For this MGM 1935 Studios Year by Year episode we again explored the screen persona of forgotten star Ann Harding in a double feature, Biography of a Bachelor Girl (directed by Edward H. Griffith) and The Flame Within (produced, written, and directed by Edmund Goulding). We discuss the changes from S.N. Behrman's 1932 play Biography and how well its liberal political message survives them and then turn to making the auteur case for Edmund Goulding, while remaining riveted by Harding's liberated but dignified persona, whether she's playing a psychiatrist caught up in counter-transference or a broad-minded portraitist who's become infatuated with a Communist. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto we discuss Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own (1992) and the meaning of Geena Davis' enigmatic central performance.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 20s: 1935 & MGM

0h 06m 00s: BIOGRAPHY OF A BACHELOR GIRL (1935) [dir. Edward H. Griffith]

0h 32m 30s: THE FLAME WITHIN (1935) [dir. Edmund Goulding]

0h 59m 07s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own (1992) at the Carlton Cinema

0h 00m 00s: So This is Sarris (from Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema) - Frank Capra

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

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

1935 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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For Part 2 of our Acteur Spotlight on Jennifer Jason Leigh we watched Robert Altman's cinematic embodiment of the Raymond Carver universe, Short Cuts (1993), and one of Dave's all-time faves, Altman collaborator Alan Rudolph's portrait of Dorothy Parker, her loves, and her milieu, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). We grapple with exactly why Altman wants us to spend so much time with these "automaton" characters what kind of stakes are behind the dissociative, self-destructive behaviours, and compare Leigh's sex worker to Isabelle Huppert's in Chabrol's Une affaire de femmes, then turn to pondering why the darkest and most "saintly" comedic spirits of the Algonquin Round Table were drawn to each other, at least according to the lore of Rudolph's film.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 20s: SHORT CUTS (1993) [dir. Robert Altman]

0h 45m 49s: MRS. PARKER & THE VICIOUS CIRCLE (1994) [dir. Alan Rudolph]

1h 20m 05s: So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema) – John Brahm

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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 this round of Paramount 1935 we watched William A. Wellman's The President Vanishes, based on the pacifist anti-fascist novel by Rex Stout, and the first film version of Dashiell Hammett's The Glass Key, directed by Frank Tuttle and starring George Raft as the devoted and unlucky friend of a criminal political boss. Elise is startled by Raft's liveliness (even as he spends a good stretch of the movie half-dead) and Dave avidly discusses two of his favourite topics, 20th century American politics and Dashiell Hammett (together and separately). A brisk round of So This Is Sarris provides a satisfying conclusion to the proceedings.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 20s: 1935 & Paramount

0h 09m 50s: THE PRESIDENT VANISHES (1934) [William A. Wellman]

0h 36m 53s: THE GLASS KEY (1935) [dir. Frank Tuttle]

0h 55m 12s: So This Is Sarris (The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris) – Edgar G. Ulmer

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

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

1935 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 therebuggy@gmail.com

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