By Jonathan Monovich. I’ve had good luck in my career by following my own interests/impulses. If you’re an ambulance chaser, you’re not going to be successful.” Born into a large Irish-Catholic family, Joseph McBride was raised by two newspaper reporters. Naturally, McBride followed in his parents’ footsteps to become a […]
The Real Genius: What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? by Joseph McBride
By Tony Williams. Despite McBride’s fortune in having a closer involvement with Welles than most critics, this book is never reverential. Instead, it presents a balanced and complex picture of an extremely talented but difficult personality whose personal flaws are less important than what he attempted to achieve.” What Ever […]
Researcher Beware! – Frankly: Unmasking Frank Capra by Joseph McBride
June 8, 2019
A Book Review Essay by Tony Williams. Joseph McBride’s latest mammoth book, well-written and copiously documented as usual, is an unusual production in the field of cinema studies. It is a companion volume to his earlier 1992 text, Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success, which took issue with the traditional estimation of […]
From a Longtime Insider/Outsider – Two Cheers for Hollywood: Joseph McBride on Movies
October 24, 2018
A Book Review Essay by Tony Williams. Joseph McBride, currently Professor of Film Studies at San Francisco State University, has had a long and varied career both in the film industry and as an independent critic for many decades. Soon we will finally get to see his long-awaited role as […]
Rediscovering a “Lost Art”: How Did Lubitsch Do It? by Joseph McBride
A Book Review Essay by Tony Williams. Any book or article by Joseph McBride is worth reading, especially in this era of mostly dismal films and an unqualified plethora of ignorant internet film reviewers. The author’s latest book (Columbia UP, 2018) on a director who should be more well-known represents […]
New Transmissions: From the Inner Mind to The Outer Limits: Scripts of Joseph Stefano, Volume 1
“The Form of Things Unknown,” 1.32 (4 May 1964) By Tony Williams. Stefano was a master writer for the screen and capable of doing better things had circumstances allowed, as this revealing limited edition collection shows.” For those who have watched The Outer Limits either from its first transmission in […]
Remembering Tony Williams (1946-2026): The Last of the Independents
August 27, 2026
By Christopher Weedman and Brian Wilson, with Film International Staff and Correspondents Williams left behind a body of work remarkable in both its size and scope, as well as a rich legacy of students, colleagues, and friends….” Updated 17 September 2026 On the evening of April 10, 2026, the world […]
Syncretized Equality: Judge Priest, Early American Music, and Singing on the Front Porch
By Richmond B. Adams. John Ford’s Will Rogers vehicle has yet to receive the full credit for the complexities of its cultural commentary…. the present examination will argue that Judge Priest undermines the world it supposedly affirms.” From the middle-1920s through his death in 1946, my maternal grandfather, the Reverend […]
Lubitsch’s Last Bow: Cluny Brown (Criterion Collection)
By Tony Williams. Cluny Brown belongs to that lost realm of Hollywood cinema that combined expert and unique direction with distinctive acting and a humor that critiqued arbitrary patterns of imposed behavior….” Ernst Lubitsch’s last completed film, Cluny Brown (1946), represents a fitting conclusion to that director’s special version of […]
From Straight to Hell Comes Jack Ford: Straight Shooting (1917) and Hell Bent (1918)
Straight Shooting By Tony Williams. These two magnificent Blu-ray restorations reproduce the way the films were originally seen and also contain audio-commentaries and video essays by two pioneering Ford scholars: Joseph McBride and Tag Gallagher.” Following on the trail pioneered by the 2016 re-release of John Ford’s Three Bad Men […]