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

In this week's Studios Year by Year episode, another studio finds its voice in 1932: Warner Bros. gives us the consciousness-raising prison drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (dir. Mervyn LeRoy) as well as the weird little maternity ward movie Life Begins (dir. James Flood). They share a harrowing vision of life and Glenda Farrell in uncharacteristically unsympathetic roles. We discuss I Am a Fugitive's indirect but manifest depiction of the chain gang system as a continuation of slavery and the tragic intersection of machine politics and sexual assault in Life Begins. And if you haven't been harrowed enough after all of that, you can read Elise's new essay for Bright Lights Film Journal on James Whale's Waterloo Bridge (previously discussed on this podcast) and Frank Borzage's Little Man, What Now?, “Love Stories in Harrowing Times.”   Time Codes: 0h 01m 00s:          Life Begins (dirs.: James Flood & Elliott Nugent) 0h 35m 01s:          I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (dir: Mervyn Leroy) 1h 41m