Tag Archives: classic-film

Classic Film Review: Life Lived on the Margins on an Island off Ireland — “Man of Aran” (1934)

Posted on June 8, 2026 by Roger Moore

Hard lives the way they used to be lived are the subject of documentarian Robert Flaherty’s classic “Man of Aran,” a fictional film capturing the traditions of the past on Ireland’s Aran Islands in the 1930s. A black and white … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Hitchcock winds the “Ticking Clock” — “Sabotage”(1936)

Posted on August 26, 2025 by Roger Moore

Alfred Hitchcock polished his anecdote about how to become “The Master of Suspense” over the decades, refining his definition of “the ticking clock” thriller to the “bomb under the table” analogy he related for a TV interview very late in … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: It’s 2025 — Are we ready for What Cukor, Hepburn ,Tracy and Donald Ogden Stewart warned us about Fascism? “Keeper of the Flame” (1942)

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Roger Moore

Big speeches rife with “the F-word”– “fascism” — pack the third act of “Keeper of the Flame,” a mid-WWII MGM thriller that was a tad too anti-fascist for fat cat studio chief Louis B. Mayer. Those speeches also burden a … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: It’s 2026 — Are we ready for What Cukor, Hepburn ,Tracy and Donald Ogden Stewart warned us about Fascism? “Keeper of the Flame” (1942)

Posted on April 28, 2025 by

Big speeches rife with “the F-word”– “fascism” — pack the third act of “Keeper of the Flame,” a mid-WWII MGM thriller that was a tad too anti-fascist for fat cat studio chief Louis B. Mayer. Those speeches also burden a … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Not all Hackman “classics” are created equal — “The Domino Principle” (1977)

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Roger Moore

Some vintage cinema you begin watching with the idea that you’re to see a “classic” featuring an Oscar winner, a famed producer/director and a handful of legends of the big and small screen. And some of those movies remind you … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: The Sexual Sensory Overload of “Black Narcissus” (1947)

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Roger Moore

Long regarded as “the most beautiful film ever shot in color,” Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s “Black Narcissus” remains a feast for the eyes, one unspoiled by the knowlege that most every dazzling image put on the screen was manipulated, … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Sam Fuller’s Red Scare Noir, “Pickup on South Street” (1953)

Posted on January 29, 2025 by Roger Moore

The movies used to sentimentalize mobsters, especially during “the Wars” — WWII and the Cold one that followed. They might be cutthroats, thieves, lowlife grifters and rummies. But when it came to fascists and commies, flesh and blood threats to … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Baby Brian (De Palma) and Baby Bobby (DeNiro) — “Hi, Mom!” (1970)

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Roger Moore

Brian DePalma’s fourth “experimental” indie feature is a time capsule of New York in decay and political disarray. It’s the movie in which his no budget guerilla filmmaking connected with the zeitgeist, and an audience of the young and the … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Reckless Pilot Peck makes a WWII Trek across “The Purple Plain” (1954)

Posted on December 15, 2024 by Roger Moore

By the time he made “The Purple Plain,” Gregory Peck had already made a film that touched on the fear and emotional toll of air combat in World War II — 1949’s “Twelve O’Clock High.” But the text of that … Continue reading →

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Classic Film Review: Carney, Tomlin, Killings and a Missing Cat — “The Late Show” (1977)

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Roger Moore

The golden age of film noir — cynical, sinister and shadowy thrillers about crime and the unchanging nature of human criminality — was the 1940s and ’50s, when black and white cinema still ruled. The genre never really went away, … Continue reading →

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