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The American Civil War was the most consequential conflict in United States history and has been powerfully depicted on screen countless times. From epic accounts of fierce battles to personal explorations of soldiers experiences, as a medium, film has the power to represent the full spectrum of this harrowing conflict, where brothers fought against brothers and communities turned on one another. This can often lead to emotional movie-viewing experiences, as, more so than any other art form, films allow audiences to witness the shocking, bloody, and uncomfortably graphic sides of warfare.

Like the best war movie, depictions of the Civil War highlight not just the challenges of society during that conflict but also today's social and political tensions. This can be seen through the racial representation in a movie like Glory or even as a thought experiment in the imagined dystopian conflict seen in Alex Garlands Civil War, which showcased...

Though it received a Best Picture nomination at the 94th Academy Awards in 2022, Guillermo del Toro's re-adaptation of the William Lindsay Gresham novel "Nightmare Alley" hit theaters the same day as "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and was overshadowed by that movie's juggernaut success amid the pandemic. It makes the most of those shadows, though, filling them with smoke and "the poetry of disillusionment and existentialism," as del Toro has called it. This is a movie that lives at the carnival, where you're less likely to see any spider-men and more likely to see a woman with a spider's body warning children about the sins of lust and pride.

Co-written by Kim Morgan, the del Toro version of "Nightmare Alley" takes its cues from Gresham's book and was not intended as a remake of the black-and-white 1947 adaptation starring Tyrone Power. However, that movie is a classic and it's worth...

The Half Breed (1916) with live music by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra will screen after the new documentary I, Douglas Fairbanks Saturday at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. The prgram starts at 7pm. Ticket information can be found Here

There’s nothing better than silent films accompanied by live music! The Rats and People is a treasure and St. Louis is lucky to have them here. I’ve seen them perform with silent films several times, often at The St. Louis International Film Festival, and usually at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium and it’s always a stunning good time at the movies. You’ll have the chance to see them perform their magic this Saturday, November 10th when they premiere their new score for The Half Breed (1916)

During the peak of the silent era, the dashing...

Review by Roger Carpenter

As so often has happened over the years, silent films have been lost to time, or survive only in very poor or often incomplete prints. Because these films weren’t thought of as “art” many were scrapped due to high storage costs, recycled for their silver content, or were destroyed by fire due to their high combustibility. Others were resold to budget distribution companies, recut and retitled, and released as totally different films. Thus was the fate of many Douglas Fairbanks movies from his time at Triangle Pictures. The Half-Breed is a classic case in point.

Based upon a short story and rewritten for the screen by its author in collaboration with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes novelist and pioneering screenwriter Anita Loos, The Half-Breed tells the story of a baby abandoned by his white father and Native American mother and raised by an elderly man who lives deep in the woods.

The character setup in this classy noir potboiler couldn't be better, with Ida Lupino a sensation as the mountain lodge chanteuse who knows her way around men. For its first two acts the show is all but perfect. Road House Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date September 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, Richard Widmark, O.Z. Whitehead, Robert Karnes, George Beranger, Ian MacDonald, Ray Teal. Cinematography Joseph Lashelle Film Editor James B. Clark Original Music Cyril J. Mokridge Written by Edward Chodorov, Margaret Gruen, Oscar Saul Produced by Edward Chodorov Directed by Jean Negulesco

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

For the first two-thirds of Jean Negulesco's Road House I thought I was seeing one of the best films noirs of the late 1940s, and even when it sagged at the end it came up with a pretty good score.

From ’The Birth of a Nation’ to ’Iron Man’: The love affair between Hollywood and the Pentagon (photo: Lillian Gish and her Ku Klux Klan saviors in ’The Birth of a Nation’) In TomDispatch.com’s excellent March 2008 article "The Golden Age of the Military-Entertainment Complex: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Pentagon-Style," journalist and author Nick Turse (The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives) traces the mutually rewarding — and very close — ties between the American film industry and the American military complex throughout the decades. And there goes Hollywood’s reputation as a liberal enclave filled with unpatriotic, treacherous, anti-flagwaving pacifists. As author and professor Tom Engelhardt explains in his introduction to Turse’s article, "Hollywood and the Pentagon have been in an intricate dance of support and cross-promotion for almost a century, from a time when the Department of Defense was still quaintly — if more accurately — known as the War Department.

Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...

Glenda Farrell: Actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day Scene-stealer Glenda Farrell is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 29, 2013. A reliable — and very busy — Warner Bros. contract player in the ’30s, the sharp, energetic, fast-talking blonde actress was featured in more than fifty films at the studio from 1931 to 1939. Note: This particular Glenda Farrell has nothing in common with the One Tree Hill character played by Amber Wallace in the television series. The Glenda Farrell / One Tree Hill name connection seems to have been a mere coincidence. (Photo: Glenda Farrell as Torchy Blane in Smart Blonde.) Back to Warners’ Glenda Farrell: TCM is currently showing Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939), one of the seven B movies starring Farrell as intrepid reporter Torchy Blane. Major suspense: Will Torchy win the election? She should. No city would ever go bankrupt with Torchy at the helm. Glenda Farrell...

Jeanne Crain: Lighthearted movies vs. real life tragedies (photo: Madeleine Carroll and Jeanne Crain in ‘The Fan’) (See also: "Jeanne Crain: From ‘Pinky’ Inanity to ‘Margie’ Magic.") Unlike her characters in Margie, Home in Indiana, State Fair, Centennial Summer, The Fan, and Cheaper by the Dozen (and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes), or even in the more complex A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, Jeanne Crain didn’t find a romantic Happy Ending in real life. In the mid-’50s, Crain accused her husband, former minor actor Paul Brooks aka Paul Brinkman, of infidelity, of living off her earnings, and of brutally beating her. The couple reportedly were never divorced because of their Catholic faith. (And at least in the ’60s, unlike the humanistic, progressive-thinking Margie, Crain was a “conservative” Republican who supported Richard Nixon.) In the early ’90s, she lost two of her...

Bette Davis movies: TCM schedule on August 14 (photo: Bette Davis in ‘Dangerous,’ with Franchot Tone) See previous post: “Bette Davis Eyes: They’re Watching You Tonight.” 3:00 Am Parachute Jumper (1933). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Harold Huber, Leo Carrillo, Thomas E. Jackson, Lyle Talbot, Leon Ames, Stanley Blystone, Reginald Barlow, George Chandler, Walter Brennan, Pat O’Malley, Paul Panzer, Nat Pendleton, Dewey Robinson, Tom Wilson, Sheila Terry. Bw-72 mins. 4:30 Am The Girl From 10th Avenue (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, Colin Clive, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Phillip Reed, Katharine Alexander, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, Edward McWade, André Cheron, Wedgwood Nowell, John Quillan, Mary Treen. Bw-69 mins. 6:00 Am Dangerous (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Dick Foran, Walter Walker, Richard Carle, George Irving, Pierre Watkin, Douglas Wood,...

Pillars of Society (1916) Direction: Raoul Walsh Screenplay: From a novel by Henrik Ibsen Cast: Henry B. Walthall, Mary Alden, Juanita Archer, George Beranger, Josephine Crowell, Olga Grey   Pillars of Society is a film about hypocrisy, having its basis on a story by Ibsen. The Birth of a Nation hero Henry B. Walthall (right) plays the son of a Norwegian shipping company; in his youth, he goes to Paris to study and has an affair with a married Bohemian actress. However, his brother-in-law is falsely accused of having said affair with the actress; he protects Walthall by accepting the blame and leaving for America. Years later, the brother-in-law returns and demands that Walthall clear his name. Fearing that if the [...]...