April 1st marks the 80th birthday of MGM songbird Jane Powell.  Groomed by the studio in the mid 1940s to be a teen soprano in the Deanna Durbin mold, Powell scored a big success with A Date with Judy (1948). She was Fred Astaire’s partner in Royal Wedding (1951), confidently holding her own on the dance floor [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s another sleeper to be on the lookout for as you peruse upcoming TCM guides.  The Girl in White stars June Allyson as Emily Dunning, the first woman doctor to practice in a New York hospital.  I realize how dismal that sounds, but this biopic is surprisingly effective, and it unexpectedly stays true to its feminist impulses, [...]

[Read more →]

The rarely seen Bette Davis drama Storm Center (1956) has its heart in the right place, so it’s unfortunate that it becomes such a heavy and graceless movie.  It’s a drab 50s drama, directed in a lumbering yet overwrought fashion by co-screenwriter Daniel Taradash.  The story is cautionary but unconvincing.  The great Bette is hopelessly phony [...]

[Read more →]

Many people are now catching up with the DVD of last summer’s remake of the 1939 comedy gem The Women, one of the odder choices of a classic to be remade for the 21st century.  Despite being hilarious, marvelously acted, and incredibly stylish, The Women of 1939 has been criticized for its all-out bitchery in dramatizing [...]

[Read more →]

This past week, Turner Classic Movies showed one of my favorite B pictures of the 1940s, Gentle Annie, a western set in 1901 Oklahoma.  You expect a churned-out programmer, but the results have a surprising depth of feeling despite the familiar goings-on.  The film might be described as a heartwarmer about train robbers, and it utilizes the [...]

[Read more →]