canny politics to Parnell's gender-inversion of Stahl's fallen woman melodramas. Dave reveals his inner Napoleon fanboy, and Elise shudders at the Gnostic void into which love leads Stahl's protagonists.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  Studio Data 0h 10m 01s:                  CONQUEST [dir. Clarence Brown]         0h 45m 28s:                  PARNELL [dir. John M. Stahl] 1h 25m 00s:                 Listener mail with Adam   Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hol

Our third Margaret Sullavan Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode features another odd juxtaposition: Next Time We Love (1936), a melodrama of ideas that pairs Sullavan with Jimmy Stewart for the first time; and The Moon's Our Home, a (flat) screwball comedy in which she co-stars with ex-husband Henry Fonda (1936). We do some deep reflecting on love, gender roles, and human potential, and try to get a grasp on the Sullavan persona.    0h 1m 00s:            NEXT TIME WE LOVE (1936) [dir. Edward H. Griffith] 0h 46n 41s:           THE MOON’S OUR HOME (1936) [dir. William A. Seiter]                                     +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as man

For our Paramount 1937 episode, we look at two movies starring Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray: Mitchell Leisen's comedy/melodrama Swing High, Swing Low and Wesley Ruggles' screwball comedy True Confession. Topics include our surprise at Leisen's go-for-broke portrayal of male abjection and MacMurray's risk-taking in Swing High, Swing Low; the quiet virtues of Paramount's leading men; the moment when John Barrymore became Late Al Pacino; and Lombard's adorable sociopath in True Confession as a precursor to Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched. "She's going to FRY!"   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  SWING HIGH, SWING LOW [dir. Mitchell Leisen]        0h 40m 00s:                  TRUE CONFESSION [dir. Wesley Ruggles] 1h 20m 26s:                  Listener mail on La Marseillaise with Adam             Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames                                     +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro So

Our second Margaret Sullavan Acteurist Oeuvre-view entry delivers emotional whiplash as we move from King Vidor's Civil War drama So Red the Rose (1935), in which Sullavan plays a southern belle who's forced to mature when the world she knows collapses around her ears, to William Wyler's comedy The Good Fairy (1935), with a screenplay by Preston Sturges, in which she plays a naive orphan who causes complications when she stumbles on an opportunity to do a good deed. We discuss the relationship of So Red the Rose to the Southern Agrarian movement, debate how progressive the film is attempting to be, and make the inevitable comparisons to Gone With the Wind and Wyler's Jezebel. Then we analyze The Good Fairy as a Preston Sturges comedy, only lacking an American setting to be fully recognizable.     0h 1m 00s:                     SO RED THE ROSE (1935) [dir. King Vidor] 0h 36m 32s:                   THE GOOD FAIRY (1935) [dir. William Wyler] 1h 28m 12s:                   Letter from Listener Adam               

In this episode we cover three films from the period of Jean Renoir's flirtation (or fornication?) with Communism: The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936), The Lower Depths (1936), and La Marseillaise (1938). We discuss how Renoir's depiction of the French Revolution differs from the one familiar to the Anglo-American world, uncover the woman behind the Radical Renoir, and analyze the interaction of class, community, and virtuous violence in the films. And if that sounds heavy, just watch The Crime of Monsieur Lange, we promise you'll have fun. Dark fun. But fun.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  Brief Preamble on Renoir and French Political History     0h 16m 50s:                  LA MARSEILLAISE (1938) [dir. Jean Renoir] 0h 51m 40s:                  LES BAS-FONDS aka THE LOWER DEPTHS (1936) [dir. Jean Renoir] 1h 20m 03s:                  LE CRIME DE MONSIEUR LANGE aka THE CRIME OF MONSIEUR LANGE (1936) [dir. Jean Renoir]                                        +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous

In this Studios Year by Year episode, we witness the changing of the guard at Universal in 1936, in which James Whale's Show Boat brings down the Laemmle Era, and Deanna Durbin's first feature, Three Smart Girls, ushers in the Bankers Era. We find good things to say about both, but we're not gonna lie, most of the episode is devoted to Edna Ferber/Kern and Hammerstein/Whale's Show Boat and its combination of quiet radicalism, family melodrama, and musical entertainment. Musical entertainment is just about the only link between the two films. Dave and Elise marvel at 14-year-old Durbin's terrifying energy and confidence, and Elise is very happy to see 29-year-old Ray Milland, even if he probably shouldn't be quite so happy to see 18-year-old Barbara Read.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  SHOW BOAT [dir. James Whale]            0h 55m 15s:                  THREE SMART GIRLS [dir. Henry Koster]      Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn                                

This week on the pod, we get started with our new Acteurist Oeuvre-View series: Margaret Sullavan. We were expecting solid entries from the selective Sullavan, but weren't fully prepared for John Stahl to match his Back Street achievement with Sullavan's screen debut, Only Yesterday (1933). We discuss its relationship to Opühls' Letter from an Unknown Woman, with which it shares a source, while concluding that it has more in common with Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest. We also posit Stahl-Sullavan as the American Ozu-Hara... if only they'd worked together more than once. Next, another Universal movie set against a backdrop of social chaos, Frank Borzage's Little Man, What Now? (1934), where Sullavan is tasked with the burden of being the entire meaning of a man's life in a bewildering hell-world. Spoiler: we think she's up to the job. We talk differences and similarities between the social outlooks of the Two Franks (Borzage and Capra) and their depictions of grace. This is going to be a long one, so make some

