Vintage Century Idle Hour

Joan Crawford vs. Norma Shearer — Old Hollywood rivalry, Oscar glory, and the beauty standards they defied.

In this episode, we explore the real-life tension between two MGM legends and their Academy Award–winning performances in The Divorcee (1939) and Mildred Pierce (1944).  We also dive into classic Hollywood beauty ideals — and how Crawford and Shearer challenged the standard definition of beauty.

Topics: Classic Hollywood • Joan...

In this episode, we dive into The Women (1939), one of classic Hollywood’s most unconventional studio-era films. Featuring an entirely all-woman cast, this  comedy-drama pulls back the curtain on marriage, friendship, betrayal, and social power among Manhattan’s elite...but is it any good?

We look at why The Women is a classic and also zoom in on the onscreen (and offscreen?) rivalry of two of the studio-era's most iconic stars...

Happy new year!  Four Daughters is tonight’s featured story, and if it hasn’t been on your radar, you should get it on there!  Jennifer is also going to talk about new year's goals--and an alternative she has come up with.  She attended her first retreat this month, so everyone has to hear about that, and then we take a brief look back in time at the Golden Globe awards.  All of this--and the usual goofy stuff--is on the menu ...

A Star is Born has been remade three times.  It must be the greatest story ever told…right?  We’re going to find out in tonight’s show.  Also, Jennifer has some Disney news from her home town of Kansas City, Missouri.  Then, she ponders what the deal is with hobbies nowadays.  Why is there all this pressure to monetize everything?  She's going to sort it all out.  That signpost up ahead is the Vintage Century Idle Hour.  Jenni...

Tonight Jennifer's talking about two films—both are fun to watch, but one is vastly superior to the other, in her opinion:  I Bury the Living and Village of the Damned.   Then she'll turn her attention to “audience-ology,” the study of how audience reactions shape the films we ultimately see in theaters.  She'll celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Rockettes and learn what it takes to be one. And finally, she'...

Our main topic this week is Stage Door, a fun ensemble film from 1937 starring Ginger Rogers, Katherine Hepburn, and Lucille Ball.  That’s our featured film this week, but we have a few other things on the agenda as well: Jennifer is going to introduce you to a show from the 1970s that offers some great stories to fall asleep by.  She then has a tale of two books:  one you should add to your reading list...and one that you shouldn&...

Is Top Hat a tolerable musical?   |   Books to read and avoid   |   New Job, new Jennifer

For a video version of this episode, check out my YouTube channel, Vintage Century Idle Hour.

Variety show podcast with reviews of classic movies.
Hi there!  I'm Jennifer, and this is my little variety show.  I talk about old movies, tell stories, and cure insomnia.  Commuters, cleaners, crafters, clock-watchers, and multi-taskers, this...

Hi, everyone!  I hope you're having a great summer.  In anticipation of Season 2 of the Idle Hour podcast, I'm revealing the list of films I'm going to be exploring when we start up again in August.  This was produced as a video on my YouTube channel (The Vintage Century Idle Hour), so if you want to see me and my Notion page, you can check it all out there.  When you are looking for something to watch this summer, w...

At long last Jennifer is exploring a science fiction film.  Some of the best science fiction films, in her opinion, are from the 1950s—the atomic age, when the future looked bright and scary at the same time.  Well, tonight she's diving into a seminal atomic age science fiction film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.  She got so invested—and so distracted—by this story, that she was actually late to an appointment and caused a lo...

Tonight on the Idle Hour we have another case of Hollywood telling its own story.  A few episodes back we explored another such tale when we featured the 1950 film All About Eve. That movie is about show business—mostly the stage—and the biting and clawing and scheming that goes into the making of a star.  Well, now we’re giving some love and attention to the “not so happily ever after” story of stardom in Sunset Boulevard.  Sunset...

When did the word “gaslight” change from a noun to a verb?  There for a while, it seemed everyone was trying to “gaslight” someone else–at least according to all the chatter on social media.  Jennifer's not entirely sure people really knew what that meant–and she's extremely sure a lot of people didn’t know where the term came from.  Well, guess what?  It’s a reference to tonight’s featured film from 1944, Gaslight.  She&...

Jennifer has spent the majority of her career working in corporations, and while the industries, services, policies, systems, technologies, and even the names and faces of the colleagues, change over time, there’s one truth that remains eternal:  work brings out the worst in people!  Organizational life has a way of changing us, making us—sad.  Rod Serling, the writer of tonight’s featured film, Patterns, must have felt the same wa...

Well, we have a melodrama this week–a bit of a downer, to be honest.  Our featured film, Dark Victory, is about a young woman in the prime of life who is dying.  Not a lot of laughs, this one.  But more than that, this is a profile in fear, and that’s why Jennifer finds this film interesting.  Our main character is—understandably—afraid.  She’s on a personal journey to find her courage–and she doesn’t have long.  As a person who’s ...

This is the 14th episode of the Vintage Century Idle Hour, and that means we’ve explored 13 stories from Hollywood’s Golden Age so far.  None of these films have been comedies, for one critical reason:  Jennifer's not wild about them–and because she's not wild about them, she doesn't gravitate toward them when choosing films.  It Happened One Night is a big name comedy in classic Hollywood films, so naturally, we hav...

 And now for a change of pace…

In the last few episodes of this series we have gone to some dark places.  Our main characters have been corrupt, manipulative, all around rotten scoundrels. There’s been murder, mayhem, death and destruction.  For those of you listening to this show at work or at bedtime–yikes, what a downer for background.  Well, how about a sweet, uplifting romance?  That’s what we’ve got in this week’s featured fil...

What were YOU doing at 25?  Here's what Jennifer was doing:  trying to pay rent and figure out how to be an adult.  You know what Orson Welles was doing at 25?  Making his first Hollywood film–what went on to be regarded by many as the finest film ever made.  We’re exploring Citizen Kane tonight, because–how could Jennifer possibly skip it in this series?  Oh, and  Jennifer wants to look at how it aligns with last week’s featu...

Reviews of classic movies from Hollywood's Golden Age: Touch of Evil.
Tonight we do a close read of the second film noir in our series.  You might remember that last week we explored the mean streets of Kansas City in Kansas City Confidential.  Well, now we’re in fictional Los Roblos, a rowdy town on the U.S.-Mexico border in Touch of Evil.  Jennifer heard about Touch of Evil for the first time last week.  She doesn't...

Reviews of classic movies from Hollywood's Golden Age: Kansas City Confidential

Today’s show sets a record for the sheer number of slaps and punches heard in a single episode.  Yes, we’re in the gritty, hard-boiled world of film noir today with a classic of the genre, Kansas City Confidential.  While we’re at it, we’ll take a look at what “noir” really is.  And, because we are in Jennifer's hometown for this one, she wants...