I watched way too many movies in July. Not only did I watch a lot of new-to-me films, I also did a ton of rewatching. This uptick in movie watching had a few factors: 1) holy wow we had a lot of good films on TCM last month! 2) I use movies to cope when I am stressed and current events are making me very stressed. 3) I broke my foot, so I stayed in a lot. As always, you can see all the films I watched in July after the cut, as well as some of my favorite first time watches.

1. The Beguiled (2017)
2. The Big Sick
3. The White Sister (1923)
4. The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)
5. Bulldog Drummond (1929)
6. Raffles (1930)
7. The Devil To Pay!
8. Cynara (I Was Faithful)
9. Arrowsmith (1931)
10. Nobody Lives Forever (1946)
11. The Ring (1927)
12. Downhill
13. The Farmer’s Wife
14. The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
15. The Manxman
16. Blackmail
17. The Skin Game
18. Rich and Strange
19. Jamaica Inn
20. Aventure malgache
21. Bon Voyage (1944)
22. Miss Firecracker
23. La Bohème (1926)
24. The Show
25. A Woman of Affairs
26. Desert Nights
27. Way For A Sailor
28. The Seventh Victim
29. Moka
30. Baby Driver
31. Clive of India (1935)
32. The Man Who Broke The Bank At Monte Carlo
33. If I Were King
34. The Light That Failed
35. Ladybug Ladybug
36. Lions Love (…And Lies)
37. Documenteur
38. Jane B. par Agnès V.
39. Kung-fu master! (Le Petit Amour)
40. L’univers de Jacques Demy
41. Les glaneurs et la glaneuse (The Gleaners and I)
42. Kid Glove Killer
43. A Matter of Time
44. Dunkirk (2017)
45. The Umbrella Man
46. The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography
47. The Silver Horde
48. Rockabye
49. Chance at Heaven
50. Lucky Partners
51. Kismet (1944)
52. A Little Romance
53. Deadline at Dawn
54. Sabotage
55. Secret Agent
56. The Paradine Case
57. The Trouble with Harry
58. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
59. A Double Life (1947)
60. Girls Trip
61. The Night of the Iguana
62. Landline
63. Maudie
64. Lady Macbeth
65. Pop Aye
66. Torn Curtain
67. Topaz
68. Frenzy
69. Family Plot

1880s: 0
1890s: 0
1900s: 0
1910s: 0
1920s: 13
1930s: 17
1940s: 10
1950s: 2
1960s: 5
1970s: 4
1980s: 4
1990s: 1
2000s: 1
2010s: 12

In July I spent a good deal of time watching films starring John Gilbert and Ronald Colman, as well as directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Agnès Varda. I could easily highlight several films from them all (especially Ronald Colman!), but instead I am highlighting my favorite film from each, as well as a couple of other films I watched that blew me away.

The Show, 1927 (dir. Tod Browning)

I really loved John Gilbert. He has so much going for him. He’s beautiful, he’s talented, and his presence works in so many different genres. Although he is great in his pre-code days, I love his silent era films best. In this film from Tod Browning, you get a wonderful mix of Browning’s sense of the macabre and Gilbert’s passion and sex appeal. One thing I particularly love about Browning is with his films I often can’t figure out where it’s headed, and this film definitely fits that bill. Like his films Freaks and The Unknown, this film is set in the world of a traveling side-show filled with seedy characters, with the possibility of true love floating in the air.

The Seventh Victim, 1943 (dir. Mark Robson)

Wow this film blew me away. It’s part noir, part horror, and super gay. Kim Hunter plays a girl looking for her missing sister who may have joined a satanic cult. You got that right. There’s satanists. There’s lesbians. There’s straight up goth fashion. This is surely one of the finest films to come out of RKO under the steerage of Val Lewton.

Ladybug, Ladybug, 1963 (dir. Frank Perry)

I wanted to highlight this film because its themes about Cold War paranoia seem as timely now (maybe more so?) than they did when it was first released. This film is so tense and so realistic I kept screaming at my screen as I was watching.

Lions Love (. . .and Lies), 1969 (dir. Agnès Varda)

Viva Varda! I watched a lot of great Varda in July and they’re all worth seeking out, but my favorite was this docudramedy featuring Warhol superstar Viva and Hair creators James Rado and Gerome Ragni floating around the Chateau Marmot in Los Angeles. It’s also go bonus Shirley Clarke filling in as a surrogate for Varda herself. It’s sort of a dark, surrealist comedy, quasi-documentary filled with sharp commentary on Hollywood, California, and the counter-culture of the late-1960s.

The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography, 2017 (dir. Errol Morris)

I just want to hug this movie. And hug Elsa. And hug Errol for introducing me to Elsa. If you like documentaries that 1) highlight interesting women 2) shine a light on creative people 3) will make you feel better about the world, this is a movie for you!

Lucky Partners, 1940 (dir. Lewis Milestone)

Ronald Colman was the Star of the Month for July on TCM and I had been looking forward to this month all year. Not just so I could catch up on ones I hadn’t seen before (so many!), but also to watch some of my favorite films. This month and these movies did not disappoint. I’d like to give a short shout out to A Double Life, for which Colman won his Oscar, but the film I loved the most from him was this comedy also starring Ginger Rogers. The two have such delightful chemistry and I swear Colman has rarely been sexier than he is in this movie. Just an all-around lovely romantic comedy.

Sabotage, 1936 (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Lastly let’s talk Alfred Hitchcock. I watched all the films we showed of his that I hadn’t seen before, and I’d seen a lot. It’s just Hitch made sooo many movies. I’d seen 29 of his films before this month began and I’ve now seen 49! That said, the one I watched in July that really shook me was actually on FilmStruck – 1936’s Sabotage starring my girl Sylvia Sidney. Hitch’s films often skirt the line of tension and horror and suspense, with implications of violence (except in his later films where the violence is shown, but that’s got more to do with the freedom of New Hollywood than anything else). This is possibly the most violent of those early films. There were a few scenes that really, truly shocked me as a viewer. There’s one scene in particular that I still can’t believe he did what he did. Definitely seek this film out!

So that was July. So many movies! With August comes Summer Under The Stars, so you’ll see plenty of stars grouped together in my viewing, but I don’t think I’ll have another month quite as fulfilling as this July was. I already feel the void of losing my weekly dates with Ronald Colman.