What's streaming from 1947?

We're having a 1947 sidebar party for the next two weeks as we build towards the Smackdown.

One of the great f***over moments in our world of sophisticated search technology is the lack of interest in content providers giving us extensive search options. Over the years we've watched the capacity to search by film year dwindle until its practically non-existent across the web. Netflix used to have it (many years ago) when they were a DVD company. Hulu has never cared about such things. Amazon Prime still sorta has time-interest searches but makes them very difficult to find and has altered their once somewhat easy "by decade" search into a clunkier system; they now only allow you to differentiate decades once you've hit 1960. This makes self-curated spontaneous movie-watches difficult if, say, you'd like to investigate a particular film year. And, you guessed it, that's something we here at TFE like to do. Criterion Channel, at least and bless them, has a way to search by exact year.

But, as ever, we're here to help. If you'd like to indulge in the 1947 film year before we reach the next Supporting Actress Smackdown here are a dozen noteworthy movies that are currently available to stream for free...

Click to read more ...

Lukewarm Off The Presses: About Lucille

It's surprisingly easy to photoshop Cate's face over Lucille's so basically it works visuallyCate Blanchett playing Lucille Ball in a future biopic has already, rather oddly, taken over two entirely unrelated comment threads so I suppose we should say something official-like? The news of Aaron Sorkin's Lucy biopic to which Cate Blanchett is attached was one of those news stories that happened in those intermittent time periods when I was doing something other than the interweb (shock) for about 12 hours. I think it was dinner with a friend + 2 hours of Netflix's Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp + sleeping. When I woke up it was like the news had always existed and everyone but me was talking about it. These things happen. Even with our kind of news -- read: 'Actressy And How' -- when we're unlucky.

Undeniably this is a weird project on paper. Can you connect Sorkin's rat-a-tat-tat sober pontificating (even though it has a sense of humor) to Lucille's broad slapstick mixed with indefatigable verbosity? The verbosity sure. But otherwise... What's more, Sorkin's work rarely seems all that interested in women.  Neither can I imagine Cate pulling it off without resorting to technical mimicry absent the silly soul -- Cate can definitely do comedy but this kind of comedy? That seems like quite a reach.

with George Sanders in Lured (1947)with Gene Kelly in Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)

Then again, Lucille Ball is a showbiz icon with more sides than just ditzy Lucy from the beloved 50s sitcom. In fact, there are enough movements in that career to suggest that the way to go would be an I'm Not There approach. You've got the savvy businesswoman, the 40s dramatic starlet (see Lured for the improbable sight of glamorous Lucille Ball in a Douglas Sirk directed serial killer drama!), the sitcom superstar, the late career wanderings (Mame anyone? No?). The bio won't cover her whole life, thankfully but looks to focus on 1940 through 1960 and her marriage to Desi Arnaz. If we don't get a scene from the set of Lured (1947) I'll feel personally cheated.