1951’s ‘An American in Paris’ brings French charm and superb dance to the screen

Directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by Arthur Freed, An American in Paris dazzles audiences with its charm and its magnificent production numbers.

Gene Kelly plays Jerry Mulligan, a former GI who finds himself involved with two women while trying to succeed as a painter in Paris. Further complicating the situation, the woman that Jerry truly loves (Leslie Caron) is also in a relationship with another man, unbeknownst to Jerry.

As with any musical, the songs and dances provide some of the best moments in An American in Paris. The film features classic jazz standards written by George Gershwin, such as ‘S Wonderful and I Got Rhythm. These numbers highlight Kelly’s legendary expertise at dance. Kelly’s pure athleticism, precision and grace shine in both fast-paced tap numbers such as I Got Rhythm and in lyrical, romantic couple dances such as Our Love Is Here to Stay. I Got Rhythm spotlights an unexpected combination of adorable children and Kelly’s athletic tap dancing. Our Love Is Here to Stay captures the hearts of romantics everywhere as Kelly and Caron dance on the banks of the Seine.

Set to Gershwin’s musical composition An American in Paris, the colorful ballet sequence chronicling the relationships between Jerry, Lisa and the city of Paris is undoubtedly the highlight of the film. The vibrant sets mimic the styles of different painters and also help to show how the romanticism of Paris influences Jerry and Lisa’s relationship. The timing of this sequence at a turning point in the relationship adds a special poignancy. The sequence also showcases both Kelly and Caron’s talents for dancing. Leslie Caron makes a perfect dance partner for Kelly by completely matching his skill. Their dances together, although extremely complex, appear effortless.

Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron in the ballet sequence

Filmed in Technicolor, An American in Paris captures the charm of 1950s Paris. The beautiful, old streets and sidewalk cafés form a perfect backdrop for the love story of Jerry and Lisa. The film features many famous landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower and Sacré Cœur. Because of the film’s heavy reliance on location, the fact that most of An American in Paris was filmed in Hollywood often comes as a surprise. At the time, even French movies set in Paris hardly ever filmed there. Some establishing shots of “An American in Paris” were filmed in Paris, but the main action was filmed at MGM. The set designers literally had to create the city that would form the soul of the film.

An American in Paris is available on Xfinity On Demand, Blu-ray and DVD. Have you ever seen a Gene Kelly musical? Please comment below!

‘The Letter’ features excellent cinematography and interesting portrayal of evil

Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actress and Best Director, William Wyler’s 1940 film The Letter stands out for its cinematography and its portrayal of evil.

On a rubber plantation near Singapore, a planter’s wife named Leslie Crosbie (Bette Davis) confesses to killing a family friend because of self-defense. The situation turns when a letter Leslie wrote on the day of the murder completely undermines Leslie’s account of events, suggesting an affair between Leslie and the man she killed. Leslie convinces her lawyer (James Stephenson) to resort to deception to win the case.

All of the characters in The Letter are either flawed to begin with or end up losing their innocence due to Leslie’s and her lawyer’s deception. Leslie’s lawyer Joyce appears to have very high moral standards when we first meet him. He eventually agrees to buy the letter from the wife of the murdered family friend because Leslie convinces him that the alternative will destroy Leslie’s husband, a good friend of Joyce’s. Throughout the film Joyce struggles with reconciling his conscience with his deception. Another flawed character, Joyce’s secretary seems passionate about finding information on the case but, in truth, only cares because he will get cash for his labors. Leslie’s husband spends most of the movie in naïve bliss, thinking that Leslie could never possibly do anything wrong, but even he eventually loses his innocence. Leslie herself represents almost pure evil, but somehow the audience still manages to root for her. The absence of any “good” character provides an atmosphere of cynicism that carefully examines the dark side of human nature.

Wyler uses shadows of window blinds similarly to Alfred Hitchcock’s use of windowpane shadows in Suspicion. In the moments where Leslie feels particularly vulnerable, shadows from the blinds appear on the wall and across her face like bars on a cage. The effect first appears in an early scene where Leslie worries about having to go to jail before the trial. In an important scene later in the film, Wyler uses this effect along with having Davis sit on a striped couch to amplify the amount of prison-like lines, effectively showing Leslie’s intense fear of possible imprisonment and execution.

