Oscar History
Film Bitch History
Welcome

The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team.

This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms. 

Powered by Squarespace
DON'T MISS THIS

Follow TFE on Substackd 

COMMENTS

Oscar Takeaways
12 thoughts from the big night

 

Keep TFE Strong

We're looking for 500... no 390 SubscribersIf you read us daily, please be one.  

I ♥ The Film Experience

THANKS IN ADVANCE

What'cha Looking For?
Subscribe

Entries in Oscars (30s) (93)

Friday
Oct082021

Smackdown '37 - The Podcast Companion

by Nathaniel R

150 years ago on this very day the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 began. It raged for three days (October 8th-10th), ravaging most of the city and killing hundreds. In the blockbuster movie In Old Chicago (1937), which we discuss on this Podcast, the cause of the fire is pinned firmly on careless Mrs O'Leary (Alice Brady) and her cow. A new report from the AP for the fire's anniversary says  that there's no evidence to suggest they were the culprits; the widely believed and Hollywood-endorsed story may have sprung from the virulent anti-Irish prejudice of the time. That's just a little anecdote to share since we're finally publishing the podcast portion of the 1937 Smackdown which is now officially the season finale (the other years we had planned to do will have to wait a few months)

Thanks to our guests Chelsea whose letterbox review of Stage Door is "hot girls unite", Pamela who has a hot take on the sexworker trope in Dead End, Tim who makes his case as the world's biggest Stella Dallas fan, and Boyd who shares a possibly apocryphal but amazing stunt double story from In Old Chicago. Hope you enjoy the conversation! 

SMACKDOWN 1937

Sunday
Oct032021

Smackdown '37: Bossy Women and Fragile Wrecks

Welcome back to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Each month we pick an Oscar vintage to explore through the lens of actressing at the edges. This episode takes us back to 1937, which was only the second year of the category. 

THE NOMINEES  It was only the second year of the Supporting Actress category yet the tropes and shortlist makeup were already falling into place. Oscar voters went with a mix of industry veterans (Alice Brady the first consecutive nominee in this category), stage stars transferring to film (Dame May Whitty), fresh faces (Anne Shirley), and rising talent (Andrea Leeds, Claire Trevor) to play an array of familiar types: the martyr mom, the tetchy elder, the sad / confused daughter, the insecure actress, and the complicated hooker...

Click to read more ...

Saturday
Oct022021

"The Awful Truth" about Irene Dunne

by Baby Clyde

I adore Irene Dunne. Who doesn’t? She great in everything. She’s great AT everything. So why is she so little known these days? How can a woman who was an A List Movie star for 20 years during the Golden Age of Classic Hollywood be so little remembered? Obviously, she’s a big deal to Old Hollywood loving cinephiles but to the public at large she’s a more or less forgotten. I think this mainly comes down to the fact that she doesn’t really fit in anywhere. She was a Jack of all Trades and consequently isn’t specifically identified with one genre. In many ways her versatility was her downfall (in terms of staying in the public imagination).

She started in movies quite late. Born in 1898 she was already a fair bit older than most of her contemporaries when she headed West, after a successful if unspectacular Broadway career. Making her first film in 1930 she was an immediate hit. Her second film, 1931’s Cimarron, won the Best Picture Academy Award and she received the 1st of her five Best Actress nominations...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Oct012021

Revisiting the original "A Star Is Born"

by Cláudio Alves

As the next Supporting Actress Smackdown approaches, The Film Experience is celebrating the cinematic year of 1937. It was then that Hollywood consolidated its favorite myth about itself. While the story model had been making the rounds for ages, both in gossip and on-screen (check out What Price Hollywood?), William A. Wellman's A Star Is Born is the first movie of its name. The tale of Norman Maine and Vicky Lester, his downfall and her rise to fame, would be told three more times to great effect, but one should never forget the original. Not when the movie is this pristine, written to formidable effect by a team that included the legendary Dorothy Parker and performed with utmost conviction by Fredric March and Janet Gaynor…

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Jul082021

Little Gold Men on 1934's "It Happened One Night"

by Nathaniel R

The year of guesting on podcasts continues (after no invites forever I'm suddenly mouthing off everywhere!) with Vanity Fair's "Little Gold Men" podcast. I join Katey and Joanna to talk about the early Best Picture winner It Happened One Night. The story of Clark Gable's bare chest sending undershirt sales plummeting is old school famous, of course, but Joanna's additional research nuggets kind of blew my mind. I'd seriously never heard the bit about Bugs Bunny before (whaaa?!). We also talk briefly about the 2021 Academy invitees previously discussed right here. 

Have a listen and even a watch (the movie is streaming free on Crackle with ads). What a great film.