“Let’s eat with the working folks,” said Charles Napier between drags on a cigarette. “We’re not going to that hoity-toity fish joint Robards goes to. S—t, he can afford it.” We were in Philadelphia’s dark and dank City Hall sometime…

An email came in after the publication of my earlier article on double features. The letter asked about films which were re-released in theaters. I had mentioned in the article that reissuing films in a number of screens was a…

Nicolas Winding Refn is tired. He’s been up since 5 AM, working on a TV commercial via Skype from his Philadelphia hotel room. No rest for the weary, even if the weary is a serious multitasker.  “I wish I could…

Many people know about Serge Gainsbourg from his scandalous recording he did with girlfriend Jane Birkin in 1969 called “Je t’aime…moi non plus,” in which the then-couple sang and writhed on vinyl and got banned in many countries for their…

Medicine Men: The doctor drama series got controversial with Medical Center, the CBS show that ran from 1969 to 1976. James Daley was the head doc and Chad Everett the handsome young surgeon at L.A. University’s medical center. Race, homosexuality…

Back Street’s Back, All Right: Among the most requested titles we’ve had over the years has been Back Street, the 1961 adaptation of the Fannie Hurst novel with Susan Hayward as the woman who loves and loses WWII soldier John Gavin,…

For 20 years, documentarian Kenneth Bowser had wanted to make a film about seminal protest singer-songwriter Phil Ochs. But he was continually greeted with apathy on many fronts. “I knew it was a great story,” says Bowser during a phone…

My trademarks are a hoarse, grating voice and the face of a retired pugilist: small narrowed eyes set in puffy features which look as though they might, years ago, have lost on points. —Broderick Crawford, describing himself. We’ve seen 100th…