One week and three days late, we emerge…triumphant?…with a very belated Christmas episode about Remember the Night (1940). We discuss Barbara Stanwyck’s work ethic, Fred MacMurray’s emotional repression, the world of contrasts between Mitchell Leisen and Preston Sturges as directors, and poor Sterling Holloway just trying to make it through the day.
Continue reading “10. Remember the Night (1940): Ayn Rand’s Winter Wonderland”
On this week’s bonus episode of What’s in the Basket, we’re revisiting our slasher movie origins with a research-free look at the Christmas horrors of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and its sequel Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987). We discuss the series’ unexpected connections to Evangelicalism and The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, question the reasoning behind its elaborate soundtrack, and seriously consider launching an investigative podcast into a particularly compelling hot-dog related business venture of the 1980s.
Continue reading “Bonus 06. Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987): Old People Orphanage”
On this week’s bonus episode of What’s in the Basket, we head down to the foundling home for a research-free look at two lighthearted holiday takes on child abandonment: Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother (1939) and Debbie Reynolds in Bundle of Joy (1956). We explain why David Niven so handily defeats Eddie Fisher in the battle of the Merlin party boys, lay out our arguments for why children shouldn’t be allowed in Hollywood, and offer Douglas Fairbanks Jr. some posthumous family therapy.
Continue reading “Bonus 05. Bachelor Mother (1939) and Bundle of Joy (1956): That’s a Trauma for Another Episode”
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