The ending of the film was changed from the ending of the play during production because all films had to meet certain moral rules in order for theaters to agree to show them. Some of the rules were similar to guidelines for film ratings today, such as the occurrence of profanity. However, other rules were much stricter than any of today’s rules and focused more on the overall message and tone of films. For example, clergy could not be portrayed as villains and stories focusing on revenge were discouraged. The Hays office, the office in charge of these rules, thought the ending for the play of The Letter broke the rule against allowing evil to win, so the entire ending of the film had to be changed.

The Letter is available on Xfinity On Demand, DVD, and the Netflix DVD mail service. What are your favorite films where no character is “good?” Please comment below!

Screwball comedy ‘Nothing Sacred’ an innovative satire

A screwball satire of the media, 1937’s Nothing Sacred brims with high-quality acting and cinematography to make a truly delightful and classic film.

Newspaper reporter Wally Cook, played by Fredric March, tries to win the approval of his boss by covering the New York City visit of a beautiful young woman named Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) supposedly dying of radium poisoning. As the entire city becomes obsessed with pitying Hazel, Hazel wins the heart of Wally. Unbeknownst to everyone but Hazel and her small-town doctor, Hazel is actually faking her illness. Hilarity ensues as Hazel tries to hide her well being from a slew of doctors and from Wally.

Fredric March and Carole Lombard in “Nothing Sacred”

Named as one of the greatest actresses of all time by the American Film Institute, Carole Lombard’s extreme skill at screwball comedy helped to define the genre and greatly influenced other actresses such as Lucille Ball. Lombard’s playfully innocent acting and fast-paced but relaxed delivery brings Hazel Flagg to life and makes Nothing Sacred special. Lombard manages to create an extremely sympathetic character despite the fact that Hazel deceives thousands for personal gain.

Director William Wellman inventively uses cinematography to provide some of the laughs in the film by placing objects in strange places in relation to the actors and the camera, sometimes even concealing the actors. This effect is used in different ways multiple times in the film and works beautifully.

Remarkable for a 1930s film, Nothing Sacred was filmed entirely in full color. It used a process called three-strip Technicolor, the same color process famously used in The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind two years later. Three-strip Technicolor was the earliest feasible process that produced a full spectrum of colors. It was first used in 1933 in a Disney short and was not used for feature films until 1935, just two years before Nothing Sacred was filmed. In the early days of three-strip Technicolor, few studios were willing to use the process because of its extreme expense and because the process required intense lighting and cumbersome cameras. The extra effort and expense definitely paid off in Nothing Sacred; 1930s New York shines beautifully in the brilliant Technicolor.

As Nothing Sacred examines the flaws of journalism and mass media, it also, when viewed by modern audiences, unwittingly examines the flaws of 1930s American culture and its insensitivity to and mistreatment of minorities and women. A few gags reflect these old ideas and can make modern audiences cringe for good reason. Ironically, as none of the characters in the film are without fault, the film itself is not without fault, making the title apply to the film itself as well as the industries it meant to critique. However, in spite of its flaws, Nothing Sacred still manages to win over audiences with its humor and charm, much like its main character, Hazel Flagg.

Nothing Sacred is available on Netflix streaming, Amazon Instant Prime streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD. Please watch it and comment below!

Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ known for huge scale and lasting influence

Originally released in 1927, director Fritz Lang’s German silent masterpiece Metropolis has influenced countless other films with its classic images of mad scientists, robots and futuristic societies’ exploiting the poor.

In a dystopian future, the rich live lifestyles of pleasure and plenty in an enormous city built and governed by a dictatorial man. The city’s electricity comes from enormous underground machines that require brutal physical labor from the poor who live underground. The strict class divide of the city begins to crumble when Maria, a prophetess from the underclass played by Brigitte Helm, brings a message of human equality to the leader’s son Freder, played by Gustav Frölich. Freder takes up Maria’s cause wholeheartedly. Meanwhile, the leader of the city enlists the help of the scientist Rotwang to build a robot to impersonate Maria and influence the workers.

