My Sister Eileen (Alexander Hall, 1942)

Based on a play by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov—which itself was adapted from a series of autobiographical short stories by Ruth McKenney—My Sister Eileen was later remade by Columbia in 1955 as a CinemaScope musical directed by Richard Quine. It follows the misadventures of two Ohio sisters in their search for love, fortune and an apartment to rent in New York. Rosalind Russell plays the older sister, determined to pursue a career in journalism, while also finding herself both chaperoning and competing with her younger sister Eileen (Janet Blair), whose dream of becoming an actress draws all the wrong people to their cramped basement apartment.

None Shall Escape (André De Toth, 1944)

Playing at Harvard Film Archive on December 8 and 14. — EK

A rare exposé of Nazi atrocities made while the crimes were still ongoing, None Shall Escape is boldly framed as a speculative post-war tribunal that revisits the actions of a German schoolteacher (Alexander Knox) turned Nazi and the horrors he inflicted on a Polish village. Impressed by André De Toth’s Hungarian films, Harry Cohn hired the director after his arrival in the US in 1940. Following a routine B-movie assignment, De Toth—who had personally witnessed and even filmed the Nazi occupation of Poland—was given None Shall Escape; its title echoing President Roosevelt’s pledge of postwar justice.

Arbaeen (Nasser Taghvai, 1970)

Arbaeen (Nasser Taghvai, 1970)

During the annual mourning ritual held on the 40th day after the martyrdom of the Shia Imam, Hossein, men in the southern city of Bushehr rhythmically strike their chests in time with the recited elegies. In this short documentary shot in colour (Mehrdad Fakhimi's work), director Nasser Taghvai uses the sounds of environment to create a rhythmic editing, in sync with the movements and solemn strikes of the bare-chested men. There are occasional digressions to symbolic cutaways – common in Iran New Wave – of people outside and even a pair of dead fishes washed ashore.

Cheshmeh [The Spring] (Arby Ovanessian, 1971)

A film of unravelled mysteries and repressed longings, in Cheshmeh the nonlinear narrative, moving freely in time, is set in a Muslim community but is centered around a Christian woman who is the love interest of two men and married to a third. The interwoven fates are destined to end in tragedy, but the film leaves what potentially comprises a tragedy off-frame. Despite its richness in Armenian details (which was the cultural heritage of its director Arby Ovanessian), the film shares a significant number of threads with the Iranian New Wave films, particularly in its sense of isolation and fear of strangers, but also sets the hypnotic, numbing pace that the works of some of Ovanessian's contemporaries were going to be known for. 

The Deep Blue Sea (Anatole Litvak, 1955)

Italian poster for The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea plays at Closeup Cinema in London on December 28, 2025 from a rare 16mm print. – EK

THE DEEP BLUE SEA

This rarest of all Anatole Litvak films is about Hester, a middle-aged woman whose suicide attempt at the beginning of the story sparks off two flashbacks, one from the point of view of the upper-class husband she has abandoned and the other from the view of the younger, capricious ex-RAF pilot for whom she has left her husband. Back to the present, the film revolves around her desperate attempt to win back her lover, only to realise she is yearning for something she can’t have.

Till We Meet Again (Frank Borzage, 1944)

Catalogue note (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025) on the restored version of Till We Meet Again (Frank Borzage, 1944). — EK

Ray Milland’s John, a grounded American pilot in Nazi-occupied France, is helped by a young nun (Barbara Britton) who, in order to facilitate his escape, dresses as a civilian. In doing so, the two develop an unspoken desire for each other.

Jazz on a Summer's Day (Bert Stern, 1959)

Review of the Blu-ray release for Sight & Sound, March-April 2023. – EK

Jazz on a Summer's Day

The annual Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island received its only movie treatment thanks to Bert Stern, a photographer famous for his portraits of female stars and models – which should explain the film's fascination with fashion and the idea of the "cool". Here the attitude of the performer – the magnificent detachment of Thelonious Monk, the movie-star glamour of Anita O'Day – is as important as the sound. Equally instrumental in the direction (though, to his dismay, uncredited) and responsible for editing the film was Aram Avakian, who constructs the rapport between the performers and the festival audience, both captured at graceful ease.

Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life (Fred Waller, 1935)

Billie Holiday in Symphony in Black

Duke Ellington receives a telegram reminding him of his forthcoming concert in two weeks’ time—not a terribly long notice for finishing an extended composition that seemingly hasn’t been touched before, but most probably accurate, since Ellington was one of the greatest procrastinators in jazz, often writing right up until the curtain rose.

