Recent content by Julian Shellhammer

Rambling across the filmic spectrum, a hurried rehash of movie watching, here at the small house half-way up in the next block- Cairo (1942), with Jeanette MacDonald, Robert Young, Ethel Waters, and a great many familiar faces. Directed by W. S. (One Shot Woody) Van Dyke; in the opening...

55 Days at Peking. Again. Onward, the Pixar movie about a world made up of "mythical" creatures, who aren't mythical there. This was the choice of the grandkids. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) directed by John Huston, who also wrote the screenplay. Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt are on...

In no particular order, recent filmic fun-times include Kansas City Confidential (1952) directed by Phil Karlson, who was behind the camera for several well-directed Charlie Chan movies, here telling the story of John Payne's character who is wrongly accused of involvement in a bank robbery...

After a short abeyance, the Film-Fest-o-Rama here at stately Shellhammer estate continues- Going back a ways, it was How to Train Your Dragon II, because the grandkids were over. Actually, we found it enjoyable. A Slight Case of Murder (1938) with Edward G. Robinson as Remy Marko, parodying his...

As you noted, Hope was frequently the target of the jokes; both he and Jack Benny were of the mind that "laughs are laughs, it doesn't matter who the audience laughs at." And your observation that pre-television folks went to the movies and watched whatever was showing is borne out by a recent...

Greetings and salutations from the semi-dormant Shellhammer Cavalcade of Old Movies- Recent viewings have included The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, with Nova Pilbeam, Peter Lorre, Leslie Banks, and Edna Best. A mixture of stagy-acting and Lorre's...

Another Man's Poison (1951), filmed in England by Irving (Now, Voyager) Rapper, with Bette Davis, Gary Merrill, Emlyn Williams, and an number of other actors with whom I am unfamiliar. Rooted solidly in its stage play origins, we see the story of American mystery novelist Janet Frorbisher...

After an extended hiatus, thanks in part to the birth of a new grand baby, here is an-ever-so-quick update on movie-watching with The Missus and I. The Big Chase (1954) co-directed by Arthur (Cat Women of the Moon) Hilton and Robert L. Lippert, Jr. , with Glenn Langan, Lon Chaney, Jr. , and big...

As the Christmas Movie Season draws to a close, it's the Shellhammer Report: Boxing Day edition- White Christmas (1954), directed Michael Curtis, with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen, in VistaVision. Not a reboot of Holiday Inn, but tantalizingly close to it. Many of...

The Holiday Movie-a-pa-looza continues with Christmas in Connecticut (1945) with Barbra Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, and Sidney Greenstreet, directed by Peter Godfrey, behind the camera for The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt, That Hagen Girl, and Escape Me Never, among so many others. Stanwyck writes a...

This just in, from the Shellhammer Christmas movie binge-o-rama; The 1966 TV special How the Grinch Stole Christmas, wonderfully performed with Boris Karloff narrating, June Foray as Cindy Lou Who, and Thurl Ravenscroft singing. Masterfully presented by Chuck Jones. Followed within moments by...

It's Christmas time, so the annual reading schedule begins with Peter Spiers' Christmas!, followed by Santa Calls, then A Christmas Carol; my copy, as noted for years now, is a 1940 edition with the note reading "This text preserves the irregularities in spelling and punctuation of the first...

From a dusty, forgotten, unlit corner of the Lounge, where shadows seem to take on the quality of solid matter dripping with calamitous intent, here is a delinquent update on the backlog of movie watching at La Casa della' Moviettis, aka the Shellhammer Cineplex. Phantom Lady (1944) with...

Mirage from 1965, in black and white, from director Edward (The Caine Mutiny) Dmytryk, with Gregory Peck and Diane Baker. Walter Matthau gets his own screen credit as a PI. Peck can't remember the past two years of his life, nor can he remember Baker, with whom he may or may not have had a...

Thanksgiving is only two weeks from today: my, oh, my, where does the time go... A lot of the time goes into watching old old old movies, such as Flaxy Martin (1949), headlined by Virginia Mayo, with Zachary Scott, and Dorothy Malone, under the direction of Richard L. Bare, who did tons of tv...