Rotwang’s robot

As one of the earliest science fiction films, Metropolis helped to establish the genre and continues to influence films to this day. The character of Rotwang in particular helped to introduce the “mad scientist” image, and the scene in which he changes the robot’s appearance to look like Maria actually inspired a famous scene in another highly influential film, Bride of Frankenstein. The appearance of C-3PO in Star Wars was actually based on the Art Deco design of Rotwang’s robot.

Even more recent films still owe much to Metropolis. I noted similarities to The Hunger Games in how the rich live lavish lifestyles in a large city. The elaborate and overdone costumes of the upper class in the scene where Maria first meets Freder remind me of the costumes of the people living in the Capitol of Panem.

Metropolis is also famous for its enormous scale and technological innovations. The film employed literally thousands of extras. The city itself was actually a miniature scale model of skyscrapers and overpasses. As techniques to film actors against a separate piece of background footage had not been developed enough to be practical, Lang used mirrors with parts of the reflective surface scraped off to achieve the effect that the actors were inside the miniature city. Surprisingly, this effect still looks quite believable today.

However, some of Lang’s methods to achieve realism in the film went too far. Lang insisted on using real fire for a particular scene despite the fact that actors were required to be in close proximity to the flames. One actress’ skirt even caught on fire. Lang was also a huge perfectionist and demanded an abnormally large number of takes for some scenes. Whereas filming usually lasts anywhere from a few weeks to two or three months, Metropolis took an entire year to film.

Many films of Metropolis’ era have been lost either by purposeful destruction by the studio or though film decay or vault fires. Because of decay and the simple fact that films took up multiple reels that could be stored separately, sometimes only parts of films have survived to the present day. Metropolis was not spared this fate as 30 minutes of footage, including some important scenes, were considered lost until 2008 when a complete but decaying copy of the film was found in Argentina. Now only two minor scenes are missing from the film due to the fact that those scenes were too badly decayed to preserve on the Argentinean copy.

Metropolis is available on Hulu and Netflix as well as DVD and Blu-ray. Two different versions are available on Netflix. Metropolis Restored contains the surviving footage from the Argentinean copy and the original 1927 orchestral score, while Georgio Moroder Presents Metropolis does not have the extra footage and features 1980s pop music instead of a traditional silent film score. Have you ever seen an older movie that you think has influenced newer movies? Please comment below!  

Hitchcock thriller ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ combines a riveting plot with stellar performances

Made in 1956 during the heart of Alfred Hitchcock’s directing career, “The Man Who Knew Too Much” showcases the director’s style as well as the acting styles of its stars.

While on vacation in Morocco with their young son Hank, Dr. and Mrs. McKenna, played by James Stewart and Doris Day, find themselves in the middle of their worst nightmare. Dr. McKenna, played by James Stewart, receives important information about an assassination plot from a dying French spy whom the McKennas had previously met by chance on a bus. Dr. McKenna’s knowledge of this information causes the assassins to kidnap Hank on the condition that Dr. McKenna tell no one about the information. As the McKennas travel to London to search for their son they unintentionally become involved with preventing the assassination.

Stewart and Day play a married couple from Indianapolis and act like very average Americans. As opposed to the sinister husband and blue-blooded wife from Hitchcock’s “Suspicion,” the married couple in “The Man Who Knew Too Much” act like an average American family.

With a film career spanning from the 1930s to the 1990s, James Stewart became famous for playing the all-American everyman in such films as “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” and “It’s A Wonderful Life.” No stranger to Hitchcock, Stewart starred in classics such as “Rear Window” and “Vertigo.” His acting style is different from those of other actors of his day in its honest realism that feels very contemporary.

In “The Man Who Knew Too Much” Stewart expertly conveys the bewilderment and fear of a father in the precarious situation of having information about an imminent assassination while at the same time trying to find his young son who has been kidnapped by the assassins. The desperation and utter heartbreak of the character come though his voice as he negotiates with intelligence agencies and with the abductors themselves.

Although primarily known as a singer, Doris Day gives a magnificent dramatic performance in this film. Her wonderful onscreen chemistry with James Stewart helps to create the feel of a typical American married couple. Day skillfully portrays a mother living in a nightmare once tragedy strikes. The moment when she learns her son has been kidnapped and moans hysterically for her “baby” is one of the more disturbing moments in Hitchcock films.

