Apr 25 2024 82 mins
This week's Fox 1946 Studios Year by Year episode features the strange bedfellows of Henry Hathaway's The Dark Corner, a curiously feminist film noir in which the tormented protagonist is saved by the persistence of a good woman (played by Lucille Ball), and Edmund Goulding's The Razor's Edge, based on a Somerset Maugham novel about spiritual enlightenment and bourgeois ennui, featuring Gene Tierney's best performance, although Anne Baxter won the Oscar. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, the TIFF Cinematheque Duras retrospective continues with Nathalie Granger, Baxter, Vera Baxter, Le Navire Night, and Les Enfants. We discuss comedy, mysticism, nihilism, recalcitrant children, and happy endings in Duras's films.
Time Codes:
0h 00m 35s: THE DARK CORNER [dir. Henry Hathaway]
0h 25m 04s: THE RAZOR’S EDGE [dir. Edmund Goulding]
0h 52m 22s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto: Nathalie Granger (1972), Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977), Le Navire Night (1979) and Les Enfants (1984) – all by Marguerite Duras
Studio Film Capsules provided by The Films of 20th Century-Fox by Aubrey Solomon & Tony Thomas
Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joe W. Finler
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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s
* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)
* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.
* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!
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