Have You Ever Seen

Since it's Memorial Day, I'm tipping a cap to veterans. And I've got another doubleheader in episode #741, with the bulk of the show devoted to Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (where American soldiers battle Somalis in 1993 Mogadishu), then there's a short bit at the end about William Wellman's Battleground (where American grunts take on the Nazis during the Battle Of The Bulge in WWII). Both films...

The ongoing effort to review long-ago movie stars has me talking about the dashing Tyrone Power and the beautiful Linda Darnell in The Mark Of Zorro. Gail Sondergaard and Basil Rathbone also have key roles in Rouben Mamoulian's 1940 flick. The Mexican man in black shares ties with Robin Hood and Batman, as the Z Man risks his life to rip off the rich to help out the poor. For an action movie, it's...

Call me Snake. Okay, well, that's too cool for me, so just make it Ryan. Either way, this 739th episode gets into the night life and action frenzy that is John Carpenter's Escape From New York. Kurt Russell was already establishing himself as something more than just a Disney kid, then his signature role here cemented it. The eclectic Van Cleef/Borgnine/Harry Dean supporting cast surrounding Russe...

In anticipation of the theatrical re-release of Top Gun later this week, this 738th episode has me yapping about Tony Scott's blockbuster that put him on the map and made Tom Cruise a megastar. The one about cocky naval aviators is big, loud and very sweaty. You've got sleek jets, cool, sexy men (and also SOME women like Kelly McGillis)...and a killer soundtrack. The fly boys (including Val Kilmer...

Even though it's Star Wars Day, someone else can talk about Luke & Leia. What I have is a  super-long episode about much-older movies: the 1932 Tarzan & the 1924 Pan. Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan star in an exciting, sexy, action-adventure story. They worked with lions and hippos and crocs (and actors in animal suits) and it's all convincingly done, especially since none of the princi...

It's Heroes Month! For this 736th episode, cue up the William Tell Overture and get ready for the masked vigilante & his native buddy. That's because the topic of the first of 2 movies today is The Lone Ranger (plus, of course Tonto....and also, hi-yo Silver). Stuart Heisler directs Clayton Moore, Jay Silverheels and Bonita Granville in an enjoyable western with all the necessary thrills and const...

It's another doubleheader in episode #735, this time with 2 unrelated '50s classics. First up, I talk about the offbeat John Huston comedy Beat The Devil. The screenplay he wrote with Truman Capote is very quotable, even though its characters and daffy plot parody serious caper flicks like Huston's The Maltese Falcon. Humphrey Bogart has been a regular on Have You Ever Seen over the years, but thi...

Inside Man is a clever heist film with the twist staring you in the face from the beginning. It's also the first Spike Lee or Jodie Foster film to be reviewed on Have You Ever Seen in quite some time. Foster and Denzel Washington's scenes together are fantastic. The 2 of them, plus Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor deliver. Ironically, though, for a film with such...

It's a short one for episode #733 of Have You Ever Seen, as I discuss Anthony Mann's biopic about the best-selling bandleader from the '30s & '40s. Smash hits Moonlight Serenade & In The Mood are Glenn Miller's 2 most-recognizable songs, tunes you'll know the minute you hear them. This is a straight-ahead "based on real people" movie (including his loving wife, Helen), but Mann, who often worked w...

I've got another multi-movie episode here in the 732nd edition of Have You Ever Seen. Jacques Tourneur directs Out Of The Past and Robert Siodmak is at the helm of The Spiral Staircase, even if it feels at times like one directed the other. Yet they both do a very good job with these films noir, including killing off many of their characters. Rhonda Fleming is in both, but in Past you've got Rober...

W.C. Fields makes his debut on Have You Even Seen in this 731st episode where I talked about 3 of his classic laugh-fests: International House, It's A Gift and The Bank Dick. George Burns & Gracie Allen turn up in International House and Una Merkel plays Fields' daughter in It's A Gift, so we've got 4 AFI Old-Timey Actors in one super-show. First up, you get the "Grand Hotel of comedy", where the...

Easter probably called for a chat about the silent version of either The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur, but no. I'm talking about a 1932 Ernst Lubitsch rom-com that's excellent with the rom, yet only smile-inducing with the com. Covering Trouble In Paradise also gets Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis and Herbert Marshall on Have you Ever Seen for the first time. They're all well-served by the infamous Lub...