Day’s singing talents were worked in to the plot of the film as Jo McKenna often sings to her son Hank. The song they sing together at the beginning of the film, “Que Sera, Sera,” appears later on in a very tense scene. In this second scene, Day lets her intense fear and worry show through her voice as she sings a seemingly happy and carefree song.

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” is actually a remake of a film Hitchcock made in England in the 1930s with the same title. The remake does not follow the original film exactly as the original film opens in Switzerland instead of Marrakech and the child is a girl named Betty instead of a boy named Hank. Hitchcock felt that the 1956 version was of better quality because he had gained experience and become a better director by the 1950s.

If you want to experience a true masterpiece in acting, writing and directing, watch “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” It is available on DVD, Xfinity On Demand and Blu-ray; just make sure that the copy is of the 1956 version in color, not the 1934 version in black-and-white. What is your favorite Hitchcock film? Please comment below!

‘Bringing Up Baby’ provides lots of laughs and leopards

The 1938 fast-paced screwball comedy “Bringing Up Baby,” starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant and directed by Howard Hawks, is filled with laughs from beginning to end.

Cary Grant stars as a zoologist named David who specializes in dinosaur fossils and becomes entangled in the ridiculous antics of a young heiress named Susan (Katharine Hepburn) and her pet leopard, Baby. When the leopard goes missing, David and Susan must track it down before it causes any damage and before Susan’s relatives find out.

Hepburn and Grant’s performances are what truly stand out in this film. The two legendary stars play off of each other very nicely. They just look like they were truly having fun playing those roles. In fact, one particular scene took hours to film simply because Grant and Hepburn kept making each other laugh!

Katharine Hepburn creates the most memorable character in the film by far in her portrayal of Susan. She perfectly channels a character who is incredibly hyper but at the same time very laid-back. She makes her already comedic lines even funnier by her superb delivery. Although Hepburn’s characterization is definitely her own, it still vaguely reminds me of the acting style of Carole Lombard, another great actress in screwball comedies of the day.

Cary Grant plays an entirely different character than his role in “Suspicion.” Instead of a suave murderer, Grant abandons all sophistication and plays a nerdy, bespectacled scientist who seemingly just wants to live a quiet life filled with dinosaur fossils and scientific research. In contrast to Hepburn’s character’s almost ditzy personality and knack for getting into outrageous situations, Grant’s scientist provides a voice of logic and reason and is a perfect foil for Hepburn’s heiress.

Although “Bringing Up Baby” is considered today to be one of the best screwball comedies of all time and was ranked No. 14 of the 100 greatest comedies of all time by the American Film Institute, in 1938 the film was panned by the New York Times and failed at the box office. After the film’s poor release, both director Howard Hawks and Katharine Hepburn lost their contracts with the studio. Although Katharine Hepburn had been in Hollywood for a few years and had already won an Academy Award, she had not found her niche yet, and several of her films made in the late 1930s were unsuccessful. These films combined with the failure of “Bringing Up Baby” caused a theater owner to add her to a list of stars labeled “box-office poison.” Hit hard, Hepburn’s career took two years to recover from the effects of this list.

“Bringing Up Baby” is available on Xfinity On Demand, DVD and Blu-ray. If you are in for a night of pure laughs, watch this film! Have you seen any films with Cary Grant or Katharine Hepburn? Please comment below!

‘Casablanca’- A man, a woman and a war

Set and filmed during World War II, Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca remains one of the greatest romances and propaganda films of all time.

As No. 2 on the American Film Institute’s list of the hundred greatest films ever made and the recipient of the Academy award for Best Picture of 1943, Casablanca continues to mesmerize audiences today; this past weekend two different movie theaters in the greater Nashville area showed it.

The film begins by introducing the city of Casablanca in Morocco as a center for refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. The Nazis, however, have a presence in Casablanca and can bring false charges against refugees. Because of this problem, the refugees must receive fake visas so they can travel to America and escape the Nazis. When the refugees hear that the flights out of Casablanca will end soon, the city becomes a city of desperate, vulnerable people.

Rick Blaine, famously played by Humphrey Bogart, runs a restaurant in Casablanca that attracts all of the different kinds of people in the city, refugee and Nazi alike. Although he is somewhat sympathetic to the refugees, Rick’s primary goal in life is to make money and stay on the good sides of both the refugees and the Nazis. Rick is forced to choose a side in the war when his former girlfriend, Ilsa, played by Ingrid Bergman, visits the restaurant and reveals she is now tied to the Resistance movement.

