There's Sometimes a Buggy

• Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – MGM – 1933: FAST WORKERS & QUEEN CHRISTINA

  For this 1933 MGM episode we focus on rehabilitating John Gilbert's sound-era reputation with a double feature of underrated gem Fast Workers, a construction worker love triangle melodrama directed by Tod Browning, and Gilbert's most famous sound movie, Rouben Mamoulian and Greta Garbo's very serious (but also very sensual) costume drama Queen Christina, about a woman whose ideals clash with her society. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we discuss one of Dave's faves, Paul Thomas Anderson's morally enigmatic first feature, Hard Eight.    Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      1933 and MGM 0h 07m 46s:      FAST WORKERS (dir. Tod Browning] 0h 33m 11s:      QUEEN CHRISTINA [dir. Rouben Mamoulian] 0h 54m 22s:      Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto: Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight (1996) at The Paradise Cinema +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The MGM Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer                                 +++ * 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 [email protected]   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

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• Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 12: OKLAHOMA! (1955) and THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956)

  In this week's episode of our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view, we explore the unique casting of unmusical Gloria in Fred Zinnemann's film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1955) and follow the thread that leads (through Jud Fry) from the supposedly "wholesome" musical to Charlie Kaufman's dark, experimental I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Then we switch over to British espionage curiosity The Man Who Never Was (1956), starring Gloria and Clifton Webb... although they never share a scene. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, another curious pairing: Cameron Crowe's quintessential 90s romantic comedy Singles (1992) and Luc Moullet's weirdo Western A Girl Is a Gun/Une aventure de Billy le Kidd (1971) offer wildly divergent perspectives on the problem of love. Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    OKLAHOMA! (1955) [dir. Fred Zinnemann] 0h 32m 04s:    THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956) [dir. Ronald Neame] 0h 40m 38s:    Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Cameron Crowe's Singles (1992) at The Revue Cinema and Luc Moullet's A Girl is a Gun /Une aventure de Billy le Kid (1971) at TIFF Lightbox +++ * 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 [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

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• Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1933: ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON & DUCK SOUP

  This Paramount 1933 Studios Year by Year episode features two of the studio's defining stars of the era: the Marx Brothers, in their final, most famous, and (maybe) most nihilistic Paramount film, Duck Soup, directed by Leo McCarey, and Gary Cooper, miscast (or maybe not) in One Sunday Afternoon in the role that would go to James Cagney in the Warner Bros. remake, The Strawberry Blonde. We zero in on Groucho's authoritarian anti-authoritarianism and Cooper's embodiment of a charismatic man's class resentment. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we share our first experience with the cinema of Nouvelle Vague primitivist Luc Moullet, his quirky and candid examination of second-wave feminism's effect on his relationship (and anatomy), Anatomie d'un rapport (1976)   Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:      1933 and Paramount 0h 06m 53s:      ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON (1933) [dir. Stephen Roberts] 0h 27m 01s:      DUCK SOUP (1933) [dir. Leo McCarey]              1h 01m 22s:      Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Luc Moullet and Antonietta Pizzorno's Anatomie d'un rapport (1976) +++ Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1933 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer                                 +++ * 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 [email protected]   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

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• Special Subject - Truffaut's Antoine Doinel Series – LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959); ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962); BAISERS VOLÉS (1968); DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) and L'AMOUR EN FUITE (1979)

  For our November 2025 Special Subject we watched the Antoine Doinel films of François Truffaut: The 400 Blows (1959), Antoine et Colette (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970), and Love on the Run (1979). In addition to the charms of star/auteur avatar Jean-Pierre Léaud, we focus on the films' evolving style and increasing interest in the women in Doinel's life. And in our Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto section we discuss Paul Leni's horror comedy The Cat and the Canary (1927) and a Hitchcock double feature, Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Saboteur (1942). Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    THE FOUR HUNDRED BLOWS / LES QUATRE CENTS COUPS (1959) [dir. François Truffaut] 0h 28m 50s:    ANTOINE ET COLETTE (1962) [dir. François Truffaut] 0h 37m 30s:    STOLEN KISSES / BAISERS VOLÉS (1968) [dir. François Truffaut] 0h 54m 42s:    BED AND BOARD / DOMICILE CONJUGAL (1970) [dir. François Truffaut] 1h 05m 15s:    LOVE ON THE RUN / L'AMOUR EN FUITE (1979) [dir. François Truffaut] 1h 19m 32s:    Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary (1927) at TIFF Lightbox and Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) and Shadow of a Doubt (1943) at The Paradise +++ * 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 [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

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• Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Gloria Grahame – Part 11: NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) and THE COBWEB (1955)

  Our Gloria Grahame Acteurist Oeuvre-view continues with two  1955 liberal institutional melodramas: Stanley Kramer's Not as a Stranger, starring Robert Mitchum as a monomaniacally idealistic doctor, Olivia de Havilland as the wife he takes for granted, and Gloria as the Other Woman; and Vincente Minnelli's underrated The Cobweb, starring Richard Widmark as a monomaniacally idealistic psychiatrist, Gloria (in one of her best roles) as the wife he takes for granted, and Lauren Bacall as the Other Woman. The relatively counter-intuitive casting of the latter film is an indication of its greater subtlety, but the pairing of the two makes (so we hope) for interesting discussion. And then in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we say goodbye to Diane Keaton (belatedly, by the time this episode will go up) with a viewing of Annie Hall and ask whether either its "feminist" or its "misogynous" reputations are deserved.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 25s:    NOT AS A STRANGER (1955) [dir. Stanley Kramer] 0h 36m 29s:    THE COBWEB (1955) [dir. Vincente Minnelli] 1h 03m 33s:    Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Annie Hall (1977) by Woody Allen (Diane Keaton tribute at The Carlton Cinema)    +++ * 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 [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

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