Steven Jay Rubin's Saturday Night at the Movies, Los Angeles, CA (2026)

08/23/2026

BREAKING PODCAST NEWS – Today, we are used to very physical actors who come from bodybuilding, martial arts, sports and other pursuits, where they developed their movement skills to the nth degree. Back in the day, yes, actors were asked to ride horses, fence and box, but their physicality wasn’t necessarily their strongest suit. And then along came Kirk Douglas who went from a minor supporting performer to a superstar who brought every fiber of his body into play in such classic action pictures as “Spartacus,” “The Vikings,” “Gunfight at the OK Corral,” “Champion,” “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and his personal favorite “Lonely are the Brave.”
This week on Saturday Night at the Movies, I’m joined by fellow film historian Avie Hern as we pick our favorite Kirk Douglas movies, examining a key link from the latter stages of the Golden Age of Hollywood, into the 1980s.
You can watch our spirited discussion right now on You Tube, using this link: https://youtu.be/nY4QHtofixA
Or, starting tomorrow, you can catch the audio on your favorite podcast platform. Here is a link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oG8rdYWHp5bEO3pJiVRe7
Or, also starting tomorrow, you can pick up the video on our fast channel outlet, True TV Plus, using this link: https://play.truetvplus.com/search?query=Saturday%20Night

08/22/2026

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES – When you mention actor Van Johnson, you’re inclined to think of musical, comedy, or romantic films. Back in the 1940s, he was a blonde George Clooney-like leading man. My favorite Van Johnson moment of that ilk is his spirted tap dancing with Gene Kelly for the “Go Home with Bonnie Jean” number in “Brigadoon.”
But Van could also do drama. He’s particularly terrific as B-25 pilot Ted Lawson in “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” (1944), and as Pvt. Holley in director William Wellman’s iconic Battle of the Bulge film, “Battleground.” That same year -1949 - MGM signed him onto his only film noir appearance – as troubled police detective Mike Conovan in “Scene of the Crime.” Directed by Roy Rowland (“The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.”) from a script by Charles Schnee and a story by John Bartlow Martin entitled “Smashing the Bookie Gang Marauders”), the story focuses on detective Mike’s efforts to solve the murder of his partner, while also dealing with his lovely wife Gloria (a luminous Arlene Dahl) and her intense desire that he leave the force.
Like all good noir films, the supporting cast is terrific. They include another actor working against type – stunning blonde Gloria DeHaven, usually playing a girl next door type, but here she’s a stripper associating with criminal types. Also joining the cast is MGM stalwart John McIntire as police Detective Piper (one year later, he was the police chief in “The Asphalt Jungle”), Norman Lloyd as Sleeper the snitch, stealing every scene is in, Leon Ames, sans mustache, as the police captain, and Tom Drake (“Meet Me in St. Louis”) as another detective, nicknamed CC. Incidentally, and maybe I’m crazy, but it sounds like Tom was entirely revoiced by Arthur Kennedy. Curious what you think.
But it’s Johnson’s movie, and he’s solid – believably romantic one moment with Gloria, angry as he’s dealing with the city’s bottom feeders.
Definitely worth checking out. And please check out my podcast this week – Steven Jay Rubin’s Saturday Night at the Movies” - as we remember our favorite Kirk Douglas movies.

08/16/2026

BREAKING PODCAST NEWS – Remember the muscular indie studio Carolco? Back in the 80s and 90s, producers Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar started cranking out big, crowd pleasing, action films like “First Blood,” “Rambo 2,” “Total Recall” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” later expanding into prestige, director-driven movies like “The Doors,” “Basic Instinct,” “Chaplin” and “A River Runs Through It.” This week on Saturday Night at the Movies,” my guest is former Carolco president Peter Hoffman, who has written “Karmic Winds,” an intimate look at those turbulent Carolco years – the ups and the downs that led to the company’s bankruptcy. Hoffman goes deep behind the scenes as we learn how these epic pictures were put together, and how the whole enterprise began to fall apart.
You can watch this fascinating interview right now on our Your Tube channel, using this link: https://youtu.be/4oKtV7QmAU8
Or, starting tomorrow, you can catch the audio on your favorite podcast platform. Here’s a link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oG8rdYWHp5bEO3pJiVRe7
Or, also starting tomorrow, you can watch in on our fast channel outlet, True TV Plus, using this link: https://play.truetvplus.com/search?query=Saturday

