Friday, September 30, 2011

Light and shadow flicker across the screen. Sobs are heard as a pair of praying hands, clasping and unclasping, appear. The sobbing continues.A woman’s suffering face appears above the tortured hands. Birds twitter…her distraught voice whispers…All I want to do is save the children not destroy them. More than...

Monday, September 26, 2011

A few weeks ago I took another look at Nicholas Ray’s haunting film noir, In a Lonely Place (1950). As I watched, it slowly began to rankle that the central character, Dix Steele (Humphrey Bogart), a Hollywood screenwriter with an explosive temper, is consistently touted as a great guy by most who know him. Even...

Monday, September 19, 2011

It’s Los Angeles in the 1950s and the GI Bill-fueled migration from city to suburb is in high gear. An opening shot of a vast (but shockingly empty) freeway system sets the scene. A gorgeous young couple in a late-model Chrysler cruises out of town. They smile as they pass billboard after billboard trumpeting...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

The Lady Eve's Reel Life is one year old today...and no one is more surprised by this anniversary than the lady herself. When I nervously posted my first piece on TCM's Classic Film Union blog pages about 2-1/2 years ago I didn't imagine I'd soon be contributing to a collaborative blog (The Classic Film &...

Friday, September 9, 2011

Classic Film Boy and The Lady Eve Discuss the Fascinating Irene Mayer SelznickWelcome to Take 2, a conversation about Irene Mayer Selznick, the daughter of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer and first wife of famed producer David O. Selznick. Both Classic Film Boy (CFB) and I (TLE) recently read A Private View, Mayer...