Welcome, Classic Film Lovers!
Welcome to Sister Celluloid: Where Old Movies Go To Live! I’m so happy we found each other! Here, it’s all about classic films—and you! It’s a dialogue, not a monologue. Please take a look around, and jump in on every story that interests you. Stop by often, as I’ll be adding lots of great history, news, interviews, photos etc. And I’ll be running contests for fabulous prizes like vintage jewelry, great books and terrific DVDs and CDs! Please scroll through, dig in and pipe up! I’d love to hear from you!
How a Father Saved His Sick Little Girl, With a Little Help from the Knicks
During the Knicks’ magical playoff run, it felt like everyone in the city was at a watch party. Watching with friends in bars. With family hunkered down on the sofa. With strangers in the streets. But some of us—a lot of us, I think—were watching with ghosts.
One afternoon in 1968, as my father was fuming at a Knick game on TV, I casually asked him what ticked him off so bad. I don’t even think it was an actual question—more of a “Jeez, Dad, calm down!” kind of thing as I trudged through the living room on the way to the kitchen. But that was all it took for him to plunk me down beside him and school me in the art of setting screens, blocking out, posting up, playing defense with your feet (took me a while to figure that one out) and, maybe most important, keeping the ball moving and not standing around.
Earlier that year, in the third grade, I’d been diagnosed with a duodenal ulcer, and the pain often kept me up at night and out of school during the day. I was missing my friends and falling behind in class, which dialed up the stress, which worsened the pain, and on and on went the vicious cycle. My Dad was always looking for ways to pull me out of it—and he’d hit on a new one.
Tall, rangy and wicked-smart, he’d played basketball at St. Michael’s Diocesan High School and in the schoolyards of Sunset Park, and he could pick apart defenses and anticipate moves just as quickly watching games on television. It was like sitting with a coach, or even a psychic. “Keep an eye on that guy—he’s gonna cut!” and right on cue, he would.
The following spring, he took me to my first game at the Garden. Not a lot of little girls hanging around Penn Plaza in those days, but lots of sketchy guys in raincoats who looked like something out of a public-service ad about not talking to strangers. Some were shouting “Who’s selling?” and others, “Who needs tickets?” so I asked my Dad why they didn’t just get together. “No, hon, the buyers are really sellers,” he explained, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the safety of the lobby. Um, what? “They’re looking to pick up tickets cheap and resell them for more money.” And that’s how I learned the economics of scalping.
But the game itself was heaven. I remember stretching up from my bright-orange seat, looking down at the players practicing their shots, and thinking, “That’s them. That’s really them.” Willis Reed. Bill Bradley. Walt Frazier. Dave DeBusschere. Dick Barnett. Not just on the TV. Right there.
I was thrilled just to see what the inside of the Garden looked like, since home games were blacked out unless you had cable or satellite, which weren’t even available in Brooklyn. In 1970, we listened to the seventh game of the NBA Finals hunched around the big console radio in the dining room. (Just thinking about that makes me feel like a refugee from a LifeAlert commercial.) Everyone wondered if Willis Reed, my Dad’s favorite player, would make it onto the court after tearing his quadriceps in Game 5. “He’ll be there,” my Dad assured me. “If he can crawl, he’ll be there.” Another promise made and kept, as Reed hobbled out of the locker room and into legend that night.
Three years later, when the Knicks beat the Lakers a bit more handily in Los Angeles, we actually got to see the deciding game on TV! But oddly, the win I remember most was Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, after the Knicks had clawed back from a 3-1 deficit. Knicks-Celtics. Boston Garden. Winner take all. And me in my first grown-up outfit on Easter Sunday: pink linen skirt, matching sweater, white high heels and real stockings. The game went great, but the clothes quickly went to hell, which is where my mother said I’d go if I didn’t stop kneeling on the floor in front of the TV and ruining everything I had on. As I scooched around nervously, the nubby hardwood tore into my nylons and snagged little loops in the skirt. “It’s my fault,” my Dad shrugged. “I need to sand the damn floor.”