08/15/2026

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES – Was there ever a more energetic and purely likable actress than Debbie Reynolds? From the first moment Gene Kelly sees her chorus dancing in “Singin’ in the Rain” to their marvelous dancing in the “Good Morning” number, Debbie just leaps off the screen. Leaping may be the operative word here, because she started out in high school as a gymnast.
Although she was all over the gossip columns in the early 1960s as her marriage to crooner Eddie Fisher imploded when he left her to dally with Elizabeth Taylor, she also made some fun movies – one of which I sampled for the first time this week – “The Second Time Around.”
The title sounds like a contemporary romantic comedy, but this story takes place in 1911. Debby is Lucretia “Lu” Rogers, a widow with two children, living precariously in New York City. Based on a job tip, she leaves her kids with her grandmother and train travels out to pre-statehood Arizona, only to discover that the guy who offered her the job has been murdered. Broke and desperate, she offers her services as a novice ranch hand for Aggie Gates (the marvelous Thelma Ritter). Aggie is doubtful, especially when she watches Lu attempt to load a heavy sack of grain into a wagon, but she eventually offers her a one month trial.
Meanwhile, Lu has attracted the attention of two local men – roguish gambling house owner Dan Jones (a terrific Steve Forrest), and mama’s boy rancher Pat Collins (Andy Griffith in full hick mode). Not to suffer fools gladly, Lu also nails corrupt Sheriff Burns (Ken Scott, perfectly villainous) as a bully and racist – and as you’ll see when you sample this perfectly entertaining vehicle, she becomes the town sheriff.
Kudos to writers Richard Emery Roberts, Oscar Saul and Clair Huffaker for a really fun narrative, and veteran director Vincent Sherman for keeping this comedy feast moving. We see various sides of Debbie, and they are all winning ones as she becomes an empowered woman in a male-dominant Wild West. Incidentally, Debbie and Thelma would reteam the following year for the terrific “How the West Was Won.”

08/09/2026

BREAKING PODCAST NEWS – I had so much fun doing a solo last week on my favorite
Robert Mitchum movies, I’ve decided to do another solo on a favorite actor – Richard Widmark. Looking back at his filmography of the 1950s and 1960s, there are so many terrific titles that have been in heavy rotation for me. In fact, the first interview I ever did for my “Combat Films” book was with screenwriter Michael Blankfort, who wrote Widmark’s “Halls of Montezuma,” a World War II title from 1951 in which Widmark plays a drug addicted Marine officer plagued by terrible headaches.
Like Mitchum, Widmark looked good in uniform, as he demonstrated two years later in another Fox title, “Destination Gobi,” directed by Robert Wise. His Chief Bosun’s Mate Sam McHale is a Navy veteran assigned to nurse maid a group of weathermen sending reports from Mongolia’s Gobi Desert. It’s a terrific adventure film and Widmark is totally convincing as an officer yearning to get back to the sea. Perhaps his most memorable military film was 1965’s Cold War saga “The Bedford Incident,” which plays like a modern “Moby Dick,” with Widmark as Ahab and a Russian submarine as the white whale. Riveting!
Although I love his military films, Widmark was quite versatile, playing a terrific villain in “Kiss of Death,” his film debut; Jim Bowie the knife fighter in John Wayne’s “The Alamo;” a Viking in “The Long Ships;” a dedicated cop in “Madigan” (later spawning a TV series, in which he reprised the role” and a sinister surgeon in “Coma.” And so many more roles.
You can watch this episode of Steven Jay Rubin’s Saturday Night at the Movies right now on our You Tube channel, using this link: https://youtu.be/YeAYg1HOfGc
Or, starting tomorrow, you can catch the audio on your favorite podcast platform. Here’s a link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oG8rdYWHp5bEO3pJiVRe7
Or, also starting tomorrow, you can catch the video on our fast channel outlet, True TV Plus, using this link: https://play.truetvplus.com/search?query=saturday

