“My name is Victoria Winters…”

There was an unsettling rumor going around last November that the long-running daytime drama Days of Our Lives was in danger of getting a pink slip and losing its parking place at NBC...but DOOL’s demise turned out to be a premature one, and it was confirmed that the program would soldier on with Season 56.…

Adventures in Blu-Ray: Noir Archive Volume 2: 1954-1956

It seems like it was just last April—come to think of it...it was last April—when I borrowed some bandwidth on the blog to talk about a collaborative Blu-ray effort between Mill Creek Entertainment and Kit Parker Films/The Sprocket Vault featuring nine movies previously released to MOD DVD as part of Sony’s Choice Collection.  That compendium…

Book Review: Identifi Yourself: A Journey in F**k You Creative Courage

From June 5, 1981 to December 30, 1988, The USA Network was the home of Night Flight—one of television’s most innovative attempts at capturing the pop culture zeitgeist.  Created and directed by Stuart S. Shapiro, Night Flight was a four-hour program comprised of music videos (featuring mainstream and alternative artists), cult movies (it's where I…

“We hope you have a wonderful time…come back soon…”

My most vivid memory of a drive-in involves a movie that I didn’t actually see.  In the early 1970s, my father and I took a trip to Spelter, WV for the purpose of escorting my grandparents (on Dad’s side) to the Mountain State Forest Festival in Elkins, a West Virginia celebration that gets underway in…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Joseph H. Lewis Double Feature – My Name is Julia Ross (1945) and So Dark the Night (1946)

He was known as “Wagon Wheel Joe” to his peers in the motion picture industry—a mocking nickname given to him by those who edited his B-Westerns during director Joseph H. Lewis’ early moviemaking days.  Joe is a solid example of the kind of film director who, to borrow an observation from author Gregory Mank on fellow…

Adventures in Blu-ray: Willie Dynamite (1974)

If the 2005 film Hustle & Flow taught us anything, it’s that “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”—the tune in the movie that won an Academy Award as Best Original Song. William Andrew Short (Roscoe Orman)—known to friends and the ladies in his employ as “Willie Dynamite”—is a testament to this; he’s the Avis…

Boris Bad Enough

The very first “blogathon” in which I participated took place in 2009, when the Frankensteinia blog hosted a seven-day tribute to actor William Henry Pratt—better known to (and beloved by) fans as Boris Karloff.  My love of Karloff’s work was an inspirational muse during this event; I posted entries on Thrilling Days of Yesteryear for…

A little housecleaning

The blog has been fallow for a few days, so I regret the lack of activity...but as we were welcoming in July I received a notice in the mail that Oglethorpe County requested my presence as a Superior Court “traverse juror” the week of August 7.  Yes, it’s the time-honored practice of drawing jury duty;…

From the DVR: Guns, Girls and Gangsters (1959)

You may recall that on Sunday (though it seems so long ago—doesn't it?) I did a post here on the blog that briefly described my happy dance over our free Epix movie channel weekend.  Meanwhile, at the paying gig, I wrote up an anniversary essay on The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, which made its radio debut on June 17, 1947. …

Workin’ for the (freeview) weekend

Good news, everyone!  DISH has bestowed upon us a "freeview" weekend of the Epix movie channel...and that's always most welcome here in the House of Yesteryear because while I'll admit their film offerings may suffer from a mild case of same-ol'-same-ol' (we're only getting the free weekend because Epix is promoting a new series entitled…