Breakheart Pass
In the 1870s, a train is headed for Fort Humboldt in California where diphtheria is raging – but that’s far from the whole truth. The same year as the director…
The Sting: Good-Hearted Grifters
Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Photo: Universal One of David S. Ward's first scripts introduced us to the world of confidence men. Not that they hadn't been seen on screen…
Tootsie: Dressed to Kill
Sydney Pollack and Dustin Hoffman. Photo: Columbia In the late 1990s, I was studying English in college when one of our teachers organized a reading of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance…
Scarface
Tony Montana (Al Pacino) claims asylum in Miami and instantly makes an impact on a wealthy cocaine dealer (Robert Loggia) who offers him work. Oliver Stone did an interesting thing.…
O Brother Where Art Thou: Men of Constant Sorrow
Photo: Universal In Preston Sturges’s classic film Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Joel McCrea’s character, a Hollywood movie director, sets out to experience “the real world” as a way of preparing himself…