In 1974, the Celtics came back to knock us out of the Eastern Conference finals, and the following year brought a rude first-round exit. Then in 1976, the unthinkable: we didn’t even make the playoffs. My Dad, who’d suffered through so many losing seasons, threw his arm around my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t worry, hon, we’ll be back next year.” But it lacked his usual spark of conviction. He seemed worn down somehow, racked by a troubling cough he couldn’t seem to shake.
Two months later, he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. After surgery revealed the disease had spread, he spent most of the summer in the hospital. I’d walk the mile or so along the shore to visit him, and we’d watch the Mets, who were fading, or the Yankees, who were finally getting good. Though a National Leaguer at heart, he loved Thurman Munson, who reminded him of his all-time favorite player, Mel Ott.
Sometimes we’d look out the window at the water as the town prepped for the Bicentennial parade of ships. I didn’t care much about all the fuss; mostly I just wanted him home. I’d already organized his sock drawer and his ties (he was slightly color-blind) and straightened out his jumble of a nightstand.
His baggy hospital gown masked how thin and frail he’d become. But one night as I clasped his arm to kiss him goodbye, I realized I could almost close my hand around his wrist. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see he was wasting away, and quickly. I bought Bisquick so I could bulk him up with pancakes when he got better and came home.
Less than a week later, he was gone.
From the moment he was diagnosed, he knew his time was painfully short, and he must have felt his body failing more with each fleeting day. But he’d sit there next to me in his hospital room, watching the baseball games and the boats on the bay, as if every day was just another Saturday on the sofa. Not long after I lost him, I remembered how sometimes I’d turn away from whatever was on TV to see him studying my face, as if he were trying to remember it.
My Dad has been gone for fifty years now, four more than the stingy number of years he was given on this earth. Since then I’ve watched thousands of Knick games, and not one has gone by without me feeling he was right there beside me. He would have loved this team, with their smarts, their selflessness, and their lunch-pail work ethic, always playing with the passion of underdogs. Mostly he’d love that I’ve kept the faith for over half a century, remembering everything he taught me. For Game 5, I pulled out a bottle of champagne but didn’t dare chill it, for fear of jinxing us. And after the last Spurs shot clunked off the rim and the final seconds ticked away, I popped it open and raised a warm, bubbly glass. We did it, Dad. We finally did it.
Streaming Saturdays! A Blacklisted Writer Skewers Suburbia with NO DOWN PAYMENT
Welcome to another edition of STREAMING SATURDAYS, where we bring you free, fabulous films to watch right here, embedded at the bottom of the post!
This week’s movie is brought to you by… David Bowie. In 1967, responding to one of his first fan letters from the U.S., he wrote, “I hope one day to get to America. My manager tells me lots about it as he has been there many times with other acts he manages. I was watching an old film on TV the other night called No Down Payment, a great film, but rather depressing if it is a true reflection of The American Way Of Life.”
Indeed. The same year Peyton Place was stripping the gloss off suburbia, No Down Payment was stripping the gloss off Peyton Place. It’s a much grittier take on the kind of Sears-portrait lifestyle sold to millions of Americans in the years after the war.
Directed by Martin Ritt, No Down Payment peeks into the lives of four young families who bought into the dream of Sunset Hills, a subdivision of trim, tidy homes tucked into the flats of Southern California. The newest couple, David and Jean Martin (Jeffrey Hunter and Patricia Owens), are welcomed with a boozy barbecue by Betty and Herman Kreitzer (Barbara Rush and Pat Hingle), Troy and Leola Boone (Cameron Mitchell and Joanne Woodward), and Jerry and Isabelle Flagg (Tony Randall and Sheree North).
From there, it’s mostly a downhill slide for everyone. Turns out the Flaggs are deep in debt, as Jerry’s drinking has led him to slip up on the job; Jean is pressuring David, an electrical engineer, to take a more lucrative sales gig to cover their mounting bills and massive mortgage; and Herman is struggling with his conscience over his reluctance to promote his auper-qualified Japanese assistant, who’s counting on his boss to do the right thing. The Boones, meanwhile, are just an all-around mess: he’s a preening lech and a gun nut, and she’s desperately draping herself over anyone who seems remotely sympathetic. (She also wants to bring a baby into this train wreck.)
