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

In this week's Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we look at two more movies from 1935, Public Hero No. 1 (directed by J. Walter Ruben for MGM) and Diamond Jim (directed by A. Edward Sutherland for Universal, with a screenplay by Preston Sturges). In the first, Arthur injects some screwball swagger into a Code-era gangster drama with an FBI agent hero; in the second, she has a dual role as the love(s) of Edward Arnold's life. We consider the qualities Arthur brings to these films, for which she was loaned out by Columbia, and marvel at the dark oddity of Diamond Jim, made not long before the advent of the post-Laemmle banker regime at Universal that thwarted Preston Sturges' first shot at directing.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:  PUBLIC HERO NO. 1 (1935) [dir. J. Walter Ruben] 0h 30m 17s:  DIAMOND JIM (1935) {dir. A. Edward Sutherland] +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s *

Our Special Subject for this month, Duels in Max Ophüls, covers films from all three decades of the itinerant filmmaker's career: Liebelei (1933), made in Germany; Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), made in Hollywood; and Madame de... (1953), made in France. We consider the proposition that Ophüls' films are about superficially superficial people, and examine the evolution of a certain set of characters and scenarios in these three films dealing with the subject of tragic love and its (futile?) transformative effects.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:  LIEBELEI (1934) [dir. Max Ophüls] 0h 37m 18s:  LETTER FROM AN UNKOWN WOMAN (1948) [dir. Max Ophüls] 0h 59m 41s:  THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE… (1953) [dir. Max Ophüls]   +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring * 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 piece o

Our Warner Bros. 1940 episode this time is a Bette Davis double feature in which Bette plays the Other Woman in two melodramas based on real-life sex-and-murder scandals, but the Wronged Woman in only one. We discuss the combination of sexual repression and critique of colonialism in William Wyler's The Letter and Anatole Litvak's study of societal constraints and thwarted romance with the very different setting of the last years of the Orléans monarchy in mid-19th century Paris, All This, and Heaven Too. Then, in a quick and dirty Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we evaluate David Cronenberg's mind-fuck gaming movie, eXistenZ, from 1999 (with spoilers, so skip it if you want your mind to be a virgin for the experience).  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:      THE LETTER [dir. William Wyler] 0h 41m 01s:      ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO [dir. Anatole Litvak] 1h 10m 09s:      Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – eXistenZ (1999) by David Cronenberg   Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hi

In our second Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, Arthur moves into her A-picture period at Columbia with John Ford's curious comedy/crime melodrama, The Whole Town's Talking, starring Edward G. Robinson in a dual role, and Erle C. Kenton's Children's Hour-reminiscent Party Wire. While we see more of the familiar Arthur comedy persona emerge in The Whole Town's Talking, she gets to show off her quiet moral authority and perspicacity in Party Wire, playing a woman who becomes the victim of town gossip. We make the case for Party Wire as a small-town satire worthy of standing alongside Stevens' Alice Adams, Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid, and find more evidence for the secret feminism of Harry Cohn.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:  THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING (1935) [dir. John Ford] 0h 25m 41s: PARTY WIRE (1935) [dir. Erle C. Kenton] 0h 55m 31s:  Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto - THE RED DETACHMENT OF WOMEN (1961) [dir. Xie Jin]    +++ * Listen to our guest episode on

An odd pairing for this MGM 1940 episode: King Vidor's Northwest Passage, which is not about finding the Northwest Passage at all but about an attack on an Abenaki village by an independent ranger company attached to the British Army; and Frank Borzage's mystical prison break movie, Strange Cargo. We make the argument for a Starship Troopers reading of Northwest Passage before grappling with the many issues of Strange Cargo, from Borzage's use of Crawford and Gable's star personas, to the movie's theodicy, to the many Code-defying topics it deals with. We find a tonal similarity with the poetic realism movement in French cinema of the 1930s, and consider Borzage's treatment of love, salvation and gender.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:      NORTHWEST PASSAGE [dir. King Vidor] 0h 30m 24s:      STRANGE CARGO [dir. Frank Borzage] 1h 17m 11s:      Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Kinuyo Tanaka’s Love Under the Crucifix (1962)   Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio info