Jammin' the Blues (Djon Mili, 1944)

Like Forough Farrokhzad and Jean Genet, the Albanian-born Djon Mili belongs to that small group of artists who, when counted officially (theatrical release of a completed film), might have directed only one short film. Yet that short, entitled Jammin' the Blues (1944), remains a touchstone of jazz on film.

The Brave Bulls (Robert Rossen, 1951)

The new 4K restoration of the film – courtesy of Sony/Columbia – plays on November 8 at Harvard Film Archive as part of the retrospective co-curated by Haden Guest and me, Columbia 101: The Rarities. — EK

The Brave Bulls was Robert Rossen’s final film in a cycle of four complex explorations of corruption and fear (Johnny O'clock, The Undercover Man, All the King's Men) that he either directed or wrote for Columbia. A brutally frank bullfighting drama, the film follows a matador (Mel Ferrer) who, beginning to crack under the pressure of his profession and a newfound fear of the ring, seeks to reclaim control over his life. Anthony Quinn plays a typically Rossenian character—a charismatic manipulator who, like Broderick Crawford in All the King’s Men, holds the power to both redeem and destroy.

Address Unknown (William Cameron Menzies, 1944)

Playing at Harvard Film Archive on November 8, 2025, as part of "Columbia Rarities". — EK

In 1930s Germany, a congenial gallery owner falls under the spell of Nazism. A chilling work of strong political conviction, the film unfolds through the symmetrically menacing compositions of art-director-turned-director William Cameron Menzies. Based on a 1938 short story by Kathrine Kressmann which originally unfolded through a series of letters exchanged between a Jewish art dealer living in San Francisco and his business partner, the film was made thanks to a group of talented exiles and refugees. The cast includes Viennese actors Carl Esmond and Mady Christians, Hungarian Paul Lukas and German Peter van Eyck, and it was shot by Polish-Hungarian cinematographer Rudolph Maté, with a score composed by the Austrian Ernst Toch. But the most striking aspect of the film is its design. Menzies—widely regarded as the father of production design—created 800 sketches that served as the film’s visual blueprint. Shapes and forms, vertical and horizontal lines, all add new layers of meaning to Menzies’ finest directorial work.

Washington Merry-Go-Round (James Cruze, 1932)

Astonishingly prefiguring a later Columbia classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), this fast-paced political drama follows the journey of a naïve-looking but savvy Georgia patriot (Lee Tracy), who is placed in Congress by corrupt forces but ultimately turns against his backers to serve the people he meets in the capital’s shantytowns. Premiering just two weeks before one of the most pivotal presidential elections in American history—between Roosevelt and Hoover, with the specter of the Depression looming—Washington Merry-Go-Round was directed by silent-era veteran James Cruze and typified the “topical films” popular at Columbia under Harry Cohn’s leadership. When Roosevelt won, Columbia took out full-page ads in the trade papers proudly noting that its two 1932 films—this one and Frank Capra’s American Madness—had already promised audiences better times and cleaner politics. Both films’ sharp portrayals of political corruption and American idealism derailed by greed and self-interest still resonate powerfully today.

Let Us Live (John Brahm, 1939)

Playing at Harvard Film Archive on November 7. – EK

This extraordinarily grim tale of an innocent cab driver called Brick (Henry Fonda) who, on the eve of his marriage to Mary (Maureen O'Sullivan), is mistakenly identified by eyewitnesses as a robber and murderer, prefigures Fonda’s similar role in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man, made two decades later. Yet in its pessimism and poignancy, it surpasses that later take on the themes of mistaken identity, fate and the threats lurking behind civilized facades.

Three Wise Girls (William Beaudine, 1932)

Playing at Harvard Film Archive on November 14, 2025. This note written for that occasion. – EK

Three Wise Girls (1932)

Director: William Beaudine

A luminous Jean Harlow received her first top billing in this pleasurable pre-Code film, made in the popular subgenre of the country-blonde-making-it-big-in-New-York—only to be exposed to the emptiness of success. The film is directed by old Hollywood’s most indefatigable workhorse, William Beaudine, who is credited with somewhere between 400 and 500 films—including masterpieces like Sparrows and cult oddities such as Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. François Truffaut had a soft spot for this imaginative craftsman’s B movies, praising their “charm” and “modesty”—qualities that also apply to the comedy/drama Three Wise Girls. This is one of Beaudine’s classiest and wittiest works from the 1930s, a time when he still had access to stronger material—this script written by Agnes Christine Johnston, who explores the question of virtue versus career, with sharp dialogue penned by Frank Capra’s regular collaborator, Robert Riskin. Among other things, the film includes a memorable lesson on how to “forget about your hips when you walk,” since “they know how to take care of themselves.”

