x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Lions, Towers & Shields

A celebration of films from the classic Hollywood era. Shelly Brisbin leads a merry band through recaps and reviews of great old movies from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.

tv & film film reviews

All Episodes

1:05:05

21: Yum Yum and the Nerd

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2021/01/03

It’s “Ball of Fire.” Howard Hawks directs; Billy Wilder writes. And Barbara Stanwyck is Sugarpuss O’Shea, who hides out from the cops with a group of dotty professors working on a new encyclopedia. Gary Cooper is in it too, along with S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall, Richard Haydn and many more. It’s a comedy classic. Even so, we manage to drop many many hot takes.

en

1:14:59

20: Merry Christmas. Don't Mention It!

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/12/03

By popular demand among both members and panelists actual and potential, we explore this 1945 classic. Peter Godfrey (who?) directs Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan and a cast of delightful character actors in a holiday story about covering up lies with more lies on a farm in Connecticut on Christmas Eve. Holiday food and sleigh rides aplenty.

en

53:32

19: Horton-ing and Blore-ing It Up

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/11/10

Believed by many to be the best of the Astaire-Rogers musicals, “Top Hat” was also the most successful. It arrived in the middle of their run as an on-screen couple. It’s both a musical and a screwball comedy with songs by Irving Berlin. It also features a stellar supporting cast: Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore and, wait, is that Lucile Ball?

en

51:52

18: Rocky Horror Picture Show without the Sex

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/10/26

LTS acknowledges the pumpkin-spiced holiday. From IMDB: “American honeymooners in Hungary become trapped in the home of a Satan-worshiping priest when the bride is taken there for medical help following a road accident.” From Shelly: “Oh, I forgot this was an Edgar G. Ulmer joint.” Universal horror’s big guns are firing in this old dark house story where the ODC is actually a modernist masterpiece, built atop a former fortress. Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and a cast of less interesting people

en

44:59

17: Kirk Douglas, MOVIE STAR!

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/10/11

It’s cynical, it’s Billy Wilder, and it’s still relevant. On-the-skids newspaper man Kirk Douglas is gonna do ANYTHING to get that story. This movie came up during the very first Lions, Towers & Shields episode as one that several panelists would watch again. And here they are!

en

59:34

16: Does Cary Grant Ever Break a Sweat?

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/09/25

In an early starring role, Cary Grant upends the sensibilities of a small town that’s rife with gossip and hypocrisy. And we have expert help this week, because the panel includes a man who’s created an audio documentary about Grant.

en

53:34

15: I Know You're a Sexist Creep, But Run!

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/09/10

Here’s a delicious little film noir, where greed is breathtaking, and you’ll wonder who’s the evilest - until you know for sure.

en

1:02:31

14: No One Told Me It's Three Hours Long

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/08/26

This is the film that should have won Judy Garland the Oscar. It was both her greatest triumph, and a comeback film. It’s directed by George Cukor, the “woman’s director” of so many female-centered studio films. There’s a whole book about the making of “A Star is Born,” in fact. Also, this is the three-hour one.

en

51:00

13: They're Pretty in All the Timelines

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/08/13

Welcome to another crossover where I join the Agents of S.M.O.O.C.H. for a timey-whimey road trip for our Virtual Vacation series. Our agents tease apart the five(?) timelines in Two for the Road (1967), starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney using the cars the characters drive. Join us as we criss-cross through ten years of time and space while road-tripping through France towards the Mediterranean coast. Sometimes it’s smooth sailing, sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes there are too many people in

en

1:12:37

12: Chekhov's ID Card

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/08/02

Preston Sturgess was in top form in 1941 for this comedy starring Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake - in one of her first films. McCrea is a movie director, looking for a way to make a “socially relevant” film, instead of the comedies he’s been making. McCrea travels as a hobo, trying to “know trouble” in a way he can’t while living his life as a Hollywood director. Like Orson Welles, Sturges used a stock company of character actors, and many of them are along for the ride.

