Opinion
Jean Harlow and the Hard Knocks School of Acting
Jean Harlow, had she not died at the tragic age of 26, would have celebrated her 104th birthday today. I thought it would be fun to take a step back and observe the panorama of […]
1930s
Opinion
Pre-Code Gams and Damsels
Legs. Gams. A whole lotta tomato. Pick your hyperbole of choice, the fact is that pre-code cinema was full of that most suggestive of appendages in a way never quite paralleled since. Sure, they’re still […]
Opinion
Hey, TMZ: Meet Lee Tracy.
When people think of fast-talking, hard-boiled, no-nonsense reporters they think of Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns in His Girl Friday; the charming Bill Chandler in Libeled Lady; Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in All The President’s […]
Movies
Nuanced Desperation: Katharine Hepburn in ALICE ADAMS
Prior to being labeled “box office poison” the mid-1930s, Katharine Hepburn’s career was looking up. And George Stevens’ 1935 romantic drama Alice Adams had become one of the most successful of her career thus far. There was […]
Movies
My Man Godfrey: The Unforgotten Man
“God, but this film is beautiful,” Roger Ebert once said of Gregory La Cava’s 1936 satirical screwball comedy My Man Godfrey. “This movie, and the actors in it, and its style of production, and the system […]
Movies
Sex Conquers All: VIVACIOUS LADY (1938)
George Stevens’ 1938 screwball comedy Vivacious Lady is a shining example of what the Studio System–with all its codes, and censorship and contracts–got right. A rollicking rom-com that is bursting at the seams with everything […]