Podcasts by Screen Test of Time
The Screen Test of Time is a podcast where Suzan Eraslan and David Daw set out to watch every movie ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, in order, from the first awards season to eventually the present day. Each week, they watch and review a different movie, and when they've watched everything nominated in a particular year, they tell you whether the Oscar went to the right one!
Further podcasts by Suzan Eraslan and David Daw
Podcast on the topic TV und Film
All episodes
Episode 187: Roman Holiday from 2022-02-17T04:12:15
Possibly the greatest casting of all time in any movie, ever. No one but Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck could have pulled this off. But wow, did they ever.
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Episode 186: From Here to Eternity from 2022-02-09T17:00
It’s got the most famous kissing scene of all time. It’s got at least 3 different plot lines. It’s got Hawaii, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It’s got Deborah Kerr, Montgomery Clift, Donna Read, ...
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Episode 185: Julius Caesar from 2022-02-03T03:50:29
Listen, we weren't so sure about Marlon Brando as Marc Anthony, either, but trust us, it works. Mostly. It mostly works.
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Episode 184: Shane from 2022-01-11T23:21:04
Despite its reputation as a classic, Shane leaves a lot to be desired as far as our hosts are concerned. Is it because the bad guys fought for the Union? Suzan and David discuss the weird failings ...
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Episode 183: Moulin Rouge from 2021-12-23T03:34:22
There is a reason that the 2001 Moulin Rouge exists, and it’s because this one from 1952 wasn’t good enough to make the subject closed. Is there anything more egregious than a boring movie about Be...
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Episode 181: High Noon from 2021-12-08T18:18:24
Suzan is in heaven this week, because Hollywood has finally figured out how to make a good Western, and even David enjoyed High Noon. Gary Cooper stars as a deputy literally an hour from retirement...
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Episode 180: The Quiet Man from 2021-12-01T17:00
The Quiet Man represents a profound shift in Best Picture nominees, but it’s not necessarily a positive one. As Hollywood gets better at film making, stories with pretty abhorrent morals are more e...
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Episode 179: The Greatest Show on Earth from 2021-11-24T17:00
There is no question that Cecil B. DeMille was one of the greatest directors of all time, but giving him a pity Oscar for this nonsensical, barely acted, overstuffed story about a love triangle on ...
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Episode 178: Decision Before Dawn from 2021-11-17T17:00
Maybe it was just too soon, historically, just a few years after the end of the war, to make a movie about how some Germans might have helped the US fight the Nazis in World War II. Or maybe Decisi...
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Episode 177: Quo Vadis from 2021-11-07T17:00
Okay, so maybe we took a 5 minute diversion to talk about the ludicrous sounding films listed in the filmographies of two of the stars of Quo Vadis, but listen, there just was not that much to say ...
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Episode 176: An American in Paris from 2021-10-31T16:00
An American in Paris was the winner of the 1951 nominees for Best Picture, entirely because of the 17 minute, half a million dollar dream ballet at the very end to Gershwin's orchestral composition...
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Episode 175: A Streetcar Named Desire from 2021-10-27T00:09:35
The film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s play, A Streetcar Named Desire, is wildly famous for Marlon Brando in a wet t-shirt, but the film is largely the very sad story of a deeply wounded and t...
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Episode 174: A Place in the Sun from 2021-10-17T16:00
A master class in why method acting can actually make a performance less believable, A Place in the Sun is a real downer. Montgomery Clift gets typecast as a slack-jawed jerk who chases after yet a...
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Episode 173: Born Yesterday from 2021-10-10T19:14:59
The final film in the 1950 Best Picture nominees, Born Yesterday start Judy Holliday giving an incredible performance as a ditzy chorus girl whose mobster boyfriend, played by Broderick Crawford, r...
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Episode 172: King Solomon's Mines from 2021-10-03T22:10:49
David refers to King Solomon’s Mines as the movie that dares to ask, “What if Trader Horn was in color?” but what it really answers is why the character of Allan Quatermain, who was as popular and ...
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Episode 171: All About Eve from 2021-09-26T23:09:59
The Best Picture winner of the 1950 awards, All About Eve is so good that it made David do a complete reevaluation of Bette Davis, his long standing Screen Test of Time nemesis. Suzan isn’t sure th...
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Episode 170: Sunset Boulevard from 2021-09-19T22:36:09
Good news, Screen Testers! Suzan did not, in fact, hate Sunset Boulevard, so David will not, as he threatened last week, have to stop being her friend. It seems like 1950 is shaping up to be an ext...
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Episode 169: Father of the Bride from 2021-09-12T17:29:23
The original Father of the Bride starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor may suffer a bit in light of the Steve Martin remake... even if it's maybe a better movie. As the first of the 1950 nomi...
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Episode 168: Twelve O'Clock High from 2021-09-05T16:32:18
After last week’s episode, Suzan and David find themselves with a sense of déjà vu— another week, another boring war movie. Not even Gregory Peck’s good looks could save Twelve O’Clock High. Also, ...
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Episode 167: Battleground from 2021-08-29T16:00
An early attempt at the “Band of Brothers” style war movie (and about the 101st airborne, weirdly enough), Battleground is something of an unwieldy mess, with unmemorable characters, no real theme,...
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Episode 166: All the King's Men from 2021-08-23T03:35:32
The winner of the 1949 awards, All the King’s Men is an interesting example of how a good movie can be made by accident… but can a film be accidentally great?
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Episode 165: The Heiress from 2021-08-15T20:11:47
The Heiress is the second movie in 3 weeks where producers tried to make Olivia de Havilland "ugly" to win an Oscar. De Havilland plays, rather unconvincingly, a wealthy young woman in the mid-1800...
