The King’s Speech: Royal Pains

Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. Photo: The Weinstein Company After watching this brilliant drama, I knew I had to consult YouTube for the speech King George VI made after Britain's…

Sunset Blvd: The Walking Dead

Gloria Swanson. Photo: Paramount Gloria Swanson used to be big. She had a pretty decent career as a silent-movie star, but shortly after transitioning into talkies she was abandoned by…

The Searchers: A Savage Nature

John Wayne. Photo: Warner The Searchers was a box office hit in its day, but received no Academy Award nominations. Much like several Alfred Hitchcock movies, it's a typical example…

Ben-Hur: The Gospel of Judah

Charlton Heston. Photo: MGM The kind of film that starts with a five-minute overture, Ben-Hur is about as classic a 1950s Hollywood blockbuster as they come. Burt Lancaster was reportedly…

2001: How the Solar System Was Won

Photo: MGM I remember watching this film for the first time when I was a teenager, or perhaps 20 years old. When it was over, I was so stunned and…

Snow White and Disney’s Most Bad-Assed Villain

Photo: Disney In 1937, Walt Disney certainly had made a name for himself, having supervised and participated in the creation of such enduring animated characters as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck,…

Shot in the Dark: Clouseau Finds His Mojo

Herbert Lom and André Maranne. Photo: United Artists When Blake Edwards's The Great Race was released in 1965 it was touted as "the great laugh show of all time". That…

Vertigo: I Put a Spell on You

James Stewart and Kim Novak. Photo: Paramount One of Alfred Hitchcock's three 1950s Technicolor masterpieces (the others are Rear Window and North by Northwest). Curiously enough, at the time of…

E.T. The Thing from Another World

Henry Thomas. Photo: Universal When Richard Attenborough accepted his two Oscars for Gandhi in 1983, he acknowledged the fact that he had just beaten one of the favorites. "I was…