The cast is superb—Joanne Woodward earned a BAFTA nod and has called this her favorite of all the films she worked on—and Tony Randall and Sheree North are especially heartbreaking. If you’ve only seen Tony in comedies, he’ll amaze you here, especially since he’s still essentially the same affable guy, but achingly broken. (Years later, in “Hangover,” an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he essentially revives this character with tragic results.)
It’s somehow perfect that this scathing slice of suburban life was brought to the screen by a blacklisted writer: Ritt hated the original draft submitted by Philip Yordan, who’d adapted it from a paperback novel he’d commissioned from John McPartland, so Ben Maddow, who by then had been put out of work by the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC), did most of the heavy lifting on the script. (Ironically, the following year, Maddow appeared before HUAC and sang like Caruso.)
Oh and if you’re wondering why a film with a stellar cast and director has flown a bit under the radar, it’s because then-Fox studio head Spyros Skouras branded it leftist propaganda and all but killed it.
But now it’s here, and it’s yours.
STREAMING SATURDAYS is a semi-regular feature on Sister Celluloid. You can catch up on movies you may have missed by clicking here! And why not bookmark the page to make sure you never miss another?
A Thrilling Vera Miles Sighting! And a Link to One of Her (Too-Rare) Comedies
I’ve never been so excited to see someone taking out the garbage in my life. (At least I think what she’s doing here.)
This is Vera Miles, 95, absolutely killing it in Palm Springs in a lovely cotton ensemble and kicky hat to protect her from the sun, probably one reason she still looks great.
She’s always seemed like a private person, one who performed her scenes brilliantly on set and didn’t generate scenes elsewhere. And while she seems completely unruffled, I’m guessing whoever snapped this photo wasn’t invited to pop by and watch her perform mundane chores. So I feel guilty even reprinting it and loving it so much. But I have to admit I cried happy tears when I saw it. (Maybe you did too?)
Being a classic movie lover is the ultimate in unrequited love. Many of the stars we cherish were gone before we even saw their work and fell in love with them. And over the decades, watching them slip away has been one knife in the heart after another. I can honestly say I’ve cried longer and harder over many of them than I have over some <cough> family members.
And when I see a movie where someone is still with us, it’s such a warm, happy thrill, and an ever-rarer one. I wonder if they’re at home watching a movie too, or maybe just sunning (with a hat please!) in the garden or relaxing in the kitchen with a cuppa.
Or looking fabulous taking out the garbage.
I’ve always loved Vera Miles, and feel she never got her due as an actress. Being so absolutely natural was probably her biggest “flaw” as far as those dishing out the plaudits were concerned. As the saying goes, you get an Oscar not for the best acting but for the most acting.
She was the beating heart of The Searchers, and the quiet soul of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
She was absolutely devastating in The Wrong Man, especially wrenching because it was based on a true story. (Hitchcock also cast her in Vertigo, but she had to drop out when she became pregnant. I’ve often wondered how she would have approached that dual role.) And she was riveting as the desperately searching sister in Psycho, whose scream upon discovering the rocking chair in the fruit cellar will live through the ages. (I loved her cheeky nod to the film in her Columbo episode, when, wide-eyed, she coos to the detective, “I wouldn’t hurt a fly!”)
I could go on and on. (Have we met? Then you already know that.) But I’d like to share this little gem with you, one of her too-few opportunities at light comedy, A Touch of Larceny.
Directed by Guy Hamilton of James Bond fame (though he learned his craft at the elbow of Carol Reed, and even doubled for Orson Welles in several shots of The Third Man), it’s a deft, delightful little lark where our Miss Miles, in a series of Edith Head gowns, waltzes between two ardent and adorable suitors, George Sanders and James Mason. Oh my God if I were in her place, I would have kept flubbing my lines so the shoot would go on forever.
The whole movie is below; I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. And Brava, Vera Miles!
I
Summoning the Patron Saint of STFU at the Movies
Happy New Year to my classic movie family! May this year be better than the last (talk about setting a bar low), and may all good things come your way!
