Classic Films | MONOVISIONS - Black & White Photography Magazine

Behind the Scenes: Forbidden Planet (1956)

5 February 2016

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…

Vintage: Citizen Kane (1941)

19 January 2016

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)

12 January 2016

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…

Behind the Scenes: Scarface (1932)

30 December 2015

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”…

Behind the Scenes: Gone With the Wind (1939)

24 December 2015

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…

Behind the scenes: Metropolis (1927)

17 December 2015

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…

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

10 December 2015

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…

Behind the Scenes: G-Men (1935)

9 December 2015

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…

Vintage: The Wolf Man (1941)

20 November 2015

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…

Behind the Scenes: Vertigo (1958)

15 November 2015

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…

Behind the Scenes: Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

13 November 2015

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…

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

4 November 2015

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…

Werewolf of London (1935)

19 October 2015

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…

The Mummy (1932)

19 September 2015

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,…

Behind the Scenes: The Birds (1963)

24 August 2015

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…

Vintage: King Kong (1933)

18 August 2015

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…