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Episode 164: A Letter to Three Wives from 2021-08-09T02:03:51
Based on a serialized novel that was printed in Cosmo, A Letter to Three Wives is an absolutely bonkers film about an off-screen narrator running off with the husband of one of her so-called best f...
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Episode 163: The Snake Pit from 2021-08-02T01:12:14
The Snake Pit, based on the autobiographical book of the same name, is the story of one woman’s experience inside a mental institution, and the treatment, both cruel and sympathetic, she receives a...
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Episode 162: The Red Shoes from 2021-07-25T19:09:36
For decades after its release, The Red Shoes remained the most popular dance film ever created, surely for the 20+ minute dream ballet sequence toward the middle of the film. But the rest of the mo...
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Episode 161: Johnny Belinda from 2021-07-18T16:00
Johnny Belinda, a movie named first for an infant child barely seen in the film and secondly for the so-called main character onto whom everyone around her projects their own feelings and presumpti...
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Episode 160: Hamlet from 2021-07-11T17:21:05
This week, David and Suzan do what they do best: passionately tear a Shakespeare film adaptation to shreds. This time, it’s the 1948 winner, Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet. And we do mean Laurence Olivi...
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Episode 159: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre from 2021-07-04T19:19:01
The nominees for 1948 start strong with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a classic that deserves the designation, starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Tim Holt as itinerant Americans searc...
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Episode 158: The Bishop's Wife from 2021-06-27T19:35:02
Take Cary Grant, cast him as a literal, from heaven, with supernatural powers angel trying to seduce the wife of a stuck up, cold, neglectful bishop, and then throw away any lascivious or even inte...
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Episode 157: Great Expectations from 2021-06-20T20:08:30
It's the unusual movie where the child actors at the beginning of the film have a better handle on their characters than the adult actors who play them for the rest of it, but this adaptation of Di...
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Episode 156: Gentleman's Agreement from 2021-06-13T19:58:32
The second of back to back movies dealing with anti-semitism, Gentleman’s Agreement is the serious message movie version, and, unsurprisingly by Academy Award standards, the winner of the two. But ...
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Episode 155: Crossfire from 2021-06-06T16:00
Contrary to our hosts’ expectation, Crossfire is not the obvious inspiration for the 90’s tabletop board game, but is both an enjoyable film noir and a compelling message movie— an unusual combinat...
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Episode 154: Miracle on 34th Street from 2021-05-30T22:00
The second Christmas movie our hosts have had to watch recently and entirely out of season, Miracle on 34th Street didn’t sit as well with David in an 80+ degree Los Angeles April as It’s A Wonderf...
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Episode 153: The Razor's Edge from 2021-05-23T21:48:32
The Razor’s Edge starring Gene Tierney, Tyrone Power, and Anne Baxter is a film so uneven as to be whip-lash inducing. A bizarre and meandering first 90 minutes eventually lead to a tight, hour lon...
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Episode 152: It's A Wonderful Life from 2021-05-16T22:48:20
It’s A Wonderful Life is best known as the movie everyone watches on television at Christmas time, but Suzan has never seen it before, and David’s never seen it outside of the month of December, so...
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Episode 151: The Yearling from 2021-05-10T01:34:02
Who would have thought that a Saturday afternoon kid’s matinee of a movie would cause such controversy? Suzan thinks The Yearling is a well made movie for which she is absolutely not the audience, ...
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Episode 150: The Best Years of Our Lives from 2021-05-02T20:03:58
The winner of the 1946 nominees, The Best Years of Our Lives is a well intentioned story of three men returning home to their very different families after World War II that set the bar for confron...
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Episode 149: Henry V from 2021-04-25T16:00
From time to time, a Best Picture nominee feels as if it were an intentional attack across the decades to specifically dispirit and infuriate David and Suzan. Laurence Olivier’s turn as director an...
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Episode 148: Spellbound from 2021-04-18T16:00
The last Hitchcock film to be nominated for Best Picture shows the iconic director going out with a fizzle rather than a bang. Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck star in this confusing muddle of a psy...
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Episode 147: The Bells of St. Mary's from 2021-04-11T19:21:30
While Suzan did not take David’s suggestion and just cut in a few key words and phrases to the previous episode for 1944’s Going My Way, the sequel, The Bells of St. Mary’s, is so similar that it ...
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Episode 146: The Lost Weekend from 2021-04-04T17:23:07
The winner of 1945, The Lost Weekend, is a melodramatic and at times embarrassing addiction drama, confoundingly soundtracked by eerie theremin music, with a clownish performance by lead actor Ray ...
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Episode 145: Mildred Pierce from 2021-03-28T17:49:40
The best thing Suzan and David can say about the Joan Crawford vehicle Mildred Pierce, a movie full of terrible characters being terrible to one another, is at least it’s not very long.
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Episode 144: Anchors Aweigh from 2021-03-21T16:00
The 1945 nominees have kicked off with a doozy of a musical comedy. Anchors Aweigh stars Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as two sailors just trying to find a couple of girls to hook up with while on l...
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Episode 143: Wilson from 2021-03-14T16:00
Ostensibly a biopic of President Woodrow Wilson, Wilson is a confusing muddle of unnecessary special effects, retconned history, and a characterization of the man that is so completely divergent fr...
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Episode 142: Since You Went Away from 2021-03-08T02:45:03
Not to be confused with the Kelly Clarkson banger, “Since U Been Gone,” Since You Went Away is a nearly 3 hour film about the WWII home front starring Claudette Colbert, Joseph Cotton, Hattie McDan...
