Reviews of Classic Film, with artwork and news
LAST UPDATE May 31, 2025
Why Gone with the Wind Is Probably the Highest-Earning Film Ever
And Why the Conditions of Its Success Have Locked It into an Unreachable Position
The Billion-Dollar Caveat: There is a certain school of thought that holds Gone with the Wind (1939) as the all-time earnings champion of the film medium. When adjusted for inflation, ticket prices, distribution reach, and continual re-release revenues, the film retains an accumulated box office total that remains virtually unreachable.
Part of what gaveGone with the Wind its exceptional edge—an advantage that cannot be duplicated—was the nature of Hollywood film distribution before the global disruption caused by World War II (1941–1945). At that time, Hollywood dominated the international market: global trade was still relatively open, and few other countries had either the economic means or the production infrastructure to compete with American film quality and the finesse of its distribution system.
This changed drastically with the onset of the war. International distribution systems collapsed. The huge global poverty problem in the postwar years impacted ticket-buying, and the reshaping of international markets following the end of hostilities with many countries being closed off from most Hollywood product due to the tensions between Western and communist regimes. As a result, the kind of "super-important" international release that
The post-WWII era brought a radically different entertainment landscape: domestic film industries began to rise around the world, creating tougher competition, and the arrival of television quickly siphoned off the multi-weekly moviegoing habits that had been common during Hollywood’s golden age.
Moreover,Gone with the Wind was not just a massive hit in the United States—it was a global phenomenon. It was released in color at a time when most films were still in black and white; it was of epic length, which was rare for 1930s productions; and it was based on an international best-selling novel. All these elements contributed to a unique combination of circumstances unlikely to ever be repeated.
Pandora's Box
G. W. Pabst directs Louise Brooks as "Lulu" and makes a seminal cinemagraphic icon of German and international cinema.
Review of Pandora's Box - 1929
Fast Reviews
Lover Come Back – 1961: Doris Day and Rock Hudson in another war of the sexes comedy, with Tony Randall along, too, playing a part rather close to the character played by John Williams as Irving La Salle Jr., in the superior advertising world story Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), a film where Tony Randall was the star (paired with Jayne Mansfield). Here, Randall is demoted (or promoted, depending upon your point of view) to actually running an advertising firm, and trying to control and understand the firm's star advertising agent played by Hudson. Meanwhile, a competition with another firm (where Doris Day's character works) bubbles up, and with a twist right out of Pillow Talk (another Day-Hudson comedy), Hudson concocts an alternative identity as a naive' and innocent chemist working on a secret consumer product called "Vip" which Doris Day's hard-working advertising agent desperately wants for her firm.
A colorful film with well-engineered jokes, a bit more smarmy than the other Day-Hudson comedies, and with plenty of scenes in which the humor is derived simply from the camera being aimed right at Doris Day and seeing how she reacts to something (for example, when she and Hudson end up in a striptease place).
Review
Shanghai Express – 1932: The problem with this Josef Sternberg film, though it is beautifully photographed and contains a nice panorama of characters on a dangerous ride by rail through war-torn China, is that the star, Marlene Dietrich, mugs for the camera in ways that seem directly lifted from a primitive silent film. She rolls her eyes frequently as if to help visually to enunciate her dialogue, but the eye rolling seems out of synch and she does gesticulations with her hands that also seem out of synch, as if her English language skills and her mannerisms are operating on two different levels, which is to say, the artifice of Dietrich's acting in Shanghai Express is thick and heavy.
More review of Shanghai Express
4K Disc releases from Eureka in July 2025
4K High Noon – The 1952 Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly film with a booklet, plus a list of documentaries, interviews and commentaries. Eureka Page about High noon
4K The Old Dark House – 1932 Karloff film with Charles Laughton, Melvyn Douglas and Gloria Stuart, also includes audio commentary track with Gloria Stuart. Eureka 4k Old Dark House page - I can remember when seeing The Old Dark House was next to impossible such that a special showing at the Library of Congress around 1983 was considered a major event (that is, for old, hard-to-see movies).
Review: The Amazing Mr. X – 1948
Turhan Bey plays a con-artist-spiritualist who is set upon exploiting the loneliness and gullibility of two sisters, but then is drawn into a much more dangerous plot involving murder – more about The Amazing Mr X
New discs from Criterion in August:
Shoeshine (1946) Vittorio De Sica’s Academy Award–winning film about tough times for small kids in post war Italy: two little boys struggle to save enough money by shining shoes to obtain a horse– Criterion page
Cairo Station (1958) Youssef Chahine film about the people centered around an Egyptian rail station and the conditions showing a "raw populist poetry" - Criterion Page
Review: The City Without Jews – 1924
"Utopia" (which looks exactly like Vienna) is plunged into turmoil when the government, seeking to please powerful anti-Semites in their own country and to also give a windfall of job openings to the rest of the populace, passes a law to expel all the Jews. Unique film made that portrays a future that was only a decade away in reality - More about The City Without Jews, 1924
Blu Ray disc of the 1967 Taming of the Shrew coming
The Franco Zeffirelli version, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, includes commentary tracks, documentaries, and an in-case booklet featuring an essay on the film. Scheduled for release in July from Powerhouse Films
Diary of A Chamber Maid - 1946
Diary of A Chamber Maid – 1946
Paulette Goddard works, survives and then triumphs as a lowly chambermaid on a French country estate, putting up with not only the people around her and their sometimes crazy plans, but also her own short-sighted ambitions.
More about the Jean Renoir film Diary of A Chambermaid, 1946
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