Anatomy of a Murder is a courtroom drama that introduces some of the touchstones of the genre, including the the “I’m just a simple country lawyer” trope, with Jimmy Stewart as said lawyer. With a Duke Ellington score and a surprisingly nuanced approach to imperfect victims, a new decade is definitely on the horizon with this flick.

The 1959 adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank (adapted from the stage play, in turn adapted from the original diary) has a lot to recommend it. Only problem? The lead, and titular character, isn’t one of them.

Sometimes, our hosts' predictions from the previous week turn out to be wrong. It's rare that it's in this way, though... Sayonara stars Marlon Brando and Miiko Taka in a romantic drama about American soldiers falling in love with Japanese women in post-WWII Japan. Yes, it’s still problematic, but not in the way Suzan and David were anticipating.

Finally, the long, slow march toward The Maltese Falcon is over, and our hosts are delighted to offer you a rave review again at last!

Just in time for everyone to be on lockdown for COVID-19, we bring you our third “Bengal Lancered” episode— prepare to have plenty of recommendations for what to do with your time while you’re social distancing, none of which are watch One Foot in Heaven.

After last week’s divergent score, the pendulum swings back with Hold Back the Dawn— never have our hosts agreed so completely on a score before!

The Little Foxes, starring Bette Davis, is the first movie in awhile that has led to a serious split vote between our hosts. Did David finally reconcile his disappointment with the famous star to give it higher marks, or did Suzan find a way to see past her one note performance to more good than bad in the film? Find out!

Here at Screen Test of Time, our hosts can usually figure out why a movie was nominated for Best Picture, even if we don’t agree that it should have been. Here Comes Mr. Jordan has the distinction of absolutely confounding Suzan, and enraging David, as to why it’s even a nominee.

It’s back to back awkward biopic weeks here at Screen Test of Time, this time with the frustratingly miscast Gary Cooper in Sergeant York. Not the worst WWI movie Suzan and David have watched so far, but just how many rank beneath it?

Blossoms in the Dust falls into the category of movies that Hollywood doesn’t quite know how to make yet, subcategory: biopic. It’s in color. The costumes are pretty. It’s still really boring.

Hey, have you all heard about this movie, Citizen Kane?

Bless her heart, but Ginger Rogers is pulling a lot of thankless weight in this adaptation of a novel butchered by the Hays Code. Also, another year in the can— which of the three 10s will David and Suzan choose as the rightful winner of 1940?

In this episode, Suzan nearly has a complete bisexual meltdown over The Philadelphia Story, starring Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant, which is entirely too many attractive people if you ask her. David, however, is a little clearer eyed and probably offers to give a more accurate (and very precise) score on this extremely problematic, but ultimately entertaining film.

The winner of the 1957 nominees, The Bridge on the River Kwai stars Alec Guiness, in what David calls “the role he was born to play” (please don’t get mad at us, Star Wars fans…), and William Holden (also arguably in the role he was born to play). It’s long, and ambitious, and cost a lot of money to make, which hasn’t necessarily been the mark of a movie that stands the Screen Test of Time. Will this one be more of the same, or will your hosts finally enjoy a big, bold, and expensive movie?

What is the deal with Bette Davis, anyway? Screen Test of Time investigates… and comes up blank on this week’s episode reviewing The Letter.

Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, starred in, and composed for this (sadly) still very relevant satire of the rise of fascism in Europe. David struggles not to give it a 10, and Suzan struggles with why she doesn’t want to for once.

It’s John Ford and Greg Toland vs boats— which will win out for David, the director and cinematographer he loves or the setting and subject he hates? Certainly this combo will work for Suzan… right? See what our hosts think of this adaptation of 4 short Eugene O’Neill plays.

The second of two Hitchcock films nominated in this year proves to be a little divisive for our hosts!

After multiple days of trying to record, our hosts finally get to sit down and talk about yet another Bette Davis film that leaves them baffled at her superstardom (though with a brief interruption by Suzan’s cats). Charles Boyer co-stars as Davis’s employer and… sort of? love interest, in a film that could have been captivating but had to bend so much to the Hays Code as to be an overlong, toothless melodrama.

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is widely considered to be THE Great American Drama, a sentimental paean to small town Americana that tells the story of two families joined by marriage and separated by tragedy that just happens to be performed on a mostly bare stage. But the 1940 film adaptation starring Martha Scott and William Holden inadvertently challenges the order of importance of these elements— and perhaps it’s not the story of Main Street USA that’s important after all?

