Screen Test of Time

Aug 14 2024 216 ep. 38 mins 22
Screen Test of Time Podcast artwork

The Screen Test of Time is a podcast where Suzan Eraslan and David Daw set out to watch every movie ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, in order, from the first awards season to eventually the present day. Each week, they watch and review a different movie, and when they've watched everything nominated in a particular year, they tell you whether the Oscar went to the right one!

  TV & Film  History
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Episode 216: Anatomy of a Murder

Aug 14 2024 44 mins  
Anatomy of a Murder is a courtroom drama that introduces some of the touchstones of the genre, including the the “I’m just a simple country lawyer” trope, with Jimmy Stewart as said lawyer. With a Duke Ellington score and a surprisingly nuanced approach to imperfect victims, a new decade is definitely on the horizon with this flick.

Episode 215: The Diary of Anne Frank

Jul 28 2024 42 mins  
The 1959 adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank (adapted from the stage play, in turn adapted from the original diary) has a lot to recommend it. Only problem? The lead, and titular character, isn’t one of them.

Episode 214: Room at the Top

Jul 17 2024 50 mins  
You know what there’s Room at the Top for? A new Bengal Lancer Episode! As we’re working through our backlog of recorded episodes, some of the topics discussed are old news, but some of them are news so old it’s new again. Enjoy some media recommendations that are not the worst movie of the 1959 nominees.

Episode 213: Separate Tables

Jul 07 2024 39 mins  
If we had a nickel for every time there was a film nominated for Best Picture in 1958 that was based on a play that dealt with the trauma of a man hiding his homosexuality in a post-WWII world, but rewrote the script so the gay character was straight in the film, we’d have 2 nickels. It’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Episode 212: Auntie Mame

Jun 19 2024 62 mins  
Rosalind Russel plays the titular aunt with delightful flair in this first adaptation of the best selling novel. A perfect balance of zany and clever, Auntie Mame is deceptively thoughtful, though not without some glaring failures at the Screen Test of Time.

Episode 211: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Mar 24 2024 42 mins  
Tennessee Williams hated this adaptation of his play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof so much that he went up to people standing in line for it and said, “This movie will set the industry back 50 years. Go home!” Our episode won’t do that, but we agree with him on the movie. It’s been awhile since we had a flick where the Hays Code made it completely pointless to even try, but rarely

Episode 210: The Defiant Ones

Feb 14 2024 50 mins  
Sidney Poitier makes his Screen Test of Time debut in this message movie, co-starring Tony Curtis, that's actually good. Two escaped chain gang convicts, one Black and one white, have to learn to work together to escape the law. Sounds like a simple, cheesy premise, but a nuanced story and incredible performances make this better than more recent movies with similar setups.

Episode 209: Gigi

Dec 30 2023 68 mins  
Split score alert! David and Suzan both hate and love the same things about Gigi, most of which boils down to Maurice Chevalier (the former) and everything else (the latter), but that doesn’t mean they weigh each equally. Ernst Lubitsch may be dead at this point in film history, but his influence is alive and kicking in old Maurice.

Episode 208: Witness for the Prosecution

Nov 23 2023 61 mins  
The final film of 1957, Witness for the Prosecution has it all: Murder! Intrigue! Humor! Marlene Dietrich! So it’s more than appropriate that this episode has it all: The cast of Westworld! The Sonic the Hedgehog, Pikachu, and Spider-Man films of the last few years! A first ever for the Screen Test of Time end of year choice! Enjoy this Thanksgiving Day release stuffed full of wa

Episode 207: Peyton Place

Nov 01 2023 49 mins  
The Hayes Code relaxed restrictions on certain issues related to sex the year before Peyton Place was released, and the filmmakers took that ball and ran with it. A melodrama that would go on to be a television soap opera, every plot point is as over-the-top and ridiculous as it possibly can be.