Fade to Chat: Golden Age Cinema

Alfred Hitchcock traps a wheelchair-bound photographer in one apartment with a view of his neighbors' windows, and turns the audience into accomplices in a possible murder. FILM ESSENTIALS Director/Producer: Alfred Hitchcock Screenplay: John Michael Hayes, from Cornell Woolrich's 1942 story "It Had to Be Murder" Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Ray...

Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz, joined by guest Brian Flanigan-Arthurs, dig into Orson Welles's debut masterpiece, the film long crowned the greatest ever made, to ask whether it still earns that title today. FILM ESSENTIALS - Director/Producer: Orson Welles (his first feature) - Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles - Release: May 1, 1941 (RKO Palace Theatre, New York) - Runtime: 11...

Marty and Cindy take a Time Warp back to the flop that became the world's most famous midnight movie, and unpack the cast, the chaos on set, and the cult that grew around it. FILM ESSENTIALS Director: Jim Sharman Screenplay: Richard O'Brien and Jim Sharman, from O'Brien's 1973 stage musical Producers: Lou Adler and Michael White Stars: Tim Curry (film debut), Susan Sarandon, Barry...

Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz tackle James Whale's wickedly funny, surprisingly tender sequel, the film many critics rank above the original Frankenstein, and ask how a Bride with under five minutes of screen time became an icon. FILM ESSENTIALSDirector: James WhaleScreenplay: William Hurlbut (story by Hurlbut and John L. Balderston), based on Mary Shelley's novelStars: Boris Karloff as the...

Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz follow Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall's Vivian Rutledge through rain, blackmail, and a plot nobody can fully explain, and ask whether a movie needs to make sense when it has this much style. FILM ESSENTIALS - Director/Producer: Howard Hawks - Screenplay: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman, from Raymond Chandler's 1939 n...

Marty and Cindy pick up where The Thin Man left off, same train, same song, same peignoir, for a New Year's Eve in San Francisco, a murder, and a very young Jimmy Stewart. Panelists: Marty Jencius (host) and Cindy Rotz (co-host) FILM ESSENTIALS • Director: W. S. Van Dyke • Screenplay: Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett, from an original story by Dashiell Hammett • Stars: William Powell (Nic...

Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz cross the border into Orson Welles's fever-dream noir, where a car bomb, a crooked cop, and a studio recut collide in one of the most argued-over films in Hollywood history. THE ESSENTIALS Director: Orson Welles Screenplay: Orson Welles, from the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson Producer: Albert Zugsmith | Universal-International Stars: Charlton Heston, Janet...

Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz take on Hitchcock's Notorious, the spy romance in which a government man recruits the woman he loves, hands her to a Nazi, and watches. ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS - Episode: FTC045 | Hosts: Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz - Director/Producer: Alfred Hitchcock — his first credit as his own producer - Screenplay: Ben Hecht, loosely from John Taintor Foote's "The Song o...

An alien envoy lands in Washington with a warning for the entire planet, is shot before he can deliver it, and goes to ground as an ordinary boarder named Mr. Carpenter while an eight-foot robot waits at the ship. FILM INFORMATION - Director: Robert Wise - Screenplay: Edmund H. North, from Harry Bates' 1940 story "Farewell to the Master" (Fox paid Bates $500 for the rights) - Stars:...

A Kansas farm girl swept by a tornado into the magical land of Oz teams up with a Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion to seek help from the Wizard, only to learn she had the power to go home all along. SHOW ESSENTIALS Director:Victor Fleming (uncredited: Cukor, Vidor, Thorpe, Taurog) Stars:Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Billie Burke,Margaret Hamilton Studio:MGM  |...

When inventor Clyde Wynant vanishes days before hisdaughter's wedding and his secretary turns up murdered, retired detective Nick Charles is pulled back into the case by his unflappable wife Nora — solving it, cocktail in hand, with a dinner-party unmasking and his unbothered terrier Asta in tow.   Show Essentials Director: W.S. Van Dyke Stars: William Powell(Nick Charles), Myrna Loy (Nora Cha...

Cindy and Marty discuss a 37-year-unsolved decapitation, a decaying Louisiana mansion, and an aging recluse who may — or may not — be losing her grip on reality: Robert Aldrich's follow-up to Baby Jane pits Bette Davis against phantom harpsichords, a scheming cousin, and a plot to have her committed. Essential Elements Director/Producer: Robert Aldrich Stars: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland,...

Fade to Chat: Golden Age Cinema dives into David Lean's Oscar-sweeping WWII epic The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), unpacking the true story behind Colonel Nicholson's fateful bridge, the blacklisted writers who never got credit, and the real-life POW camp commander the film reimagined. FILM OVERVIEW The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) | Director: David LeanStars: William Holden, Alec Gu...

