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The first movie to directly confront McCarthyism! Or so said the editorials touting this ‘Long-Awaited Screen Event’ in which ‘Bette Davis Hits the Screen in a Cyclone of Dramatic Fury!’ The storm of the title was based on a real activist in Oklahoma who lost her job for promoting equal rights. Bette’s polite librarian is victimized by small-minded civic types; a subplot depicts the traumatic reaction of one of her patrons, a child expected to despise her as a traitor to the country. Daniel Taradash’s movie is an excellent starting point to discuss the thorny dramatic subgenre of liberal social issue movies.

Storm Center

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 155

1956 / B&w / 1:78 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date September 30, 2022 / Available from / au 39.95

Starring:

Bette Davis, Brian Keith, Kim Hunter, Paul Kelly, Joe Mantell, Kevin Coughlin, Sallie Brophie, Howard Wierum, Curtis Cooksey, Michael Raffetto, Joseph Kearns, Edward Platt, Kathryn Grant, Howard Wendell, Malcolm Atterbury,...

What can one say about a comedy that just limps along, even when an attractive cast does fine work every step of the way? Even the bit parts are creatively cast in this odd romp infected with a really bad case of The Cutes. Natalie Wood is at her best, but in service of dumb gags: let’s blow bubble gum bubbles! The result so upset Natalie that she ditched her studio contract. The roster of engaging talent includes Peter Falk (in suave leading man mode!), Dick Shawn (less grating than usual), Lila Kedrova & Lou Jacobi (showing real style), Jonathan Winters (wasted) and, of all people, Ian Bannen as Natalie Wood’s uncomprehending husband. Bannen is so good, he drags a real laugh or two from the material. The show has been beautifully remastered.

Penelope

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date January 26, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Natalie Wood,...

(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...

Turner Classic Movies continues with its Gay Hollywood presentations tonight and tomorrow morning, June 8–9. Seven movies will be shown about, featuring, directed, or produced by the following: Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Farley Granger, John Dall, Edmund Goulding, W. Somerset Maughan, Clifton Webb, Montgomery Clift, Raymond Burr, Charles Walters, DeWitt Bodeen, and Harriet Parsons. (One assumes that it's a mere coincidence that gay rumor subjects Cary Grant and Tyrone Power are also featured.) Night and Day (1946), which could also be considered part of TCM's homage to birthday girl Alexis Smith, who would have turned 96 today, is a Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a posh, heterosexualized version of Porter. As the warning goes, any similaries to real-life people and/or events found in Night and Day are a mere coincidence. The same goes for Words and Music (1948), a highly fictionalized version of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical partnership.

In the middle of the 20th century, Alfred Hitchcock made a career out of generating fear from the mundane. Psycho made us afraid to shower. The Birds had us looking toward the skies for more than just the pigeons looking to crap on our heads. And I’ll be damned if Rear Window didn’t get me to stop spying on my neighbors with a telescopic camera.

Those familiar with Hitchcock’s work likely know that his ability to instill dread stems from his knowledge about the difference between surprise and suspense. According to Hitchcock, to surprise, you simply need to set off a bomb in the middle of a scene. To create suspense, however, the audience needs to know the bomb is there. Suspense is the knowledge that two people are living their lives blissfully unaware that each moment could be their last. That’s why many of Hitchcock...

An Encore Edition brings back Fritz Lang's searing police corruption tale, with the great performances of Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvinaided by several pots of fresh, hot coffee. As is usual, Fritz Lang leads the way in modernizing a genre -- this one is a keeper. The Big Heat Blu-ray Encore Edition Twilight Time Limited Edition 1953 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Ship Date February 9, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Jeanette Nolan, Willis Bouchey, Robert Burton, Adam Williams, Howard Wendell, Dorothy Green, Carolyn Jones, Dan Seymour, Edith Evanson, John Crawford, John Doucette. Cinematography Charles Lang Film Editor Charles Nelson Original Music Henry Vars Written by Sydney Boehm from the book by William P. McGivern Produced by Robert Arthur Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Four years after Twilight Time's initial release, this Encore Edition...

‘Shane’: Alan Ladd stars in classic Western to be screened at the Academy The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present a 60th anniversary screening of George Stevens’ classic Western Shane, starring Alan Ladd as a lone and mysterious gunslinger, at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, October 7, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Besides Ladd, Shane, a 1953 Paramount release, also stars Jean Arthur in her last movie role, in addition to Van Heflin, Brandon De Wilde, and Jack Palance. (Photo: Alan Ladd in Shane.) "A gun is a tool, Marian, no better or no worse than any other tool, an axe, a shovel or anything," Alan Ladd’s Shane tells Jean Arthur’s homesteader wife and mother. "A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that." That may sound like your usual National Rifle Association bullshit, but in the...