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

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.

07/12/2026

BREAKING PODCAST NEWS – In light of all the talk about the horror thriller “Obsession” and how it’s taken over the theatrical box office, I thought it would be a good idea this week to talk about the greatest horror films of all time. To seek out those titles, I invited film historian, author, prolific blu-ray commentator and Horror authority Nathaniel Thompson to come on the show, and he’s given us a very cool list of titles to discuss. Nathaniel created and maintains the horror film website Mondo Digital – his titles range from the classic “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Haunting” to more contemporary scare-a-thons like “Hereditary” and “Let the Right One In.”
You can watch our spirited discussion right now on our You Tube channel, using this link: https://youtu.be/heGDP84ds1s
Or, starting tomorrow, you can find us on all the podcast platforms. Here’s a link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oG8rdYWHp5bEO3pJiVRe7
Or, also starting tomorrow, find out video on the Fast Channel, True TV Plus, using this link: https://play.truetvplus.com/search?query=Saturday
Stay frosty!

07/11/2026

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES – Martin Ritt was a prolific director from the late 1950s to the beginning of the 90s, with such classic credits as “Norma Rae,” “The Front,” “Sounder,” “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” and “Hud.” But did you know that he was also a damn good actor.
The other day I was surfing the Movies! Channel (KCOP in LA), and came across what I would consider to be an obscure thriller from 1975, “End of the Game.” Directed by actor Maximillian Schell, and written by Friedrich Durrenmatt who adapted his own novel, “The Judge and his Hangman,” it stars Jon Voight, Robet Shaw, Jacqueline Bisset…and Martin Ritt as Barlach, a gritty Swiss homicide investigator. He is just terrific.
The film begins in Istanbul in 1946, with the sudden murder of a young woman who is slugged in the mouth and tossed off a bridge. We meet Barlach and Shaw’s Richard Gastmann character in this opening vignette, when Barlach accepts a bet that Gastmann can kill the girl, which, sadly, he follows through on. The story then moves ahead thirty years. Gastmann has never been convicted of any crime as he continues to be an important official in the Swiss government. The story then picks up with the murder of a Swiss cop (the co**se is played by Donald Sutherland), and the investigation begins when Barlach teams up with rookie cop Walter Tschanz (Voight). Complicating Barlach’s life is the fact that he’s dying from stomach cancer, but it doesn’t affect his doggedness to solve the crime.
What I find interesting about film discoveries like this is seeing well-known performers in unfamiliar roles. Aside from Ritt, who is a revelation, it was fun seeing a balding Shaw in a film that was released shortly after his Quint character debuted in “Jaws”. And Jacqueline Bisset was in fine form, she would shortly join Shaw again in “The Deep,” wearing that memorable t-shirt. Voight and Schell had appeared together the previous year in “The Odessa File,” which bears some similarities to “End of the Game.”
Apparently, this was a troubled production with massive issues in post. Some critics called it confusing, but I followed it, and I recommend it for the cast, especially Ritt. Happy Saturday!

07/04/2026

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES – Today, I asked myself “what is my favorite Independence Day movie?” For me, it’s an obvious choice – 1996’s “Independence Day,” a sci-fic epic which I’ve seem easily 50 times. Somehow, director Roland Emmerich and his co-writer Dean Devlin, captured lightning in a bottle in a big way.
For my money, it’s the cast that makes this killer entertainment, and you have to start with Will Smith. Known mostly for his television work, Smith took on this role and nailed it from the get go – turning him, practically overnight, into an international superstar. His Captain Hiller is courageous, but he’s also very funny, particularly in his repartee with his co-star, Jeff Goldblum’s David Levinson character. And Goldblum who ably shares the screen with Smith, is a lot of fun – a cable TV troubleshooter who suddenly discovers a hidden alien code on his laptop. Like Smith, he can be believably dramatic in one scene and very funny in the next.
Everything pretty much revolves around these two characters, allowing supporting performers great moments. These include Judd Hirsch, who plays Levinson’s father, Julius; Margaret Colin as Levinson’s ex-wife; Bill Pullman’s President of the United States (an ex-fighter pilot, ready to lead the counterattack); Robert Loggia’s stalwart General; and Randy Quaid’s alcoholic cropduster pilot, Russell Casse.
What makes this film a much better movie than Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” is the humor quotient. One moment you’re stunned by the ferociousness of the alien attack, the next moment you’re laughing out loud.
Kudos to the Oscar-winning special effects team for creating some of the most spectacular alien attack sequences ever. I used to be in total awe of the martian war machines that rise out of the California gully in the 1953 “War of the Worlds” (they’re still terrific) but the weapons deployed by these aliens are insane in their power.
So on this day, as we honor our country on its 250th anniversary, let’s celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of the greatest science fiction film of all time.

Steven Jay Rubin's Saturday Night at the Movies

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