Citizen Dame

Episode 339: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Spooky Season starts in earnest, and we're kicking it off with a movie that scared the hell out of four-year-old Lauren: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Comedy team Abbott and Costello play baggage handlers who run into a bevy of Universal Monsters including Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.), and the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange), in a creepy castle in...Florida? The film would go on to become a template for horror comedies, and the most successful movie in the Frankenstein series since the original.
Next week will be The Watcher in the Woods (1980), which is weirdly hard to get a hold of (but well worth the effort!).

338: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

This week, we're finishing up our first Cary Grant series AND welcoming Spooky Movie Season at the same time with the 1944 comedy, Arsenic and Old Lace. Adapted from the hit Broadway play, Frank Capra's classic was originally slated for release in 1942, but the stage production was such a big hit that the film was delayed two extra years.
Grant stars as Mortimer Brewer, a playwright and confirmed bachelor who surprises even himself by marrying Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane), the girl next door. After their city hall nuptials, the pair run home to Brooklyn to announce their big news, but Mortimer is shocked and dismayed to discover his sweet, elderly maiden aunts Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair) are serial murderers with a dozen bodies buried in the basement. And hilarity ensues!
Arsenic and Old Lace also stars Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, John Alexander, Grant Mitchell, Jack Carson, James Gleason, Gary Owen.

Episode 337: An Affair to Remember (1957)

Get ready to cry! This week, we're discussing An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey's 1957 remake of his own film Love Affair, this time featuring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Come for the mature love story, stay for the soap-operatic melodrama. It's the ultimate chick flick, but you will be sobbing by the end.
We also chat a bit about the current state of media and what the Hollywood Blacklist has to do with our contemporary moment.
Next week, we gear up for Spooky Season with our final Cary Grant film of the month: Arsenic and Old Lace!

336: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Cary Grant month continues as we discuss THE quintessential screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby. Howard Hawks directed the 1938 film which stars Cary Grant as engaged paleontologist David Huxley, who is trying to score a one million dollar grant for his museum when he crosses paths with Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a wonderfully chaotic disruption to his plans. From a missing intercostal clavicle to a leopard named Baby (played by a charming cat named Neissa), Grant and Hepburn are delightful in this very funny classic.
To read more about Neissa the leopard and her handler Olga Celeste, click here.

Episode 335: Suspicion (1941)

Happy September! It's Cary Grant month (because we say it is), so we're starting out with Suspicion, the first film that brought together Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. They would go on to work together on three more films, but Suspicion is probably the most contentious for casting Cary Grant as a maybe-murderer who falls under suspicion from his wife (Joan Fontaine, who won an Oscar for her portrayal).
Next week, we'll be discussing one of Grant's most famous screwball comedies, Bringing Up Baby!

334: Wait Until Dark (1967)

We conclude this Hitchcockian August with the 1967 film, Wait Until Dark. Audrey Hepburn was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Suzy, a woman blinded in an accident who finds herself the accidental target of dangerous drug traffickers, one of whom is a particularly deadly menace. Directed by Terrence Young and based on Frederick Knott's 1966 play, the film also stars Samantha Jones, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Jack Weston, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

333: Peeping Tom (1960)

Our Hitchcockian August continues with Michael Powell's 1960 film, Peeping Tom. Credited as one of the films that influenced the slasher genre, Powell's film tells the story of Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm), a lonely London photographer who murders women, capturing their fear on film in hopes of creating his own documentary.
Creepy, macabre, and bold, Powell's film was not well received upon its release in 1960, but has won over horror fans in recent decades as an essential work.

Episode 332: Gaslight (1944)

This week, we talk about the meaning of "gaslighting" with the film that originated the term: George Cukor's 1944 film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman as a woman slowly driven to the brink of madness by her abusive husband (Charles Boyer). This film also featured the cinematic debut (and first Oscar nod!) for Angela Lansbury, who turned 18 during filming.
TW for discussions of domestic abuse and abusive relationships.
Next week, one of the most Hitchcockian of the films we're discussing: Michael Powell's psychothriller Peeping Tom, which premiered two weeks before Psycho in 1960.

Episode 331: Charade (1963)

For the first of our Hitchcockian films, we discuss the best "Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock": Stanley Donen's Charade (1963), a somewhat satirical, fantastically entertaining globe-trotting thriller with a stellar cast featuring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and Walter Matthau.
Next week we'll be chatting about Gaslight (1944), which somehow Hitchcock also did not direct.

