Our final Diana Wynyard episode has arrived all too soon! We look at her two final key roles, in Alexander Korda's film of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1947) and The Feminine Touch (1956), a nurse drama that's better than its silly title. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we cover the 2025 Toronto Silent Film Festival, focusing on three films built around miraculous performances, Victor Sjostrom's The Wind (1928), starring Lillian Gish, Victor Fleming's Mantrap (1926), starring Clara Bow, and Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928), starring Emil Jannings (ably supported by Evelyn Brent), before turning our attention to a film that was entirely new to us, the blatantly anti-capitalist The Johnstown Flood (1926), featuring Janet Gaynor in her first major role.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: AN IDEAL HUSBAND (1947) [dir. Alexander Korda]

0h 23m 27s: THE FEMININE TOUCH (1956) [dir. Pat Jackson]

0h 41m 54s: Diana Wynyard – The Summing Up

0h 48m 01s: FEAR & MOVIEGOING IN TORONTO: Toronto Silent Film Festival 2025 at The Revue Cinema [The Wind, Mantrap, The Last Command, The Johnstown Flood, Leap Year, Assistant Wives] and Easter Parade (1948) at TIFF Lightbox.

+++

* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!

**** [Retro Re-issue Alert!] ****

Turns out it wasn't such a great idea to use Le Tigre's "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" as our podcast's theme song in 2019 and 2020! Anyway, Spotify (and presumably Le Tigre) don't seem to think so.

Accordingly, please find the attached re-issue of one of our foundational episodes, minus the intro music + a couple of words of greeting from Elise.

Consider it a fragment shored against our (Julie) Ruin.

First issued: August 23, 2019

This week’s episode serves as both a prolegomenon to our imminent Hollywood Studios Year By Year series and as a wistful look back to Dave’s teen years, when he picked up Ethan Mordden’s freewheeling speed date with Old Hollywood History and discovered a new way to split the difference between Adornian culture industry theory and auteurist ontology.

Journey back to a time when oligopoly really meant something and most entertainment companies weren’t somehow beholden to Disney. We quote from and quibble with Mordden’s characterizations of the quintessential qualities of Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, Fox, RKO, and Universal (Dave gets particularly riled up about yet another slight to the sacred memory of Carl Laemmle Jr.).

What’s your favourite Golden Age Studio? We want to know!

Time Codes:

0h 0m 00s: The Hollywood Studios

2h 14m 43s Listener Mail with Todd Murry

+++

*Read Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

In this Farrow vs. Allen Special Subject episode we dig into a strong set of films, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Radio Days (1987), united by their examination of art, popular culture, and fantasy, the possibilities they offer for transcendence, and the conditions of that transcendence. We also, of course, particularly examine Mia Farrow's role in these films, from Allen avatar to intimidating enigma, wistful waif to materfamilias.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 25s: THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) [dir. Woody Allen]

0h 31m 01s: HANNAH & HER SISTERS (1986) [dir. Woody Allen]

0h 54m 18s: RADIO DAYS (1987) [dir. Woody Allen]

++

* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!