“Hello again…Peabody and Sherman here…”

I was an underachiever in my high school years. Mind you, I did all right scholastically...though admittedly, I didn’t always apply myself where studying was concerned. In retrospect, I don’t have too many regrets because most of what I was taught focused on memorizing facts and regurgitating them on command...as opposed to far-more-practical critical thinking…

“Want to get away from it all? We offer you…Escape!”

“Escape” is what I planned to offer you as this week’s entry of Overlooked Films on Tuesday; I had selected the 1948 feature starring Rex Harrison and Peggy Cummins, because I recently purchased a DVD copy from my very good friend Martin Grams, Jr. at his Finders Keepers website.  I have not seen the film—I’m not all that familiar with…

From the DVR: Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence (1939)

Joe Riley (Glenn Ford) is getting ready to ride his thumb to Arizona.  He’s resided in the Big Apple for six years and toiled as a department store clerk (working in the bargain basement) during that time, scrimping and saving to purchase twenty acres of land ironically titled “Shady Acres.”  (Joe must not be familiar with both…

From the DVR: I Can Get it For You Wholesale (1951)

Harriet Boyd (Susan Hayward) is a dress model…but she has far too much ambition to remain content toiling as a clotheshorse for a company located in the heart of New York’s busy garment district.  She’s persuaded production manager Sam Cooper (Sam Jaffe) to start a dressmaking business with her; Harriet has studied dress design at night…

Movies I’ve stared at recently on TCM FXM #64

Call Her Savage (1932) – Clara Bow’s penultimate film is a bit of a cheat for me; I saw this many, many moons ago but decided to record and watch it again thanks to the DVR.  Clara’s sensational in this film that really doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, plot wise; she…

Movies I’ve stared at recently on TCM FXM #62

No Down Payment (1957) – David and Jean Martin (Jeffrey Hunter, Patricia Owens) are a young married couple driving to their new home in a California subdivision entitled Sunrise Hills (“A Better Place For Better Living”); like most newlyweds in that era, the suburbs promise the fulfillment of the American Dream—the Martins are able to…

Grey Market Cinema: Thanks a Million (1935)

A troupe of ragtag performers are traveling on a bus during a torrential downpour as our film opens; the aggregation is headed for a fictional state and its capital, “New City”…where as movie coincidences would have it, is the birthplace of one of its members, crooner Eric Land (Dick Powell).  The driver lets the motley…

I’m always on a mountain when I fall

I hate to say I’m givin’ up but I believe Losin’s just become a way of life with me Losin’ wouldn’t be so bad at all But I’m always on a mountain when I fall He didn’t write the song—that honor goes to Chuck Howard, a songwriter who also penned Waylon Jennings’ Come with Me and Conway…

Movies that I’ve stared at recently on FMC #1 (Gotcha!)

Yes, ever since the big move to the new Rancho Yesteryear in May and the discovery that we are now paying for the package that includes the Fox Movie Channel, I have been watching my fair share of classic flicks on the channel that I wish were more like The Greatest Cable Channel Known to…

“…they’re a dickens of a problem—aren’t they, sir?”

The young boy’s quote titling this post refers to the fairer sex—but he could just as easily be talking about the hired killers Captain Alan Thorndike can’t seem to shake off his trail.  Seventy years ago on this very date, 20th Century-Fox released a motion picture adapted from the best-selling suspense novel Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household:…