In the late 1950s, horror movie schlockmeister William Castle pioneered interactive in-theater gimmicks as a way to drum up audience cash (and buzzy word-of-mouth) at a time when television threatened to steal away the same moviegoers who had made the 1930s and ’40s boom years for the U.S. film industry. Whereas other filmmakers of the […]
Kristen Sales
TCM Film Festival: The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, 1928)
My favorite part of watching silent movies is the variability of the experience depending on the format. While it’s true that every movie should be experienced on the big screen, it is doubly true for films from the silent period. Oftentimes, if these films exist at all, they have not been well preserved, or even […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
“People will think what I want them to think!” – Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time according to many people, including the American Film Institute, Sight & Sound magazine, and film critic Roger Ebert. It seems Kane’s commandment for people to think what he wants […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood, 1935)
Watching the Marx Brothers’ 1935 comedy classic A Night at the Opera is always an enjoyable experience. Watching it on the big screen with a theater full of delighted film fans is a special treat. But, watching A Night At The Opera with Groucho Marx’s grandson is a little slice of heaven. I had the […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: The Devil Is A Woman but Dietrich is a Goddess
In The Devil is a Woman Marlene Dietrich’s eyes are constantly moving: searching, darting, batting flirtatiously. By their fifth and final film collaboration, Dietrich and director Joseph von Sternberg had perfected the formula for exotic, onscreen seduction: just keep the camera on Dietrich. As Concha Perez, an enterprising destroyer of men’s souls, Dietrich is as […]
