Author Spotlight

Farran Smith Nehme

Farran Smith Nehme has written about film and film history for the New York Post, Barron’s, the Wall Street Journal, Film Comment, the Village Voice, and Sight and Sound as well as for her Substack, Self-Styled Siren. Her novel, Missing Reels, was published in 2014.

20 Results
Rediscovering Yasuzo Masumura at Karlovy Vary

An underrated figure of Japanese cinema’s postwar era, the director tackled a wide range of subjects over his long career, including corporate double-dealing, government espionage, and various forms of fanaticism.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Tod Browning’s Ballyhoo Art

The director of Freaks, The Unknown, and The Mystic tested the limits of early-Hollywood taste with his provocative visions of carnival life and society’s outcasts.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Noir by Gaslight

A collection of films on the Criterion Channel combine the moodiness of noir with late-nineteenth-century period detail and dark romance.

By Farran Smith Nehme

The Self-Created Immortality of Mae West

With her contralto drawl, genius for innuendo, and fierce control behind the camera, this great Hollywood provocateur pioneered a sex-positive cinema far ahead of its time.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Destry Rides Again: Riding High

After a career drought, Marlene Dietrich roared back to fame and acclaim with this ingenious comedy-western hybrid, made in what is widely considered one of the peak years of the studio system.

By Farran Smith Nehme

George Cukor’s Way with Women

No Hollywood director brought as many memorable heroines to the screen as George Cukor, who was known throughout the industry as the quintessential “woman’s director.”

By Farran Smith Nehme

The Magnificent Ambersons

The Voice of Orson Welles

The legendary filmmaker possessed the greatest speaking voice in American cinema, and The Magnificent Ambersons represents the summit of his work as a vocal actor.

By Farran Smith Nehme

My Man Godfrey: The Right Kind of People

Once called “the great directorial genius of Hollywood” by Carole Lombard, Gregory La Cava struck comedy gold with this mix of madcap high jinks, irresistible romance, and social commentary.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Where Credit Is Due

Josef von Sternberg may have been one of cinema’s original micromanagers, but his films are testaments to longstanding collaborations with brilliant artists and technicians.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Look at That Girl

Depth, beauty, curiosity—what gave luminous French star Danielle Darrieux staying power across eight decades? Critic Farran Smith Nehme looks for the answer in two films from opposite ends of her career.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Now You Has King of Jazz

This spectacular and technically ambitious Hollywood musical is a priceless window onto American pop culture’s view of itself in the 1930s.

By Farran Smith Nehme

The Philadelphia Story: A Fine, Pretty World

A haughty socialite is torn between the affections of three men in George Cukor’s blissful comedy of manners.


By Farran Smith Nehme

His Girl Friday: The Perfect Remarriage

A feast of whip-smart banter, Howard Hawks’s protofeminist take on newsroom politics is the most grown-up of all remarriage comedies.


By Farran Smith Nehme

Here Comes the Angel of Death

Alexander Hall’s 1941 film showcased Robert Montgomery’s star power and, with its premise of a death revoked, provided much-needed comic relief to war-worried audiences.


By Farran Smith Nehme

It Happened One Night: All Aboard!

Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable’s effortless banter is pure magic, but Frank Capra’s comedy is rooted in the reality of the times.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Performances

Jane Wyman and All That Heaven Allows
Time has added some latter-day ironies to All That Heaven Allows, and not just the revelation that its star Rock Hudson was gay. There’s also the political career of Ronald Reagan, the ex-husband of Hudson’s costar, Jane Wyman—built on the gos…

By Farran Smith Nehme

The Uninvited: Spirits by Starlight

This delicately creepy Hollywood horror movie lives up to its reputation as a classic of the genre.

By Farran Smith Nehme

Autumn Sonata: Mothers, Daughters, and Monsters

Ingmar Bergman plumbs the depths of a fractured family and gives Ingrid Bergman a shocking star role.

By Farran Smith Nehme

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Wish You Were Here

Both sparkling and suspenseful, Alfred Hitchcock’s benchmark thriller is the perfect getaway, and it set the scene for much of the master’s later work.

By Farran Smith Nehme

This Happy Breed: Home Truths
Noël Coward and David Lean created a patriotic diptych with their first two films: In Which We Serve, from 1942, about the bravery and sacrifice of British sailors and those who love them, and the 1944 This Happy Breed, on the indomitable spirit of …

By Farran Smith Nehme