Radio star Larry Abbot (Gene Wilder), who is about to marry co-star Vickie Pearle (Gilda Radner), suffers from bouts of anxiety that threaten his career. His uncle (Paul L. Smith) undertakes to cure him during a weekend family reunion in an old dark house. The movie is just silly fun, with Wilder and Radner in …
Monogram Monday: Jungle Bride (1933)
Charles Starrett, best known for his long-running series as the Durango Kid, essays an early role in this rather soapy picture. A shipwreck strands a young woman (top-billed Anita Page), her fiancé (Kenneth Thomson), the man (Starrett) she believes guilty of a murder for which her brother was imprisoned, and that man’s sidekick (Eddie Borden) …
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Weekly Reader — January 15 – 21
I finished just two books during this week, though I read about half of another that I have chosen not to finish, at least at this time. I also read one dialogue of Plato and much of the latest issue of the magazine Cirsova. The Best Cartoons from France, edited by Edna Bennett — This …
Sunday Fun: Twice Shy
Stoney (1974)
Incoherent action and a muddled plot fatally weaken this tale of rival groups of gun-runners out to obtain a fortune in gold and jewelry stolen during the Second World War and concealed beneath a swimming pool in the former home of the Japanese commander in charge of Surabaya (hence the original title, Surabaya Conspiracy). Michael …
Funny Friday: Snow Throw
Cat People (1942)
Engineer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) meets and marries Irena, a Serbian immigrant (Simone Simon), who is fascinated by the big cats at the zoo and who worries that she herself may be descended from the were-panthers of her homeland. Although Oliver tries to help her, Irena’s beliefs put a strain on their relationship, as does …
Smart Blonde (1937)
Glenda Farrell, often cast as a wise-cracking gold digger, found a fitting role as clever reporter Torchy Blane in Smart Blonde, the first of a series of nine pictures from Warner Brothers (Farrell played the role in seven of them). In this initial outing, she is right on the scene when a fellow buying a …
Monogram Monday: Bowery Bombshell (1946)
This early entry in the Bowery Boys series offers another example of the blend of crime and comedy so often found in the films. This time, thanks to a photographer friend, Sach (Huntz Hall) ends up suspected of involvement in a bank robbery, one in fact committed by a gang led by Ace Deuce (Sheldon …
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Weekly Reader — January 8 – 14, 2023
I finished five books and one magazine this week. Monday Mob, by Don Pendleton — The 33rd book in Pendleton’s highly successful series about Mack Bolan, the Executioner, kicks off a Hell Week as the warrior brings his special brand of destruction to the Mafia before retiring from that war to tackle a different threat …