The Birds (1963)

After a couple of establishing shots showing Tippi Hedren walking through San Francisco’s Union Square in The Birds, the actress walks behind a large poster advertising the city (and clueing in anybody who still doesn’t know where the scene is set). The poster serves another purpose, however: it hides a cut. (more…)

The Ladykillers (1955)

The original 1955 Ealing film of The Ladykillers featured Alec Guinness as the leader of a band of robbers who find their plans scuppered by Mrs Wilberforce, an elderly widow. Alec Guinness also appears in a second, minor role in the film. (more…)

Zelig (1983)

There isn’t much film footage of author F. Scott Fitzgerald around, so it’s always a treat to see him crop up in Woody Allen’s 1983 faux-documentary comedy Zelig. (more…)

Arrivée des Congressistes à Neuville-sur-Saône (1895)

In 1895, the Lumière brothers took their camera to a meeting of the Congress of Photographic Societies. They filmed the members’ arrival at the conference, and then developed the footage and showed it to them that afternoon. (more…)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

About twenty-five minutes into Kubrick’s 2001, during the gravity-free shuttle ride, there’s a great special effect: a loose pen, floating through the air.

Apparently it took them a long time to get this shot right: (more…)

If.... (1968)

When Malcolm McDowell was preparing for his role in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, he wasn’t sure how to play the character. He turned for advice to Lindsay Anderson, the director of If…., which had launched McDowell’s film career a couple of years earlier. (more…)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

The wealthy American tourist that Humphrey Bogart’s character keeps touching for cash in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is played by the film’s director, John Huston. (more…)

Frankenstein (1931)

Those metal studs in the creature’s neck, much beloved by the makers of horror parodies and Halloween costumes, aren’t bolts at all. (more…)

Psycho (1960)

Who doesn’t wish that Psycho had been filmed in a real motel? That one night, you might pull off a road somewhere remote, following the signs pointing towards a motel, only to see that house looming out of the gloom at you? A lone light might lead you to the reception, where you pay four times the going rate for a room, order up a Janet Leigh burger, and shell out an extra $20 for a souvenir mug decorated with the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock… (more…)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Watching Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom on the small screen, it’s easy to miss the fact that Dan Aykroyd makes a brief appearance. (more…)