Turner Classic Movies allows yours truly to catch up on movies never seen and movies viewed so long ago that memory has left muddled, imprecise impressions.

In 1964, age 14, I shlepped from Brooklyn into Manhattan to see the British movie Girl With Green Eyes. Those were the days when I actually took movie critics oh-so-seriously. Okay, I was a dopey teenager, what did I know?

Here’s what I remember:

Actress Rita Tushingham: Her name made me giggle because Tushingham is just too close to the Yiddish word tushy, which means butt. My maternal grandmother Chana Gittel used to pinch my rear and exclaim: “Tushy-sweet!”

Everyone in my family thought this was just hysterical.

I wasn’t so sure.

Also, I was kind of huh? about Tushingham. She did not look or sound like a real movie star.

True confession: I was, and probably remain, totally superficial; ga-ga over Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and of course Brigitte Bardot, though I had not seen one of her movies, only endless photographs which were quite enough to induce sleepless adolescent nights. (more…)

Lest we forget, we are at war. 

Men and women at this very moment are fighting for their lives and for the lives of those they took an oath to protect and defend. 

There have been some recent films about war and what it means for the “average Joe” to be at war. A few of these are receiving deserving accolades for their realism. No, not the realism of blood and guts spilled, which is what war is, of course, but the realism of human behavior in adverse conditions, or as Hemingway put it, grace under pressure. This is the human condition that we all face, in one form or another, each and every day of our lives. Of course, most of us can face our pressures, make our decisions, get through our daily angst without wondering if a shell is going to go off five feet away, having the vehicle we’re riding in targeted for destruction or being exposed to combinations of chemicals not even named yet. No, we don’t have that extra worry. But some out there do.  (more…)

Here’s my list to of the ten best movies I screened in 2008.

I have to admit that I did not see one contemporary release that comes close to the quality and passion of these older films. And keep in mind that most of these classic movies were produced on modest budgets, never intended as studio blockbusters. These ten products of Hollywood’s golden age are what Hollywood used to do best: solid, unpretentious entertainment.

10. The Man From Down Under, (1943) starring Charles Laughton and Donna Reed. Billy Wilder once stated that Charles Laughton was the greatest living actor. Who am I to argue with the legendary director? Laughton was certainly methodical in his research. Tapped to star as Captain Bligh in MGM’s blockbuster Mutiny on the Bounty, (1935) Laughton went to the original London tailor shop that made the real Bligh’s uniforms and had them copied to wear as his wardrobe. Anything for a true performance. Here, Laughton brilliantly portrays a rough and alcohol sodden Australian soldier who adopts two Belgium orphans, rescuing them from the ruins of World War I. This could have been a dreadful exercise in melodrama, but Laughton’s acute commitment to the crude but sensitive Aussie character raises the movie to an unexpected emotional pitch. Robert Z. Leonard—real name Robert Zigler Leonard—directed this little gem. Leonard is one of those great studio directors who are sniffed at by film cultists because he didn’t have a “personal signature.” But Leonard’s signature, like the great Clarence Brown, was rock solid professionalism and the highest levels of craftsmanship.

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