Four Sided Triangle (Terence Fisher, 1953)

Programme note on Terence Fisher's 1953 film, Four Sided Triangle, whose restoration premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025.

One of the most distinctive British directors to emerge in the 1950s, Terence Fisher built a cinematic world around the Frankenstein syndrome—duplication through irresponsible science. In this key manifestation of that theme, Freud, the Holy Scriptures, and pulp literature form an unholy alliance. Based on a 1949 novel by William F. Temple, the film is delivered directly to the camera and told in flashback, the latter being a favourite device of Fisher’s in the 1950s. It follows two Cambridge graduates who build a replication machine. When the woman they both love—American blonde Barbara Payton—chooses one of them, the other scientist clones her. Of course, the experiment goes horribly wrong. Early Fisher is a melodrama of extremes, with a perverse depiction of the violence inherent in loving too much, loving unknowingly, loving in the dark.

Safar (Bahram Beyzaie, 1972)

Safar

Written for the world premiere of the brand new restoration (from the camera negative) at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2025. – EK

A 12-year-old orphan with a habit of seeking out his potential parents takes his friend along on a journey through the wastelands on the outskirts of Tehran. Seemingly a children’s folk tale, Safar is so visually singular that it evades easy breakdown. It is allegorical, but allegory is the engine; visual density the result.

Demetrius and the Gladiators (Delmer Daves, 1954)

A very Scope film

Note on Demetrius and the Gladiators, in the occasion of the new restoration of the film premiered at Il Cinema Ritrovato 2024. It was restored in 4K by The Walt Disney Studios and The Film Foundation in collaboration with Academy Film Archive at Cineric and Audio Mechanics laboratories from the 35mm original negative, a 35mm interpositive and a 35mm internegative. – EK

The trials and tribunals of Demetrius (Victor Mature), from a freed slave to the protector of the robe of Jesus, to gladiatorship and the illicit relationship with Claudius’s wife, Messalina (Susan Hayward). Straying away in a life of debauchery, Demetrius is reawakened to Christian values thanks to Peter the Fisherman while there is a good dose of lust, blood and tiger-fighting in between. This Bible pulp (“I never thought of Jesus being so tall”) culminates in the assassination of Caligula and a return to reason after Claudius becomes the new Caesar. Sequel to the first CinemaScope film The Robe (1953), this is the 1950s “muscular Christianity” that the late Terence Davies, who saw this film when he was nine, described as “dazzling and profane” and belonging to a time when God was in every cinema, “like a drug." Muscular indeed as Mature fights three tigers at once and profane as the film’s campy theology takes him to sermon a lascivious Hayward lying down in her designer dress.

Merrily We Go to Hell (Dorothy Arzner, 1932)

Originally titled Jerry and Joan during production, this charming and exquisitely directed pre-code melodrama was later renamed to the slightly controversial Merrily We Go to Hell. The film features Sylvia Sidney as a wealthy woman who marries a journalist (brilliantly portrayed by Fredric March), only to struggle with her husband’s alcoholism and his unexpected reunion with an old flame. Typical of its studio of production, Paramount, and reflective of some of the bolder pre-code films, the marriage—which quickly deteriorates—is depicted in an open, sophisticated manner, set against the backdrop of lavish art deco sets.

Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)

Otto Preminger with Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington

Otto Preminger concluded the 50s – a decade already marked by some of his most audacious work – with this courtroom drama about a country lawyer called on to defend an army lieutenant accused of murdering a bar owner who has allegedly raped the lieutenant’s wife. It is widely celebrated as one of the greatest American films.

Based on a real case, Anatomy of a Murder was adapted from a 1957 book by former prosecutor John D. Voelker, which was still a “New York Times” bestseller when the film went into production. Aside from the superb central cast, which includes James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara and George C. Scott, the role of the judge went to real-life judge Joseph N. Welch (who is also seen calmly upbraiding Senator Joseph McCarthy in the documentary Point of Order). The film is shot entirely on location, where the actual crime and trial had taken place. The court scenes that make up the majority of the film were shot in sequence, providing the actors with an enriching sense of realism. The result is perfection.

The House is Black (Forough Farrokhzad, 1962)

The only film directed by Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad before her premature death at the age of 32 is considered one of the greatest documentaries ever made. Set in a leper colony in northwest Iran, The House Is Black is a dialogue between the passions of the poet (Farrokhzad) and the voice of reason (Ebrahim Golestan, also the film's producer). It opens with a blank screen and then takes the viewer into the world on unwatchable but then in miracle of poetry ends on sublime when everything – even the unseen – is understood and accepted.