Yesterday afternoon, my husband Tim and I bid a relieved adieu to 2025 by going to see SONG SUNG BLUE, which was the perfect year-end cleanse. We got to the counter, chose our seats (there were only a handful taken), dropped our bulky coats, scarves, and sundry other baggage onto the seat next to mine and settled in with our popcorn. Soon after, two women who might have been played by Margaret Dumont and Kathleen Howard at their haughtiest bustled down the aisle and into our row. “You have to move these!” Margaret barked. What? Why? “We’re sitting here!” Honest to God there weren’t enough people in the whole theater to field a pickup softball team. And we’d picked our seats pretty much at random, since wherever we sat we’d have lots of space (or so we thought). It’s not like we’d hit some kind of magic lottery of movie seating that the whole town would want in on.
I shlepped everything from the seat next to me to the one next to Tim, and the two of them plopped down—with Margaret sending my bottled water, which was mercifully capped, spinning furiously in its little cubbyhole. Then the trailers began. And so did the talking. They chattered loudly over every one of them, as if what was on screen was just a minor impediment to their riveting conversation. “Okay fine, it’s just the trailers,” I told myself. “Maybe they’ll stop when the movie starts.”
But… no. The yammering bled right into the opening scene. I already kind of loathed them, so I reminded myself to stay calm. Then, just as it does in the movies, an inspiration flashed before me: Liam Neeson in TAKEN.
Without raising my voice, I summoned every ounce of menace I had in me and growled, “Okay this is where the talking STOPS. You’re not in your freakin’ living room.” They sort of froze and looked at each other, appalled. (Did I hear a harrumph? I believe I may have). And then… utter, blissful silence. At which point a guy somewhere behind us, in a voice usually reserved for the Knicks making a three-point buzzer-beater, cried “YES!”
The bombastic biddies spoke not another word for the rest of the movie.
I should add that I’m not one of those movie nazis who erupts when people make passing comments during a film or quickly catch someone up on the plot if they’d stepped out to the restroom. But these two were… not that. And it is my fervent wish that anyone trapped next to them in the future summon St. Liam of Neeson to be their savior.
Calling All Romantics… A Mystery from the 1939 World’s Fair, Solved! (Well, Mostly)
Recently I stumbled onto a haunting old mystery I just had to share with my hopelessly romantic classic movie family.
In one of the few real bookstores left in New York, I was riffling through boxes of old postcards, looking for any from the 1939 World’s Fair, which I’m mildly obsessed with. I found one with a note on the back—from a woman to her brother, about a secret love affair. Sensing I’d come in on the middle of the story, I needed to know more! So I dug through every single box and pulled out every postcard from the Fair, and then asked if they had any more in the back. After sneezing my way through stacks of dusty boxes, I found a total of nine from the same woman!
These were never sent as postcards; there are no stamps or cancellations. But Ann must have mailed them to John, perhaps in envelopes to conceal their contents—because in one, she mentions hearing that he broke his leg in a polo match, and how that would explain why she didn’t hear back from him.
John’s address is on one of them—and it’s in Beacon Hill. So they were society types. But Douglas, her secret love, lived in Winthrop, then a working-class fishing village.
Here is Ann’s story:
Dear John,
I’m in love it’s as simple as that and it’s one of the greatest things God intended us to have and to cherish. His name is Douglas and his eyes are blue.
Love, Ann
Dear John,
I met him again today and for the first time I realized his eyes were blue. Robin eggs blue. Let’s eat today at the most wonderful place in New York. Where’s that I asked. He shook his head, I don’t know but we will find it and I knew we would.
Love, Ann
Dear John,
What will mother think when she knows that her Ann has fallen for a man that never has appeared in the society column. Oh John we must never tell her.
Love, Ann
Dear John,
It rained to-day and so we went to the movies and saw Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur in “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.” Douglas asked me to supper so I’ll have an awful lot to tell you.
Love, Ann
Dear John,
Mother arrived last night on one of her surprise trips. Of course Doug had to be with me. She wanted to know who he was and he didn’t care a damn who she was and said so. Oh come, I need you.
Love, Ann
Dear John,
Douglas has gone and I don’t know where he lives in Winthrop and besides I’m not so sure he went home. I must find him but mother watches me like a hawk.
Love, Ann
Dear John,
If you could only come and help me find him for now I realize I would never let mother stand in the way of our happiness but first I must find him.
Dear John,
I heard you broke your leg in a polo game. No wonder you couldn’t help me. Well John I visited the fair. I saw him but was unable to reach him. Perhaps I will see him again. It is my one last hope for tomorrow I leave with mother.