People often think of Casablanca as a romance movie, and this film definitely sets a standard for that genre. The setting of World War II creates a heartbreaking scenario as a fairytale romance is ripped apart twice by the war.  Ilsa’s comment to Rick in a flashback as the Nazis are about to invade Paris sums up the situation perfectly – “With the whole world crumbling, we pick this time to fall in love.”

During 1942 when Casablanca was made, Hollywood produced many films trying to increase American support for the war effort. In the late 1930s and early 1940s many Americans, like Rick, simply did not want to be involved in a large conflict. Rick’s total change of position, his enormous sacrifice and his resulting involvement in the Resistance movement served as an example to the American people of how the threat of Nazism required a noble response from all. The change of the police officer Louis Renault into Rick’s partner in escaping the Nazis and taking up the Resistance cause demonstrates this concept even more powerfully because Louis has taken orders from the Nazis multiple times during the film.

Casablanca is so engrained into American culture that many people who have never seen the film know many famous lines such as, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Round up the usual suspects” and “If she can stand it I can. Play it!” which is often misquoted as “play it again, Sam.” For a serious film, well-delivered one-liners fill the scenes of Casablanca and provide much-needed comic relief.

If you only watch one movie from this blog watch Casablanca. It is a prime example of excellent acting, directing, cinematography and writing. It truly has stood the test of time and has a more contemporary overall feel than many other films of its era. Casablanca is available on Xfinity On Demand and on DVD and Blu-Ray. Please watch it and comment below!

Original ‘It girl’ Clara Bow charms in delightful silent comedy ‘It’

Eighty-seven years ago this month, It, a silent romantic comedy starring Clara Bow, brought Bow into instant fame as the original “It girl.”

Directed by Clarence Badger, It stars Clara Bow as a headstrong young sales clerk named Betty who works in a large department store and Antonio Moreno as the handsome storeowner. Betty falls in love with the storeowner and sets out to become his girlfriend. She seems to be succeeding until a misunderstanding complicates the situation.

All of the characters but Betty have read an article by a well-known romance novelist describing attractive qualities, which the novelist sums up into one character trait called “It.” Many of the characters, especially the owner’s assistant Monty, are preoccupied with having “It” or finding other people with “It.” Betty is the personification of “It” and demonstrates this quality throughout the film with her flirting with the storeowner and her independent spirit.

Clara Bow in 1927

Silent film acting is very different from acting in sound films as actors must deliver personality, emotion and the plot of the film through gestures and facial expressions. Clara Bow expertly conveys all three and is, in my opinion, the best actor in the film. Betty’s driven and free-spirited personality shines through Bow’s facial expressions that, contrary to the popular stereotype, are not overdone, although they are somewhat bigger than what one might find on a sound film. Bow gets so much mileage from her eyes – she can change a situation with just a look. Bow’s work in It is a wonderful example of the lost art of silent film acting.

I watched It on Netflix and was very disappointed with the background music. Most silent films do not have a specific film score, so composers today write their own when silent films are released on home entertainment. In silent film’s heyday in the 1920s, most movie theaters had small orchestras or elaborate organs to play background music for films. Many theaters even produced live sound effects. Only the smallest theaters had the stereotypical solo piano, which made up the entire soundtrack on the Netflix print.

Unfortunately, It is no longer on Netflix but is available on DVD. Have you ever seen a silent film? If not, I encourage you to give It a try! Please comment below!

Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’ a psychological thriller masterpiece

Great acting, cinematography and a disputed ending make Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion a film to remember.

Released in 1941, Suspicion stars Joan Fontaine as a woman who suspects her dishonest husband, played by Cary Grant, of murder. Fontaine won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in this film.

Lina, a young, well-to-do English woman, falls madly in love with a dashing young man, Johnnie, whom she hardly knows. They elope, spend a fairytale honeymoon traveling in Europe and come home to a large English manor. Lina then learns that her husband is dishonest and a compulsive gambler with huge debts. Johnnie begins to psychologically torture Lina frequently. Lina slowly becomes aware of her husband’s evil nature, but her love blinds her from fully accepting the truth.

