Articles by Jill Blake

About Jill Blake

Jill Blake is a writer and researcher based in Atlanta, GA. She is the co-editor of The Retro Set and the co-host of the podcast DWT: Drinking While Talking. Jill has written for various outlets including Indicator, Netflix Film, Turner Classic Movies, and FilmStruck. She is currently writing a book on stage and screen actors Fredric March and Florence Eldridge.

Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life (1956)

Nov 12, 2020 Jill Blake 1

In 1955, Nicholas Ray made the technicolor family drama Rebel Without a Cause, which focused on the experiences of teenagers in the seemingly perfect confines of postwar suburbia. The film was not only a huge […]

Freeing the Soul: Dr. Jekyll’s First Transformation in DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931)

Oct 31, 2018 Jill Blake 0

Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) is the definitive film version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s also a stunning piece of cinema featuring innovative […]

Directed by Nicholas Ray: On Dangerous Ground (’51)

Jun 10, 2017 Jill Blake 0

Three years after Nicholas Ray made his directorial debut with 1948’s They Live by Night (which I wrote about here), he made On Dangerous Ground (1951), starring Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino. Written by Gerald […]

Nicholas Ray’s Directorial Debut: They Live By Night (1949)

Jun 3, 2017 Jill Blake 0

FilmStruck has just added programming dedicated to director Nicholas Ray, including six films he made throughout his thirty-year career and one documentary feature directed by his widow Susan Ray. One of the films included […]

Cagney Fills the Screen in Shake Hands with the Devil (’59)

May 27, 2017 Jill Blake 0

During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, Peter Bogdanovich conducted a series of interviews with one of his idols: the larger-than-life, enigmatic director, Orson Welles. During their conversations, which Bogdanovich released as a […]

The Delightfully Perfect Blithe Spirit (1945)

May 20, 2017 Jill Blake 2

There are countless great movies, but so few are truly perfect. Some of the movies that I consider worthy of the “perfect” designation include Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), William Wyler’s The Best Years of […]