• Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 13: RIDE OUT FOR REVENGE (1957); ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959) and RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE (1965)
    Dec 19 2025

    It's our final Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, with which we also say goodbye to our comprehensive approach toward attaining a privileged vantage point on an actor's entire oeuvre. Of course, we cheated a little on this one and stopped short of Gloria's exploitation film era. Our oeuvre-view ends with two Westerns, Ride Out for Revenge (1957) and Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966), entirely unrelated despite their similar titles, which we liked for very different reasons, and a last Gloria Grahame left-wing film noir appearance in Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), produced by Harry Belafonte's production company with a screenplay secretly written by blacklistee Abraham Polonsky at Belafonte's behest. After we reveal our Top 10 Gloria Grahame movies, Fear and Moviegoing returns with a vengeance (in keeping with the episode's themes) with three by Mikio Naruse from the TIFF Lightbox retrospective (Floating Clouds, Repast, and Mother) and two Carlton 90s retro screenings, Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects and Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: RIDE OUT FOR REVENGE (1957) [dir. Bernard Girard]

    0h 22m 08s: ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959) [dir. Robert Wise].

    0h 32m 36s: RIDE BEYOND VENGEANCE (1966) [dir. Bernard McEveety]

    0h 45m 32s: Gloria Grahame Top 10s

    0h 49m 44s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects (1995) & Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers (1997) at The Carlton Cinema; Part I of TIFF Cinematheque's Mikio Naruse Retrospective - Floating Clouds (1955); Repast (1951) & Mother (1952)

    +++

    * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

    * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1933: FAST WORKERS & QUEEN CHRISTINA
    Dec 12 2025

    For this 1933 MGM episode we focus on rehabilitating John Gilbert's sound-era reputation with a double feature of underrated gem Fast Workers, a construction worker love triangle melodrama directed by Tod Browning, and Gilbert's most famous sound movie, Rouben Mamoulian and Greta Garbo's very serious (but also very sensual) costume drama Queen Christina, about a woman whose ideals clash with her society. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss one of Dave's faves, Paul Thomas Anderson's morally enigmatic first feature, Hard Eight.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: 1933 and MGM

    0h 07m 46s: FAST WORKERS (dir. Tod Browning]

    0h 33m 11s: QUEEN CHRISTINA [dir. Rouben Mamoulian]

    0h 54m 22s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto: Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight (1996) at The Paradise Cinema

    +++

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

    1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

    +++

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

    * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 12: OKLAHOMA! (1955) and THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956)
    Dec 5 2025

    In this week's episode of our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view, we explore the unique casting of unmusical Gloria in Fred Zinnemann's film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1955) and follow the thread that leads (through Jud Fry) from the supposedly "wholesome" musical to Charlie Kaufman's dark, experimental I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Then we switch over to British espionage curiosity The Man Who Never Was (1956), starring Gloria and Clifton Webb... although they never share a scene. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, another curious pairing: Cameron Crowe's quintessential 90s romantic comedy Singles (1992) and Luc Moullet's weirdo Western A Girl Is a Gun/Une aventure de Billy le Kidd (1971) offer wildly divergent perspectives on the problem of love.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: OKLAHOMA! (1955) [dir. Fred Zinnemann]

    0h 32m 04s: THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956) [dir. Ronald Neame]

    0h 40m 38s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Cameron Crowe's Singles (1992) at The Revue Cinema and Luc Moullet's A Girl is a Gun /Une aventure de Billy le Kid (1971) at TIFF Lightbox

    +++

    * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

    * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

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    50 mins
  • Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1933: ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON & DUCK SOUP
    Nov 28 2025

    This Paramount 1933 Studios Year by Year episode features two of the studio's defining stars of the era: the Marx Brothers, in their final, most famous, and (maybe) most nihilistic Paramount film, Duck Soup, directed by Leo McCarey, and Gary Cooper, miscast (or maybe not) in One Sunday Afternoon in the role that would go to James Cagney in the Warner Bros. remake, The Strawberry Blonde. We zero in on Groucho's authoritarian anti-authoritarianism and Cooper's embodiment of a charismatic man's class resentment. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we share our first experience with the cinema of Nouvelle Vague primitivist Luc Moullet, his quirky and candid examination of second-wave feminism's effect on his relationship (and anatomy), Anatomie d'un rapport (1976)

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: 1933 and Paramount

    0h 06m 53s: ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON (1933) [dir. Stephen Roberts]

    0h 27m 01s: DUCK SOUP (1933) [dir. Leo McCarey]

    1h 01m 22s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Luc Moullet and Antonietta Pizzorno's Anatomie d'un rapport (1976)