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Episode 141: Double Indemnity from 2021-02-28T17:00
Double Indemnity is a sexy, fast paced look at the dangerous world of... insurance? Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck star in this hard-boiled noir about life insurance fraud and murder, with Edw...
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Episode 140: Gaslight from 2021-02-15T02:22:13
The film for which the term “gaslighting” is named, Gaslight is actually better than the myriad references to it in articles about psychological torment would have you believe. Ingrid Bergman gives...
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Episode 139: Going My Way from 2021-02-07T17:00
Bing Crosby stars as a hip, crooning priest brought in to pull a New York City church out of financial straits. At least, that’s the proposed arc of Going My Way for the first 20 minutes of this ye...
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Episode 138: The Song of Bernadette from 2021-01-31T20:23:21
Our hosts weren’t thrilled with The Song of Bernadette, a largely fictionalized biopic about a saint, but their main complaint is that it’s longer, even, than the Left Behind movies. Also, Suzan th...
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Episode 137: Madame Curie from 2021-01-24T17:00
Ostensibly a biopic about one of the most important scientists of all time, Madame Curie is more a love letter to her husband, Pierre, than the story of the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in no...
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Episode 136: Watch on the Rhine from 2021-01-17T22:32:04
The third and final antifascist film of the 1943 nominees, Watch on the Rhine doesn't, in fact, star Bette Davis, despite what the poster would have you believe. Paul Lukas is brilliant as a great ...
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Episode 135: Heaven Can Wait (1943) from 2021-01-12T00:44:50
Our hosts are finally free of their nemesis, Ernst Lubitsch after this week’s Heaven Can Wait (not to be confused with the film of the same name from 1978)… or are they? Suzan is pretty sure that t...
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Episode 134: For Whom the Bell Tolls from 2021-01-05T02:37:01
For Whom the Bell Tolls, on paper, seems to have all the ingredients of a great film: it’s got Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, and a merry band of anti-fascists, all in Technicolor! What could possibl...
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Episode 133: The More the Merrier from 2020-12-28T22:56:29
Despite the tagline “Home is where you hang your guests!” The More the Merrier thankfully does not turn out to be the second movie in a row to focus on a hanging. This Jean Arthur vehicle frustrati...
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Episode 132: The Ox-Bow Incident from 2020-12-21T01:53:08
Signing off last week, our hosts were justifiably nervous about the nooses swinging from the tree in the poster for this week's movie, but The Ox-Bow Incident turns out to be an excellent, if extre...
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Episode 131: The Human Comedy from 2020-12-13T22:08:59
Our hosts have called a lot of movies weird over the last two and a half years, but The Human Comedy, starring Mickey Rooney and is neither very human nor a comedy, may be the weirdest one, yet. An...
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Episode 130: Casablanca from 2020-12-05T18:22:43
After a longer than expected hiatus, David and Suzan are BACK, with one fantastic movie!
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Episode 129: In Which We Serve from 2020-06-21T16:00
They've watched good movies. They've watched more bad movies. But never have Suzan and David watched a movie as utterly confounding as In Which We Serve.
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Episode 128: Random Harvest from 2020-06-14T18:09:44
Starring Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman, both of whom are in better movies nominated this year, Random Harvest features the the rare x2 double amnesiac combo multiplier in a plot that is so ludicr...
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Episode 127: The Pied Piper from 2020-06-07T16:00
Being anti-Nazi is literally the least a film can do. It's also the most The Pied Piper does.
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Episode 126: The Talk of the Town from 2020-05-31T16:00
Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, and Cary Grant star in The Talk of the Town, a screwball comedy about… the nature of criminal justice and worker exploitation? Or, more accurately, an unintentional roma...
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Episode 125: Wake Island from 2020-05-24T16:00
A propaganda film churned out and into theaters just 8 months after the battle for which it is named, Wake Island is a fascinating historical artifact… but is it a movie?
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Episode 124: The Pride of the Yankees from 2020-05-17T16:00
Suzan and David disagree on just how good (or not) this Lou Gehrig biopic starring Gary Cooper, and featuring Babe Ruth as himself. But they both agree that baseball is… the sweet science? The beau...
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Episode 123: The Magnificent Ambersons from 2020-05-10T16:00
In a bit of film history podcast imitating film history, our first shot at recording this week’s episode will forever be lost to history— just like Orson Welles’s intended version of The Magnificen...
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Episode 122: Mrs. Miniver from 2020-05-03T16:00
The winner of the 1942 awards, Mrs. Miniver starring Greer Garson is the quintessential representation of the British “Keep Calm and Carry On” response to World War II.
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Episode 121: Yankee Doodle Dandy from 2020-04-26T16:00
A musical cum biopic starring James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy, recycles some of our hosts’ least favorite old Hollywood clichés as it stumbles in its homage to Broadway historical figure George M...
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Episode 120: Kings Row from 2020-04-19T16:00
It should say a lot that our hosts found one of the least abhorrent parts of Kings Row to be Ronald Reagan. A jumbled melodrama depicting horrifying and unevenly denounced medical malpractice, murd...
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Episode 119: The Invaders (or 49th Parallel) from 2020-04-12T16:00
Originally released in the UK in 1941 as 49th Parallel, this week’s movie and 1942’s first nominee was released in the US as The Invaders. Starring Laurence Olivier in possibly his most embarrassin...
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Episode 118: Suspicion from 2020-04-05T16:00
In 1940, our hosts said that Rebecca, while being a fantastic movie, wasn’t necessarily a great Hitchcock film. Is this week’s film, Suspicion, both? Or neither? And wrapping up the 1941 awards, Da...