RKO, 1936: Anne Shirley and Katharine Hepburn have father trouble. In Make Way for a Lady (directed by David Burton), Shirley gets hysterical at the thought of indulgent 20th century dad Herbert Marshall developing a sex life; while in A Woman Rebels (directed by Mark Sandrich), Hepburn blames stern Victorian dad Donald Crisp for her sexual aberrance. We discuss the careers of the source novelists, Elizabeth Jordan and Netta Syrett, both born in 1865, in America and England respectively; find reason to compare Make Way for a Lady to Ozu's Late Spring, Henry James's The Sacred Fount, and Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt; and generally make sure that we've got our Freud goggles in place.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  MAKE WAY FOR A LADY [dir. David Burton] 0h 42m 05s:                  A WOMAN REBELS [dir. Mark Sandrich]             Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell and Vernon Harbin                                     +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Comp

Dave's first Summer in France Special Subject is devoted to two lesser-known Max Ophüls movies starring Edwige Feuillère that were made just before the Nazis occupied France and Ophüls fled to Hollywood, Sans lendemain (1939) and De Mayerling à Sarajevo (1940). We consider the two films in light of those dire circumstances and Ophüls' oeuvre, arguing that they deserve more attention--especially the beautifully shot, noirish Sans lendemain (There's No Tomorrow), with its creatively suicidal heroine. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  SANS LENDEMAIN (1939) [dir. Max Ophuls] 0h 44m 28s:                  DE MAYERLING A SARAJEVO (1940) [dir. Max Ophuls]                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive) * Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out

Clara Bow gets a wonderful finale to her (unfortunately foreshortened) career in our final Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode devoted to her. Fox comes through with two excellent vehicles: Call Her Savage (1932), directed by John Francis Dillon and brilliantly shot by Lee Garmes, a delightfully lurid Pre-Code that nevertheless contains a critique of white supremacy; and Hoop-La (1933), a sweet-natured romantic comedy with a circus setting and a hard-boiled veneer. We review, one last time, why Clara Bow is the Ultimate Protagonist, and wrap up the series with our Top 10s from the Bow canon.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  CALL HER SAVAGE (1932) [dir. John Francis Dillon] 0h 42m 57s:                  HOOPLA (1933) [dir. Frank Lloyd]       1H 17m 49s :                Elise and Dave’s Top 10 Clara Bow films                                                 +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Si

Our studio this week is 20th Century Fox, the year is 1936; two fascinating movies of dubious historicity (in the details, at least) by the ever-reliable Henry King, possibly Fox's most characteristic director. First up, Ramona, a sympathetic depiction of North American settler colonialism from the perspective of Native Americans (unfortunately, as ever, with white actors--Loretta Young and Don Ameche--playing the leads). Then, the surprisingly engrossing The Country Doctor, starring Jean Hersholt in his career defining role. We discuss the bizarre and tragic real-life story of the Ontario government's exhibition of the Dionne Quintuplets and what the movie gets right about Canadian society. Elise speculates on what Preston Sturges learned about small-town America from two Fox movies directed by Henry King that aren't even set in America, and Dave argues about the progressive influence of Darryl Zanuck on this phase of the studio.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  RAMONA [dir. Henry King] 0h 37m 52s

Two more Tuttles for our penultimate Clara Bow episode, a couple of odd genre experiments: "musical romance" Love Among the Millionaires (1930) combines a star-crossed-lovers melodrama with comedy bits featuring vaudeville and future Broadway child star Mitzi Green and a lot of random songs; while No Limit (1931) offers gambling dens, stickup men, pratfalls, redemptive romance, New York location shots, an automat scene, Thelma Todd, and everything else you could want in a movie, according to Dave. We also engage in some bittersweet speculation about what Clara's career would have been like if David O. Selznick had got his way and cast her as the female lead in What Price Hollywood? (the first A Star is Born), and she'd been taken under Pando S. Berman's wing at RKO along with Katharine Hepburn (who was only two years younger).    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                              LOVE AMONG THE MILLIONAIRES (1930) [dir. Frank Tuttle] 0h 33m 21s:                              NO LIMIT (1931) [dir. Frank Tuttl

For Warner Bros., 1936, we take a look at two stage-to-film adaptations: Three Men on a Horse, a Warners-style farce about gangsters, discontented suburbanites, and the power of greeting card poetry, and The Petrified Forest, a drama by Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert E. Sherwood about gangsters, disillusioned novelists, and the allure of French poetry. We discuss the studio's handling of suburban satire and Leslie Howard's handling of the role of thematic spokesman. It's an all-star episode, with the other players including Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart (in his first important film role), stage star Sam Levene, Warners comedy stalwarts Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, and Guy Kibbee, Eddie Anderson in a pre-fame appearance, and Lorenz brother Teddy Hart in a well-deserved Screen Actors Guild award-winning performance. And it doesn't end there. As Bette Davis would say in The Petrified Forest, "It's a little bit crazy!"   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                  Three Men on Horse [dir. Mervyn Leroy] 0h 29m 13s: