The Picture of Dorian Gray

Film Skool

| The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) remains one of Hollywood’s most haunting adaptations of Oscar Wilde’s classic Gothic tale. Steve Hayes reviews MGM’s lavish supernatural drama starring Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Donna Reed, and Peter Lawford.

The Tired Old Queen At The Movies explores director Albert Lewin’s eerie vision of Dorian Gray, a beautiful young man who wishes to remain forever young while his portrait bears the scars of his corruption. The result is a macabre cautionary tale about vanity, temptation, lost innocence, and the dangerous price of getting exactly what you wish for.

Steve discusses Hurd Hatfield’s striking performance in the title role, George Sanders’s urbane wickedness, and Angela Lansbury’s heartbreaking portrayal of cabaret singer Sibyl Vane, which earned the young actress her second Academy Award nomination. He also considers Donna Reed and Peter Lawford, Harry Stradling’s Oscar-winning black-and-white cinematography, the film’s startling color portrait sequences, and MGM’s sumptuous treatment of Oscar Wilde’s celebrated novella.

Why did director Albert Lewin ask Hurd Hatfield to suppress nearly every facial expression? How did the role affect Hatfield’s later career? And what happened when Steve met the unforgettable actor decades later at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? For fans of classic Hollywood, Oscar Wilde adaptations, Gothic horror movies, supernatural dramas, MGM films, Angela Lansbury, George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, and vintage movie reviews, The Picture of Dorian Gray offers beauty, decadence, terror, and one of cinema’s most unforgettable portraits.

Another Country

Film Skool

| Steve Hayes celebrates Gay Pride with a loving look at Another Country (1984), directed by Marek Kanievska, written by Julian Mitchell, and starring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, and Cary Elwes.

Based on Mitchell’s play, Another Country explores privilege, repression, sexuality, class, and political rebellion inside a 1930s British public school modeled on Eton and Winchester. Rupert Everett stars as Guy Bennett, a brilliant, defiant young gay man whose refusal to hide puts him at odds with the brutal rules of the school. Colin Firth makes his feature film debut as Tommy Judd, a committed Marxist and fellow outsider, while Cary Elwes plays James Harcourt, the beautiful boy who becomes the object of Bennett’s romantic longing.

Steve looks at the film’s connection to Cambridge spy Guy Burgess, the British public school system, the Cambridge Five, and the emotional force behind one of the great queer coming-of-age films of the 1980s. He also traces the later careers of Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, and Cary Elwes, from Pride and Prejudice and The King's Speech to The Princess  Bride and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Queen Bee

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| Joan Crawford is in full, ferocious command in Queen Bee (1955), a glossy Southern melodrama where charm turns to venom and every room becomes a battlefield. In this movie review, Steve Hayes (Tired Old Queen at the Movies) breaks down why Crawford’s Eva Phillips is such a watchable menace, how the film builds its “rich family with rotten secrets” tension, and why Crawford fans who love her bold, nasty streak should put this one at the top of their list.

Crawford negotiated major control behind the scenes, and it shows. She looks sensational in Oscar-nominated gowns by Jean Louis, delivering scene after scene of controlled cruelty, strategic flirtation, and social warfare. The supporting cast brings the sparks: Barry Sullivan as the long-suffering husband, John Ireland as the dangerous temptation, Betsy Palmer as the “good girl” sister-in-law, Fay Wray in the mix, and newcomer Lucy Marlow as the wide-eyed outsider pulled into Eva’s orbit.

If you’re searching for classic Hollywood melodrama, Joan Crawford villain era energy, or a sharp 1950s studio drama with big gowns and bigger grudges, Queen Bee is a wickedly entertaining pick.   Steve Hayes

I Remember Mama

F i l m  S k o o l

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The life of a Scandinavian family living in San Francisco at the turn of the century is lovingly recreated with warm humor by director George Stevens in I Remember Mama (1948), his first film following WWII.

Having done active duty and witnessed the horrors of the war, including the liberation of the concentration camps, Stevens wanted his first film to be a loving tribute to family life and the immigrants who came to America to find freedom and opportunity. It gave Irene Dunne one of the most beloved roles of her career, as well as brilliant supporting work from such players as Barbara Bel Geddes, Oskar Homolka, Barbara O’Neill, Florence Bates, and Ellen Corby.   Steve Hayes

Black Widow

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It’s blackmail and mayhem mixed with a touch of murder in the first “whodunnit” shot in Cinemascope, as Ginger Rogers, Van Heflin, Gene Tierney, George Raft and Peggy Ann Garner star in Nunnally Johnson's Black Widow (1954) with excellent support by Hilda Simms.