Love, Ann
Dear John,
I’ve seen him at last. He said for me to go home and that in August I must go to [she gives his address] and there I may see him and we will talk about what lies ahead for us two.
Love, Ann
There, maddeningly, is where the story ended—and the search began. I had the brother’s address and last name (a frustratingly common one), and Doug’s address, with no last name. I assume Mr. Deeds Goes to Town was re-released in sometime in 1939. (I thought maybe she meant Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but that didn’t open until October.) So the movie reference didn’t give me much of a clue about when the postcards were sent. But Boston’s polo season starts in late May, so I’m guessing they were sent in June; if it were July, wouldn’t she have said “next month” instead of “in August”? That means Ann endured an agonizing couple of months to wait to see Doug again. What happened when she did?
He pored over Ancestry.com. He plowed into the Boston society pages on Newspaper.com. He dug and dug through all kinds of records, and now I know more about Ann than I know about my own family.
But first, the bad news about Douglas.
Dear Reader, she didn’t marry him.
STREAMING SATURDAYS! Peter Cushing in CASH ON DEMAND, the Christmas Sleeper You Didn’t Know You Needed
Welcome to another edition of STREAMING SATURDAYS, where we bring you free, fabulous films to watch right here!
Imagine if Ebenezer Scrooge were scared straight not by four ghosts but by a criminal mastermind who utterly beguiled Bob Cratchit. That’s pretty much the set-up in CASH ON DEMAND, a woefully overlooked Hammer classic from 1961.
Two days before Christmas, a genial man calling himself Colonel Gore-Hepburn (André Morell) strides into a small Haversham bank, claiming to be an insurance inspector. He’s quickly ushered to the office of the branch manager, Harry Fordyce (Peter Cushing), who’s so tense and brittle it’s a wonder Hepburn’s hearty handshake doesn’t snap him in half. But once the door closes behind them, he reveals he’s the ringleader of a gang of thieves who are holding Fordyce’s wife and son hostage—and demands help in stealing £93,000 to guarantee their safety.
Meanwhile the unsuspecting staff are preparing to make merry out on the shop floor—or as merry as they can with a petty little prig like Fordyce as their boss. Gore-Hepburn pops out every so often to ask for their help with the books, but also asks after their families and Christmas plans and generally becomes the life of their sad little party. His mood hardens when he’s alone with Fordyce, threatening him with the awful fate that awaits his wife if he doesn’t cooperate.
Cushing is brilliant as the cold, dry little bureaucrat, pinching his lips into a straight line and peering icily over his glasses. Even his cheekbones seem sharper than usual. Here was his chance to shake off the tweedy deerstalker caps, capes and waistcoats that marked most of his tenure at Hammer (fabulous though it was, including a turn as Sherlock Holmes with Morell as Dr. Watson), and he makes the most of it. And Morell is terrific as the glad-handing bank robber who cares more about the staff than their actual boss does.
The film takes some delicious twists and turns that I won’t spoil here, so settle in for a very Hammer Christmas!
STREAMING SATURDAYS is a semi-regular feature on Sister Celluloid. You can catch up on movies you may have missed by clicking here! And why not bookmark the page to make sure you never miss another?
TINTYPE TUESDAY: When Hollywood Publicity Shots… Go Wrong! (But Feel So Right)
Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY!
In today’s episode, we salute those relentlessly cheery classic-era flacks, who churned out whimsical publicity pix that gave you no clue what the movie was actually about. These are some of my faves; please feel free to drop your own pix in Comments and I’ll fold them in (with credit, of course)!
Who can forget that wacky rom-com The Set-Up, where Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter are set up for fun! Watch it, Bob, you may have been a champion boxer at Dartmouth, but Audrey’s got a mean uppercut! Maybe stick to jumping rope instead. Whatever the sport, these two are fit… for laughs!
Running from shadowy figures in fedoras gives Burt Lancaster quite a workout in The Killers! Gamely keeping pace is his wholesome, faithful gal Ava Gardner. Looks like he’s got a lot of fun on his hands—literally!