This Week's Special Subject is a look at the early silent cinema of Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer, during the years preceding The Passion of Joan of Arc. We discuss Michael (1924), about the relationship between a famous painter and his male model, and Master of the House (1925), a comedy about the taming of a tyrannical patriarch. Subjects include Dreyer's unique take on the visionary possibilities of love, which can allow you to transcend ordinary human experience in one way or another; and the interrelationship of patriarchy, matriarchy, and the use of violence and fear in maintaining domestic discipline. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we briefly discuss Carné's romantic epic Children of Paradise (1945), generally considered one of the great masterpieces of French cinema, and another Kinuyo Tanaka film, Girls of the Night (1961), about the consequences for sex workers when prostitution was proscribed by law in mid-1950s Japan.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:     Brief Intro. Carl Theodor

In our inaugural Jean Arthur Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we join Gladys Georgianna Greene as she signs on at Columbia Pictures, two years before her star-making team-up with Frank Capra. Her first two films for Columbia, Whirlpool and The Most Precious Thing in Life, are a couple of curious weepies with missing-parent plots that allow Arthur to play first the daughter, then the mother, but never the love interest. First, Dave gives us an account of why Jean Arthur is so important to him, and Elise explains what it has to do with Shakespeare's Rosalind. Then, in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto segment, we briefly discuss the first two Kinuyo Tanaka films where she takes on a real auteur role, Forever a Woman, based on the true story of a poet who died of breast cancer, which we saw as a kind of cross between Dark Victory and My Left Foot, and the political epic The Wandering Princess, which shows the events of WWII from the perspective of a Japanese noblewoman who marries into the Manchurian puppet dynas

For this 1940 Paramount episode, an Akim Tamiroff (and Muriel Angelus) double feature in which we unlock the secrets of Preston Sturges' inspiration. First, we look at The Way of All Flesh (directed by Louis King), a little-known proto-noir Christmas movie that seems to have taken its inspiration from Nathaniel Hawthorne, as filtered through the sensibilities of top screenwriters Lenore Coffee and Jules Furthman. Then we move on to the first movie directed by dynamo screenwriter-turned-sui generis-director Preston Sturges, The Great McGinty, which directly references the plot of The Way of All Flesh in its prologue. We make our case for the evolution of The Miracle of Morgan's Creek out of both movies and talk Sturges, artificial families, and lost fathers.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    THE WAY OF ALL FLESH [dir. Lewis King] 0h 36m 26s:    THE GREAT MCGINTY [dir. Preston Sturges] 1h 06m 00s:    Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Kinuyo Tanaka’s Love Letter (1953) and The Moon Has Risen (1955)   Studio Film Ca

In our final Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Oeuvreview episode, we look at a commercial and critical flop, Rob Marshall's Nine (2009), a musical based on Fellini's celebrated semi-autobiographical film 8 1/2, and a commercial and critical triumph, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012), covering the final four months of Abraham Lincoln's life and especially the process of passing the Thirteenth Amendment. We consider how these roles relate to Day-Lewis's screen persona, then launch into a discussion of his entire career as we each give our Top 10 Daniel Day-Lewis performances. Has Day-Lewis been "typecast" by critics? And how do his best roles serve his unique qualities as an actor and personality? Find out what we think (and feel free to tell us what you think)!    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    NINE (2009) [dir. Rob Marshall] 0h 22m 37s:    LINCOLN (2012) [dir. Steven Spielberg] 0h 50m 04s:    Daniel Day-Lewis Wrap-Up & Top 10s   +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s *

Join your hosts as they race the clock to adumbrate the myriad merits of French Golden Age Master, Jacques Becker! We key in on the director’s ingenious use of diverse genres to drop diegetic depth charges into the abyss of gendered subjectivity at midcentury. From the nerve-wracking rom-complications of Antoine et Antoinette to the Bert n’ Ernie gangster pyjama party of Touchez pas au grisbi, no four films have ever done a better (or more rapturously entertaining) job of laying bare the unbecoming banality of being under Patriarchy.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    ANTOINE ET ANTOINETTE (1947) [dir. Jacques Becker] 0h 36m 27s:    RENDEZ-VOUS DE JUILLET (1949) [dir. Jacques Becker] 0h 56m 15s:    CASQUE D’OR (1952) [dir. Jacques Becker] 1h 21m 51s:    TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954) [dir. Jacques Becker]   +++ * 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 pie

Universal, 1939: we continue the saga of John Stahl's final years with the banker regime with When Tomorrow Comes, a frankly pro-labour romance, full of eccentric charm, that rewrites the fate of Irene Dunne's Back Street character while reuniting the actress with Charles Boyer after their success in Love Affair. Then we turn to the studio's B mode with Joe May's intermittently audacious, but consistently funny, murder/haunting mystery The House of Fear, about an ill-fated stage production.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    WHEN TOMORROW COMES [dir. John M. Stahl] 0h 51m 32s:    THE HOUSE OF FEAR [dir. Joe May]   Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                                     +++ * 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 pi

At last we come to the Daniel Day-Lewis perhaps best known to cinephiles: the over-the-top monstrous patriarchs of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002) and Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007). Working from a couple of the best viewings we've personally had of these movies, we discuss how Bill the Butcher and Daniel Plainview build upon the Day-Lewis persona, how they radically depart from it, and how they set the stage for future developments. If you've ever been embarrassed by your dad's inability to socially interact like a normal human being, this episode is for you.   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002) [dir. Martin Scorsese] 0h 58m 20s:    THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007) [dir. Paul Thomas Anderson] +++ * 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 piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” * Check o

For our RKO 1939 episode, a Directed by Garson Kanin double feature: Bachelor Mother, starring Ginger Rogers as an unwed department store clerk accused of motherhood; and The Great Man Votes, starring John Barrymore as an alcoholic intellectual struggling to raise two children, including the most precocious child actor of them all, Virginia Weidler (of Philadelphia Story fame). We discuss the "plausible deniability" structure of Bachelor Mother and the kind of social commentary it permits, and the particular brand of autobiographical pathos and dishevelled charm that Barrymore brings to the part of an eccentric, melancholy widower.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    BACHELOR MOTHER [dir. Garson Kanin]        1h 04m 48s:    THE GREAT MAN VOTES [dir. Garson Kanin]     Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                                     +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete

We return to our Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Oeuvre-view with 1996's The Crucible (directed by Nicholas Hytner with a screenplay by Arthur Miller, based on his 1953 play) and 1997's The Boxer, reuniting Day-Lewis with writer-director Jim Sheridan and writer Terry George from In the Name of the Father and returning to the subject of Northern Ireland and the Troubles. We discuss the ways in which The Crucible serves as a liberal allegory for McCarthyism and its depiction of the jouissance of hysteria and accusation, and then turn to The Boxer's examination of an impossible personal/political situation, which leads us to consider Day-Lewis's rare but memorable turns as a romantic hero. Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    THE CRUCIBLE (1996) [dir. Nicholas Hytner] 0h 43m 01s:    THE BOXER (1997) [dir. Jim Sheridan] +++ * 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

This week's Special Subject takes a look at Sex, Satire, and American Culture in Frank Tashlin's Artists and Models (1955), starring Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, and Dorothy Malone, and in Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), starring Dean Martin, Kim Novak, Ray Walston, and Felicia Farr. Tashlin uses comic books to portray American culture as a strangely sexless-yet-sex-obsessed idiot savant with an exuberantly violent imagination, while Wilder turns smut in a small town into an uncannily beatific examination of objectification and toxic masculinity in American popular culture. We also look at the way that Tashlin and Lewis turn signifiers of gender and sexuality into a richly indecipherable text that comments on the madness of heteronormativity and gender stereotypes.  Further Reading: Elise’s “Jerry Lewis and the Gender of Work.” Elise’s “Billy Wilder and the 1930s Romantic Comedy” Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    ARTISTS AND MODELS (1955) [dir. Frank Tashlin] 0h 45m 25s:    KISS ME, STUPID (1