After the murder of Johnnie’s best friend and business partner and a troubling letter from the insurance company, Lina fears that Johnnie will try to murder her. That evening Johnnie carries a glass of milk that could possibly contain poison up to Lina’s room, but Lina leaves it on her nightstand and does not drink it.

The next morning Johnnie insists on driving Lina to her mother’s house by means of a dangerous road along rocky cliffs. After a sharp turn the passenger door flies open and Lina starts to fall out of the car and off the cliff, but Johnnie pulls her back inside the car. He demands to know why she has been acting so strangely and tells Lina that he did not kill his business partner and that he was going to use the poison to kill himself. Lina, overcome with relief, rides back to the manor house with Johnnie.

Different people interpret the ending in different ways. I believe that Johnnie did everything Lina suspected and that he lied to her about his motives and actions in the final scene as he had lied to her throughout the film. My friend who watched the movie with me thinks that although Johnnie was a monster of a person he had enough moral sense left in him to not want to commit murder.

Interestingly this ending was not what Hitchcock originally had in mind. In earlier versions of the script Lina dies after drinking the milk that Johnnie had poisoned. The studio, however, did not want its popular leading man playing a murderer and was unsure of how audiences would respond to this atypical casting.

Although Fontaine won the Oscar for her performance, Grant’s performance particularly stands out to me in this film. Cary Grant was one of the most popular movie stars of his day and almost exclusively played charming, worldly and sophisticated leading men. Suspicion takes Grant’s usual on-screen persona and warps it slightly to create a debonair heartthrob with sadistic tendencies. Although the studio originally worried how audiences would react to Grant as a villain, I think that Grant’s acting style lends itself particularly well to this character. Having seen a lot of Cary Grant movies, I consider Suspicion his best performance.

Hitchcock uses light and shadow extensively in Suspicion to convey the isolation felt by Lina. In many scenes shadows of windowpanes make a grid on the walls creating the look of a cage. This juxtaposition of elegant rooms and cage-like shadows shows how Lina’s fairytale marriage has become a prison. The effect is most noticeable in the scene where Johnnie carries the glass of milk up the staircase for Lina – the point in the film where Lina feels the most trapped.

Suspicion is available on Xfinity On Demand as well as DVD but unfortunately is not on Netflix.  Have you seen any Hitchcock movies? Post your comments below!

‘Fasten your seat belts’ for award-winning drama ‘All About Eve’

Featuring stellar performances, complex characters and an intriguing plot, the classic backstage drama All About Eve shines in the spotlight.

Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, this Best Picture winner of 1950 ranks 16^th of the 100 greatest films in a list compiled by the American Film Institute. Its 14 Academy Award nominations including two for Best Actress tie with Titanic for the most Oscar nominations ever for a film. 

In brief summary, a temperamental Broadway star takes a young wannabe named Eve under her wing, unaware that the girl is not as innocent as she seems. Eve, played by Anne Baxter, quickly rises to stardom by hurting those who stand in her way. Eve finally gets her comeuppance when she falls victim to both a dishonest play critic and a young fan girl whose personality exactly matches Eve’s own.

Eve’s rise to power brings out the hidden insecurities of many characters, most of all Margo, the famous Broadway actress played by Bette Davis. As a middle-aged woman playing young roles, Margo has an extremely unhealthy fear of aging. Despite her ego she relies on compliments from her boyfriend Bill in order to consider herself truly valuable. This inner vulnerability hides behind Margo’s extremely intimidating personality for the first half of the film.

Saying that Bette Davis and Anne Baxter both met the challenge of playing these complex characters is a tremendous understatement. Both actresses give the best performances I have seen in a film in a long time. They both capture the true essences of their characters. Unfortunately the fact that both were nominated for Best Actress caused neither to win the award.

All About Eve features gorgeous black-and-white cinematography. Mankiewicz expertly uses light to cast shadows of doors and window blinds that create an ominous feel absent in most color films. I particularly love the dark lines of the fire escape near the stage door.

The plot was so absorbing, the acting so brilliant, and the cinematography such a beautiful example of black-and-white film at its best that I actually forgot to long for 1950s fashions to come back! I would give this film a 10 out of 10.  All About Eve is available on Netflix instant streaming. Watch it for yourself and post your comments below!