VAULTS: Robert Ryan deserves centennial tribute

More Stories

VAULTS: Celebrating the music of Johnny Mercer

Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009

A serendipitous convergence will make the next week doubly gratifying for people who cherish notable American songwriters — and would be receptive to recalling their careers by watching fond but also discerning biographical features.

VAULTS: Bloody good vampire movies

Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009

Since its 1922 debut, F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" has remained the prototype for all notable vampire thrillers that aspire to be taken seriously as imaginative inducements to apprehension.

VAULTS: Fellini's classic '8½' inspires remakes

Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009

"Federico Fellini's 8½" became one of the most esteemed foreign-language imports of the decade after opening in the summer of 1963. The clamor over "La Dolce Vita" three years earlier had created a tide of curiosity and even adoration that swelled beyond the art-house public and press.

VAULTS: Dancing duo ideal in 'Divorcee'

Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were cast as show business colleagues in "Flying Down to Rio," the first of the nine RKO musicals that teamed them in the 1930s.

VAULTS: Linder a funnyman with a dark side

Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009

Modern antiquarians should be intrigued to learn that there was a genuine "dark side" to adroit and pioneering funnyman Max Linder.

VAULTS: Friday night 'Thrillers' on TCM

Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009

"The Suspenseful World of Thrillers," a Turner Classic Movies' retrospective series on Friday nights in October, betrays a curious ring.

VAULTS: Cooper a rising star in 'Virginian'

Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009

Victor Fleming's version of "The Virginian" runs only 90 minutes, but this duration is sufficient to persuade you that so much civilization has infiltrated Medicine Bow that the enmity and nihilism of a Trampas are intolerable and indefensible.

VAULTS: Remember John Hughes with 'Candles'

Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009

The death last month of the comedy writer, producer and, for a time, director John Hughes was a shocker, at once untimely and eerie.

VAULTS: High points mark Kazan's career

Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009

Elia Kazan's career, whose high points made him an unrivaled influence on the American stage and screen from World War II through the early 1960s, is probably secure from effacement by late-arriving and overcompensating detractors.