Luister naar There's Sometimes a Buggy

Our streak of finding gynocentric crime film gems continues with our second Paramount 1931 episode, featuring two movies directed by Sylvia Sidney specialist Marion Gering. 24 Hours pairs a despairing Clive Brook and Miriam Hopkins, haunted by marriages they can't escape in one way or another. And Ladies of the Big House, starring a radiant Sidney as a hapless shopgirl who (like Hopkins' nightclub singer) becomes the target of a gangster's obsession, depicts life in prison as a curious quasi-utopia of racial equality and solidarity among American's socioeconomically oppressed. We give you our take on Gering as unsung auteur! Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Hollywood, 1931 and Paramount 0h 07m 09s: 24 HOURS [dir. Marion Gering] 0h 40m 51s: LADIES OF THE BIG HOUSE [dir. Marion Gering] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s [https://timetravel.libsyn.com/complete-viewing-schedule-the-2020s] * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/1926-USA-Archives-1926-10-15-Jean-Goldkette-Orch-v-Keller-Sisters-Sunday]) * Read Elise’s latest film piece [https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2021/06/24/of-axes-oxes-turkeys-and-scapegoats/] 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 [https://twitter.com/therebuggy] Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com [therebuggy@gmail.com]   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

Our final Diana Wynyard episode has arrived all too soon! We look at her two final key roles, in Alexander Korda's film of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1947) and The Feminine Touch (1956), a nurse drama that's better than its silly title. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we cover the 2025 Toronto Silent Film Festival, focusing on three films built around miraculous performances, Victor Sjostrom's The Wind (1928), starring Lillian Gish, Victor Fleming's Mantrap (1926), starring Clara Bow, and Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928), starring Emil Jannings (ably supported by Evelyn Brent), before turning our attention to a film that was entirely new to us, the blatantly anti-capitalist The Johnstown Flood (1926), featuring Janet Gaynor in her first major role.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    AN IDEAL HUSBAND (1947) [dir. Alexander Korda] 0h 23m 27s:    THE FEMININE TOUCH (1956) [dir. Pat Jackson] 0h 41m 54s:    Diana Wynyard – The Summing Up 0h 48m 01s:    FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Toronto Silent Film Festival 2025 at The Revue Cinema [The Wind, Mantrap, The Last Command, The Johnstown Flood, Leap Year, Assistant Wives] and Easter Parade (1948) at TIFF Lightbox.    +++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project [https://anchor.fm/criterionproject?utm_source=listennotes.com&utm_campaign=Listen+Notes&utm_medium=website] – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s [https://timetravel.libsyn.com/complete-viewing-schedule-the-2020s] * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/1926-USA-Archives-1926-10-15-Jean-Goldkette-Orch-v-Keller-Sisters-Sunday]) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” [https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2020/02/18/gangs-of-new-york-2002/] * 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 [https://twitter.com/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!

**** [Retro Re-issue Alert!] **** Turns out it wasn't such a great idea to use Le Tigre's "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" as our podcast's theme song in 2019 and 2020! Anyway, Spotify (and presumably Le Tigre) don't seem to think so.  Accordingly, please find the attached re-issue of one of our foundational episodes, minus the intro music + a couple of words of greeting from Elise.  Consider it a fragment shored against our (Julie) Ruin.  First issued: August 23, 2019 This week’s episode serves as both a prolegomenon to our imminent Hollywood Studios Year By Year series and as a wistful look back to Dave’s teen years, when he picked up Ethan Mordden’s freewheeling speed date with Old Hollywood History and discovered a new way to split the difference between Adornian culture industry theory and auteurist ontology. Journey back to a time when oligopoly really meant something and most entertainment companies weren’t somehow beholden to Disney. We quote from and quibble with Mordden’s characterizations of the quintessential qualities of Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, Fox, RKO, and Universal (Dave gets particularly riled up about yet another slight to the sacred memory of Carl Laemmle Jr.). What’s your favourite Golden Age Studio? We want to know! Time Codes: 0h 0m 00s:   The Hollywood Studios 2h 14m 43s    Listener Mail with Todd Murry [https://redantsunderneath.tumblr.com/] +++ *Read Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room [https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/author/elise-moore/], Cléo [http://cleojournal.com/contributor/elise-moore/], and Bright Lights [https://brightlightsfilm.com/author/elise-moore/].* Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy [https://twitter.com/therebuggy] Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

In this Farrow vs. Allen Special Subject episode we dig into a strong set of films, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Radio Days (1987), united by their examination of art, popular culture, and fantasy, the possibilities they offer for transcendence, and the conditions of that transcendence. We also, of course, particularly examine Mia Farrow's role in these films, from Allen avatar to intimidating enigma, wistful waif to materfamilias.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 31m 01s:    HANNAH & HER SISTERS (1986) [dir. Woody Allen] 0h 54m 18s:    RADIO DAYS (1987) [dir. Woody Allen]   ++ * Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project [https://anchor.fm/criterionproject?utm_source=listennotes.com&utm_campaign=Listen+Notes&utm_medium=website] – a discussion of Late Spring * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s [https://timetravel.libsyn.com/complete-viewing-schedule-the-2020s] * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/1926-USA-Archives-1926-10-15-Jean-Goldkette-Orch-v-Keller-Sisters-Sunday]) * Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again” [https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2020/02/18/gangs-of-new-york-2002/] * 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 [https://twitter.com/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!

We complete our second round of 1930 on Studios Year by Year with Universal. This time around we've got two auteur entries, Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front, and a much deeper cut, Tod Browning's eccentric crime drama Outside the Law. We discuss All Quiet as emblematic of the Laemmele Jr. era before turning to Browning's tense, messy melodrama, with a powerhouse performance by the scandal-plagued Mary Nolan. A fine finale to another trip through 1930 with the Hollywood Studios!  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s: Universal Recap 0h 15m 58s: ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT [dir. Lewis Milestone] 0h 53m 51s: OUTSIDE THE LAW [dir. Tod Browning] +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer              +++ * Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s [https://timetravel.libsyn.com/complete-viewing-schedule-the-2020s] * Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/1926-USA-Archives-1926-10-15-Jean-Goldkette-Orch-v-Keller-Sisters-Sunday]) * Read Elise’s latest film piece [https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2021/06/24/of-axes-oxes-turkeys-and-scapegoats/] 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 [https://twitter.com/therebuggy] Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com [therebuggy@gmail.com]   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!