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writers gone wild!
Keep up with Bright Lights between issues by visiting our companion blog, Bright Lights After Dark.
Dan Callahan
in issue 66
Delphine Seyrig: The Eternal Return
"Seyrig is capable of stopping an entire film with one decisive physical gesture, one smile, one glare, one sound from her smoky, murmuring voice."
in issue 65
John Barrymore: Sweet Prince of Irony — "Isn't it extraordinary that the most popular character ever written should apparently be defeated by life instead of transcending it?" — John Barrymore on Hamlet
in issue 64
Ida Lupino: Demon Mother Night — "[H]er favorite expression of strained intensity would be less quickly relieved by a merciful death than by Ex-Lax." — James Agee, 1943
in issue 63
Robert Ryan: A Moon for the Misbegotten — "I have been in films pretty well everything I am dedicated to fighting against."
in issue 62
Norma Shearer: The Primrose Path to MGM Stock — "She hovered somewhere between the realest of realities and the most blatant of impersonations." — F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Crazy Sunday," 1932
in issue 61
George Sanders: A Mitigated Cad — "Where on the screen I am invariably a sonofabitch, in life I am a dear, dear boy." — George Sanders
in issue 60
Fatal Instincts: The Dangerous Pout of Gloria Grahame — "I'm a girl who loves to be manhandled! After all, what are a few contusions or abrasions if you get the man you love?" — Gloria Grahame, 1953
in issue 59
Nuts to the Squirrels and Roués Redeemed: The Discreet Charm of Charles Boyer — "In Boyer, self-belief and theatrical technique are seamlessly fused together."
Ode to Lili: And Leslie Caron — "This MGM movie is studio-system filmmaking at its most protective, and it's designed entirely to showcase Leslie Caron . . ."
in issue 58
Bergman vs. Bergman: Ingrid Dearest in Ingmar's Autumn Sonata — "Ingmar can't fully follow his own gloomy party line as he stares at this simple, oblivious, wondrous creature."
in issue 57
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: The Elusive Pleasures of Irene Dunne — "You'd never get tired of having her around, because she'd always be someone else for you."
in issue 56
Uneasy Living: The Insecure Charm of Jean Arthur — "Funny, tender, a little neurotic, a little erotic, and always spontaneous ..."
in issue 55
Through the Looking Glass: Thoughts on The Window — Ted Tetzlaff brings Bobby Driscoll to the voyeur's front window
in issue 54
The Martyrdom of Lulu: Louise Brooks at 100 — "If I ever bore you, it'll be with a knife."
in issue 53
Death Becomes Him: Robert Altman's Prairie Home Companion — In which Altman doesn't go gentle into that good night
in issue 52
Kay Francis, Secrets of an Actress: New Books Reveal the "Wavishing" Star — "I'm not a star, I'm a woman, and I want to get fucked!"
Notes on Naruse: An Auteur Ascends — Pitch-black pessimism, unsparing emotional truths, and women on the verge
in issue 51
Blossom in the Dust: Lillian Gish, The Wind, and Mr. Griffith
"I was never young, and if you were never
young, how can you ever feel old?"
in issue 50
Golden Boy: The Sexy Ways of Joel McCrea
"Easy to overlook but endlessly rewarding to look over"
Talking About the Space Between Us All: On Forty Shades of Blue
Ira Sachs' sophomore feature is charged with emotion
in issue 49
Margaret Sullavan and the Art of Dying
"Now ... here comes the paradox ..."
in issue 48
Hooker with a Heart of Darkness: Jane Fonda in Klute
Bree Daniels trumps all Fonda's real-life characters