08/08/2026

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES – Basil Rathbone always played the best villains in films like “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “The Mark of Zorro,” “The Court Jester,” “The Magic Sword.” With his hawk-like profile, precise diction, and flamboyant swagger, he added dimension to every role. However, he also played one of the great heroes of cinema – that marvelous master of deduction, Sherlock Holmes. Surprisingly, I had never seen a Basil Rathbone Holmes, so this week, I sampled “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” 20th Century Fox’s second and last film in the series, before it was acquired by Universal. What a revelation this film was for me!
Co-written by Edwin Blum who fourteen years later would write “Stalag 17” for Billy Wilder, and directed by Alfred L. Werker, this movie opens in a courtroom, where the nefarious Professor Moriarty (a terrific George Zucco) escapes a murder charge and is free to continue his villainy. His plot: to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London. Mr. Rathbone’s Holmes is introduced in his Baker Street office, playing the violin to a jar full of house flies, seeing how the music affects them. His sidekick, Dr. Watson, arrives in the marvelous personage of Nigel Bruce, and he joins his illustrious super detective in a case involving the lovely and innocent Ann Brandon (Ida Lupino) who is worried that her brother is about to be murdered. We’re not sure what any of this has to do with Professor Moriarty, but believe me it all comes together as Holmes once more has to match wits with his arch nemesis.
It was really fun to see Rathbone as Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective genius, and he and Nigel Bruce make a priceless pair – to be continued in twelve more films at Universal. Interestingly, while the two Fox films take place in the 1890s, when the series moved studios, it became a contemporary story set in the 1940s.
And George Zucco’s Moriarty seems invincible, a brash, braggart who’s super confident that he can work the perfect crime and simultaneously embarrass Holmes. I am so looking forward to watching those other 13 films.

08/02/2026

BREAKING PODCAST NEWS – There was always something very comforting about actor Robert Mitchum’s voice – commanding, measured, but never over the top. Visually, he was always interesting. The weary eyes, the super masculine presence, tremendous charisma. That was Mitchum. This week on Saturday Night at the Movies, I give you an overview of my favorite films of his – many of them in military uniform: Cota the general on Omaha Beach in “The Longest Day,” dodging a hailstorm of bullets while trying to rally his troops; the embattled destroyer captain fighting a U-Boat in “The Enemy Below;” Korean war flying ace Cleave (“the Cleaver”) Saville in “The Hunters” and a bunch more.
You can watch this episode on our You Tube channel right now, using this link: https://youtu.be/Myn-CQW992I
Or, starting tomorrow, you can catch the audio on your favorite podcast platform. Here’s a link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oG8rdYWHp5bEO3pJiVRe7
Or, also tomorrow, you can catch the video on our fast channel outlet, True TV Plus, using this link: https://play.truetvplus.com/search?query=Saturday%20

