There's Sometimes a Buggy

This Universal 1935 Studios Year by Year episode features some very curious medical ambitions: first, there's Eugene Frenke's wacky Life Returns, loosely based on the true story of scientist Robert E. Cornish and his canine Lazari; an act that could only be followed by John Stahl's Magnificent Obsession, starring Robert Taylor as a genius physician who can only realize his potential by becoming the man he killed and curing the woman he blinded. We do our best to isolate what distinguishes Stahl's Obsession from Sirk's (besides the comedic stylings of Charles Butterworth, a.k.a. the inspiration for the voice of Cap'n Crunch).  Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s:      1935 & Universal 0h 05m 40s:      LIFE RETURNS (1935) [dir. Eugene Frenke] 0h 33m 16s:      MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1935) [dir. John M. Stahl]   1h 06m 16s:      So This is Sarris – From The American Cinema -Robert Aldrich   +++   Studio Film Capsules provided by The Universal Story by Clive Hirschhorn Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1935 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer                                 +++ * 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 latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new 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 [email protected]   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

Our final Sandra Dee episode for a while sees us battling out whether the inanities of the Ross Hunter melodrama Portrait in Black (1960), based on a play by the writing duo behind White Heat, are fun or just dumb, after which we turn to Peter Ustinov's Romanoff and Juliet (1961), the most curiously gentle satire of Cold War superpower misbehaviour it's possible to imagine. We do agree on one thing in this episode: there's not enough Sandra Dee.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s:    PORTRAIT IN BLACK (1960) [dir. Michael Gordon] 0h 31m 29s:    ROMANOFF & JULIET (1961) [dir. Peter Ustinov] 0h 47m 49s:      So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema) – Delmer Daves +++ 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 [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For our September 2026 Special Subject we read Susan Sontag's essay "Bergman's Persona" and applied its ideas to Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, mentioned in the essay, and Robert Altman's 3 Women, which owes a great deal to Persona. Following Sontag, we ask what it would mean to try to approach a narrative film without needing to know "what happens in the story" and what other modes of response are available for films that resist plot synopsis. And for those who are still trying to figure out the occult connection of Henry James to our podcast, there's lots of Sacred Fount talk (started by Sontag). But just like us with these movie plots, you will probably be no wiser.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s:    Sontag on narrative complexity/opacity 0h 07m 21s:    LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961) [dir. Alain Resnais] 0h 33m 18s:    3 WOMEN (1977) [dir. Robert Altman] 1h 06m 25s:      So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema) – John Cromwell   Susan Sontag's essay "Bergman's Persona: An Essay on Tragedy," published in Styles of Radical Will (1969) +++ 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 [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join! 

For this RKO 1935 episode, FOTP Ann Harding returns in Enchanted April (directed by Harry Beaumont), based on a novel by Elizabeth von Armin that Elise declares, based on the cinematic evidence, to be the missing link between Jane Austen and Jane Bowles. Then we turn to one of Dave's favourites, In Person (directed by William A. Seiter), a Ginger Rogers comedy that paired her with an unusually lively George Brent. We discuss the very unusual chemistry between their characters, a Hollywood actress in disguise and an outdoorsman who cures her agoraphobia in a curious way.    Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s:      1935 & RKO 0h 04m 33s:      ENCHANTED APRIL (1935) [dir. Harry Beaumont] 0h 25m 40s:      IN PERSON (1935) [dir. William A. Seiter]   +++   Studio Film Capsules provided by The RKO Story by Richard B. Jewell & Vernon Harbin Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler 1935 Information from Forgotten Films to Remember by John Springer                                 +++ * 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 latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating. * Check out Dave's new 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 [email protected]   We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!           

For our second Sandra Dee episode we watched two films from 1959 (March 1959, to be exact): the Ross Hunter family melodrama A Stranger in My Arms (directed by Helmut Käutner), from a novel by the author of Written on the Wind, and the infamous Gidget (directed by Paul Wendkos), based on Frederick Kohner's novel about his daughter. We do our best to reconstruct the movie Stranger could have been while marveling at Dee's exhausting performance of a neurotic rich girl, and then turn our flabbergasted attention to Gidget, a movie with much more on its mind (particularly concerning gender roles and alienation) than we could ever have imagined based on its reputation. And in our So This Is Sarris section we get sensitive about Sam Fuller's visual forms.  Time Codes: 0h 00m 20s:    STRANGER IN MY ARMS (1959) [dir. Helmut Kautner] 0h 20m 54s:    GIDGET (1959) [dir. Paul Wendkos] 1h 00m 32s:      So This is Sarris (Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema) – Samuel Fuller +++ 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 [email protected] We now have a Discord server - just drop us a line if you'd like to join!