Email Author Elliott Stein

2002 Stories by Elliott Stein

• Bliss and Blarney

  published December 24, 2002

  In Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, James Stewart, contemplating suicide, sees the world as it would have been had he not been born.... More >>

• Journal Entries

  published December 10, 2002

  The French film journal Positif was founded in 1952 in Lyon, less than a year after its great rival Cahiers du Cinéma first... More >>

• Silence Please!

  published November 12, 2002

  "Pordenone's not much of a place," a character says to Lieutenant Henry in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Times change. For years,... More >>

• Photo Jenny

  published October 22, 2002

  After The Wages of Fear (1953) and Diabolique (1955), Henri-Georges Clouzot became pigeonholed as the French Hitchcock. Somewhat... More >>

• Old Hollywood's Sure Thing

  published September 10, 2002

  William Wyler is a prime example of the Hollywood craftsman who thrived under the studio system from the 1930s to the 1950s. For many years he was... More >>

• Paris Match

  published September 10, 2002

  Jacques Becker, the subject of a nine-film retrospective at BAMcinématek (September 12 through 29), had a small output before his... More >>

• Made in U.S.A.

  published July 30, 2002

  When Fritz Lang cleared out of Nazi Germany, he shot a film in France, then moved to Hollywood in 1934. The director of Metropolis turned... More >>

• Fatalist Attraction

  published July 16, 2002

  The forgotten man of French cinema, Jean Grémillon made close to 50 films between 1926 and 1958: avant-garde works, docs, and a stunning... More >>

• Oedipus in Overalls

  published June 25, 2002

  Jean Gabin was France's most durable star. In nearly 100 films, from the early sound era until his last picture in 1976 (the year of his death),... More >>

• Malcolm in the Muddle

  published May 21, 2002

  Malcolm McDowell's commanding presence as a sadistic ruffian in A Clockwork Orange and the teen rebel of If . . . established him as... More >>

• Phantom Ladies

  published April 30, 2002

  A vintage year for film noir, 1944 saw the release of Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window, Otto... More >>

• Laughter and Forgetting

  published April 23, 2002

  Film Forum's "Great American Comedy" series (through June 7) is the most ambitious retro ever held in the house: more than 100 comedies, featuring... More >>

• Laughter and Forgetting

  published April 16, 2002

  Film Forum's series is by far the most ambitious retro ever held in the house: 10 weeks of more than 100 comedies, featuring silent clowns, 1930s... More >>

• Rubble Indemnities

  published April 9, 2002

  After Germany was divided in 1949, the enfeebled film industries of East and West developed along separate lines. The Walter Reade's copious... More >>

• World Citizen

  published March 19, 2002

  Joris Ivens died in 1989 at age 90, just as his luminous final film, A Tale of the Wind, was making the rounds. This militant "Flying... More >>

• Boiling Points

  published January 15, 2002

  In the Japan Society's "Dark Visions," noir seems a catchall term for a group of loosely related psycho-thrillers, police procedurals,... More >>