en

58:32

11: Princess Anna's Day Off

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/07/03

We offer you a summer movie set in Rome. Directed by William Wyler, and starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, Roman Holiday tells the story of an American newspaper reporter who meets a princess and liberates her from the confinement of her royal station for a romantic adventure in 1950s Rome for a classic royal and the commoner tale. The people and the scenery are beautiful, and the actors have lovely chemistry. The is among the earliest, and best of the 1950s-60s films that took Americans to a

en

1:15:03

10: The Nicest Gangster Ever

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/06/22

James Cagney is a bootlegger. This is the story of his rise and fall. Warner Brothers had been producing gangster yarns since the early 30s, many featuring Cagney. But late ’30s filmmaking had become better and more watchable, with studio stalwarts like Cagney, Bogart and Frank McHugh now pros at the genre. Add in the wonderful and underrated Gladys George, and you’ve got yourself a movie! Raoul Walsh, whose career went back to silents, and who would later direct Cagney in “White Heat,” directed

en

1:10:52

9: A Numerical Scale of Trash Men

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/06/07

Here’s the film, based on James M. Cain’s story, that won Joan Crawford an Oscar, and began the Warner Brothers phase of her career, after MGM sent her packing. It tells the story of Mildred, who begins a new life when her marriage ends by building a restaurant empire. But her selfish daughter (Ann Blyth) and her lover (Zachary Scott) don’t make things easy for the proprietor of Mildred’s Fatburger. Bonus? Film noir with a female protagonist.

en

1:05:54

8: Cornelia is Trash. Or She's Not!

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/05/24

Screwball comedy and Depression-era inequity meet in “My Man Godfrey” (1935). William Powell is experiencing the Depression first-hand, from under a bridge, when a society swell arrives and offers him a few dollars to help her win a scavenger hunt. Before you know it, Powell is buttling in the house of a dysfunctional wealthy family. Hilarity, and the politics of class follow. Carole Lombard, William Powell, Alice Brady and Gail Patrick are all marvelous, as is the rest of the supporting cast. “My

en

59:22

7: Enjoy Your Cucumber, America!

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/05/09

Action, adventure and noir at the border, with Ricardo Montalban, before he went into space.

en

56:23

6: We'll Begin with a Reign of Terror

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/04/26

We’re watching James Whale’s “The Invisible Man.”

en

1:09:22

5: I Love Dead Lucy

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/04/11

What do you get when you combine a director of 50s melodrama, a screwball TV comedian, a deliciously flamboyant cad, and a bunch of great character actors from Britain and America? Why, a British Jack the Ripper mystery, of course. On this episode, we’re talking about 1947’s “Lured,” directed by Douglas Sirk, and starring Lucile Ball and George Sanders. We will spoil the ending in this episode, like we do, so watch the movie, probably for free, before you listen.

en

1:03:14

4: What to Watch Now

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/03/29

Classic films, by definition, are comfort food, or at least, they’re escapist entertainment. Our panel picks films they love, and want to watch right now, as we confront a lot of time indoors during the coronavirus pandemic.

en

1:09:42

3: More Permy Over Time

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/03/15

Lily has had a rough life. Her father has basically been pimping her out, and she's had it! She and her friend Chico, who happens to be a black woman, take off for New York so Lily soon begins climbing the corporate ladder, using each corporate executive s weakness to obtain what she wants. Because that's how Nietzsche would want her to do it. "Baby Face" is a quintessential pre-code movie. And it had a lot to do with the code being enforced a few months aster its release.

en

1:18:03

2: Ride Her Down Like a Rabbit

Lions, Towers & Shields ·

2020/02/28

Come with us to late 1930s New York. It's the Depression, but you wouldn't know it here on Fifth Avenue, where the Setons live, and where things would be even better - if we had the right kind of government. We're discussing the 1938 film, Holiday, directed by George Cukor, and staring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. There's a bit of old movie news, too. Just a bit.

en

101 results

Similar Podcasts

BEHIND THE VELVET ROPE

David Yontef

Nerd Culture - A Gamekings Podcast

Blammo Media

UPodcast

UPodcast

The Writers Hangout

Sandy Adomaitis

The Sarah Fraser Show

Sarah Fraser