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Episode 117: How Green Was My Valley from 2020-03-29T16:00
There’s still a week go to, but judging by their review of the winner for 1941, How Green Was My Valley, Suzan and David aren’t going to think much of the Academy’s choice this year.
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Episode 116: The Maltese Falcon from 2020-03-22T16:00
Finally, the long, slow march toward The Maltese Falcon is over, and our hosts are delighted to offer you a rave review again at last!
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Episode 115: One Foot in Heaven from 2020-03-15T16:00
Just in time for everyone to be on lockdown for COVID-19, we bring you our third “Bengal Lancered” episode— prepare to have plenty of recommendations for what to do with your time while you’re soci...
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Episode 114: Hold Back the Dawn from 2020-03-08T16:00
After last week’s divergent score, the pendulum swings back with Hold Back the Dawn— never have our hosts agreed so completely on a score before!
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Episode 113: The Little Foxes from 2020-03-01T17:00
The Little Foxes, starring Bette Davis, is the first movie in awhile that has led to a serious split vote between our hosts. Did David finally reconcile his disappointment with the famous star to g...
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Episode 112: Here Comes Mr. Jordan from 2020-02-23T17:00
Here at Screen Test of Time, our hosts can usually figure out why a movie was nominated for Best Picture, even if we don’t agree that it should have been. Here Comes Mr. Jordan has the distinction ...
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Episode 111: Sergeant York from 2020-02-16T17:00
It’s back to back awkward biopic weeks here at Screen Test of Time, this time with the frustratingly miscast Gary Cooper in Sergeant York. Not the worst WWI movie Suzan and David have watched so fa...
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Episode 110: Blossoms in the Dust from 2020-02-09T17:00
Blossoms in the Dust falls into the category of movies that Hollywood doesn’t quite know how to make yet, subcategory: biopic. It’s in color. The costumes are pretty. It’s still really boring.
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Episode 109: Citizen Kane from 2020-02-02T17:00
Hey, have you all heard about this movie, Citizen Kane?
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Episode 108: Kitty Foyle from 2020-01-26T17:00
Bless her heart, but Ginger Rogers is pulling a lot of thankless weight in this adaptation of a novel butchered by the Hays Code. Also, another year in the can— which of the three 10s will David an...
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Episode 107: The Philadelphia Story from 2020-01-19T17:00
In this episode, Suzan nearly has a complete bisexual meltdown over The Philadelphia Story, starring Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant, which is entirely too many attractive people i...
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Episode 106: The Letter from 2020-01-12T17:00
What is the deal with Bette Davis, anyway? Screen Test of Time investigates… and comes up blank on this week’s episode reviewing The Letter.
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Episode 105: The Great Dictator from 2020-01-05T17:00
Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, starred in, and composed for this (sadly) still very relevant satire of the rise of fascism in Europe. David struggles not to give it a 10, and Suzan stru...
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Episode 104: The Long Voyage Home from 2019-12-29T18:43:51
It’s John Ford and Greg Toland vs boats— which will win out for David, the director and cinematographer he loves or the setting and subject he hates? Certainly this combo will work for Suzan… right...
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Episode 103: Foreign Correspondent from 2019-12-23T03:16:19
The second of two Hitchcock films nominated in this year proves to be a little divisive for our hosts!
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Episode 102: All This, And Heaven Too from 2019-12-15T18:49:44
After multiple days of trying to record, our hosts finally get to sit down and talk about yet another Bette Davis film that leaves them baffled at her superstardom (though with a brief interruption...
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Episode 101: Our Town from 2019-12-08T22:09:11
Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is widely considered to be THE Great American Drama, a sentimental paean to small town Americana that tells the story of two families joined by marriage and separated by ...
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Episode 100: Rebecca from 2019-12-01T17:00
It’s our 100th episode we watched and reviewed Alfred Hitchcock’s 1st American film— 1940’s Best Picture winner, Rebecca, a creeping gothic story of a never named woman (played by Joan Fontaine) wh...
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Episode 99: The Grapes of Wrath from 2019-11-24T17:00
The Grapes of Wrath makes two Steinbeck adaptations in a row here at Screen Test of Time. John Ford’s classic starring Henry Fonda is a masterwork of American cinema, with beautiful cinematography ...
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Episode 98: Of Mice and Men from 2019-11-16T03:07:31
Of Mice and Men is a solid, workmanlike adaptation of the famous Steinbeck novel— competently made, well acted, and with a script by the author himself. But does it rise to the level of Best Pictur...
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Episode 97: Gone With the Wind from 2019-11-10T19:58:50
The long awaited (...or should we say dreaded?) watch of the wildly dated, over long, overrated, and overtly racist Gone With the Wind.
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Episode 96: Ninotchka from 2019-11-03T01:59:17
Perhaps the best thing about 1939 is that it brings our hosts the final Ernst Lubitsch film they will have to watch! After loathing every other film by the prolific director, will Greta Garbo in th...
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Episode 95: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington from 2019-10-27T23:30:53
Frank Capra’s classic is considered the ultimate story of a Washington insider taking on the corrupt political machines holding Congress hostage, thanks to an absolutely brilliant performance by Ji...
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Episode 94: The Wizard of Oz from 2019-10-20T19:10:46
The first of the nominees that both of our hosts have already seen, The Wizard of Oz is getting some scrutiny neither of them had ever given it before. Will the classic starring Judy Garland hold u...
