Author Archives: John Grant

They made screwball comedies worldwide well into the fifties, despite the darkening effect of film noir and the realism of Italian cinema. In England, filmmakers probably wanted to put everything right again after World War II, so they gave us … Continue reading →

Anybody with a fascination for crime stories and police procedurals should watch “The Naked City,” the 1948 film directed by Jules Dassin.  The movie stars Barry Fitzgerald as Detective Dan Muldoon, a homicide cop with a heavy Irish brogue and … Continue reading →

In 2013’s “The Way Way Back,” a family goes on a vacation to a seaside resort, but not everyone in the clan is happy about it.  The morose teenager Duncan, played by Liam James, does not like his pushy stepfather … Continue reading →

I saw “Gravity” in 3D at a local theater on a rainy Wednesday night. When the lights went down I realized I was the only customer.  For the next 90 minutes I watched spellbinding 3D outer space action while experiencing … Continue reading →

The animated and satirical comedy, “Mary and Max,” released in 2009, features two main characters with some very serious problems.  Mary, who lives in a small town in Australia in the 1970s, has a birthmark on her forehead and possesses … Continue reading →

Carole Lombard and Fredric March are a capable screwball comedy duo in the 1937 Technicolor film “Nothing Sacred.”  Despite requiring 11 writers to work on either the screenplay or the treatment, the film succeeds as a witty newspaper story involving … Continue reading →

Bette Davis, so closely associated with Warner Brothers Studios, made her first big splash at RKO Radio Pictures in a 1934 Pandro S. Berman production called “Of Human Bondage.”  Under the capable direction of John Cromwell, Davis enthralls and invigorates … Continue reading →