    +++

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by Jon Douglas Eames

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

    1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

    +++

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

    * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

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    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Special Subject - Truffaut's Antoine Doinel Series – LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959); ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962); BAISERS VOLÉS (1968); DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) and L'AMOUR EN FUITE (1979)
    Nov 21 2025

    For our November 2025 Special Subject we watched the Antoine Doinel films of François Truffaut: The 400 Blows (1959), Antoine et Colette (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), and Love on the Run (1979). In addition to the charms of star/auteur avatar Jean-Pierre Léaud, we focus on the films' evolving style and increasing interest in the women in Doinel's life. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto section we discuss Paul Leni's horror comedy The Cat and the Canary (1927) and a Hitchcock double feature, Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Saboteur (1942).

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS / LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959) [dir. François Truffaut]

    0h 28m 50s: ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962) [dir. François Truffaut]

    0h 37m 30s: STOLEN KISSES / BAISERS VOLÉS (1968) [dir. François Truffaut]

    0h 54m 42s: BED AND BOARD / DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) [dir. François Truffaut]

    1h 05m 15s: LOVE ON THE RUN / L'AMOUR EN FUITE (1979) [dir. François Truffaut]

    1h 19m 32s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary (1927) at TIFF Lightbox and Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943) at The Paradise

    +++

    * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

    * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 28 mins
  • Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 11: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) and THE COBWEB (1955)
    Nov 14 2025

    Our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view continues with two 1955 liberal institutional melodramas: Stanley Kramer's Not as a Stranger, starring Robert Mitchum as a monomaniacally idealistic doctor, Olivia de Havilland as the wife he takes for granted, and Gloria as the Other Woman; and Vincente Minnelli's underrated The Cobweb, starring Richard Widmark as a monomaniacally idealistic psychiatrist, Gloria (in one of her best roles) as the wife he takes for granted, and Lauren Bacall as the Other Woman. The relatively counter-intuitive casting of the latter film is an indication of its greater subtlety, but the pairing of the two makes (so we hope) for interesting discussion. And then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we say goodbye to Diane Keaton (belatedly, by the time this episode will go up) with a viewing of Annie Hall and ask whether either its "feminist" or its "misogynous" reputations are deserved.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) [dir. Stanley Kramer]

    0h 36m 29s: THE COBWEB (1955) [dir. Vincente Minnelli]

    1h 03m 33s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Annie Hall (1977) by Woody Allen (Diane Keaton tribute at The Carlton Cinema)

    +++

    * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

    * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 14 mins
  • Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Universal – 1932: THE OLD DARK HOUSE and THE MUMMY
    Nov 7 2025

    We've got a Halloween Hangover on this week's episode, with two Universal 1932 horror movies, James Whale's The Old Dark House (based on a novel by J. B. Priestley) and Karl Freund's The Mummy, starring Karloff. We explore the curious tone, social themes, and stellar cast (including Charles Laughton, Ernest Thesiger, Eva Moore, Melvyn Douglas, and the excellent Lilian Bond) of Whale's Gothic oddity and The Mummy's connection to Dracula movie history. Then the hangover continues in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: we discuss our latest theatrical viewing of the great Dead of Night (1945) as well as a Canadian Thanksgiving viewing of the boomer classic The Big Chill (1983) for a different kind of grappling with mortality and confrontation with horror.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 35s: THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932) [dir. James Whale]

    0h 35m 45s: THE MUMMY (1932) [dir. Karl Freund]

    0h 58m 08s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Dead of Night (1945) by Basil Dearden, Cavalcanti, et al and The Big Chill (1983) by Lawrence Kasdan

    Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn

    Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

    1932 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

    +++

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

    * Check out Dave's new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Special Subject - Halloween 2025 – Solo Freakouts - HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) and VAMPIRE'S KISS (1988)
    Oct 31 2025

    Our 2025 Halloween episode is a double feature in the "mentally disintegrating men" genre: in Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf, Max von Sydow is beset by some unusual vampires, and in Robert Bierman's Vampire's Kiss, Nicolas Cage becomes an even more unusual one. If people attempting to bite each other to death without proper vampire fangs is your idea of horror, this is the right Halloween film podcast episode for you. (And if it's not, watch these movies and you may change your mind.) If your idea of horror is desperately needing other people without being able to stand being around them then you've also come to the right Halloween episode.

    Time Codes:

    0h 00m 25s: HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) [dir. Ingmar Bergman]

    0h 27m 18s: KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1988) [dir. Robert Bierman]

    +++

    * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

    * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

    * Intro Song: "Sunday" by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

    * Read Elise's piece on Gangs of New York – "Making America Strange Again"

    * Check out Dave's Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist's 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

    Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

    Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

    We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 7 mins