Billy Wilder turns his hand to musicals with Sunset Boulevard! Here Nancy Olson pops open a brolly and twirls around a lamppost as she sings in the rain—leave it to Billy to come up with an idea too daring to copy! No doubt our plucky songbird will soon find fair weather, clad in that adorable wrapper. I see a man in her future—and a mansion! Maybe even a swimming pool!
Who’s got time for medical gobbledygook when Bogie and his occasional brogue pop by? Surely there are nothing but magically delicious days ahead for Bette and Geraldine!
“Shhh, don’t tell her what I got her!” pleads Gene Kelly as he and Deanna Durbin plan for a soothing, romantic Christmas Holiday. Nothing but merriment under the tree for this fun-loving pair!
You can just tell from their glowing faces that these lucky lovebirds are sailing smoothly through their “court” ship! Their biggest problem? Too much sun in their eyes!
Uh-oh, Jimmy has double trouble with the Novak twins! Looks like the brunette has her eyes (and eyebrows!) on him! Luckily his steady girl is standing by, and surely he’ll appreciate her wit, charm and brains. Either way, any girl who meets our hero will come out the better for it. He’s not at all creepy!
How will Jack “palance” these two lovely ladies? Fasten your seatbelts for a fun romantic tussle between Ida Lupino and Jean Hagen! The Big Knife will cut the wedding cake for one lucky gal!
Alfred Hitchcock insists that no one be admitted to Psycho after the start of the film… because he doesn’t want them to miss the splashy opening number! So which spunky, oddly kerchiefed maiden will reach the top of the ladder for Tony? Only his mother knows for sure!
Some publicity shots weren’t so much misleading as just… odd. Here’s Joan Crawford grooming Roland Young like a gibbon between scenes of They All Kissed the Bride (watch the full movie here).
Actually the best shots from this film were of Allen Jenkins and Joan (who started as a dancer) jitterbugging. Never as sure of her comic chops as she should have been, Joan reluctantly stepped into the lead of a screwball vehicle tailored for Carole Lombard, who had been killed in a plane crash just two months earlier while on a war bond drive. Joan donated her entire $125,000 salary to the Red Cross, and fired her agent when he refused to kick in his ten percent. (PS: Louis B. Mayer also felt no need to part with any of the fee MGM collected from Columbia for loaning Joan out.)
But when it comes to dancing, Joan has nothing on… Jimmy Stewart and Lew Ayres? Here’s a pub shot for the ages from The Ice Follies of 1939, where our two heroes gamely fight (and skate!) to see who has less chemistry with Crawford. You might think the movie couldn’t be as bad as the photo, but an excruciating hour and a half later you’d change your mind.
Think that photo is the strangest in the lot? Colin Clive, seen here jauntily strolling out of a random field, says “Hold my beer!” Nothing screams “farm life” like an ascot and double-breasted suit. I’ve seen every one of Colin’s films and have no idea what this photo was connected to. But it seems an appropriate note to end on. At least for now…
TINTYPE TUESDAY is a semi-regular feature on Sister Celluloid, with fabulous classic movie pix (and backstory!) to help you make it to Hump Day! For previous editions, just click here—and why not bookmark the page, to make sure you never miss one?
STREAMING SATURDAYS! Noir Drops the Hammer in HELL IS A CITY
Welcome to another edition of Streaming Saturdays, where we embed a free, fun movie for you to watch right here!
From 1960, it’s HELL IS A CITY, directed by Val Guest, who also adapted the screenplay from Maurice Procter’s novel of the same name. Blurring the line between noir and the burgeoning British New Wave, the fast-paced crime drama was shot entirely in working-class Manchester, lending it a grittiness that sets it apart from the sleeker, more stylized detective films that would come to mark the decade.
At its center is Stanley Baker (Inspector Harry Martineau), in his second and last film for Hammer before his fame outpaced their budgets. If you want to see what a superstar on the verge looks like, just spend a quick ninety minutes with him here. (Bonus points for the fact that he’s always reminded me of my movie husband, Rod Taylor.)
The supporting cast isn’t too shabby either, with Donald Pleasence as a mousy, bespectacled accountant who is somehow married to Billie Whitelaw, a mystery that could take up a whole nother film. Also fun is Vanda Godsell as a blowsy barmaid who harbors a hankering for Harry—well not so much harbors as lets it loose all over town.