A dying-but-defiant barrister takes on one last case: an amiable inventor accused of murdering the wealthy widow who adored him, with only his cool, unreadable wife standing as his alibi. Billy Wilder's courtroom thriller twists and twists again on its way to one of classic Hollywood's most famously guarded endings. Essential Elements Director: Billy WilderStars: Tyrone Power, Marlene Diet...

Marty Jencius and Cindy Rotz check into the most famous brownstone in movie history. Blake Edwards' 1961 adaptation of Truman Capote's novella gave us Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy, Henry Mancini's "Moon River," and a heroine who insists nobody belongs to anybody. We talk about the girl Capote actually wrote, the ending Hollywood grafted on, the Mickey Rooney performance nobody...

Marty and Cindy share some trivia and context from the first Pink Panther movie Film Essentials Director: BlakeEdwards  |  Stars: David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Claudia Cardinale |  Music: Henry Mancini  |  Runtime: 113 min  |  Box Office: $10.9 million Exiled Princess Dala carries the world's largest diamond, the "Pink Panther," to a ski resort where jewel thief Sir Charles...

Director/Screenplay: John Huston (based on the 1927 B.Traven novel)  Stars: Humphrey Bogart (Fred C. Dobbs), Walter Huston(Howard), Tim Holt (Bob Curtin), Bruce Bennett (James Cody), Barton MacLane (Pat McCormick), Alfonso Bedoya (“Gold Hat”)Cinematography: Ted D. McCord  | Music: Max Steiner  Studio: Warner Bros.   Runtime: 126 min  | Black and White  |  Released January 1948 Two broke drifters,...

Marty and Cindy review the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's favorite work. Title: And Then There Were None (1945) Director: René Clair | Screenplay: Dudley Nichols Stars: Barry Fitzgerald · Walter Huston · Louis Hayward · Roland Young · June Duprez · Mischa Auer · C. Aubrey Smith · Judith Anderson · Richard Haydn · Queenie Leonard Music: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco | Distributed by: 20th Cen...

Cindy and Marty settle on a favorite large cast comedy, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) Film Overview • Title: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) | Director: Stanley Kramer | Screenplay: William & Tania Rose • Stars: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters • Supporting: Jimm...

Cindy and Marty talk about a favorite childhood movie and Marty remembers Black and White scotch THE FILM - Father Goose (1964) Director: Ralph Nelson  | Screenplay: Peter Stone & Frank Tarloff Based on the short story “A Place of Dragons” by S.H. Barnett Stars: Cary Grant as Walter Eckland  |  Leslie Caron as Catherine Freneau  |  Trevor Howard as Commander Houghton Cinematography: Charles La...

Marty and Cindy review the great film noir classic. Film Overview Title: The Maltese Falcon (1941) Director: John Huston | Screenplay: John Huston (based on Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel) Stars: Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade | Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaughnessy | Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo | Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman Supporting Cast: Gladys George, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick, Ward...

Cindy and Marty talk about High Society, a musical pairing of Sinatra and Crosby with Grace Kelly . Title: High Society (1956) Director: Charles Walters Screenplay: John Patrick (based on The Philadelphia Story, 1939 play by Philip Barry) Stars: Bing Crosby as C.K. Dexter Haven | Grace Kelly as Tracy Samantha Lord | Frank Sinatra as Macaulay “Mike” Connor Supporting Cast: Celeste Holm, John Lund,...

Marty and Cindy converse about the male urge for infidelity after seven years of marriage as depicted in The Seven Year Itch (1955) Title: The Seven Year Itch (1955) Director: Billy Wilder Screenplay: George Axelrod & Billy Wilder (based on Axelrod's 1952 Broadway play) Stars: Marilyn Monroe as The Girl | Tom Ewell as Richard Sherman Supporting Cast: Evelyn Keyes, Sonny Tufts, Oscar Homolk...

Cindy and Marty chat about a gothic-style thriller The Spiral Staircase. ◆ THE SOURCE MATERIAL - Based on Ethel Lina White’s 1933 novel Some Must Watch; major changes include mute heroine, new setting, and added spiral staircase (inspired by Mary Roberts Rinehart). - Originated with David O. Selznick (planned Ingrid Bergman); sold to RKO to finance Duel in the Sun (1946); retained profit share and...

Marty and Cindy speak about their impressions of the Depression-era comedy My Man Godfrey TRIVIA & PRODUCTION NOTES Source Material Based on Eric Hatch's 1935 serial "1101 Park Avenue," first published in Town & Country. Co-screenwriter Morrie Ryskind had already co-written Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera for the Marx Brothers and shared the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for D...