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Behind the Scenes: Forbidden Planet (1956)

Behind the Scenes: Forbidden Planet (1956)

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Forbidden Planet (aka Fatal Planet) is a 1956 American science fiction film from MGM. Starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, and Robby the Robot. Forbidden Planet is the first science fiction film in which humans are depicted traveling in a starship of their own creation. It was also the first science fiction film set entirely…
Vintage: Citizen Kane (1941)

Vintage: Citizen Kane (1941)

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Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film produced by, co-written by, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.
Behind the Scenes: Psycho (1960)

Behind the Scenes: Psycho (1960)

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Psycho is a 1960 American psychological thriller-horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh. The screenplay is by Joseph Stefano, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch loosely inspired by the crimes of Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein.
Behind the Scenes: Scarface (1932)

Behind the Scenes: Scarface (1932)

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With “Little Caesar” and “The Public Enemy” proving hits, plenty of imitators lined up and one of the first, and best, came from producer Howard Hughes, who lined up an impressive roster of talent for his cautionary crime tale “Scarface” (sometimes subtitled “The Shame Of A Nation”). Writer Ben Hecht was underway on the script when he received a visit…
Behind the Scenes: Gone With the Wind (1939)

Behind the Scenes: Gone With the Wind (1939)

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Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel. Set in the 19th-century American South, the film tells the story of Scarlett O’Hara, the strong-willed daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, from her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes, who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton, to her marriage to…
Behind the scenes: Metropolis (1927)

Behind the scenes: Metropolis (1927)

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Metropolis (1927) is a stylized, visually-compelling, melodramatic silent film set in the dystopic, 21st century city of Metropolis – a dialectical treatise on man vs. machine and class struggle. Austrian director Fritz Lang’s German Expressionistic masterpiece helped to develop the science-fiction genre, with innovative imagery from cinematographer Karl Freund, art design by Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, and Karl Vollbrecht, and…
Vintage: Classic Polish Films (1940s and 50s)

Vintage: Classic Polish Films (1940s and 50s)

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After the horrors of the Nazi occupation and repressive postwar Soviet domination, Polish cinema suddenly took off in the mid-50s to become a major international force. Initially, it was Andrzej Wajda’s trilogy (1954-58) on wartime resistance that attracted attention. That was followed by a wave of films approaching contemporary society with skilful circumspection before there was a further clampdown in…
Behind the Scenes: G-Men (1935)

Behind the Scenes: G-Men (1935)

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G Men is a 1935 Warner Bros. crime film starring James Cagney, Ann Dvorak, and Margaret Lindsay, and presenting Lloyd Nolan’s film debut. According to Variety Magazine, the movie was one of the top-grossing films of 1935. The supporting cast features Robert Armstrong and Barton MacLane. G Men was made as part of a deliberate attempt to counteract what many…
Vintage: The Wolf Man (1941)

Vintage: The Wolf Man (1941)

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The Wolf Man (1941) is a mishmash of several wolf legends, with added ingredients. Siodmak stirs pentagrams, gypsies, silver bullets and the full moon together to create a robust myth. It owes little to established European traditions, but established a new set of cinematic rules which Hollywood lycanthropes would adhere to for decades. Set in a contemporary Wales (where no…
Behind the Scenes: Vertigo (1958)

Behind the Scenes: Vertigo (1958)

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Vertigo is a 1958 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D’entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John “Scottie” Ferguson. Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an…
Behind the Scenes: Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

Behind the Scenes: Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

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Angels with Dirty Faces is a 1938 American gangster film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, the Dead End Kids and Humphrey Bogart, along with Ann Sheridan and George Bancroft. The film was written by Rowland Brown, John Wexley, and Warren Duff with uncredited assistance from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style,…
Werewolf of London (1935)

Werewolf of London (1935)

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Werewolf of London is a 1935 Horror film starring Henry Hull and produced by Universal Pictures. This movie represents the first attempt by Hollywood to bring werewolf mythology to the big screen. Mannered and stylized, it contains some intriguing ideas about the nature of hybridization – and a very simian werewolf. It’s most significant for the way in which it…
The Mummy (1932)

The Mummy (1932)

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The Tutankhamen Exhibition toured the world in the 1920s and 1930s, and the concept of Egyptologists suffering the effects of an ancient curse was part of contemporary urban legend. Audiences were fascinated by the concept of 3000 year old remains, and the Ancient Egyptians’ rituals that ensured immortality. The film, which may seem overly slow-moving to modern viewers, introduced the…
Behind the Scenes: The Birds (1963)

Behind the Scenes: The Birds (1963)

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The Birds is a 1963 suspense/horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the 1952 story “The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California, which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few days.
Vintage: King Kong (1933)

Vintage: King Kong (1933)

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Merian C Cooper, the visionary behind the chest-thumping giant gorilla atop the Empire State, was a remarkable man. An old school adventurer, he could list World War I flying ace, POW, journalist, explorer, airline owner and Oscar-nominated documentary-maker on his resume before he came to make King Kong, and he continued his adventuresome ways until his death in 1973. He…
Behind the Scenes: Jaws (1975)

Behind the Scenes: Jaws (1975)

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Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, prompting the local police…
Vintage: Dracula (1931)

Vintage: Dracula (1931)

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Dracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the title character. The concept of Dracula is taken from the stageplay as opposed to the novel, and the results are highly theatrical. Lugosi laughs evilly throughout; no wonder, his depiction of the Count-as-seducer is aeons removed from the feral creature represented in Nosferatu and…
Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932)

Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932)

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Freaks is a rarity, a horror film that horrifies rather than frightens. It was slated on its release in 1932, has been blamed for the downhill career trajectories thereafter of the key players, and was banned in many countries for more than thirty years. Yet in 1994 it was selected for the National Film Registry’s archives, and now enjoys both…