In the mid-20th century, burgeoning television programming was often live, newscasters smoked on set, hosts had strange sidekicks (a chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs, for example), and dramatic programs featured scripts by Rod Serling, Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayevsky, and Gore Vidal, to name just a few.

Posts by Anne Morra
Vincent Price in Otto Preminger’s Laura
I’ve always associated the American actor Vincent Price (1911–1993) with horror films. His work in Gothic features like House of Wax (1953), The Tingler (1959), and Pit and the Pendulum (1961) seem to align perfectly with his creepy voice and slithering screen persona. And I mean slithering as a compliment, because he brought a lot of skill to acting lecherous.
Modern Matinees: Norman Chaitin’s The Small Hours
Chicken Run: Poultry in Motion
Sometimes a movie makes you laugh out loud even if you’re in room by yourself. You can’t contain your laughter and don’t care who might or might not hear. This is exactly the experience I had recently watching Chicken Run (2000)
William S. Hart: A Pioneer Cowboy
William Surrey Hart was destined to be a cowboy. Known professionally as William S. Hart, he was born in 1864 in Newburgh, NY, into an environment of Victorian gentility.
For Immediate Release: Curator Iris Barry Travels
On any given day, MoMA curators, librarians, registrars, educators, and others are en route to a conference, lecture, studio visit, or exhibition near home or abroad. Travel is both a constant and a marvelous perk of working at the Museum. However, unlike the ubiquitous nature of staff travel today, in 1946 the Museum actually issued a press release announcing founding Film Library curator Iris Barry’s trip to Paris
Modern Matinees: A Tale of Two Stellas

Alice Joyce, Ronald Colman, and Lois Moran in Stella Dallas. 1925. USA. Directed by Henry King. MoMA Film Archives
Hollywood loves a remake! That’s certainly the case with Stella Dallas, which has a 1925 silent version directed by Henry King, a 1937 version directed by King Vidor, and a 1990 version (called Stella) starring Bette Midler.
Why I Like Black-and-White Movies
Like most children growing up in the last half of the 20th century, I dreamed of a 64-count box of Crayola crayons. In school we had eight-count boxes. I wanted 64—all the myriad colors including bittersweet, sky blue, and raw umber. The 64-count box also had a built-in sharpener. A virtual Technicolor assortment of waxy goodness and a sharpener to keep them in ready condition! What more could a child have wanted? I drew all kinds of pictures and shapes, some more recognizable than others.
Better Late than Never: The Bad Seed
Modern Matinees: René Clair’s The Ghost Goes West
Whenever I am on a Metro North train, barreling along the Hudson River north of New York City, I try to sit on the river side of the car in order to get a good look at Bannerman’s Castle. Perhaps you, too, have been intrigued by the carcass of what appears to be a red brick castle fallen into decay, about 1,000 feet from the shoreline on the six-acre Pollepel Island. Having just watched René Clair’s The Ghost Goes West, I couldn’t help but think of the decrepit, battered ruin.
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