The plot is fairly typical—an especially nasty crook has been sprung from prison, with scores to settle and loot to recover. But everything about the film feels vibrant. Click below and enjoy!
STREAMING SATURDAYS is a semi-regular feature on Sister Celluloid. You can catch up on movies you may have missed by clicking here! And why not bookmark the page to make sure you never miss another?
For Donna Hill, With Love and Gratitude
On the last Friday of the year, Donna Hill said goodnight to her beloved William, who may have been right there beside her, or maybe he was in his little heated bed, or in the velvet wingchair with the brocade pillow, in the living room lined with lovingly framed posters and portraits of stars gone by.
And then Donna went to sleep for the last time, setting off waves of grief from all corners of the classic film world.
Donna had struggled with diabetes for years, but rarely spoke of it. She’d much rather talk about Rudolph Valentino, about whom she wrote the best book of all the ones out there, capturing the romantic soul that so matched her own. Or Dorothy Gish, the subject of the bio she was working on, whose photos she loved to collect. Or Renata Tebaldi, the soprano she adored above all others. She’d rather help other writers and historians by sharing her encyclopedic insights into silent film—which were so extensive that even Kevin Brownlow sometimes tapped her brain for information. And like Kevin, she was always breezy and generous, never show-offy or stuffy.
In the past few days, with eyes bleary from tears, I’ve probably read every tribute out there, as other grieving members of the film community shared their stories about Donna. Pretty much all of them have one word in common: kindness. My memories are no different.
Donna was one of the first people I spoke with after losing my Mom. It was during the pandemic, and she was working from home, but still very much working—she always seemed a little swamped. I kept interrupting our call to say, “You know, I understand if you need to get back to work…” and she’d insist she had all the time in the world. After a long talk that I dearly needed, I finally took the initiative to ring off, knowing she’d have stayed on all day otherwise, just to be there for me.
She was always there in other ways too. When I was struggling to write a tribute piece on Norm Macdonald, afraid I wouldn’t do him justice and would unleash a horde of his passionate fans, Donna talked me through it. Not in a rah-rah, you-got-this kind of way, but with genuine compassion and understanding, along with some motherly prodding. It got to the point where I was more concerned about disappointing Donna than angering any rabid Macdonald fans.
With Donna, I also learned not to admire anything out loud, lest she send it off to me. I swooned when she posted a portrait of Robert Montgomery, only to find it on my front porch in a well-padded envelope the following week. When I scoped out the final season of Endeavour—a series we both loved—on a European website months before it was due to air in the US, I sent her the links, and she responded by sending me a full set of Endeavour DVDs. I posted a 1940s brooch my husband had bought for me, and she sent me a lovely celluloid heart pin from the same era.
Very few people on earth are as kind as Donna was. But to find someone that kind who was also funny and goofy is pretty much a miracle. We were both in love with the soapy and fabulous Rome Adventure, being sure to alert each other whenever it was due to show up on television, and we shared a daydream about opening a bookstore in Italy like the one Constance Ford ran, or maybe just going to work at hers since we loved her character. (Donna was thrilled to learn that my Dad had known Ford through his work and that she was just as great a broad in real life.)
We also talked about going to a Giants baseball game with Cari Beauchamp (Cari and I used to count down the days till pitchers and catchers reported to camp), and we cried on the phone together when we lost Cari.
But I’m so glad Donna had so many adventures of her own, including the silent film festival in Pordenone, for which she had saved and planned for so long. By the time her most recent visit rolled around, she of course had already made friends with pretty much all the regular attendees, and half her luggage was taken up with DVDs and other film bits and pieces she was bringing along as gifts. And she had scoped out the best place for gelato.
Her only pang of sadness on the trip was being away from her beloved William, named after William Powell. She asked the pet sitter to send her videos of him, though they only seemed to make her miss him more. From the time she adopted him last February, she posted pictures of him almost daily, and you could feel the love pouring through the screen. Just last month, amid Christmas greetings, she called him the best gift she’d ever received. He is being adopted into a safe, loving home, though it will be hard for anyone to match the mom who adored him so.
