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Get Your Man (1927): Restoration Plays MoMA on Nov. 15 and 19
Back in 2000, David Stenn’s biography of Clara Bow, Runnin’ Wild, changed the way the Siren looked at this star. Years of scurrilous gossip about Bow, combined with films that were seldom screened (the...
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Truly, Madly, Deeply; Alan Rickman; and Loss
The Siren starts by admitting that she rented Truly, Madly, Deeply some twenty-odd years ago only because she had a raging crush on the late Alan Rickman. (How the Siren hates having to put “the late”...
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In Memoriam: The Ziegfeld Theater, 1969-2016
Last week the Siren was in Midtown, meeting a friend for drinks, and she passed the Ziegfeld Theater, Manhattan’s most glorious movie venue. And she saw that The Force Awakens was playing there, and...
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What I Think About When They Say Donald Trump Cannot Possibly Become President
... From The Past Is Myself, the memoir of an Englishwoman named Christabel Bielenberg. In the early 1930s she fell in love with a German law student named Peter Bielenberg, married him in 1934, and...
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"Steel and Silk": A 100th Birthday Tribute to Olivia de Havilland, at Sight &...
The Siren is proud to announce that she was asked by the venerable Sight & Sound to write a tribute to Olivia de Havilland on the occasion of that great lady's 100th birthday, which will occur on...
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Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
The Siren's essay for the Blu-Ray release of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, the immortal supernatural comedy made at Columbia in 1941 and directed by Alexander Hall, is now online at the Criterion Collection...
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Madam Satan (1930)
(About five years ago the Siren had a column at a doomed little webzine called Nomad Widescreen, and she was in the habit of posting excerpts and links at her own place, you know the drill. Now that...
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Chicago (1927)
(The unabridged and updated version of a Siren column about the 1927 silent version of Chicago, first published behind a paywall at the now-defunct Nomad Widescreen.) Nothing guarantees immortality for...
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Bad-Movie Double Feature
A long time ago the Siren was asked in the comments to a post on this here blog whether or not she had seen The Legend of Lylah Clare. And she said no, and some of you (the Siren names no names, you...
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Seeing Out 2017 With the Great Lee Grant
The last few months of 2017 have found me craving escape, and I’ve been rewatching Columbo episodes to help me unwind before bed. A couple of weeks ago, I curled up with Ransom for a Dead Man from...
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2017: The Year in Old Movies (because measuring it in other ways wouldn't be...
The 10 best of what the Siren watched in 2017, presented without preamble, and in alphabetical order. The Siren wishes her patient readers a most happy 2018.The Big City (Mahanagar; directed by...
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Anecdote of the Week: 'Spit It Out'
A story told by John Sayles, from a wonderful 1995 conversation between him and historian Eric Foner. Their dialogue opens the book Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies.You know, one of the...
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Anecdote of the Week: "She hated him."
Over on Twitter, the Siren has been been working on a daily hashtag called #OctoberAlternative, a thread that lets her post stills from movies that put her in an autumnal (and therefore good) mood. The...
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2018: The Year in Siren Writing
This year has found the Siren doing most of her writing for paying outlets, which endeavors plus the demands of her brood have kept her largely off the blog. For those who haven’t been keeping up with...
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The Baker's Wife (1938) at Film Forum
Film Forum has a holiday present for New Yorkers starting today: A week-long run of Marcel Pagnol’s magical La Femme du Boulanger (The Baker’s Wife), from 1938. The Siren has seen the restoration that...
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2018: The Year in Old Movies
Being another alphabetical list of the best old movies the Siren saw for the first time this year, with 11 entries, because round numbers are boring.Ashes and Diamonds (1958, Andrzej Wajda; viewed on...
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To Save and Project: The 16th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation
Greetings, O friends of the Siren. For those of you residing in the New York area, rejoice: To Save and Project, the Museum of Modern Art’s film-preservation festival, is once more upon us and runs...
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It's Lonely at the Top, Mostly Because You're a Drunk: The Biopics of 1957
The Siren challenges you to find a photo of Jeanne Eagels wearing anything like this.Gather round, patient readers, and listen to how and why, by the authority she’s invested in herself, the Siren has...
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The House by the River (1950)
“Lang never approached a project casually; he enjoyed making films too much.” —Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made ItIn 1950 Fritz Lang was coming off the box-office failure of a movie dear to his...
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Hold Back the Dawn, at Last on Blu Ray
The Siren is inordinately pleased to announce that the home-video gods have heard our pleas: Hold Back the Dawn, Mitchell Leisen’s best film, from one of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder’s best...
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Olivia (1951)
(Olivia is a co-release by Icarus Films and Distrib Films US. The film's glorious 4K restoration was done by Les Films de la Pleiade in collaboration with Les Films du Jeudi with the support of the...
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The Big Clock (1948, John Farrow)
Not all film noir takes place in a seedy underworld; sometimes noir arrives on the commuter train wearing a custom-made suit. So it goes with John Farrow’s The Big Clock (1948), which sets its dark...
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Zachary Scott's Gilded Cage: Excerpt from Article at Noir City Magazine
The Noir City E-Mag No. 30, Spring 2020, has sprung, and the Siren has a piece in it, about the career of the genre’s quintessential playboy heel, Zachary Scott. Naturally the Siren focused on his work...
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Virginia Grey: Everything But Luck
The Siren has another article up at Noir City e-magazine, the publication of the Film Noir Foundation. For putting your name on the mailing list, and contributing $20(which goes to the Foundation's...
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National Silent Movie Day: Manhandled (1924)
Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, is National Silent Movie Day. New York City's beloved Film Forum is celebrating with a screening of Allan Dwan's 1924 silent Manhandled, starring the fabulous Gloria Swanson....
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