Back to Golden Days

I started this blog six years ago as a way to share my passion for classic films and the Old Hollywood era. I used to watch dozens of classic films every month, and every time I discovered a new star I liked I would go and watch their entire filmography. But somewhere along the way, that passion dimmed down. For instance, I watched 73 classic films in 2016, and only 10 in 2020. The other day, I found this film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that I had never heard of, and for some reason it made me really excited about Old Hollywood again. It made me really miss the magic of that era and all the wonderful actors and actresses that graced the silver screen. And it also made me think of all the reasons why I fell in love with classic films in the first place. I came up with 80 reasons, which I thought would be fun to share with you. Most of them are just random little scenes or quirky little quotes, but put them together and they spell Old Hollywood to me. Yesterday I posted part one ; here i...

Christmas has always been a source of inspiration to many artists and writers. Over the years, filmmakers have adapted various Christmas stories into both movies and television specials, which have become staples during the holiday season all around the world. Even though Christmas is my favourite holiday, I haven't watched a lot of Christmas films. Still, I thought it would be fun to rank my top 10 favourites, based on the ones that I have indeed seen. Here they are.    10. Holiday Affair (1949) Directed by Don Hartman, Holiday Affair tells the story of a young widow (Janet Leigh) torn between a boring attorney (Wendell Corey) and a romantic drifter (Robert Mitchum). She's engaged to be married to the boring attorney, but her son (Gordon Gebert) likes the romantic drifter better. Who will she choose? Well, I think we all know who she will choose. Holiday Affair is not by any means the greatest Christmas film of all time, but it's still a very enjoyable Yule-tide comed...

Directed by William Dieterle, I'll Be Seeing You (1944) tells the story of two strangers, Mary Marshall (Ginger Rogers) and Sergeant Zachary Morgan (Joseph Cotten), who meet while seated across from each other on a train bound for a town called Pine Hill. Mary is serving a six-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter and has been given a special eight-day furlough to spend the Christmas holidays with her closest relatives, Uncle Henry (Tom Tully), Aunt Sarah (Spring Byington) and free-spirited cousin Barbara (Shirley Temple). Zachary, a shell-shocked soldier, is on a ten-day leave from a psychiatric hospital to try to readjust to normal daily life. Naturally, neither one shares their secret with the other: Mary pretends that she is a travelling saleslady, while Zach claims he is going to visit his sister.   After the train pulls into the station, they exchange names and Mary takes a taxi to the Marshall home. Meanwhile, Zach checks into the local YMCA and telephones Mary...