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Episode 93: Goodbye, Mr. Chips from 2019-10-13T19:47:36
Editor’s note: Screen Test of Time would like to apologize for the brevity of this week’s episode, but there really wasn’t much to say about Goodbye, Mr. Chips. We assure you that next week we will...
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Episode 92: Dark Victory from 2019-10-05T22:46:58
The first of the sick bed tearjerker dramas to be nominated for Best Picture, Dark Victory is another in the list of movies where if people just talked to one another, there would be no story. Star...
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Episode 91: Love Affair from 2019-09-28T21:30:17
The basis for the much more widely seen remake starring Cary Grant, Love Affair starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer was a difficult one for our hosts to grade. Moments of brilliance abound, but ...
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Episode 90: Wuthering Heights from 2019-09-22T14:58:05
On this week’s episode, David and Suzan discuss the structure of Gothic storytelling, the perils of adapting a too long book into a too short movie, the merits of War and Peace and 10 Things I Hate...
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Episode 89: Stagecoach from 2019-09-15T20:39
After nearly 2 years of counting down the weeks to film’s most legendary year, 1939 is off with a bang… and some surprising controversy! For the first time in a long time, our hosts find they deepl...
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Episode 88: The Citadel from 2019-09-08T21:46:07
At last, 1938 is over! Our hosts have finally completed the last year of nominees before Hollywood’s “Best Year” with this week’s movie, The Citadel, and the good news is David doesn’t regret using...
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Episode 87: Pygmalion from 2019-09-01T18:55:55
This week on Screen Test of Time, the 1938 film adaptation of Pygmalion starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller takes Suzan utterly by surprise because… she kind of likes most of it? Luckily, David...
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Episode 86: Boys Town from 2019-08-25T20:16:56
Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney don’t have the greatest track record here on Screen Test of Time, and they co-star in Boys Town, a biopic about a priest who started a literal incorporated town for ...
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Episode 85: You Can't Take It with You from 2019-08-18T17:15:03
Ahhh… at last, our hosts can breathe a sigh of relief before hitting play on this week’s movie, You Can’t Take It with You. With the Screen Test of Time proven Frank Capra at the helm, and Jimmy St...
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Episode 84: Four Daughters from 2019-08-11T18:51:28
This movie should be called Four Daughters (and an Embarrassment of Baxters). Four pretty, almost indistinguishable adult women with some level of musical talent, their music professor dad (played ...
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Episode 83: Alexander's Ragtime Band from 2019-08-04T17:26:01
Tyrone Power and Alice Faye are back in Alexander’s Ragtime Band, and better than ever… which isn’t saying much. The musical numbers may swing, but the plot will rock you to sleep.
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Episode 82: La Grande Illusion from 2019-07-28T15:23:40
When asked what 2 movies he would take with him on the ark, Orson Welles replied that La Grande Illusion would be one of them (and couldn’t name the other). Our hosts are happy to report that they ...
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Episode 81: The Adventures of Robin Hood from 2019-07-21T15:59:02
Errol Flynn and Olivia Havilland return to the podcast in the ur-Robin Hood movie from 1938. The second Oscar nominated movie fully in Technicolor, it’s David’s grandfather’s favorite movie ever. S...
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Episode 80: Test Pilot from 2019-07-14T00:07:22
An extraordinary film-- not in the sense that it's excellent-- but that it constantly teeters on the precipice of disaster, held only together by the strength of Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, and Clark...
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Episode 79: Jezebel from 2019-07-07T20:58:13
1938 is off to a rough start-- one movie in, and our hosts have already broken the glass on the Bengal Lancer Clause*… sort of. Suzan does sum up the entire movie in one sentence, but mostly our ho...
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Episode 78: In Old Chicago from 2019-06-30T16:54:45
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains a lot of references to sexual assault that takes place in the movie.
Another in the “musical drama disaster film” genre of San Francisco, this week’...
Episode 77: The Awful Truth from 2019-06-23T22:39:53
Another in the weird 1930s trend of "hilarious" comedies about divorce, The Awful Truth, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, is the film equivalent of a bottle of champagne that's been left open f...
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Episode 76: Stage Door from 2019-06-16T23:27
Just in time for Pride month, the undeniably queer Stage Door is not not an odd couple romantic comedy. A terrific movie where the Powerful Lesbian Energy fan service is only barely subtextual— Kat...
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Episode 75: One Hundred Men and a Girl from 2019-06-09T22:00
Deanna Durbin is back in this bizarre Depression Era concert movie cum Cinderella story, and our hosts are genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of our young heroine. One hundred men and not one of...
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Episode 74: Dead End from 2019-06-02T16:00
Dead End welcomes the legendary Humphrey Bogart to the podcast for the first, but not the last time! An excellent ensemble cast, a class warfare theme, and a handful of impressive bits of cinematog...
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Episode 73: The Life of Emile Zola from 2019-05-26T22:00
Our hosts aren’t sure that anything could make them forgive Paul Muni for The Good Earth, but the lackluster biopic and incomprehensible 1937 Best Picture Winner, The Life of Emile Zola isn’t it.
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Episode 72: Captains Courageous from 2019-05-19T16:00
David and Suzan take you on a giddy, punch drunk voyage of fish bonding, bad Portuguese (question mark?) accents, and entirely unbelievable rich dads in this week’s episode reviewing Captains Coura...
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Episode 71: A Star is Born from 2019-05-12T16:00
The original A Star is Born (and only other Best Picture nominee besides the Lady Gaga one), is a good movie with the bones of a great movie, and the first nominee entirely in color! Screen Test of...