While America is yet again fighting a war in the Middle East, I end Oscar Month by getting into the doin's of a legit WWI hero in Howard Hawks' Sergeant York. Gary Cooper plays the real-life hero, a dirt-poor man from the Tennessee mountains who's forced the join the army (mother), even though he's ag'in killin'. But when the chips are down, he's courageous and talented enough to kill a lot of Ger...

Dodsworth is the feature attraction in this 728th talk on Have You Ever Seen, but then there was an unexpected 2nd review in this episode. I spent 10 or 12 minutes on the George Arliss 1929 Oscar-winner, Disraeli…the one about the late-1800s British Prime Minister's quest to buy the Suez Canel. As for Dodsworth, we've got another winner from William Wyler, who directs Walter Huston & Ruth Chattert...

In what will become a trend for at least the next little while, I've got 2 reviews in one episode here in podcast #727. First, I detail my favourite moments, lines and scenes in Wolfgang Petersen's In The Line Of Fire. John Malkovich has rarely been in better form as the villain and Clint Eastwood has never been funnier or more charming as the hero. Malkovich wants to assassinate the president and...

Sinners and One Battle After Another finally got to lock up on the biggest awards stage there is...and they both got plenty of gold. PTA won 3 trophies and his One Battle got the top Oscars (Picture and Director, plus 4 others), but the record-breaking Sinners (nominees-wise, at least) saw Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan honoured for writing and acting. This 726th edition of Have You Ever Seen...

One day after the 2026 Academy Awards and right smack in the middle of Oscar Month is the one that won its own 4 trophies 25 years ago. A Beautiful Mind is a touching love story about a real-life paranoid schizophrenic: Nobel-Prize winner John Nash (and his put-upon wife Alicia). Ron Howard & his team play fast and very loose with the facts, including how Nash's condition manifested AND casting Je...

The 98th Academy Awards are finally less than a week away, so I've got an in-depth analysis of the major nominees. It's more wide open than it's been in a very long time, with seemingly only PTA (Best Director), Jessie Buckley (Best Actress) and a few of the technical awards feeling like they're locks. And maybe THEY aren't either! It wasn't an incredible year at the movies, yet these are mostly g...

Here Comes Mr. Jordan is Movie #2 in this 11th Annual Oscar Month. It's the rare film that won awards for the screenplay AND the story. Alexander Hall does a pretty good job directing his cast through a creative, body-jumping fantasy about the afterlife, angels and soul reincarnation. This is the first time Robert Montgomery has been featured on Have You Ever Seen...and him playing a goofy palooka...

Betting on everything is common these days, yet somehow Around The World In Eighty Days isn't on everyone's lips in 2026. And...it shouldn't be. You really feel that 3 hours. Michael Anderson's adventure comedy has posh David Niven circumnavigating the globe with his man-of-action valet, Cantinflas, and they have to do it in the title deadline...while being pursued by a man from Scotland Yard, who...

The final podcast on Have You Ever Seen in Black History Month talks for the 4th time about a movie with a primarily black cast. Otto Preminger often directed Issues Movies and here he's dealing with the Gershwin opera that's all about murder, rape, drug addiction, fishing and poverty…with some racism thrown in there too. Porgy And Bess is set-bound and melodramatic though. Bad print aside, the st...

As February winds down, I spend a lot of time in this 'un talking about 2 versions of Camille where a courtesan's life is ending because of tuberculosis. The main thrust of this 720th episode is George Cukor's take with Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor, then I zipped through a review of the 1921 Camille with Alla Nazimova and Rudolph Valentino. They're both weeper love stories where the men won't tak...

Black History Month has inspired me to cover 3 (of what will be 4) race-related movies in February, but Pinky is the most overt about that charged topic. Ethel Waters has a key role as Jeanne Crain's granny in Elia Kazan's complicated movie...while Crain plays a mixed-race woman who passes for white, dealing with mean-spirited racism in the south while her boyfriend just wants her to go back up no...

Presidents' Day? Bah! Let's talk about a movie a certain POTUS would NEVER watch. Stormy Weather is a somewhat biographical musical about the life of dancing legend Bill Robinson...with Lena Horne, Dooley Wilson, Fats Waller & Cab Calloway sharing the screen with Bojangles. Black people dominate director Andrew Stone's canvas, even though race isn't really the point here. Stormy Weather is just ab...

There's no better way to celebrate both Valentine's Day AND also my birthday than by talking about Hell Or High Water! David Mackenzie's layered Robin Hood-esque modern western was my #1 movie of 2016, partly because entire cast is fantastic. Jeff Bridges was nominated for his supporting work, but Ben Foster is even better. And Taylor Sheridan's Texas-set story they're all in is complex because we...