Cineaste: Previewing History, Part 5

Here's lookin' at you, kid...with a review of tomorrow's episode of Moguls and Movie Stars, "Warriors and Peacemakers," covering the years 1940-1950.

Live Design: Play dates

More shows this week, but you'll have to act fast to see the flop Elling and the festival attraction Lingua Franca, which close today. Elf (pictured) hangs around through Jan. 2.

Popdose: Criterionpalooza 2010

Happy holidays, David Bowie...and to all a good last-day sale as Barnes and Noble's Criterion Collection blowout ends. I sift through 13 (!) recent releases.

Cineaste: Previewing History, Part 4

For my 1,001th post, a preview of the latest episode of TCM's Moguls & Movie Stars, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dream," covering the years between 1928 and 1940. It begins airing Monday 11/22.

Live Design: Season rundown

Current Broadway and Off Broadway shows in review this week include the musical of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Michael Shannon and his finned friend in the comedy Mistakes Were Made.

Cineaste, UnionDocs, and Of Time and the City

Terence Davies' acclaimed 2008 portrait of Liverpool, his native city, will be screened at UnionDocs this Saturday, Nov. 20, at 7:30pm. Cineaste's Leonard Quart and critic Graham Fuller will be on hand for a discussion. Quart's interview with the filmmaker (pictured) is here.

And, hey, Cineaste made Empire magazine's list of Top 100 Movie Sites. They like us, they really like us.

NY Theater News: The Pee-Wee Herman Show

I know you are, but what did I think about Pee-wee's Broadway debut? The secret word is on Theater News Online, website of the New York Theater News newsletter.

Cineaste: Previewing History, Part 3

My review of "The Dream Merchants," the third episode of TCM's Moguls and Movie Stars, which airs next Monday at 8pm EST. With "It Girl" Clara Bow.

Popdose: Remembering Dino De Laurentiis

"No one cry when Jaws die. But when the monkey die, people gonna cry." Rewinding the hits and misses of the legendary producer.

Popdose: Morning Glory

Rachel McAdams calls Popdose headquarters to find out what the Film Editor (me) thought of her new movie. He gives her the good and “bang” news.

RIP Jill Clayburgh

A consideration of a personal favorite on Popdose.

Cineaste: Previewing History, Part 2

My preview of the second part of TCM's Moguls & Movie Stars, "The Birth of Hollywood", is up now on the site. Chaplin, Griffith, and Theda Bara, too.

Popdose: Toy Story 3 on DVD

Cheer up, voters: Buzz and Woody and the gang are back in the super-successful sequel. Return to your childhood; God knows Tea Party candidates and their constituents have already reverted to theirs.

Popdose: Thrillers That Play With Fire

This time: The Girl Who Played with Fire is a proven commodity, Red Hill a good western, The Eclipse worth exhuming on DVD...but how I can resist spotlighting this wonderful poster from the giallo-themed Amer? I couldn't, and didn't.

Cineaste: Previewing History

Week by week through Dec. 13 I'll be writing Cineaste's first serial post, a review of each episode of TCM's Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood. Tonight at 8pm EST: Episode 1, "Peepshow Pioneers."

Popdose: Top Ten scary movies

Breaking radio silence (not that I'm inactive on Facebook or Twitter, both linked here, and where I'm humming along)--what's scaring us over at Popdose. I have issues with this list (no original Texas Chain Saw Massacre? Really? The Amityville Horror, huh?) but I did write up the justly honored Phantasm and Hellraiser. You can take those to the blood bank.

Live Design: Brits on and Off Broadway

Four shows reviewed this time, the Broadway ones higher profile than the Classic Stage Company's take on Orlando--but how could I not spotlight this photo of David Greenspan all dolled up as Elizabeth I?

Popdose: Social butterflies

A status update on The Social Network (pictured) tags the Wall Street sequel and Inside Job. But the sensitive may want to defriend the horrific Red White & Blue.

Retrieving the Mask

I'm fascinated by movies that fail to merit any external reviews on the Internet Movie Database. What did they do to earn such obscurity? Such a one was Jules Dassin's Uptight (1968). I drew from Roger Ebert's review of it, but it wasn't until I posted my own, in 2008, that his review was linked to the section, along with another. It's not the first time I'd done this; I'm a do-gooder, and I like to do good by these orphaned productions.

Today I came across something I'd never seen before: A movie that lacked not just external reviews, but user reviews. Someone, somewhere, posts something on every movie out there, no matter how obscure. It's as if Behind the Mask (1958) never existed, as I discovered as TCM broadcast a tatty old print of it early Saturday morning and I looked it up. "That's not right," I thought. "An injustice."

Time to set things straight and go...behind the mask. Who ya gonna call?

For the record, this is a British hospital drama, an undistinguished British hospital drama--but there are plenty of undistinguished British hospital dramas that have some adherents on the IMDb. And this one does have one point of distinction, not a small one, either. It was the first feature film appearance of a 21-year-old Vanessa Redgrave (besides some sort of fashion model short two years earlier) and I think her only film alongside her father, Michael Redgrave. (I'd clarify this but the new and not-so-improved IMDb has removed the old version's most useful feature, the ability to look up collaborations.) Playing the concerned daughter of Michael's chief of surgery--he's ailing from the stress and strain of dealing with a new and uncooperative administration, and is watchfully grooming her fiance for a top surgical slot--she's appealing even in the decayed color of the print viewed and completely unformed, a hatchling, with a twee and girlish voice. She wouldn't make another film for eight years; by Morgan! (1966), she was more herself. (Maggie Smith had a similar trajectory, dipping her toes into movies at the same time then leaving them behind for about as long, both going back to win Oscars.)

Behind the Mask was also the debut film of veteran character actress Margaret Tyzack. Redgrave pere is his usual self. There are subplots involving the death of a patient and a doctor hopped up on drugs, which grays his hair and leaves him wild-eyed. Brian Desmond Hurst, who helmed the definitive version of A Christmas Carol in 1951, directed, less memorably this time.

That should do it. Stand up and be counted, Behind the Mask.

UPDATE: Done! Vanessa Redgrave should seriously thank me for this.

FURTHER UPDATE: The director's great-great nephew wrote me on Facebook to thank me for my review. Since it was posted a user review has appeared, too. The Mask is uncloaked.

First!

The Online Film Critics Society has released its list of 100 Best First Films. If Citizen Kane hadn't topped it I would have resigned in protest.

My 25 picks, some of which failed to place (i.e. my beloved Honeymoon Killers):

CITIZEN KANE
BREATHLESS
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
ON THE TOWN
THE MALTESE FALCON
KNIFE IN THE WATER
THE HONEYMOON KILLERS
CABIN IN THE SKY
KILLER OF SHEEP
TOY STORY
SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT
THEY LIVE BY NIGHT
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
AGE D’OR, L’
ATLANTE, L’
MY LEFT FOOT
SWEETIE
SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE
BLACK SUNDAY
ROGER & ME
THE PRODUCERS
REAL LIFE
PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE
ONE-EYED JACKS
NIGHT OF THE HUNTER