When a Body Meets a Body: Frankenstein’s Daughter Acts Out Her 1950s Issues
Frankenstein’s daughter, in modern parlance, is some kind of proto-“trans” creation of a woman’s mind within a patched-together male body. This is heady stuff.
Michael Barrett
Like Peas in a Sci-Fi Pod: The 1978 Remake of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’
Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake of sci-fi pod people film Invasion of the Body Snatchers achieves a level of unease above and beyond the novel and the 1956 film.
Rod Serling Undermines the American Dream with the Stories in ‘Night Gallery’
Existential fear about post-war American masculinity is dragged into disturbing light in Rod Serling’s dark tales of the American Dream, Night Gallery.
Two 1950s Argentine Noirs Raise Goose Bumps and Fevered Style
Film noirs ‘The Beast Must Die’ and ‘The Bitter Stems’ exemplify why forgotten films must be restored and rediscoveries trumpeted to the amazement of new generations.
The Sexual Politics in Sexy Rudolph Valentino’s Silent Film, ‘The Sheik’
Eyebrows tilting and nostrils flaring and emanating pheromones of intoxicating effluvia, Foreigners like Valentino’s Sheik had un-American sex all over Hollywood.
Quick and Dirty Tales of Murder and Journalism in Hollywood
Flicker Alley’s set of Hollywood B-films from 1934 provide sociological snapshots of the limits of respectable cinema.
The Syllabus of ‘Filibus’ the Gentlewoman Thief
WWI was underway when silent film Filibus hit theaters, so this elegant, war-free escapism of immorality among the ruling class may have provided mass therapy.
Film-Noir Thriller ‘The Amazing Mr. X’ Shimmers with Beautiful Spookery
Directed by low-budget maestro Bernard Vorhaus, the restored film-noir ‘The Amazin Mr. X’ is an unpredictable little specimen of spookery-pokery.
Elvis Presley and Mary Tyler Moore and Jesus Christ
Elvis Presley and Mary Tyler Moore embody 1970s-era cultural shifts in the jumbled social message that tries to be a cutting-edge Elvis movie, Change of Habit.
Spoof and Pastiche and Meringue in Your Eye Goes ‘Bugsy Malone’
Alan Parker’s kids’ gangster movie Bugsy Malone kids about how adults take themselves too seriously.
From Gothic to James Bond: Reflections on Terence Young’s ‘Corridor of Mirrors’
Terence Young’s mystery, Corridor of Mirrors, now on Blu-ray from Cohen Media Group, brings all kinds of Gothic “madwoman in the attic” melodramas to mind.