Nightmare Alley (1947)... and (2021)

by Nathaniel R

Greg Hildebrandt riff on a Nightmare Alley posterThe urge to remake is an arguable scourge on cinema but much of what there is to argue about is who is doing the remaking and why. Oftentime the motivations are corporate cynical "cash grab for lazy audiences who will only look at new things... especially if they sound famliar". When true auteurs go there, though, especially with films that aren't enormously famous, there's more room for debate about intention and possibility and aesthetic necessity. The best possible outcome is that we get two very different equally strong films and the "new" model stirs up more interest and appreciation for the OG.

We hope that will be the case when Guillermo Del Toro finishes Nightmare Alley in... 2021? (Production was halted due to COVID-19). The original Nightmare Alley (1947), is a beautifully shot circus noir that's ripe for both rediscovery and reinterpretation...

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I can't believe she won

by Cláudio Alves

To love the Oscars is to live in perpetual disappointment. The Academy can celebrate cinematic excellence and their choices may even serve as a gateway to a cinephile's love for the seventh art. However, more often than not, great artistry is left unrewarded while more conventional fare coasts by and triumphs. When it comes to actors, it isn't rare to find stupendous professionals whose labor was and will never be recognized by AMPAS. Perchance their filmography is too foreign, their style too outré or their directors too artsy. Whatever the reason may be, an Oscar obsessive quickly learns that a lot of their favorites will never get close to winning that little golden man.

Sometimes, though, there can be wonderful surprises. One such event took place in 2007. Quite frankly, all these years later, I still can't believe this happened…

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Joan Crawford in '47

by Cláudio Alves

After more than a decade as one of MGM's brightest and most formidable stars, the 1940s were a turning point for Joan Crawford. While she struggled to reinvent herself during these middle years of her career, many of the actress's best movies came from this phase. She left behind a series of lackluster offerings from her original studio, finding new power when carefully choosing projects at her new home, Warner Brothers. It wasn't easy, but she triumphed, winning an Oscar for 1945's Mildred Pierce and going on to get two other Best Actress nominations. More importantly, she solidified her legacy, challenged herself as an actress, and proved to everyone she was more than a flapper or talentless glamour girl.

During this period of Crawford's filmography, 1947 was a particularly auspicious year. She broke our hearts in a romantic tragedy, impressed AMPAS with explosive neurosis, and went on to star in one of Hollywood's most interesting post-war melodramas…

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1947: "Boy! What a Girl!" is an underseen lively gem

by Nick Taylor

Let's recap our tried-and-true methods of investigating what early cinema has to offer for these alternate looks at supporting actreses outside of the Oscar shortlists and we do these retrospectives.

1. Combing through the canon for actressy projects
2. Checking out what the great actresses of the era were up to.

But what about option 3... the ever-reliable, deeply specific journey of stumbling onto something interesting and keeping it in your back pocket until you finally get a reason (quote-unquote) to check it out? Take, for example, my relationship with Boy! What a Girl!, which I first heard about in my senior year of college...

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Doc Corner: 'Rewind' and 'On the Record'

by Glenn Dunks

To put one’s own story to film often takes some form of personal courage. To not allow any sort of emotional distance between the traumas and the pains of life and the audience will always be a tough line for many to cross. It is why documentaries are so often labelled as merely grim or depressing and placed in a metaphorical too-hard basket. It’s true that many are indeed an emotional trial of sorts, but to watch survivors speak directly to us is one of the things I most cherish about non-fiction filmmaking.

As I watched and listened to the stories of Sasha Joseph Neulinger, Drew Dixon and others unfold in two new documentaries, Rewind and On the Record, I found myself captivated and angry. Angry that this happened in the first place and angry that these films aren’t being spoken about as important works of film...

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