The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The opening shot of Mario Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much encapsulates the the age of the jet set. It’s a bit like Roman Holiday…if Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn got caught up in a murder mystery.
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I Spit On Your Grave
Adaptations of books have a history of being derided by the author, but few are as dramatic an example as J’irai cracher sur vos tombes. Minutes into the premiere screening, the author dropped dead.
Read moreDiabolique: Of Harlots, Hays, and Harlow
I’m on Diabolique, writing about Jean Harlow’s lunatic psycho-sexual comedy Red-Headed Woman which, with just a tweak here and there, could have just as easily been a disturbing horror film.
Read moreDiabolique: Something Always Happens to Someone
It opens as any good film should: with a secret society of hooded criminals — the Crooked Circle — swearing allegiance to one another, to crime, to the occult, to pretty much anything evil they can think of.
Read moreDiabolique: The Shadow of Carmilla
On Diabolique: Carl Theodor Dreyer’s surreal 1932 horror film Vampyr, Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” and the early history of vampire fiction, including dastardly Lord Ruthven and hapless Varney.
Read moreDiabolique: One Slow Descent into Respectability
I’m on Diabolique once more, continuing to examine British culture through the lens of films in the BFI Flipside series. This time it’s The Pleasure Girls and a scandal that shook the British government.
Read moreDiabolique: Machine Made Dirt
On Diabolique: Beat Girl, Gillian Hills, go-go dancing, hip slang, seedy strip joints, teenage rebellion, and Oliver Reed in a checkered shirt.
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