Based on the novel by celebrated mystery writer Patrick Quentin and set on location in New York in glorious-glamorous Technicolor, here are spectacular visuals and enough twists and turns to keep you guessing throughout. A young writer insinuates herself into the life of a Broadway producer. To quote the movie’s tagline, “One of them will kill her tonight, and your guess is as good as ours.”   Steve Hayes

Black Widow, a film by Nunnally Johnson.

Bringing Up Baby

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Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant have the comic time of their lives in Howard Hawks’ wacky and endearing screwball comedy masterpiece Bringing Up Baby (1938) based on the story by Hagar Wilde.

With a supporting cast filled with some of the greatest comedic actors of the period, including Walter Catlett, Mae Robson, Fritz Feld and Charlie Ruggles, it’s the perfect way to beat the winter doldrums!   Steve Hayes

Bringing Up Baby, a film by Howard Hawks.

The Man Who Came To Dinner

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Bette Davis, Monty Woolley, Ann Sheridan and Jimmy Durante have the time of their lives celebrating the Christmas Holidays together in The Man Who Came To Dinner (1941).

Woolley recreates his famous Broadway role as acerbic, critic Sheridan Whiteside who breaks his leg on the ice in front of an average, mid-west, household and proceeds to invade and turn their world upside down. It’s comic mayhem at its finest with a plucky cast at the top of their game.   Steve Hayes

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Laura

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Beautiful Gene Tierney along with Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, Clifton Webb and Judith Anderson show how murder in the “smart set” is done in Otto Preminger’s sophisticated film noir, Laura (1944).

Filled with witty dialogue, beautiful Oscar winning cinematography by Joseph LaShelle and the haunting theme music of David Raksin, which, when joined with the lyrics of Johnny Mercer, became a popular standard recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald. It’s a visual, suspense classic you won’t want to miss.   Steve Hayes

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The Brides of Dracula

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"Transylvania, land of dark forests, dread mountains and black, unfathomed lakes. Still the home of magic and devilry as the nineteenth century draws to it's close. Count Dracula, monarch of all vampires, is dead, but his disciples live on, to spread the cult and corrupt the world..."

Peter Cushing leads a cast of brilliant British character actors in Hammer Film Productions' classic horror tale The Brides of Dracula (1960).

A beautiful girl comes under the spell of a willful Baroness, her creepy housekeeper, and a handsome, somewhat mysterious son with a secret, who is kept in chains in the cellar. Regal Martita Hunt, crazy Freda Jackson, sinister David Peel and Andree Melly as a truly terrifying vampire round out the cast.

Filled with Hammer Studios' traditional trademarks: a touch of sex, a bit of gore and scares galore, it’s the perfect way to put “the bite” back into Halloween!   Steve Hayes

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Holiday Affair

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Robert Mitchum and Wendall Corey have a Christmas feud over beautiful Janet Leigh in the romantic classic Holiday Affair (1949). Harry Morgan and little Gordon Gebart add to the fun in this light-hearted love story, which is perfect for snuggling up and watching on a cold winter’s night!   Steve Hayes

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Call Me Madam

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Washington appoints a small-minded social butterfly as a U.S. Ambassador in this film adaptation based on the satirical stage musical. When Sally Adams (Ethel Merman) arrives in Lichtenburg, her bright personality charms everyone she meets. She slips her political obligations aside to focus on a budding romance with Cosmo Constantine (George Sanders), the country's foreign minister - and at the same time, her attaché (Donald O'Connor) pursues a relationship with the princess.

Call Me Madam, a film by Walter Lang.

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Evil Under The Sun

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Peter Ustinov once again takes on legendary Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Guy Hamilton’s all-star version of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under The Sun (1982).

With a whodunit cast that includes Maggie Smith, Diana Rigg, James Mason, Nicholas Clay, Sylvia Miles and Roddy McDowell, it is shot in sumptuous Mediterranean locales and costumed outrageously by Oscar winner Anthony Powell.

Set to the glorious music of Cole Porter and topped off by “a spot of murder,” it’s the perfect murder mystery end of summer vacation.   Steve Hayes

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A Summer Place

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"You seem to have an infinite capacity for hurt. First you try to destroy your daughter, and now our son!"