Fox, 1939: the Greater and the Lesser John Ford Fox movies of 1939, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk, both starring Henry Fonda. We argue with Cahiers du Cinéma about the politics of Young Mr. Lincoln and find continuities between Ford's work with Will Rogers and his presentation of Lincoln, and discuss Edna May Oliver's comic theft of an otherwise pretty standard, racist settler narrative.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                YOUNG MR. LINCOLN [dir. John Ford] 0h 35m 00s:                DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK [dir. John Ford]   Studio Film Capsules provided The Films of 20th Century-Fox by Tony Thomas & Aubrey Solomon Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler                                     +++ * 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 Yo

In this Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we look at two movies from 1993: Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father, about mid-70s English-Irish relations, anti-terrorist hysteria, and father-son relationships; and The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about social mores in New York at the end of the 19th century. We discuss Scorsese's layered examination of romantic love and gender roles, and why Wharton's novel is ideal Scorsese source material; as well as Sheridan's layered examination of what it takes to challenge a corrupt system. If you’re looking for layers and examinations, you can stop looking right now. Day-Lewis brings an array of relevant qualities to the roles, from clownishness, boyishness, and mania to contempt, frustration, and idealism.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER (1993) [dir. Jim Sheridan] 0h 42m 10s:    THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993) [dir. Martin Scorsese] +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewin

Warner Brothers, 1939: this is a big one, a double feature of Dave Faves, The Roaring Twenties, directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney and Priscilla Lane (among others), and Dust Be My Destiny, directed by Lewis Seiler and starring John Garfield and Priscilla Lane again. We take the opportunity to contrast Cagney and Garfield, Warners' characteristic "proletarian" male stars of the early 30s and late 30s respectively, teasing out what they mean for the evolving American Left. Then, the return (again) of Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: we briefly discuss Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961), comparing it stylistically and thematically to David Lynch's Fire Walk with Me. But why didn't Sheryl Lee get an Oscar nom, like Natalie Wood?   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                THE ROARING TWENTIES [dir. Raoul Walsh] 0h 44m 34s:                DUST BE MY DESTINY [dir. Lewis Seiler] 1h 22m 41s:                Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961) [dir. Elia Kazan]        Studio

In this episode of our Daniel Day-Lewis Acteurist Oeuvre-view, we go from the depths of obscurity, the straight-to-video Eversmile, New Jersey (1989, directed by Carlos Sorin), to the heights of box office success, with Day-Lewis's first, and only, Hollywood action movie, The Last of the Mohicans (1992, directed by Michael Mann).We praise the hilarious slice of madness that is Eversmile, New Jersey, in which Day-Lewis plays a quixotic missionary for "dental consciousness" in Patagonia, arguing that it contains a great Day-Lewis performance, and discuss The Last of the Mohicans' treatment of the French and Indian War.  Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:    EVERSMILE, NEW JERSEY (1989) [dir. Carlos Sorin] 0h 29m 30s:    THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992) [dir. Michael Mann] 0h 58m 47s:    Listener Mail with Adam {on the mystery genre} +++ * 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

MGM, 1939: the beginning of an era, as the Freed Unit gets started with the first Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland musical, Babes in Arms (directed by Busby Berkeley), and the end of an era, with Tod Browning's last film, the supernaturally tinged locked room mystery and bid for B-seriesdom, Miracles for Sale. Reflecting on the role of the blackface number in Babes in Arms prompts us to take a deep dive into the relationship of race to the concept of "American entertainment," and then at the end of the episode we return to problematic racial representations in classical Hollywood cinema, in the very different context of feminist film theory and psychoanalysis, in response to a listener email about our series on the Sternberg-Dietrich films.    Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:                BABES IN ARMS [dir. Busby Berkeley] 0h 46m 09s:                MIRACLES FOR SALE [dir. Tod Browning] 1h 02m 30s:                Listener Mail with Dylan                           Studio Film Capsules provided The MGM Story by John