Episode 795: Some Like it Hot (1959)

Special Guest: Noah Isenberg
Guest Co-Hosts: Heidi Honeycutt, Keith Gordon

Comedy Month continues as Mike talks with co-hosts Keith Gordon and Heidi Honeycutt about Billy Wilder's Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot (1959).

Chicago, 1929. Musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are barely scraping by when they stumble onto the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, witnessing Spats Colombo (George Raft) and his mob gun down a rival gang. With the killers on their tail, the two desperate musicians disguise themselves as women and join Sweet Sue's Society Syncopators, an all-girl band heading to Miami. Aboard the train they meet Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), a ukulele-playing singer with a weakness for saxophonists and a dream of marrying a millionaire.

Mike also talks with scholar Noah Isenberg — author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller We'll Always Have Casablanca and currently completing a cultural history of Some Like It Hot for Norton — about the film's origins, its enduring legacy, and what it still has to say.

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Some Like it Hot on Blu-Ray
Buy Some Like it Hot by Steven Cohan
Buy Some Like It Hot: The Official 50th Anniversary Companion by Laurence Maslon

Music:
"Some Like it Hot" - The Power Station

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Episode 629: Ninotchka (1939)

Special Guest: Joseph McBride
Guest Co-Hosts: Otto Bruno, Robert Bellissimo

Otto Bruno and Robert Bellissimo join Mike to look at Ernst Lubitsch's 1939 film, Ninotchka. Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch, and based loosely on a story by Melchior Lengyel, the film stars Greta Garbo as the titular Ninotchka, a stern Soviet sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from a Russian noblewoman, Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire).

Professor Joseph McBride -- author of How Did Lubitsch Do It? and Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge -- talks about these two talented men and what happened when they worked together.

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Ninotchka on Blu-Ray

Music:
"The Red Blues" - Cole Porter

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Episode 622: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

Guest Co-Hosts: Aaron Peterson. David MacGregor

The game is afoot as we kick off a month looking at four films featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. One of the most adapted characters in the history of cinema, we’ve all grown up with a variety of actors and interpretations of Holmes. In this series we’re looking at four from the 1970s and, on this episode, we are discussing Billy Wilder’s 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

The film stars Robert Stephens as Holmes and Colin Blakely as Watson along with Christopher Lee as Mycroft Holmes and Geraldine Page as the mysterious Gabrielle Valladon.

Aaron Peterson (The Hollywood Outsider) and playwright and author David MacGregor join Mike all month for some Sherlockian talk.

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes on Blu-Ray

Music:
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack album by Miklós Rózsa

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Episode 599: Sunset Blvd (1950)

Special Guests: Steven Cohan, Jeffrey Schwarz
Guest Co-Hosts: Agatha Luz, Philip Marinello

We conclude Noirvember 2022 with a look at Billy WIlder's Sunset Blvd. Released in 1950, the film tells the story of Joe Gillis (William Holden), a screenwriter who meets a faded star of yesteryear, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Gillis becomes a kept man while helping to fuel Norma’s Desmond’s delusion that she’s returning to the silver screen in a lavish production of Salome.

Agatha Luz (Cinemaspection) and Philip Marinello (The Substance Podcast) join Mike to discuss one of the best films ever made. Interviews include Steven Cohan (author of the new BFI book on Sunset Blvd) and Jeffrey Schwarz (director of Boulevard! A Hollywood Story).

Listen/Download Now:

Listen to "Episode 599: Sunset Blvd (1950)" on Spreaker.

Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Sunset Blvd on Blu-Ray
Buy Sunset Blvd by Steven Cohan
Visit the official Boulevard! A Hollywood Story website
Buy Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream by Sam Staggs
Buy Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge by Joseph McBride

Music:
The Sunset Blvd Soundtrack - Franz Waxman
"All those wonderful people out there in the dark" - Gloria Swanson

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Episode 577: Buddy Buddy (1981)

Special Guest: Miles Chapin
Guest Co-Hosts: Kat Ellinger, Heather Drain

Heather Drain and Kat Ellinger join Mike to discuss Billy Wilder’s Buddy Buddy (1981). The movie is yet another pairing of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. This time they’re filling the shoes of Lino Ventura and Jacques Brel in this remake of Edouard Molinaro’s L'Emmerdeur.

Matthau plays Trabucco, a ruthless hitman, while Lemmon plays Victor Clooney, a milquetoast whose wife left him three months prior. Naturally they get thrown together in the unlikeliest of circumstances and hilarity ensues.

The episode features an interview with Miles Chapin and a loving tribute to Klaus Kinski.

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Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Buddy Buddy on DVD
Buy A Pain in the Ass on Blu-Ray

Music:
"Cecelia" - Simon & Garfunkle

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Episode 567: Ball of Fire (1941)

Special Guest: Joseph McBride
Guest Co-Hosts: Kat Ellinger, Maitland McDonagh

We are kicking off a month of screwball comedy discussion with a look at Howard Hawks’s 1941 film Ball of Fire. Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, the film stars Gary Cooper as one of an octet of professors who are writing an encyclopedia. Cooper is writing an article on slang only to find that he’s very deficient. In an effort to bolster his research he comes across Sugarpuss O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck). The moll of a vicious gangster, she’s on the lamb and holes up with the professors. And, of course, hilarity ensues.

Kat Ellinger will be around all month. Maitland McDonagh guest hosts on this episode and Professor Joseph McBride dishes about his books on director Howard Hawks.

Listen/Download Now:

Listen to "Episode 567: Ball of Fire (1941)" on Spreaker.

Links:
Become a supporter of The Projection Booth
Buy Ball of Fire on DVD
Buy A Song is Born on DVD
Buy Hawks on Hawks by Joseph McBride
Buy Focus on Howard Hawks by Joseph McBride
Subscribe to Maitland McDonagh's substack

Music:
"Drum Boogie" - Gene Krupa

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Symphony in Slang from Lee Presson on Vimeo.

Episode 443: Double Indemnity (1944)

Guest Co-Hosts: Kat Ellinger, Keith Gordon

Noirvember 2019 wraps up with Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944). With a screenplay co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler and based on a story by James M. Cain, the film is one of the seminal works of film noir. It stars Fred MacMurray as fast-talking Walter Neff, an insurance agent who gets played for a dope by a dame. The dame in question, Phyllis Dietrichson, is played by the one and only Barbara Stanwyck. The two cook up an insurance scam to pay off big after they bump off her husband.

Keith Gordon and Kat Ellinger join Mike to discuss Double Indemnity, its 1973 TV remake, the adult adaptation Eruption (1977), Body Heat (1981), and the Body Heat/Double Indemnity mash-up, Jism (2003).

Listen/Download Now:

Listen to "Episode 443: Double Indemnity (1944)" on Spreaker.

Links:
Buy Double Indemnity on Blu-Ray
Buy Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
Buy Body Heat on Blu-Ray
Buy Jism on DVD
Read more about Dispatches from Elsewhere

Music:
Soundtrack by Miklos Rosza

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