Context is everything in movies. In any particular scene, a line of dialogue can elicit hearty laughs if given the right set-up while the same exact line might cause an audience to break down into tears when used in a different situation. The idea of context is just as important for directors and, [...]

Of all the director-actor-actress triumvirates that made at least two non-sequel pictures together, my personal favorite might be Fritz Lang’s two films with Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame - The Big Heat and Human Desire, released in 1953 and 1954, respectively. Lang had pulled a similar trick before, teaming Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett [...]

Elia Kazan was incredibly prolific between the years 1947 and 1957, directing twelve films released in that period and one each year beginning with 1949’s Pinky. Two won him Oscars while also taking Best Picture - Gentleman’s Agreement and On the Waterfront - and two more earned him nominations - A Streetcar Named Desire [...]

Given the opportunity to attend a conversation with the beyond legendary Kirk Douglas, I not only jumped at such a chance but also finally gave Paths of Glory, one of his highest regarded films, my full attention. The film dramatically increased my perception of American filmmaking in the 1950s, a decade I generally regard [...]

There are prescient movies, ahead of their time enough for modern viewers to appreciate a retained relevance or uncanny vision into how society would reflect portions of films past, and then there’s Ace in the Hole. What amazes me most about Billy Wilder’s 1951 master work isn’t just how eerily accurate he captured the [...]

Filmed in rural Mississippi on a small budget, Baby Doll, a collaboration between Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams, was scheduled to hit theaters just before Christmas in 1956. Things changed, however, when a prominent New York Cardinal condemned the film (and its suggestive Times Square billboard) and declared that all Catholics who saw it [...]

Ealing, the British movie studio formed during World War II that later became famous for a genre of comedy all its own, had a serendipitous relationship with Alec Guinness. In 1949, when Ealing was still looking to eke out its own identity separate from the war propaganda it had been producing originally, the studio [...]