In this week's RKO Studios Year by Year episode, we discuss our favourite movies from our first round with the studio and how that round shaped our impression of RKO, and then turn to two new 1930 movies: Framed (directed by George Archainbaud), a gangster movie focused on Evelyn Brent's tough/tender mixed-up moll, and The Runaway Bride (directed by Donald Crisp), a shaggy showcase for Mary Astor's affability. But wait, there's more! In Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we debate the meanings and merits of two daring films by Mai Zetterling, Amorosa (1986) and Night Games (1966), and dissect the post-WWII ennui of two by Binka Zhelyazkova, Life Flows Quietly By... (1957) and The Big Night Bathe (1980).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: RKO Recap

0h 14m 54s: FRAMED [dir. George Archainbaud]

0h 31m 49s: THE RUNAWAY BRIDE [dir. Donald Crisp]

0h 52m 06s: FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Mai Zetterling’s Night Games (1966) & Amorosa (1986) + Binka Zhelyazkova’s Life Flows Quietly By (1957) & The Big Night Bathe (1980)

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Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story he RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

Additional 1930 information from: Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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We've got a big one for you this week: four main movies plus four Fear and Moviegoing viewings. Our main feature is Stanning for Sten: Anna Sten's three movies for Samuel Goldwyn, Nana (1934), based on (more like inspired by) the Zola novel, We Live Again (1934), with a Tolstoy source, and The Wedding Night (1935), plus a glimpse at one of her later supporting roles in Let's Live a Little (1948), a Robert Cummings comedy vehicle. Goldwyn infamously brought Sten to Hollywood with the intention of creating his own Dietrich-Garbo hybrid and lavished the most prestigious Hollywood talent (Arzner, Mamoulian, Vidor, Gregg Toland, and co-stars like Frederic March and Gary Cooper) and literary source material on her, only to have the public reject her; but we argue that Goldwyn's care didn't go to waste. And in Fear and Moviegoing, we look at the career of actress/director Mai Zetterling, discussing two movies directed by her, and two early films in which she appears (one directed by Ingmar Bergman, the other written by him).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: A Few Words About Sten and Goldwyn

0h 08m 02s: NANA (1934) [dir. Dorothy Arzner]

0h 28m 11s: WE LIVE AGAIN (1934) [dir. Rouben Mamoulian]

0h 58m 08s: THE WEDDING NIGHT (1935) [dir. King Vidor]

1h 27m 28s: LET’S LIVE A LITTLE (1948) [dir. Richard Wallace]

1h 39m 20s: FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Mai Zetterling’s Loving Couples (1964) & Scrubbers (1982); Ingmar Bergman’s Music in Darkness (1948); Alf Sjoberg’s Torment (1944)

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

In this Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we look at probably her best-known film, Gaslight (directed by Thorold Dickinson), and consider its pros and cons relative to the Cukor/Selznick Hollywood version of a few years later, as well as the question of how "gaslighting" became an internet meme and how well the source fits the popular meaning. Then we turn to an oddball film with an anti-nationalism message, Freedom Radio (Anthony Asquith), set in Nazi Germany but with a broader application, and consider how Wynyard's screen persona informs her tricky role. Then, in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we battle it out over Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (cluttered or perfect screenplay by Charlie Kaufman?) and find accord on John Cassavetes' revealing potboiler, Gloria (love story between a tiny man and a deadly goddess).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: GASLIGHT (1940) [dir. Thorold Dickinson]

0h 29m 52s: FREEDOM RADIO (1940) [dir. Anthony Asquith]

0h 48m 27s: FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) & John Cassavetes’ Gloria (1980)

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

The first episode of our second Studios Year by Year round with Fox, the "Rube" according to Ethan Mordden, is a real ridiculous/sublime contrast: the sci-fi musical comedy Just Imagine (directed by David Butler), a vehicle for vaudevillian El Brendel, in whom Dave may have found his comedy bête noir; and the F. W. Murnau masterpiece City Girl, which reworks Sunrise with (we speculate) a Borzagean twist. Come for the idiotic, stay for the profound?

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: Fox Recap

0h 12m 41s: CITY GIRL [dir. F.W. Murnau]

0h 48m 02: JUST IMAGINE [dir. David Butler]

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Fox Film Corporation, 1915-1935: A History and Filmography by Aubrey Solomon

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

In this Diana Wynyard Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode we finally come to the source, James Whale's One More River (1934), the movie that inspired Dave to schedule this series, and don't worry, we still think it's a masterpiece. We recap how we've watched the Wynyard onscreen persona evolve and how Whale's new context for it gives it an unforgettable impact. And then we watch Wynyard discard that persona in On the Night of the Fire (1939), playing the supportive but stymied wife of Ralph Richardson's beleaguered Everyman in this ultra-despairing British noir. Two must-watches!

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: ONE MORE RIVER (1934) [dir. James Whale]

0h 54m 37s: ON THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE (1940) [dir. Brian Desmond Hurst]

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For the first episode of our second round of Warner Brothers 1930, we've got a thoughtful, ambitious gangster movie from the mind of little-known auteur Rowland Brown, The Doorway to Hell (directed by Archie Mayo), and a truly dismal melodrama, A Notorious Affair (directed by Lloyd Bacon), rescued from total worthlessness by Kay Francis's turn as a maneating countess. (Doorway to Hell is also notable for a very early appearance by another rising star, James Cagney, who, however, doesn't steal his movie as effectively as Francis does.) Plus, we give our lists of favourite Warner Brothers movies from Round One and offer our thoughts about the studio as auteur going into Round Two.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: Warner Brothers Recap

0h 28m 05s: A NOTORIOUS AFFAIR [dir. Lloyd Bacon]

0h 43m 50s: THE DOORWAY TO HELL [dir. Archie Mayo]

Year in Film information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Warner Brothers Story by Clive Hirschhorn

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

For our Valentine's Day 2025 episode, we plunge deep into the nature of relationships by discussing two films whose romantic pairings are arguably not relationships at all: Spike Jonze's Her (2013) and his sometime collaborator, Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). Isolation, loss, misogyny, male fantasies, hope and despair: we've got all of the Valentine's goodness for you. And it continues with our Fear and Moviegoing discussion of Mike Leigh's Hard Truths (2024).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: HER (2013) [dir. Spike Jonze]

0h 54m 53s: I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020) [dir. Charlie Kaufman]

1h 30m 24s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths (2024)

Related content:

· Our immensely long and under-edited discussion of Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Our Town (1940)

· Our second ever podcast: Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2003)

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

We start off our second round of MGM Studio Year by Year episodes with these 1930 films: the Marion Davies comedy vehicle The Florodora Girl (directed by Harry Beaumount) and Cecil B. DeMille's Madam Satan, which Elise decides is something like Eyes Wide Shut if it was made by James Cameron (but, alas, not as interesting as that sounds). (It's still pretty interesting, though, if only for the Art Deco Lightning Dancers. Yes, you read that right.) Plus, we give our impressions of MGM based on our first round of viewings and draw attention to some of the highlights from it.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: MGM Recap

0h 28m 41s: THE FLORODORA GIRL [dir. Harry Beaumont]

0h 45m 29s: MADAM SATAN [dir. Cecil B. DeMille]

Year in Film information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer

Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!