Love Is a Ball and A Big Hand for the Little Lady
Love Is a Ball (1963). I thought I had seen every 1960s romantic comedy until the blandly-titled Love Is a Ball popped up on the cable channel Screenpix. It stars Charles Boyer as Etienne Pimm, a matchmaker who is part Pygmalion and par...
Dean Jones, Walt Disney, and a Quartet of Monkeys (or rather, Chimps)
Yvette Mimieux with one of the chimps.
We've been on a Disney movie run at the Cafe, revisiting some of the studio’s lesser-known live action films. There have been some pleasant surprises (Emil and the Detectives) and a few major disappointments (D...
The Alternate Movie Title Game (April 2024)
Here are the rules: We will provide an "alternate title" for a film and ask you to name the actual film. Most of these are pretty easy. Please answer no more than three questions per day so others can play. You may have an answer other than the intende...
Klute and Tender Mercies
Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda.Klute (1971). When a businessman suddenly disappears and obscene letters are found among his work papers, the man's wife hires private detective John Klute to conduct an investigation. Klute (Donald Sutherland) qui...
The Crimson Kimono and The League of Gentlemen
James Shigeta as Detective Joe Kojaku.The Crimson Kimono (1959). Writer-director Samuel Fuller's once-controversial cult film revolves around two police detectives, one Caucasian and one Japanese, who try to solve a complicated murder case involving a ...
Jeff Chandler Plays a Make-Believe Parent in The Toy Tiger
Jeff Chandler as Rick.Had a bad day at work? Relatives causing undue stress? If so, then perhaps you need to sit down and watch a mindless 1950s comedy. You know the kind. It's entertaining enough while you're watching it, but it won't linger in your b...
Seven Things to Know About Linda Cristal
1. Linda Cristal was born on February 23, 1931, in Rosario, Argentina, as Marta Victoria Moya Burges. In addition to her native language of Spanish, she became fluent in Italian, French, and English. She got her acting break in 1952 when she appeared a...
The Alternate Movie Title (January 2024)
Here are the rules: We will provide an "alternate title" for a film and ask you to name the actual film. Most of these are pretty easy. Please answer no more than three questions per day so others can play. You may have an answer other than the intende...
Working Girl and The Verdict
Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford.Working Girl (1988). Mike Nichol's R-rated update of a familiar comedy formula, Working Girl earned six Oscar nominations, made a star (albeit briefly) of Melanie Griffith, and transformed Harrison Ford into a ro...
Top Ten Posts of 2023
A canine friend visits the Classic Film & TV Cafe.As the year draws to a close, the Classic Film & TV Café traditionally ends it with a countdown of our ten most viewed posts. Naturally, the countdown is a little skewed, since those posts that ...