Whenever I host classic films, I wade deeply into the weeds of each picture. (What can I say? Card-carrying nerd, reporting for duty.) In 2019, while researching my introduction to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , I stumbled across James Stewart’s last words and they got me all verklemmt ... Jimmy was married for 44 years to his one and only wife Gloria – a woman with movie star looks, but without movie star ambitions, which was fine by her husband. After landing in Hollywood i

James Cagney never said, “You dirty rat,” but he did "rat out" his favorite movie: “Many people assume that one of those knock-down, drag-'em-outs would be my choice. A discerning critic...can’t understand why I would choose Yankee Doodle Dandy over White Heat and The Public Enemy . The answer is simple, and it derives from George M. Cohan’s comment about himself: Once a song-and-dance man, always a song-and-dance man. In that brief statement, you have my life story; those

Why is The Asphalt Jungle the mack daddy of all caper films? It’s co-written and directed by John Huston, who made the criminally good classics Key Largo and The Maltese Falcon. It’s based on a book by W.R. Burnett, who established his street cred with Little Caesar and High Sierra. It’s packed with underrated actors delivering peak performances: Sterling Hayden, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, Louis Calhern, and a newbie named Marilyn Monroe, swiping every scene as a shady lawyer’s

Hollywood is a company town, which means celebrity spawn often join the movie business. Think Henry, Peter and Jane Fonda. Judy Garland...