08/01/2026

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES – I’m curious. When you’re surfing the various movie channels, what element says “I’ve got to watch this?” I confess I look at cast before story, and that’s how this week I happened upon 1978’s horror/thriller “The Medusa Touch.” First, there’s Richard Burton – and that magnificent voice of his. Not always a seal of approval, but I always found him intriguing in his film choices. Secondly, Lee Remick, one of Hollywood’s true beauties, and such a terrific actress. Speaking of horror/thrillers, Lee had starred as Gregory Peck’s wife two years earlier in “The Omen.” So Burton and Remick to start, and a great British supporting cast, which includes Harry Andrews, Jeremy Brett, Michael Byrne (who was so memorable as the N**i officer in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”), Michael Hordern and Gordon Jackson (who was McDonald the intelligence officer in “The Great Escape”).
In “The Medusa Touch,” Burton is the mysterious John Morlar, a traumatized man who claims that he can cause catastrophes all across the world – an awesome supernatural power that begins when he uses telekinetic power to push a car off a cliff, taking his awful parents with it. Like the William Holden character in “Sunset Blvd,” Morlar is murdered in the first scene of the film, bringing a French police inspector (Lino Ventura – solid) into the case. We quickly learn that Morlar is not dead – his brain is very much alive – and he spends the rest of the movie in intensive care. Through flashback, we see the living Morlar, as he takes his malady to a sympathetic but disbelieving therapist, Dr. Zonfeld (Remick).
I was curious how Lino Ventura – a top French character actor – took the leading role of Inspector Brunel, a role that could have gone to a more familiar actor like an Anthony Hopkins or Albert Finney. It turns out that French money was very much a part of the financing for this picture. Enough said.
I found this to be a very compelling thriller, with a spectacular conclusion. Written by John Briley from a novel by Peter Van Greenaway and well-directed by Jack Gold (“Escape from Sobibor”), its tension and weight never flags, anchored by the three lead performances. I found it on the Movies! Channel. It’s well worth the visit.

07/19/2026

BREAKING PODCAST NEWS – Like the Pearl Harbor attack, 911 and the JFK assassination, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 has generated infinite re-examinations, discussions and debates amongst nautical experts, amateur sleuths and the public. Recently, I was introduced to one of those experts, prolific author William Brower who wrote “Titanic: The Legacy Remains”, which definitively examines why that maritime disaster remains in our consciousness one hundred fourteen years later. And because we are devoted to film on this site, William and I discuss the three most important Titanic movies: the Clifton Webb/Barbara Stanwyk 1953 film from 20th Century Fox; the 1958 British adaptation of Walter Lord’s excellent book, “A Night to Remember”; and, of course, the James Cameron epic from 1997, which Brower reveals is referred to by the survivors’ families as “Jack and Rose on the Love Boat.”
You can watch this episode right now on our You Tube channel, using this link: https://youtu.be/erV11eZ0n7A
Or, starting tomorrow, you can listen on your favorite podcast platform. Here is a link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oG8rdYWHp5bEO3pJiVRe7
Or, also tomorrow, you can pick up the video on our Fast Channel outlet, True TV Plus, using this link: https://play.truetvplus.com/search?query=Saturday

07/18/2026

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES – When you hear the name Marilyn Monroe, what comes to mind? Yes, I know her incredible sexiness, but I believe she was a very underrated actress as well. And she had range -she could be believably dramatic in one of my favorite westerns, “River of No Return,” and she could be goofy funny in “Some Like it Hot.”
Last week, for the first time, I dialed up one of her last movies – 1960’s “Let’s Make Love,” which was also her last musical comedy. Directed beautifully by legendary George Cukor, and written by comedy vet Norman Krasna, this show business story stars Marilyn as Amanda Dell, an actress/singer rehearsing a Broadway musical that spoofs the real lives of some high-profile international celebrities. One of those celebs is charismatic Jean-Marc Clement (a marvelous Ives Montand), a French billionaire who seems to own the world. When Clement decides to check out the show, he suddenly finds himself being recruited to play a fictional version of himself. He’s about to educate them, when he sees Amanda’s first dance, and BOING! -he’s smitten.
Apparently, prolific 20th Century Fox producer Jerry Wald gave the script to major American leading men like Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, James Stewart and Yul Brynner, but everyone had heard about Marilyn Monroe’s reputation for being unprofessional on the set, and passed. It was Monroe who recommended French actor Yves Montand, who interestingly was not by any means fluent in English. Montand turned out to be an inspired choice, and he has some terrific comedy chops in this delightful film.
But it’s Monroe who commands your attention – no surprise there – and she’s multi-dimensional. Supporting Monroe and Montand are some fun co-stars, including Tony Randall’s second banana PR guy, British singer Frankie Vaughan’s actor boyfriend of Amanda; and the always dependable Wilfred Hyde-White as Clement’s long-suffering number 2.
Believe me, check out “Let’s Make Love,” it’s a lot of fun and MM is wonderful.

Steven Jay Rubin's Saturday Night at the Movies

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