Hello, my name is Justin Glute. I'm here today with Will Slown. And you're listening

to The Important Cinema Club. And today, we are talking about Golden Age of Hollywood director,

Edmund Goulding. I should say writer, director, song composer, Edmund Goulding. He was an actor.

Yes, actor as well. Novelist. He wrote one novel. And you may be wondering,

wait, I've never heard of this guy. We'll get into why that is as we talk about this subject.

Well, in 1933, a movie won the Oscar for Best Picture without being nominated in any other

category. It has never happened before or since.

That movie was Grant Hotel, and the snubbed director never got an Oscar nomination.

Nope.

Was Mr. Edmund Goulding. Edmund Goulding was the director, and I think that kind of sums up his

reputation today. He directed a movie that won best picture at the Oscars, and you don't know him. No, you don't. You probably don't. Although, I'm sure you know some of his movies, if you're into movies. Nightmare Alley, Dark Victory. Yeah, that's probably pretty much it. Those are the solid gold classics. I think I became interested in Edmund Goulding because the Nightdrate picture show, they're going in the vaults, they're pulling these out. We watched Nightmare Alley, and we also watch The Razors Edge. That's right. The Nitrate Picture Show, for those who don't know, it's held in Rochester, New York every year. It's at the George Eastman House, and they play 35mm prints on original nitrate film stock, which was the highly flammable film stock that was phased out in the early

1950s. One company, I guess, that kept a lot of its 1940s nitrate film stock was Fox. So you see a lot of Fox stuff there. You see a lot of David O'Sullsnik stuff. And yeah, I guess there was one year. Did it play in the same year? I don't think it played in the same year. I think it may have played in separate years. Razors Edge and Nightmare Alley both played though. And, you know,

Nightmare Alley both played, though.

And, you know, Nightmare Alley, familiar enough. Razor's Edge, though it's one of his most popular films, I had never seen it before. I'd never even thought to see it until you saw it. And I say, see it, because I have a feeling I looked over at Willieville. That's not true.

I mean, that's that second day of the Nightrade Picture show, we're all fall asleep during it.

Let's not true. I mean, that's, that second day of the Nightrade Picture Show, we're all fall asleep during it. Let's be honest. I dispute the record on that. I remember this movie pretty well. So I didn't remember Nightmare Ali or Razors Hedge, and I saw them both wide-eyed, bushy-tailed. I guess I'm getting to that age. It's like, everything is new again.

Just give it five years. I am at the stage of like, I'll watch something and then I'll see on Letterbox. Oh, I saw this at 2017. And I remember when I saw Razors Edge, I was just so taken by the long take style that Edmund Goulding had in that movie that like, I believe person who did the introduction didn't compare it to

Citizen Kane but said that like kind of stylistically that there's a lot going on in Edmund

Goulding and that he's doing something much different than Wells is but still as bravura well I will say

that watching the Razors Edge again this week there's a scene at a nightclub where the camera

sort of drifts up while the couple are walking out and it it just sort of drifts through the nightclub, and you see like dozens of extras. They're all doing some little bit of choreographed action. And then, like, as the scene fades out, there's somebody who gets into a fight, like, on the right hand side of the frame. You know, it's a long shot. Goulding doesn't even really accentuated

or anything. It's just there. And I was looking at that like, wait, is that Tyrone Powers character?

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