Screen Test of Time

David and Suzan prove their courage by watching a possibly cursed video copy of Skippy , so if you haven’t heard from them next week, they’ve been claimed by a ghost girl from a well. Just in case the curse is real, they went ahead and finished out the 1930/1931 year with Trader Horn, as well, and just because they desperately wanted to watch something good, they threw in City Lights , the Charlie...

What do your long suffering hosts do when they still can't find a copy, no matter how grey market, of the 1931 version of East Lynne ? Why, they find a movie that should have been nominated for Best Picture and wasn't to review instead. Join Suzan and David for a very special SToT as they review a shockingly great (wink, wink) classic. No spoilers here, just listen! 

Despite being extremely resourceful, your intrepid hosts did not manage to find a copy of East Lynne this week, as there’s apparently only one extent copy that sits in a vault at the UCLA film archives. As Suzan is in New York and didn’t want David to attempt a Mission Impossible style break-in without her, they’ve skipped ahead to the next movie, The Front Page. Ostensibly a fast paced story...

This week kicks off the nominees for 1930/1931 Oscars, a year that the Academy seems to wish it could forget. (Only 3 of the 5 nominees exist outside of a single copy in a vault at the UCLA film archives!) Our intrepid hosts almost lost their will to move forward with the project at all after this year's honorees, but they persevered starting with this week's movie (and fittingly unlucky episode 1...

Both of your hosts are sniffling through head colds, but they persevere to bring you the final episode reviewing the 1929/1930 nominees!  The Big House is sort of a watch-one-get-one-free movie: come for the surprisingly progressive commentary on the criminal justice system and you'll get a strange romantic melodrama dropped in the middle for free. Find out if this year the Academy continued...

Norma Shearer wears a Parisian dress shop's worth of fabulous outfits and Conrad Nagel plays the least immoral character in this movie as a man with a blatant disregard for the sanctity of other people's marriages.  The Divorcee is all glitter and very little gold, despite the last act Jane Eyre hail Mary. David quotes scripture and Suzan makes a plea for someone to put together a Tumblr so n...

Ten movies in and we've finally found the origin of the Oscar bait flick! Which is not to shade All Quiet on the Western Front,  which is great, but here's the origin of the Epic Horrors of War Film that will continue to dominate the nominees for, oh, ever. This week's episode is an exploration of German vs. American nihilism, WWI vs. WWII movies. Join us as David makes connections to some su...

Ernst Lubitsch’s The Love Parade is a classic fairytale— boy meets girl, girl is the queen of some place called Sylvania, boy slept with her ambassador’s wife, but instead of ending up exiled forever, they get married and live happily ever after… and that’s just the first third of the movie. David thinks this is a sexist monstrosity, Suzan thinks it’s a subversive comment on the absurdity of men’s...

What do you get when you mash up a drawing room comedy, a spy caper, and a proto-biopic? Well, you get something of a mess, but at least a mostly entertaining one.  Disraeli starts off the 1929/1930 nominees with a confused morass of a movie, but great fodder for David and Suzan to explore questions like "Should a paean to a guy who made Queen Victoria the Empress of India even exist?" "Are l...

The Hollywood Revue of 1929  was definitely a departure from the Oscar nominated movies so far: a musical revue that feels like it was plucked right off a Vaudeville stage, featuring a flapper dancing Joan Crawford, Laurel and Hardy, and a call back to The Broadway Melody with Anita Page, all MCed by Jack Benny and Conrad Nagel. You'd think that would at least be memorable, but our intre...

There are movies that are bad because they're offensive, movies that are bad because they're poorly acted, and movies that are bad because they're generally unimportant nonsense stories that don't need to be told. And then there's the rare film that hits all three. This week's selection,  Alibi , is all of the above, and David and Suzan are wildly unimpressed, despite the one scene in the mov...

They like it, they really like it! Finally, David and Suzan watch a movie nominated for Best Picture that they actually enjoy!  The Broadway Melody isn't the best movie they've ever seen, or anything, but it's really, genuinely good... aside from the fact that the title song is sung literally five times, and our hosts are not entirely sure that the film makers knew what they were doing. Still...

The moral of this week's show is "Be careful what you wish for." Last week, Suzan was over silent films and excited to finally get to the talkies. In Old Arizona granted her wish, but at what cost? David has some praise for a surprisingly particular extra, as well as some suggestions as to what you should do instead of watch this movie. 

This week, David and Suzan round out the last of the nominees for the very first year with a break from WWI and the very first gangster flick to get a Best Picture nod, The Racket . Don't get too excited, though, cause The Godfather this ain't. David has a very good argument for why this is a good movie, but Suzan is having none of it. Also, find out if the Academy's pick for this year was the rig...

Just how many WWI movies with wacky romantic comedy subplots can one Academy Award season handle? Apparently, the answer is two. This week, our hosts review the 1927/1928 winner,  Wings . David hates it, Suzan loves it, but they both agree Clara Bow is adorable. Also, there's amazing plane fights, a poorly developed love quadrangle, a shockingly brief bit of Gary Cooper for him to get bi...

This week, David and Suzan begin their undertaking with 7th Heaven , a 1927 silent romantic comedy(?) about a Parisian sewer worker who falls in love with a pretty orphan girl before going off to WWI.