Terry Southern’s Lucid Absurdities
From his novels Candy and The Magic Christian to his work on Dr. Strangelove and Barbarella, Terry Southern sought to expose madness.
The D-I-Y Origins of Night of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead’s production story reads like a means to an end: a rag-tag group of creatives makes a movie on nothing to get noticed.
“Are You Popular?”
Mental hygiene films of the postwar era gave advice to American teens—and parroted specific cultural values.
From La Jetée to Twelve Monkeys to COVID-19
If the pandemic has you wishing for yesteryear, watching 12 Monkeys—and the time travel art film that inspired it—is just the thing.
What Drove Buster Keaton to Try a Civil War Comedy?
“Someone should have told Buster that it is difficult to derive laughter from the sight of men being killed in battle.”
How Fritz Lang’s Flight from Nazi Germany Shaped Hollywood
German expressionism--imported to Hollywood by Jewish exiles--brought a lasting tradition of shadows, duality, and mirroring to mainstream American cinema.
Remembering Craig Gilbert and An American Family
The twelve-part documentary chronicling a family's dissolution was one of the most talked-about TV shows of the past fifty years.
Hollywood Cast Laurette Luez as a One-Size-Fits-All “Exotic”
Like many actresses of her day, Laurette Luez was expected to be a beautiful siren in skimpy clothing who could be from almost anywhere—just not here.
Doris Day Changed Us Forever
What did women coming of age in the 1950s think of Doris Day in Calamity Jane? Does her filmography have the same meaning now?