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Tag Archives: Billy Wilder
Talking 1953 movies with Jason Bailey and Mike Hull: A Very Good Year podcast
My pal Jason Bailey and his pal Mike Hull host a fascinating podcast called A Very Good Year, which they describe as: “Each week we invite a guest (filmmakers and actors, critics and historians, comedians and musicians) who loves movies, … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Billy Wilder, coming of age, drama, France, Harriet Andersson, Ingmar Bergman, Japan, Marlon Brando, podcast, romantic drama, Stalag 17, Sweden, war movies, William Holden
12 Comments
June 2023 Viewing Diary
Succession (2018-2023) I finally watched, having somehow resisted the DEAFENING buzz over the last couple of years. I like Jeremy Strong, liked his small moment in Zero Dark Thirty, he totally stood out in The Big Short (directed by one … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Billy Wilder, Cristian Mungiu, documentary, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., drama, Elia Kazan, Eva Marie Saint, France, Harriet Andersson, Ingmar Bergman, Karl Malden, Katharine Hepburn, Lee J. Cobb, Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront, Otto Preminger, reviews, Rod Steiger, Romania, romantic drama, Stalag 17, Stanley Kramer, Sweden, true crime, war movies, William Holden, women directors
23 Comments
“You don’t want to see ‘plots’. You want to see stories develop.” — Billy Wilder
Billy and Audrey Wilder It’s his birthday today. I love him for his humor, his cynical pessimistic view of human beings – which, honestly, just feels realistic, his versatility with material (noirs, melodramas, war movies, comedies). Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, … Continue reading
“I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Happy Birthday, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe: People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn’t see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day
Tagged Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, John Strasberg, Lee Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe, Peter Bogdanovich, Some Like It Hot
24 Comments
“I don’t really know why, but danger has always been an important thing in my life – to see how far I could lean without falling, how fast I could go without cracking up.” — William Holden
It’s his birthday today. In a career of famous roles in famous films, I think his best – and perhaps most characterstic and essence-driven – of his roles is Sgt. J.J. Sefton in Stalag 17. Sefton has not just a … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Billy Wilder, Stalag 17, Sunset Boulevard, William Holden
12 Comments
2021 Books Read
I lived at three addresses this year. I moved twice. In the middle of a pandemic. It’s been a year of upheaval, transition, as well as endurance. For most of this year, the majority of my stuff was in storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, Balkans, Billy Wilder, Biography, books read, Cary Grant, Czeslaw Milosz, David McCullough, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, essays, Eve Babitz, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Germany, Hitler, Howard Hawks, Ireland, Italy, Kirov, Liz Phair, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, Stalin, Sweden, Thomas Mann, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
1 Comment
Podcast: The Last Thing I Saw: Focus on Billy Wilder
It was so much fun appearing on Nicolas Rapold’s “The Last Thing I Saw” to discuss Billy Wilder. The other guests were Farran Smith Nehme (a good friend of mine), and Steven Mears. The inspiration to discuss Billy Wilder was … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Directors, Movies
Tagged Austria, Billy Wilder, Germany, Jack Lemmon, podcast, Ray Milland, Shirley MacLaine, Stalag 17, The Lost Weekend, William Holden
2 Comments
July 2021 Viewing Diary
Sally, Mary and Irene (1925; d. Edmund Goulding) For some reason, I forgot to include this gem in my June viewing diary. Considered lost forever, it is one of Joan Crawford’s earliest films – and one where she is actually … Continue reading
Posted in Monthly Viewing Diary, Movies, Television
Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, Billy Wilder, Bong Joon-Ho, comedy, dance movies, documentary, drama, France, Fred MacMurray, Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Jack Lemmon, Japan, Jimmy Stewart, Joan Blondell, Joan Crawford, Juliette Binoche, Marilyn Monroe, Mervyn LeRoy, Miriam Hopkins, Pre-Code, Shirley MacLaine, silent films, thrillers
16 Comments
The Male Gaze (literally)
Tom Ewell, in Seven Year Itch, checking himself out. Casually at first and then … it turns. Mirror moments. I always notice them.
The Male Gaze (literally)
I continue to trip over examples in film of men looking at themselves in the mirror. I get so excited! I wrote a whole lengthy essay about it for Oscilloscope Laboratories – and people who have been reading me for … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Directors, Movies
Tagged Billy Wilder, Fred MacMurray, Jack Lemmon, mirrors
2 Comments