330: North by Northwest (1959)

It's Alfred Hitchcock's birthday month and we're kicking off the celebration with one of his quintessential films: North by Northwest.
Cary Grant stars alongside Eva Marie Saint and James Mason in this tale of mistaken identity, espionage, and intrigue. From an attempted assassination via crop duster to the face(s) of Mount Rushmore, one of Hitch's biggest and more iconic films is thrilling, romantic, and funny.

Episode 329: The Wedding Banquet (2025)

We close out Pride Month this year with a brand-new film (that's technically a remake, but shhhh): The Wedding Banquet, from Fire Island director Andrew Ahn, and starring Bowen Yang, Han Gi-chan, Lily Gladstone, and Kelly Marie Tran as two gay couples who have to try to play it straight. The result is a beautiful (and hilarious) film about found family and queer identity.
We'll be on a break for the rest of July, returning in August with our annual Hitchcock coverage (starting with North by Northwest!), but our patrons can continue to listen our Alfred Hitchcock Presents bonus episodes all through July! To join their number (and get some other bonuses as well) you can go to Patreon!

328 — D.E.B.S. (2005)

We continue our Pride Month series with the 2005 lesbian spy rom-com, D.E.B.S. This gem of a movie, directed by Angela Robinson, is the story of a super hot super spy and a super hot super villain who meet and fall in love. Underrated in its time, but finding new popularity in recent years, D.E.B.S. is the kind of funny, silly girl movie we wish there were more of. How this didn't launch a whole subgenre is beyond us!

Episode 327: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

The Dames continue Pride Month with the seminal queercore punk-rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, directed by and starring John Cameron Mitchell. While Lauren tries to explain Judith Butler, Karen wonders why Hedwig is kind of a dick?
Next week: D.E.B.S. and lesbians committing espionage!

Episode 326: The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)

The Dames are celebrating Pride Month! And we're starting off with the 1994 road trip movie, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Terrence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pierce star as a trans woman and two drag queens who embark on a road trip across Australia, encountering good, bad, and dangerous challenges along the way.

Episode 325: Faces Places (2017)

We close out our Varda series with her penultimate film Faces Places (2017), co-directed by visual artist JR, with whom Varda travels across France, meeting people, taking photographs, and discussing art, image, and the passage of time.
We also decide that Godard is a jerk.
Next week, we're moving into Pride month viewing with some queer classics and even a brand-new film! First up is The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)!

324: Jane B par Agnès V

This week, the Dames continue our Varda series with the surreal and unique Jane B par Agnès V. Is it a documentary? Is it an essay film? What is this movie? In another inventive film from Agnès Varda, she sets out to help her friend Jane Birkin experience the film roles she never got to play and her fears about turning 40.

Episode 323: Le Bonheur (1965)

Our Agnès Varda month continues with a discussion of Le Bonheur (Happiness), following the lives of a happy little nuclear family whose happiness gets challenged (or does it?) when the father begins an affair. Deeply feminist and gorgeously filmed, Le Bonheur fools you into thinking its one thing and then becomes another.
We do recommend watching the film before listening to the podcast!
Next week, we'll be chatting some of Varda's documentaries, starting with Jane B. par Agnès V.

322: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)

This month we are (finally!) exploring some of the works of the great Agnès Varda, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave.
First up, we're starting with one of her most widely seen: Cléo from 5 to 7. Corinne Marchand stars as the titular Cléo, a young singer waiting for important medical results. Over the course of 90 minutes, Cléo tries to distract herself from the agonizing wait, first among friends, and then on a winding route through Paris.
The film screened at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, currently ranks at 14 on Sight and Sound's list of greatest films of all time (only two spots behind The Godfather, just sayin'), and is part of the Criterion Collection.

Episode 321: Roxanne (1987)

We close out 1987 with a quirky one: Steve Martin's adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac: Roxanne, starring Daryl Hannah as the titular intellectual love interest of C.D. (Martin), a small-town fire chief with a brilliant mind and a prominent proboscis. This is a really fun way to end this series!
Next up we'll have an entire month of Agnes Varda, starting with her first feature Cleo from 5 to 7, so start watching!

320: The Princess Bride

This week, the Dames are talking about love, true love as we discuss the beloved 1987 fairy tale classic, The Princess Bride. William Goldman adapted the script from his own novel. Rob Reiner directs the film which stars Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn and so many more.
Be sure to come back next week when we finish out our 1987 romantic movie series with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah in Roxanne.