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Dancing Queen
Helen (aka Helen Jairag Richardson Khan) is a Bollywood musical legend The title of the 31 minute documentary Helen, Queen of the Nautch Girls (1973) is a homage to the Indian superstar Helen, who may...
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The Film Noir That Got Away
Maggie Smith and George Nader in the film noir, Nowhere to Go (1958) Ealing Studios. The name conjures up memories of the great British comedies such as The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers, The...
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Mimsy Farmer’s Strangest Movie?
Anyone who is a fan of Italian giallos, European art house fare and off the grid cult films is familiar with actress Mimsy Farmer. She left Hollywood in the late sixties after her “youth exploitation”...
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Rocket Man
It would be hard to find a more controversial figure in the history of space exploration than the brilliant rocket scientist Dr. Wernher von Braun, the subject of J. Lee Thompson’s biopic, I Aim at the...
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House Proud
Kim Novak outside the dream house being designed by architect Kirk Douglas in Strangers When We Meet (1960). It’s not unusual for pre-production publicity on a new film to revolve around the star or...
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Satanic Sisterhood
(from left to right) Haydee Politoff, Ida Galli and Silvia Monti in Queens of Evil (aka La Regine, 1970) Tales of the Devil seducing and destroying man have been a popular theme in cinema since the...
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Eskimo (1933): Inuit Culture on Film
Alaskan actor Ray Mala (aka Mala, on right) stars in the 1933 MGM film ESKIMO. How many famous or highly regarded films about the Inuit culture can you name? Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North...
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When Seafood Fights Back!
Japanese pop culture can be so crazieeee, especially as filtered through their national cinema! You already know this if you’ve seen any films by Noboru Iguchi (A Larva to Love, 2003; RoboGeisha,...
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A Different Kind of Horror Film from Lucio Fulci
If Lucio Fulci had only directed the 1979 cult splatterfest Zombie, he would still warrant more than a footnote in any film history of the horror genre. Obviously inspired by the success of George...
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The Transmutational Music of Arthur Russell
Sometimes a figure in popular music will develop a small cult following but never crack the mainstream market because their music is unclassifiable…or as some critics like to say, “ahead of their...
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As American as Apple Pie
Some aspects of American culture make ideal targets for satirists like the media (Network, 1976) or politics (The Great McGinty, 1940) or even the American family (Lord Love a Duck, 1966). Beauty...
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Hunted and Haunted
Klaus Kinski plays an escaped mental patient in the German psychological drama/thriller, Der Rote Rausch (1962). When did Klaus Kinski first burst upon the international film world? The evidence points...
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The Feel Bad Bachelor Party
As you can see this is not the raunchy 1984 comedy, Bachelor Party starring Tom Hanks and Tawny Kitaen but the 1957 drama The Bachelor Party, adapted for the screen by Paddy Chayefsky and featuring Don...
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Totally Mod
The Hollywood film industry is usually a few beats behind the rhythm of any new emerging counterculture and by the time they try to capitalize on it the parade has usually moved on. Duffy (1968) had...
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From Tenement to Penthouse: A Pre-Code Affair
Warren William and Marian Marsh in the Pre-Code drama, Under Eighteen (1931), directed by Archie Mayo. One of several Pre-Code dramas helmed by Warner Bros. contract director Archie Mayo in 1931, Under...
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Tinto Brass Directs a Spaghetti Western
If U.S. moviegoers are familiar with the name Tinto Brass at all, it is probably due to the infamous 1979 epic Caligula which featured world renowned actors (Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren, John Gielgud,...
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The Cinema Legend You Don’t Know
Robert Donat plays film pioneer William Friese-Greene in The Magic Box (1951), directed by John Boulting. In the annals of forgotten inventors, unsung geniuses and visionaries who have fallen through...
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In the Shadows of the OAS
L’insoumis (1964) aka The Unvanquished is a relatively unknown but deeply compelling and haunting French film from director Alain Cavalier that aired several years ago on TCM in an English language...
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Love Hurts
Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson have a traumatic love affair in Autumn Leaves (1956). In 1956 directed Robert Aldrich surprised everyone by trying his hand at a “woman’s picture,” a melodramatic soap...
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Jess Franco’s Attack of the Robots
Imagine a science-fiction influenced spy thriller about humanoid assassins directed by Jess Franco with a screenplay adaptation by Jean-Claude Carrière (a frequent collaborator with Luis Bunuel), a...
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