Story and You

June is now nearly over, which means it's about time for the concluding installment of my Pride celebration: a listing of my favorite queer films with female leads. This list was a bit tougher to compile than the last one, because I just haven't seen as many female-led films in this genre; in fact, a couple ladies on this list are supporting characters rather than the leads. In spite of this, all of the cinematic women on this list really are wonderful and deserving of the spotlight during this important month. So here we go!

I really didn't watch any notable classic films this week, so I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what to write about--discuss an old favorite? Pick a film I didn't like very much but is at least from the right time period? But then, a last-minute viewing solved my dilemma: The Strawberry Blonde is a funny, sweet romantic comedy with the strange, yet wonderful trio of Cagney, de Havilland, and Hayworth.

When I began this series, I really did intend for it to be classic film of the week, not Clark Gable film of the week! But once again, his filmography has made up most of my classic viewing over the last few days, and this film in particular stood out to me as a real under-seen and underrated gem, a rather simple action-romance picture that is wonderfully elevated by its casting of two of the most legendary talents to come out of Hollywood, Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck.

June is Pride Month, and it didn't feel right to let the month go by without some kind of acknowledgement on this blog. Pride, the LGBTQ+ community, and everything that goes with these things has had such an important impact on my life, and in the realm of film, discovering the amazing depths of queer film has been an amazing experience over the past few years. Like any other genre, it has its ups and downs, but in its "ups" it has produced some truly amazing films, with many of them ranking among my favorites of all time. I figure the best way I can celebrate these films and this community is by shining a spotlight on some of my favorites. I admit that dividing my lists based on gender is a bit ironic, considering that such a big part of the LGBT movement is about moving beyond gender roles--however, I've noticed that male-led queer films often get more mainstream attention than their female-led counterparts, so I thought it was fair to combat this inequality b...

Normally I'm not a big fan of war films, but this week I'm very exited to talk about a particularly great one I discovered during--you guessed it--TCM's tribute to Clark Gable. Run Silent, Run Deep is a late-era Clark film that features two powerhouse performances from Clark and his co-star Burt Lancaster, a truly remarkable screen pairing that makes this film stand out from all of the other WWII films produced by classic Hollywood.

May is another month that's gone by in a flash. It helped that it was Clark Gable month on TCM, something I've been looking forward to for a few months now; with all of the films I watched, I've now nearly completed Clark's 1930s filmography! I've noticed lately that Clark Gable isn't talked about that much nowadays, and I'm not totally sure why--perhaps his ever-charming, suave screen presence doesn't resonate as much with contemporary classic movie fans, who prefer the more complex, tortured performers of classic Hollywood? Whatever the reasoning may be, this binge of his early films has cemented him as one of my favorite performers of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and I plan to watch as many films from him as I can in the future. Beyond Clark, I also managed to squeeze in viewings of some 70s horror films, more catch-ups from 2016, and a couple of re-watches, including You've Got Mail with my mom for Mother's Day. Overall, a really great m...