So, kids, I’ve spent the last month trying to figure out how to cover Summer Under the Stars as we come speeding into August. Who out there is getting ready … Continue Reading TCM Top 11: Summer Under the Stars 2021
Being on the brink of nuclear war is a niche our country has occupied as long as I’ve been alive. In the late ’70s though the concept felt all too … Continue Reading The China Syndrome (1979)
If there’s one thing we here at Ticklish Business can’t resist, it’s diving into a work of film noir. We can’t resist! So, how excited were we to learn that … Continue Reading Crossfire (1947)
Originally published: May 1, 2015 After my interview with Technicolor specialist Robert Hoffman and in honor of this weekend’s Dance Media Festival, I decided a review of The Unfinished Dance … Continue Reading The Unfinished Dance (1947)
Originally published January 28th, 2015 Second-wave feminism (you’ve already stopped reading, haven’t you?) wouldn’t crop up for another couple of years, but that’s not to say Hollywood wasn’t doing its … Continue Reading The Thrill of It All (1963)
Originally published July 5th 2013. My notes on Mildred Pierce are extensive, almost filling two pages of my notebook; and yet I argued with my mother about the message of … Continue Reading Mildred Pierce (1945)
The Cat and the Canary has been remade and revised several times. Originally a 1927 silent film, this was last remade only nine years earlier as The Cat Creeps. Taking … Continue Reading The Cat and the Canary (1939)
Somehow “Noirvember” 2020 is already in the rearview mirror, leaving December, and the holidays, bearing down on us. While this particular holiday season will be far different from those most … Continue Reading TCM Top 10- December 2020
The different breeds of noir can end up creating a dark morass of shadows and fog, with little variety in-between that it’s remarkable that some noirs were able to stand … Continue Reading The Big Heat (1953)
There’s a formula to film noirs, and while not strictly enforced there are particular elements one looks for – the morally ambiguous hero, interplay between light and shadow, an evil … Continue Reading Pitfall (1948)
Despite the ingrained conventions of film noir some films can leave you surprised. So it is with director Phil Karlson’s Kansas City Confidential. What starts as a typical heist film … Continue Reading Kansas City Confidential (1952)
Fritz Lang is a director whose work, even at its silliest, can entertain, and that’s how one must approach Beyond a Reasonable Doubt – now available in a beautiful Blu-ray … Continue Reading Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
There’s a disconnect to the 1950s best exemplified through media. One the one hand you have the Donna Reed world of mom, dad, and apple pie. And on the other … Continue Reading Gun Crazy (1950)
Director Robert Siodmak, known for noir masterpieces like The Spiral Staircase (1946) and The Killers (1946), reteams stars Burt Lancaster and De Carlo – last seen in Jules Dassin’s Brute Force … Continue Reading Criss Cross (1949)
My mother’s listened to Agnes Moorehead’s original radio production – a role she tackled till the 1960s – and I’m interested in comparing these two. On its own film, Sorry, … Continue Reading Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
Ten years after the landmark film The Moon is Blue marked the erosion of the Hollywood Production Code, several films continued pushing at the boundaries of the sex comedy. Many simply … Continue Reading Sunday in New York (1963)
