Want to see a classic film historian geek out? Get her on the phone with the Oscar-nominated star of one of the greatest movies ever made. The fan is me. The star is Nancy Olson. The film is Sunset Blvd. We talked for an hour, and Olson patiently answered every question I posed, including the most crucial one: “Was William Holden a good kisser?” (Short answer: Hell yeah!) . I play clips from our conversation whenever I host the movie. She’s the most down-to-earth performer I’

Rhett and Scarlett in Gone With the Wind . Nick and Nora in The Thin Man . Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca . They’re just three of cinema’s most renowned couples. And then there’s Fay Wray. She was part of two legendary duos, on screen and off. In 1933, Fay became the original “Scream Queen,” thanks to RKO’s monster hit King Kong. The film’s producer wasn’t kidding when he promised Fay, “You’re going to have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood.” With that role, Fay sec

Whenever I host classic films, I wade deeply into the weeds of each picture. (What can I say? Card-carrying nerd, reporting for duty.) In 2019, while researching my introduction to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , I stumbled across James Stewart’s last words and they got me all verklemmt ... Jimmy was married for 44 years to his one and only wife Gloria – a woman with movie star looks, but without movie star ambitions, which was fine by her husband. After landing in Hollywood i

James Cagney never said, “You dirty rat,” but he did "rat out" his favorite movie: “Many people assume that one of those knock-down, drag-'em-outs would be my choice. A discerning critic...can’t understand why I would choose Yankee Doodle Dandy over White Heat and The Public Enemy . The answer is simple, and it derives from George M. Cohan’s comment about himself: Once a song-and-dance man, always a song-and-dance man. In that brief statement, you have my life story; those

Why is The Asphalt Jungle the mack daddy of all caper films? It’s co-written and directed by John Huston, who made the criminally good classics Key Largo and The Maltese Falcon. It’s based on a book by W.R. Burnett, who established his street cred with Little Caesar and High Sierra. It’s packed with underrated actors delivering peak performances: Sterling Hayden, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, Louis Calhern, and a newbie named Marilyn Monroe, swiping every scene as a shady lawyer’s