Broadsword Calling Danny Boy: Reflections on a Childhood Favorite

|Reid Lemker| What was the first “adult” movie you saw as a kid? For me, the first movie that comes to mind is Where Eagles Dare. I was probably ten or eleven when my dad first showed it to me, and it quickly became a favorite of ours to watch on… Continue reading

A Clash of Kings: Eastwood and Burton in Where Eagles Dare

|Devin Bee| Where Eagles Dare is a film of clashes. The story sounds simple enough: during World War II, an American general is held captive by Nazis in a Bavarian castle. An elite squad of Allied soldiers—six British and one American—are tasked with infiltrating the castle and saving the… Continue reading

Merrily We Go to Hell’s Dorothy Arzner, the Only Female Director in 1930s Hollywood

|Ed Dykhuizen| Female directors were commonplace, even at times dominant, in early film history. Alice Guy-Blaché directed more than 450 short films starting in 1896. Many scholars credit her with the first movie that had a narrative. In these earliest years, small companies… Continue reading

Merrily We Go To Hell: “The Holy State Of Matrimony,” Pre-Code Style

|Lucille Hanson| (The following contains spoilers for Merrily We Go To Hell.) Before writing this for Perisphere, I had seen Merrily only once before: a couple years ago, during a rare day where I watched numerous movies back to back (I cannot believe that I bookended this with Saw VI and Bamboozled.). I ended up leaving… Continue reading

Satire, Subversion and Nazis: To Be or Not to Be 

|Penny Folger| Hitler stands in a town square in Poland while dumbfounded townspeople encircle him, looking as though they’re witnessing a talking polar bear, or perhaps something much more absurd and dangerous. A small girl in the crowd suddenly pipes up, “May I have… Continue reading

A (Former) Musical Hater Finally Hears The Sound of Music

|Chris Ryba-Tures| It’s taken me a long, long time to admit this to myself: hating stuff isn’t very cool. Hating something, especially when you make that hate part of your personality, a talking point at parties, a fulcrum to get a rise out of folks, is pretty tedious, exhausting, and boring, isn’t it? Continue reading

The Sound of Music and the History of the Broadway to Hollywood Pipeline

|Dan McCabe| I recently visited New York, and as I walked along West 45th Street through its famous theater district, I couldn’t help but imagine the marquees that came and went from the Great White Way over the last century. One such show, opening in 1959, was The Sound of Music Continue reading

Donnie Darko and the Inevitability of Teenagers

|Ryan Sanderson| When I began this process, I did not know how personal writing about Donnie Darko would feel. It was never one of my favorite films. I was introduced to the film by my freshman roommates alongside a rolling festival of late 90s/early aughts male angst… Continue reading

History’s Greatest Puzzle Room in which the Prize is Punching Nazis: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

|Allison Vincent| When we first started dating, my wife worked at a puzzle room in St. Paul, MN. One of the many perks of such a venture is that I got to play-test rooms occasionally. One such room was heavily influenced by a certain wizarding world created by She-Who-Must-Not-… Continue reading