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Episode 70: Lost Horizon from 2019-05-05T16:00
The first Frank Capra movie we haven't been immediately sure should have won the year, Lost Horizon is never the less still leading the pack for 1937. (Of course, that’s not saying much, since the ...
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Episode 69: The Good Earth from 2019-04-28T16:00
1937 is not off to a good start with The Good Earth. A cast led by Paul Muni and Luise Rainer, white actors in yellow face hair and makeup, portraying rural Chinese peasants at the turn of the 20th...
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Episode 68: Three Smart Girls from 2019-04-21T16:00
The 1936 nominees wrap up this week with Three Smart Girls, a sort of musical that’s basically a proto-Parent Trap… but are there three smart girls in it? There are three daughters of indeterminate...
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Episode 67: Libeled Lady from 2019-04-14T16:00
Start with It Happened One Night as the foundation, add William Powell and Myrna Loy back on their witty repartee from The Thin Man, and top with Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow, and you seemingly ha...
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Episode 66: Dodsworth from 2019-04-07T16:00
A film that tries to justify a husband’s neglectful, sometimes abusive treatment of his wife basically because she wants to go on a vacation he promised her over 20 years ago, Dodsworth is a misogy...
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Episode 65: Romeo and Juliet from 2019-03-31T16:00
With Leslie Howard (41) and Norma Shearer (34) as the titular characters, Romeo and Juliet begins the long Hollywood tradition of casting extremely age inappropriate actors as teenagers. An obvious...
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Episode 64: Anthony Adverse from 2019-03-24T16:00
Never before have our hosts said, “But whatever,” as many times as in this episode (please do not turn this into a drinking game— you have been warned). Despite SToT favorite Frederic March giving ...
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Episode 63: San Francisco from 2019-03-17T16:00
San Francisco starring Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracey, and Clark Gable, is nearly two and a half hours of muddled confusion. Is it an historical dramedy? A musical disaster film? Or just an his...
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Episode 62: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town from 2019-03-10T16:00
Frank Capra continues his streak of good movies with the best one so far: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. It’s a funny, quirky, extremely moving, and socioeconomically progressive gem starring an incredibl...
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Episode 61: The Great Ziegfeld from 2019-03-03T17:00
The winner of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld is absolute Academy catnip: a big flashy musical that’s also a biopic, almost three hours long and lousy with famous stars, and generally a celebration of the...
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Episode 60: The Story of Louis Pasteur from 2019-02-24T17:00
So far, 1936 holds steady with the totally acceptable biopic, The Story of Louis Pasteur. Telling the somewhat… uh… sanitized version of Pasteur’s proving the existence of microbes and the germ the...
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Episode 59: A Tale of Two Cities from 2019-02-17T17:00
It was the best of times, it was the— actually, know what? It’s just the best of times, because 1936 has kicked off with a solidly good movie! A Tale of Two Cities is a dream come true after the sl...
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Episode 58: Captain Blood from 2019-02-10T17:00
Captain Blood is the 1930s version of a big, brainless action movie— David suggests Jason Statham would star in this today— and yet Hollywood hadn’t yet figured out how to make a big, brainless act...
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Episode 57: Mutiny on the Bounty from 2019-02-03T17:00
There are a number of movies where Charles Laughton has been acting in an entirely different film than everyone else on screen, but this is the first where that one seems like the better movie. Bas...
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Episode 56: A Midsummer Night's Dream from 2019-01-27T17:00
David: Suzan, I might have gotten slightly drunk watching this movie over the course of like four hours.
Suzan: I mean, I didn’t, because I don’t drink, but I definitely felt like I had i...
Episode 55: Top Hat from 2019-01-20T17:00
Ten episodes ago, David and Suzan told you to hold off on watching The Gay Divorcee, because once they had watched this week’s movie, Top Hat, they would tell you which was the better Oscar nominat...
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Episode 54: The Broadway Melody of 1936 from 2019-01-13T17:00
1935 has been a rough year for our hosts, but this week, they have a wonderful, if surreal respite, in The Broadway Melody of 1936! A totally bonkers plot threads through some truly spectacular mus...
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Episode 53: Alice Adams from 2019-01-06T17:00
Happy New Year, Screen Testers! Our intrepid hosts begin their second year of their quest with the Katherine Hepburn vehicle, Alice Adams. Something of a shaggy dog story, it’s a strange little fil...
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Episode 52: The Informer from 2018-12-30T17:00
They did it! David and Suzan have watched a Best Picture nominated film and released their review every week for a year. The final flick of the year is The Informer, the story of a former Irish Rep...
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Episode 51: Les Miserables from 2018-12-23T17:00
Suzan has been waiting this entire first year for the opportunity to geek out about Les Miserables. This week, she also fell in love with Frederic March, who entirely proved she and David wrong whe...
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Episode 50: Naughty Marietta from 2018-12-16T17:00
Primary lessons learned from Naughty Marietta: don’t wiggle raw, unrefrigerated shrimp in a woman’s face as a way of flirting. This very loosely adapted version of a wildly confusing operetta stars...
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Episode 49: Ruggles of Red Gap from 2018-12-02T17:00
The story of an English valet who gets traded away in a poker game to basically the Beverly Hillbillies, Ruggles of Red Gap stars Charles Laughton in the first of three 1935 Best Picture nomination...
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Episode 48: David Copperfield from 2018-11-25T17:00
On this week’s episode, Suzan and David recommend half a dozen other adaptations of David Copperfield you could watch instead of this one. David has a hard time remembering names of real life peopl...
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Episode 47: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer from 2018-11-18T17:00
If you give thanks for only one thing this holiday, let it be that Suzan and David love you, their listeners, enough not to subject you to this terrible, terrible film.