It’s our 100th episode we watched and reviewed Alfred Hitchcock’s 1st American film— 1940’s Best Picture winner, Rebecca, a creeping gothic story of a never named woman (played by Joan Fontaine) who marries dashing but obviously troubled widower, Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier). Suzan and David both think it’s great, but can they justify 10s two weeks in a row?

The Grapes of Wrath makes two Steinbeck adaptations in a row here at Screen Test of Time. John Ford’s classic starring Henry Fonda is a masterwork of American cinema, with beautiful cinematography by Gregg Toland, already demonstrating some of the genius he’ll bring to 1941’s Citizen Kane. It’s an excellent movie, no doubt about it— but should you watch it? 

Of Mice and Men is a solid, workmanlike adaptation of the famous Steinbeck novel— competently made, well acted, and with a script by the author himself. But does it rise to the level of Best Picture? It’s the last movie of 1939, so find out if it’s the nominee that’s best stood the Screen Test of Time, or if David and Suzan choose another one of the nominees for the real Best Picture of 1939!

The long awaited (...or should we say dreaded?) watch of the wildly dated, over long, overrated, and overtly racist Gone With the Wind.

The curse of great poster, bad movie is well and truly over! (Well, at least so-bad-it’s-great poster…) Henry Ford leads a phenomenal cast of, well, twelve angry men in this tense, bottle episode of a movie, and meditation on the potential failings and virtues of trial by jury.

Perhaps the best thing about 1939 is that it brings our hosts the final Ernst Lubitsch film they will have to watch! After loathing every other film by the prolific director, will Greta Garbo in the title role upset the streak of poor ratings for Lubitsch, or is even she unable to salvage a film that was marketed only with the two words “Garbo laughs!”?

Frank Capra’s classic is considered the ultimate story of a Washington insider taking on the corrupt political machines holding Congress hostage, thanks to an absolutely brilliant performance by Jimmy Stewart in the titular role. But how well does it stand the Screen Test of Time in today’s political climate?

The first of the nominees that both of our hosts have already seen, The Wizard of Oz is getting some scrutiny neither of them had ever given it before. Will the classic starring Judy Garland hold up to our hosts’ critical evaluation, or will David and Suzan pull back the curtain to reveal it’s not so wonderful after all?

Editor’s note: Screen Test of Time would like to apologize for the brevity of this week’s episode, but there really wasn’t much to say about Goodbye, Mr. Chips. We assure you that next week we will be back with a very long episode.

The first of the sick bed tearjerker dramas to be nominated for Best Picture, Dark Victory is another in the list of movies where if people just talked to one another, there would be no story. Starring Bette Davis, some incredibly forgettable guy, the only real tragedy here is an underused Humphrey Bogart. Oh, and Ronald Reagan is in it.

The basis for the much more widely seen remake starring Cary Grant, Love Affair starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer was a difficult one for our hosts to grade. Moments of brilliance abound, but they are so disconnected from an unbelievable overall story, that it’s hard to know what is important is in this melodramatic romance.

On this week’s episode, David and Suzan discuss the structure of Gothic storytelling, the perils of adapting a too long book into a too short movie, the merits of War and Peace and 10 Things I Hate About You to 1939’s Wuthering Heights.

After nearly 2 years of counting down the weeks to film’s most legendary year, 1939 is off with a bang… and some surprising controversy! For the first time in a long time, our hosts find they deeply disagree. Will David and Suzan come to a compromise, or will Stagecoach be the rare SToT movie with a split score?

At last, 1938 is over! Our hosts have finally completed the last year of nominees before Hollywood’s “Best Year” with this week’s movie, The Citadel, and the good news is David doesn’t regret using the Bengal Lancer card earlier. But which flick deserved the Oscar for 1938?

This week on Screen Test of Time, the 1938 film adaptation of Pygmalion starring Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller takes Suzan utterly by surprise because… she kind of likes most of it? Luckily, David assuages her conflicted feelings over enjoying a movie with such a misogynist foundational narrative, by pointing out the movie’s one huge, self-annihilating flaw.

Gary Cooper plays a father and husband in a Quaker family during the American Civil War, when his community is faced with the question of whether or not they will stay pacifists and out of the war or confront injustice with violence.

Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney don’t have the greatest track record here on Screen Test of Time, and they co-star in Boys Town, a biopic about a priest who started a literal incorporated town for homeless boys cum bad-kid-goes-good fairytale.

Ahhh… at last, our hosts can breathe a sigh of relief before hitting play on this week’s movie, You Can’t Take It with You. With the Screen Test of Time proven Frank Capra at the helm, and Jimmy Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, and Jean Arthur in front of the camera, what could possibly go wrong?

This movie should be called Four Daughters (and an Embarrassment of Baxters). Four pretty, almost indistinguishable adult women with some level of musical talent, their music professor dad (played by Claude Raines), and their spitfire spinster aunt basically make life miserable for a bunch of men in this disjointed soap opera.

Tyrone Power and Alice Faye are back in Alexander’s Ragtime Band, and better than ever… which isn’t saying much. The musical numbers may swing, but the plot will rock you to sleep.

When asked what 2 movies he would take with him on the ark, Orson Welles replied that La Grande Illusion would be one of them (and couldn’t name the other). Our hosts are happy to report that they don’t question his decision. A war movie with no battles, a film that is not about racism and anti-semitism but addresses them better than any film they’ve watched so far, and a clear inspiration for countless films to follow, La Grande Illusion is a masterpiece, even through the lens of the Screen Test of Time. (It was so good, Suzan made popcorn— though, as David makes clear, she has a rather unusual definition of “popcorn movie.”)

Errol Flynn and Olivia Havilland return to the podcast in the ur-Robin Hood movie from 1938. The second Oscar nominated movie fully in Technicolor, it’s David’s grandfather’s favorite movie ever. Suzan, however, makes a case for the Disney animated version and, yes, even the much maligned Kevin Costner adaptation as improvements over the classic. Still, it’s a fun romp through Sherwood Forest, chocked full of fantastic action scenes, with Claude Rains and Basil Rathbone rounding out a great cast.

An extraordinary film-- not in the sense that it's excellent-- but that it constantly teeters on the precipice of disaster, held only together by the strength of Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, and Clark Gable. On paper, Test Pilot is a frankly ludicrous story about an ace test pilot, the woman he meets after he crash lands on a farm and then marries the next day, and his best friend, who end up in an unconventional ménage à trois— as in “household of three,” not the other way… maybe?

1938 is off to a rough start-- one movie in, and our hosts have already broken the glass on the Bengal Lancer Clause*… sort of. Suzan does sum up the entire movie in one sentence, but mostly our hosts talk about how great 2015 was for movies that weren’t even nominated for Best Picture. Spoiler warnings for The Wire, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Magic Mike XXL.

*For those who haven’t heard Ep. 47: The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, the eponymous clause can be invoked only once a calendar year, when a movie is just too egregious to warrant a review

TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains a lot of references to sexual assault that takes place in the movie.

Another in the “musical drama disaster film” genre of San Francisco, this week’s movie is a fictional telling of the family of Mrs. O’Leary, whose cow, for at least a century, was held responsible for starting the Chicago Fire. Starring Tyrone Power, Alice Brady, and Alice Faye, In Old Chicago is a movie so chock full of the worst Classic Film offenses that David made up a bingo card for it. It’s also the last film of 1937, so find out if the Academy’s winner holds up!

Another in the weird 1930s trend of "hilarious" comedies about divorce, The Awful Truth, starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, is the film equivalent of a bottle of champagne that's been left open for three days.

The Ten Commandments is Cecil B. DeMille’s apotheosis, and we mean that both as a compliment and an insult.

Just in time for Pride month, the undeniably queer Stage Door is not not an odd couple romantic comedy. A terrific movie where the Powerful Lesbian Energy fan service is only barely subtextual— Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers play two up and coming Broadway actresses thrown together by circumstance who pretty obviously fall in love with each other. While it takes a hard left turn at the very end, this funny, sweet, and ultimately very moving women-centric movie still manages to stick the landing thanks to its darling central couple.

Deanna Durbin is back in this bizarre Depression Era concert movie cum Cinderella story, and our hosts are genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of our young heroine. One hundred men and not one of them can get the girl to school or tell her to stay out of bars?

Dead End welcomes the legendary Humphrey Bogart to the podcast for the first, but not the last time! An excellent ensemble cast, a class warfare theme, and a handful of impressive bits of cinematography result in David having to reel in a very jetlagged Suzan from way over rating this movie.