Troy Donohue, Sandra Dee, Dorothy McGuire and Richard Egan find love on the coast of Maine in Delmar Dave’s A Summer Place (1959).

Based on the novel by Sloan Wilson, it also stars Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford as the impediments that stand in their way.

With glorious scenery and a classic score by veteran Oscar winning composer Max Steiner, it’s the perfect, romantic, summer getaway.   Steve Hayes

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My Beautiful Laundrette

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Daniel Day Lewis, Gordon Warneke, Saeed Jaffrey and Roshan Seth star in the romantic, sensitive, and controversial My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) from an Oscar nominated original screenplay by Hanif Kureishi and directed by the brilliant Stephen Frears. 

 At once a story of racial strife, coming of age, dream fulfillment and class struggle, My Beautiful Laundrette was also a landmark film in the treatment of gay relationships on the screen and introduced three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis in a role that won him the New York Film Critics’ Award. Don’t miss this inspiring and unforgettable independent film.  Steve Hayes

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The Hurricane

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Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour battle the elements in John Ford’s South Seas disaster epic The Hurricane (1937).

Based on a novel by Nordoff and Hall, who also wrote Mutiny on the Bounty, it’s a Samuel Goldwyn production in which nothing was spared to recreate the lush Polynesian background and the devastation that occurs when this peaceful island finds itself in the path of a hurricane and colonization.

With a supporting cast that includes Mary Astor, Raymond Massey, Thomas Mitchell in an Oscar nominated supporting role and the wonderful C. Aubrey Smith as a priest who risks everything to save his congregation. It’s riveting entertainment and Hollywood spectacle at it’s best!  Steve Hayes

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Crossfire

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A hate crime forms the basis of Edward Dmytrick’s classic film noir Crossfire (1947), starring Robert Mitchum, Robert Young and with Oscar-nominated turns by vicious Robert Ryan and Gloria Grahame as a “B” girl with a heart of gold.

The story concerns an anti-Semitic crime resulting in the beating death of an innocent Jewish man by a group of soldiers, one of whom did it and one who is framed for it. Crossfire is a classic blend of film noir and the “message picture”, two distinctive genres which emerged following the end of World War II.

The action is taut, the suspense is tense and the acting superb. Crossfire is not to me missed!  Steve Hayes

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Woman of the Year

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Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn enter the battle of the sexes in the first of several collaborations in George Stevens' classic comedy: Woman Of The Year (1942). Also starring Fay Bainter and William Bendix, it’s the perfect comic pairing of two pros at the top of their game and the ideal antidote for the winter doldrums.  Steve Hayes

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Come To The Stable

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Following “a calling,” Oscar winners Loretta Young and Celeste Holm play nuns, who emigrate to a small New England town of Bethlehem from war torn France and attempt to establish a hospital on the grounds of a stable owned by eccentric artist Elsa Lanchester in director Henry Koster’s  Come To The Stable (1949).

Taken from a story by Clair Boothe Luce (The Women), the cast also includes Hugh Marlowe, Thomas Gomez and Dooley Wilson. A lovely and lighthearted, warm and cozy comedy for the holidays. Merry Christmas!   Steve Hayes

The Cat and the Canary

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Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard lead a fabulous cast through in Elliott Nugent’s The Cat and the Canary (1939).

Based on a famous stage play and silent classic, the action centers around a group of relatives at the reading of a will, located in an old dark house in the bayous of Louisiana. Everyone is suspicious of everyone and to make matters worse, a homicidal maniac has escaped from the local looney bin and plans to murder them all.

Loaded with a combination of thrills and laughs, the cast includes; veteran horror actors George Zucco, as a suspicious lawyer and Oscar winner Gale Sondergaard in another of her evil housekeeper role. Halloween fun at it’s Hollywood best!   Steve Hayes

A Stolen Life

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In her only roles as a producer as well as actress, Bette Davis out does herself playing identical twins, one shy, one sexy and both in love with handsome Glenn Ford in Curtis Bernhardt’s A Stolen Life (1946).

With a wonderful cast that includes three time Oscar winner Walter Brennan and adorable comic imp, Charlie Ruggles, it boasts gorgeous cinematography, Oscar nominated special effects and a typically glorious score by Max Steiner. It’s Bette Davis at the top of her game and a summer romance you won’t soon forget!   Steve Hayes