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Episode 46: Flirtation Walk from 2018-11-11T17:00
Whatever you do, do not play a drinking game in which you drink every time our hosts sigh dejectedly this episode. You will be hospitalized. That Flirtation Walk was nominated in the same year as H...
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Episode 45: Imitation of Life from 2018-11-04T17:00
The final Claudette Colbert nominee for 1934, Imitation of Life attempts to deal with issues of racism, passing, and white supremacy in America. The first movie in this project that really had its ...
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Episode 44: The Surprise Halloween Episode! from 2018-10-28T16:00
The movie they should have watched this week, The White Parade, is unavailable to watch (outside of the super secret UCLA Film Archives vault that they still haven’t managed to crack), so our hosts...
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Episode 43: The Gay Divorcee from 2018-10-21T16:00
Our hosts' first foray into the world of Fred and Ginger, The Gay Divorcee is a bit of a mixed bag, but at least it's an improvement over the last two weeks! The good: Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger...
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Episode 42: The Barretts of Wimpole Street from 2018-10-14T16:00
SToT favorites Norma Shearer and Frederic March star in this unfortunately agonizing biopic about Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Charles Laughton returns in a brutal role that entirely erases the memo...
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Episode 41: One Night of Love from 2018-10-07T16:00
Grace Moore stars as a helpless aspiring prima donna who runs away to Italy to study with a famously cruel and abusive vocal coach, while consistently rejecting a genuinely good rich guy who just w...
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Episode 40: Cleopatra from 2018-09-30T16:00
Last week, Suzan predicted this was going to be 100 minute of Claudette Colbert fan service, and for once, her instincts were spot on. An absolute burlesque of a film that specifically pushed the l...
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Episode 39: Here Comes the Navy from 2018-09-23T16:00
The aircraft carrier and the airship featured in this movie both figured into horrible accidents after this film was shot. And that's the most interesting thing about Here Comes the Navy. A confusi...
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Episode 38: The Thin Man from 2018-09-16T16:00
The Thin Man is almost perfect: main characters Nick and Nora Charles, are perhaps the world’s most charming detective couple; they have an adorable dog; the banter is fast and witty; and the multi...
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Episode 37: Viva Villa! from 2018-09-09T16:00
Another in a long line of Hollywood white wash casting, Viva Villa! is an absolutely infuriating, stereotypical portrayal of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa by Wallace Beery (The Champ, Grand Ho...
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Episode 36: The House of Rothschild from 2018-09-02T16:00
If you're looking for a master class in how well meaning racism is still racism, look no further than The House of Rothschild, a film that tries to indict anti-semitism while reinforcing anti-semit...
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Episode 35: It Happened One Night from 2018-08-26T16:00
This week, on a very special episode of the Screen Test of Time: it was really a movie! A very good movie! Frank Capra's It Happened One Night starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert is the Ur-r...
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Episode 34: Little Women from 2018-08-19T16:00
The first of many onscreen adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel, the Katherine Hepburn starring Little Women is also the first that our hosts have been exposed to the story, at least fo...
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Episode 33: Lady for a Day from 2018-08-12T16:00
Lady for a Day is an almost entirely delightful rags-to-sort-of-riches fairytale with a brilliant ensemble cast of at the time relative unknowns. After a quick discussion of the Academy's upcoming ...
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Episode 32: The Private Life of King Henry VIII from 2018-08-05T16:00
You know the clichéd portrayal of Henry VIII as an gluttonous, overgrown man child? Charles Laughton's portrayal of the English king with many wives in The Private Life of Henry VIII is where it al...
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Episode 31: Cavalcade from 2018-07-29T16:00
The winner for 1932/1933, Cavalcade is like a season and a half of television that they've just slammed into a hundred and fifty minutes... or the first three seasons of Downton Abbey, with basical...
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Episode 30: 42nd Street from 2018-07-22T16:00
On last week's episode, Suzan was certain that this would be amazing and her choice for the 1932/1933 nominees, and her track record on week before proclamations holds steady. The first and only mu...
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Episode 29: State Fair from 2018-07-15T16:00
In this week's episode, David posits the conspiracy theory that State Fair, remade half a dozen times in various media, is funded by the shadowy State Fair Lobby... but is his assertion as wild as ...
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Episode 28: She Done Him Wrong from 2018-07-08T16:00
Clocking in at a mere 66 minutes, Mae West's She Done Him Wrong is the shortest movie ever nominated for Best Picture. Through some kind of manipulation of the space time continuum, however, it man...
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Episode 27: A Farewell to Arms from 2018-07-01T16:00
At the end of last week's episode, David and Suzan were sure that A Farewell to Arms, which stars Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes, had to be a good movie. Suzan expected that nothing with these two sta...
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Episode 26: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang from 2018-06-24T16:00
The second film nominated for the 1932/1933 awards, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang was a ripped from the headlines, based on a true story, adapted from a book smash, and the rare movie that actu...
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Episode 25: Smilin' Through from 2018-06-17T16:00
Our hosts start off the 1932/1933 Academy Awards with Smilin' Through. Norma Shearer, short shrifted in The Divorcee as a glamorous doormat, finally gets her due in the role of spitfire Kathleen, a...
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Episode 24: Grand Hotel from 2018-06-10T16:00
At last, we reach the end of the 1931/1932 Oscars with the winner Grand Hotel. Sort of the first Ocean's Eleven, it's chock full of stars: Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery of The Champ fame, Greta Garb...
