समाचार

Romantic comedy marks the feature directorial debut of Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan.

Paris-based Urban Sales is to handle world sales of Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan debut feature Spare Keys, which is set to receive its world premiere at San Sebastian next month.

The French romantic comedy, which will play in the festival’s New Directors section, stars Céleste Brunnquell as a teenage girl who starts a relationship with her friend’s brother, played by Quentin Dolmaire.

Screen can exclusively reveal a first trailer for the feature, which will be released under the title Fifi in France by New...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Ahead of the Curve

In 1990, a 23-year-old named Frances “Franco” Stevens applied for multiple credit cards. When she was approved, she withdrew as much cash as she could from them, and used the money to launch Deneuve, one of the first lesbian magazines in the United States. In a fiction feature-length film, this moment would arrive halfway through the running time, the percussion in the score would tense as we saw an actor convey the fear and hopefulness of someone attempting something bold and risky. A mellow piano would probably announce that this is “the” make or break moment for our heroine. – Jose S. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Bad Tales (D’Innocenzo Brothers)

Amid the litany of horrors the biting little film Bad Tales presents,...

James M. Cain was introduced to the concept of the "love rack" by his friend, screenwriter Vincent Lawrence (Hands Across the Table, Peter Ibbetson). Cain recalled, "I haven't the faintest idea whether this is a rack on which the lovers are tortured, or something with pegs to hold the shining cloak of romance, or how the word figures in it," but he learned from Lawrence that what makes the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet work is the balcony: the obstacle. The thing which separates the lovers and results in their being tormented with desire.

Cain had the idea of making the love story central to his narrative, rather than being "romantic interest," and to use it to tell a tale of murder. "Murder, I said, had always been written from its least interesting angle, which was whether the police catch the murderer." Cain instead wanted to show the development...

Carole Lombard on TCM: My Man Godfrey, Nothing Sacred, The Racketeer Mitchell Leisen's Hands Across the Table (1935) would have been more enjoyable had Carole Lombard ended up with Ralph Bellamy instead of Fred MacMurray. In fact, MacMurray's obnoxious Average Joe portrayal — who comes across as the Average Jerk instead — all but destroys the film. His character should have gone to, once again, Melvyn Douglas, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Brian Aherne, Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Edward G. Robinson, Bela Lugosi, Ginger Rogers, May Robson, or just about anyone else in Hollywood at that time. I haven't watched Vigil in the Night (1940), a melodrama about two sisters/nurses that isn't considered one of George Stevens' best. The cast, however, is good: in addition to Lombard, there are Brian Aherne and Anne Shirley. Vigil in the Night is also of interest in that it's one of Lombard's rare post-1935 non-comedic roles.