I watched The Bishop’s Wife for the zillionth time last week, and at one point the professor says Julia is one of those rare people who can make a heaven here on earth. So was Donna. To have her as a friend, or to know her at all, in person or otherwise—it just made your life so much better.
As midnight rang in 2025, I cried at the thought of going into the new year without her, and cursed the old year for snatching her away.
I hope all of us who were Donna’s friends try to do a little better, be a little kinder, carry her spirit with us. But I just can’t escape the fact that she should still be here, sharing whatever this year brings, good or bad or scary, and planning and saving for her next trip to Pordenone.
The last time I spoke with Donna, a couple of weeks ago, she mentioned she hadn’t put up a tree for fear it would be too tempting for William. I suggested she put some of her favorite vintage ornaments, which she’d been collecting for decades, into bowls on the table. “I may do that, until I figure out how to make it work with a tree,” she said. “Maybe next year.”
Can We Save TCM? Will This Movie Have a Happy Ending?
You head outside on a winter’s day with 90 percent of your body covered, but suddenly it’s 20 percent. Think you’d notice? You were making $90,000 a year yesterday but $20,000 a year today. Think you’d notice? Your bathroom was 90 square feet yesterday but 20 square feet today. Think you’d notice?
And yet Warner Bros. Discovery pats frantic TCM viewers on the head and says there will be “no discernible difference” after slashing the staff size from 90 to 20 and axing the entire leadership team. The only thing missing was sending us to bed with a warm glass of milk.
“We remain fully committed to this business, the TCM brand, and its purpose to protect and celebrate culture-defining movies,” cooed chairwoman and chief content office Kathleen Finch in a press release. Uh-huh. And Gregory Anton is a loving and devoted husband.
We’ve also been assured that the TCM hub will remain on the Max streaming service. Right now that includes 561 films out of the roughly 130,000 titles TCM has at its fingertips. I feel better already!
CEO David Zaslav has made a great show of his love for film history—claiming he has TCM on in the background all day from his perch behind Jack Warner’s desk, celebrating 100 years of Warner Bros. at the recent TCM Film Festival, and generally saying all the right things to reporters. (One recently banged out a long Twitter thread to claim, with horror and shock, that she now feels she was lied to. Really? A CEO was less than frank with you? You don’t say!)
Zaslav is not only a total corporate weasel but really, really bad at his actual job. WBD’s stock price has nosedived under his “leadership,” and supposed blockbusters like The Flash have bombed. And I’m guessing its CGI line alone probably rivals the entire annual budget for TCM, which is barely a blip of the $37 billion for the company overall. Zaslav slashing TCM’s staff is like a zillionaire losing big at the craps table and deciding to skip his mum’s birthday present this year to make up for it.
He is the classic example of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing. Here’s a clip of the stunning “Forgotten Man” number that closes Gold Diggers of 1933. Leaving aside the brilliant Joan Blondell and Etta Moten, cast your eyes on any of the extras—the soldiers marching along, the women reaching out to them. Every single one of them has contributed more to our culture in this one scene than Zaslav has in his entire fecking useless life. But not content to merely create nothing, he’s actively destroying, minimizing or rendering invisible the work of others, threatening to erase a critical part of our shared cultural heritage and stored memory bank.
Remember the line in Pygmalion when Eliza is warned to avoid thorny topics and stick to the weather and everyone’s health? My Mom and I, who locked horns often, usually focused on music and old movies—and TCM looms large in my memories of her. Hours and days and years of sitting on the sofa next to her, the glow of the black and white as soft and soothing as Christmas lights.
And when her sister Ruth, who once had a life-changing encounter with Van Johnson, developed dementia, we’d spend long afternoons watching musicals on TCM. By then she’d forgotten who I was but something clicked when she saw Judy Garland. One day she nodded and tapped her knees to the beat as I sang along to “The Trolley Song,” matching Judy’s every sway and swoon in a number I knew by heart. Just then her home aide walked in, and from that day on I was known as “the clang-clang lady.”
TCM is not just a vital keeper of our cultural flame. It’s part of our lives and our most cherished memories, often of those we’ve lost. Zaslav’s duty is to keep the torch burning and pass it along—not to burn bridges with it.
Sister Celluloid 
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