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Episode 23: One Hour With You from 2018-06-03T16:00
Ahhh... there's nothing like the unfettered glee of a true hate watch, and Suzan and David are downright giddy this week. One Hour With You, their third Ernst Lubitsch directed, Maurice Chevalier s...
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Episode 22: Shanghai Express from 2018-05-27T16:00
CONTENT WARNING: This week's episode briefly refers to a scene of sexual assault and extensively discusses issues of racism and representation in Hollywood.
Shanghai Express has so much g...
Episode 21: Arrowsmith from 2018-05-20T16:00
No, this week's movie is not about the guys who wrote "Love in an Elevator." It is, however, the movie that definitively answers the question, “Can a movie have too much plot?” Arrowsmith is the sw...
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Episode 20: The Champ from 2018-05-13T16:00
This week, Jackie Cooper is back, baby, and this time in a movie David and Suzan can actually watch! The Champ is kind of Rocky times Dennis the Menace divided by a dysfunctional, alcoholic family ...
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Episode 19: Five Star Final from 2018-05-06T16:00
Another nominee that focuses on the behind the scenes business of newspapers, this time as an indictment of tabloid journalism. There's marriage, death, and a lot of showboating monologues in Five ...
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Episode 18: Bad Girl from 2018-04-29T16:00
Our hosts have learned not to judge a movie by its poster this week, but surely they should be able to infer something about it from its title? Not so with Bad Girl, a charming if befuddling pictur...
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Episode 17: The Smiling Lieutenant from 2018-04-22T16:00
Suzan and David are finally free of the 1930/1931 nominees! …But not free of Ernst Lubitsch and Maurice Chevalier’s misogynistic musicals. The Smiling Lieutenant is the movie that asks “What did pe...
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Episode 16: Skippy, Trader Horn, ...and City Lights? from 2018-04-15T16:00
David and Suzan prove their courage by watching a possibly cursed video copy of Skippy, so if you haven’t heard from them next week, they’ve been claimed by a ghost girl from a well. Just in case t...
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Episode 15: (Not) East Lynne from 2018-04-08T16:00
What do your long suffering hosts do when they still can't find a copy, no matter how grey market, of the 1931 version of East Lynne? Why, they find a movie that should have been nominated for Best...
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Episode 14: The Front Page from 2018-04-01T16:00
Despite being extremely resourceful, your intrepid hosts did not manage to find a copy of East Lynne this week, as there’s apparently only one extent copy that sits in a vault at the UCLA film arch...
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Episode 13: Cimarron from 2018-03-25T16:00
This week kicks off the nominees for 1930/1931 Oscars, a year that the Academy seems to wish it could forget. (Only 3 of the 5 nominees exist outside of a single copy in a vault at the UCLA film ar...
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Episode 12: The Big House from 2018-03-18T16:00
Both of your hosts are sniffling through head colds, but they persevere to bring you the final episode reviewing the 1929/1930 nominees! The Big House is sort of a watch-one-get-one-free movie: com...
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Episode 11: The Divorcee from 2018-03-11T16:00
Norma Shearer wears a Parisian dress shop's worth of fabulous outfits and Conrad Nagel plays the least immoral character in this movie as a man with a blatant disregard for the sanctity of other pe...
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Episode 10: All Quiet on the Western Front from 2018-03-04T17:00
Ten movies in and we've finally found the origin of the Oscar bait flick! Which is not to shade All Quiet on the Western Front, which is great, but here's the origin of the Epic Horrors of War Film...
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Episode 9: The Love Parade from 2018-02-25T17:00
Ernst Lubitsch’s The Love Parade is a classic fairytale— boy meets girl, girl is the queen of some place called Sylvania, boy slept with her ambassador’s wife, but instead of ending up exiled forev...
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Episode 8: Disraeli from 2018-02-18T17:00
What do you get when you mash up a drawing room comedy, a spy caper, and a proto-biopic? Well, you get something of a mess, but at least a mostly entertaining one. Disraeli starts off the 1929/1930...
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Episode 7: The Hollywood Revue of 1929 from 2018-02-11T17:00
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 was definitely a departure from the Oscar nominated movies so far: a musical revue that feels like it was plucked right off a Vaudeville stage, featuring a flapper danci...
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Episode 6: Alibi from 2018-02-04T17:00
There are movies that are bad because they're offensive, movies that are bad because they're poorly acted, and movies that are bad because they're generally unimportant nonsense stories that don't ...
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Episode 5: The Broadway Melody of 1929 from 2018-01-28T17:00
They like it, they really like it! Finally, David and Suzan watch a movie nominated for Best Picture that they actually enjoy! The Broadway Melody isn't the best movie they've ever seen, or anythin...
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Episode 4: In Old Arizona from 2018-01-21T17:00
The moral of this week's show is "Be careful what you wish for." Last week, Suzan was over silent films and excited to finally get to the talkies. In Old Arizona granted her wish, but at what cost?...
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Episode 3: The Racket from 2018-01-14T17:00
This week, David and Suzan round out the last of the nominees for the very first year with a break from WWI and the very first gangster flick to get a Best Picture nod, The Racket. Don't get too ex...
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Episode 2: Wings from 2018-01-07T17:00
Just how many WWI movies with wacky romantic comedy subplots can one Academy Award season handle? Apparently, the answer is two. This week, our hosts review the 1927/1928 winner, Wings. David hates...
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Episode 1: 7th Heaven from 2018-01-01T17:00
This week, David and Suzan begin their undertaking with 7th Heaven, a 1927 silent romantic comedy(?) about a Parisian sewer worker who falls in love with a pretty orphan girl before going off to WWI.
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