PODCAST · tv
Lions, Towers & Shields
by Shelly Brisbin
A celebration of films from the classic Hollywood era. Shelly Brisbin leads a merry band through recaps and reviews of great old movies from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
Episodes
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148: Priced to Move for Criminals
Nicholas Ray makes his film debut directing “They Live By Night,” a noir love story. Not your usual, noir dude obsessed by a bad woman, but an actual relationship, conducted under trying circumstances. Kathy O’Donnell and Farley Granger made a couple of films together, but this is the best. Enjoy...
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147: Roddy McDowall: An Actor's Life
Author (and friend of the show) Samuel Garza Bernstein is back with a story about a character who was central to Hollywood’s Golden Age and beyond. His new book, Roddy McDowall: An Actor’s Life - From “How Green Was My Valley” to “Lassie” to “Planet of the Apes” is the story of a child star who...
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146: I Think They Did It!
Here is an early film by David Lean about a chance encounter at a train station that leads to complicated feelings for both parties. It’s “Brief Encounter.” Ceilia Johnson (ever heard of ‘er?) gives a nuanced, emotional performance. And the film is very real and down-to-earth, despite the…
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145: Hungry Like The Wolf
Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock. OK, I’m pretty much done. What else shall I say? WWII intrigue, a love story, a well-played villain. These are also things I could say. Also, the length of the kiss between Grant and Bergman put the Production Code office all in a tizzy. Host Shelly...
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144: Cut-Rate Hitchcock
It’s the final edition of Lions, Towers & Trek, wherein we feature someone from Star Trek: The Original Series in a film they made before the show. Here’s DeForest Kelley’s film debut; a rare lead role for him. DK is a man suspected of a crime, who must rely on his disjointed memories and his cop...
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143: There is no Leather in Corinth
If you’ve watched Star Trek, you’ve probably had your share of “I know that person” moments, when it comes to guest stars. So let us consider Ricardo Montalbån, long before he was Khan in Star Trek’s “Space Seed” episode, or the same character in the best of all Trek movies, “Star Trek II, The...
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142: Shatner Makes A Good Vulcan
William Shatner made his film debut in this Richard Brooks adaptation of the Dostoevsky novel. Bill is the youngest of the brothers, and he’s fourth-billed, behind Yul Brynner and some other people we’ve seen before on LTS. Host Shelly Brisbin with David J. Loehr, Nathan Alderman, and Micheline...
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141: The Neighborhood Is Monument Valley
This summer we celebrate the intersection of classic film and Star Trek. And Lions, Towers & Trek begins with a big one. John Ford’s classic western is an uncomfortable masterpiece. There, that takes in those who admire the film, and those who don’t like what it seems to represent, or how women…
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140: Say More. Say It Now. Tell Us Everything!
By request, we take on this late-50s musical, directed by Stanley Donan. Our stars are Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn and Kay Thompson. (I’ll have lots to say about Kay.) Revolving, as it does around the fashion industry in Paris, Funny Face is pretty to look at, including many great costumes. It...
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139: Femme Fatales Are Usually Smarter
Fritz Lang directed a pair of noirs in the mid-40s, starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. The other is Woman in the Window. In Scarlet Street Eddie G. Is a mild-mannered cashier who meets Kitty, a beauty who might not mean him well. And then Dan Duryea gets involved. Like any...
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138: The Hot Ronald Colman
Someone suggested we honor the films of 1926 — 100 years ago — and so we shall. Beau Geste has been remade often, but here is the original, starring Ronald Colman in his matinee idol period. S recent massive restoration of the film has the film looking great, with lots of footage restored. It’s a...
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137: 714 Home Runs And At Least Two Murders
The LTS lineup drafts baseball movies for your enjoyment. At least one choice from every panelist must fall within our old-timey timeline, but newer films about bats and balls make it in, too. And don’t worry, bad baseball movies do not strike out here. Host Shelly Brisbin with Philip Michaels,...
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136: The Tiffany of John Lunds
Happy Opening Day! It’s Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig, in our first baseball episode. And yes, it’s all LTS inside baseball this week. We complain about the lack of actual baseball in this movie, suggest other movies with more baseball and go on a complete tangent halfway through, that no one would…
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135: Call It A Noirlodrama
The son of a man convicted of murder faces bullying, then suspicion when he is accused of a crime, too. Directed by Frank Borzage, the film is moody, dark and a bit gothic. Dane Clark and Gail Russell are your leads, with a late-film appearance by Ethel Barrymore. And you’ll hate young Lloyd...
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134: Hotness Is A Reason
Gene Tierney does comedy. John Lund is not bad. And THELMA RITTER IS THE BEST. Host Shelly Brisbin with Micheline Maynard and Nathan Alderman.
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133: Clown Car Full of Raincoats
Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly. Gotta be a musical, right? Actually, it’s a film noir, whose connection to Christmas is limited at best. So much misdirection, and I haven’t even told you the plot. Host Shelly Brisbin with Randy Dotinga and Micheline Maynard.
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132: Clothes, Cars and Acreage
Tracy and Hepburn do “battle of the sexes” and help Judy Holiday launch her film career. There’s a random Cole Porter song, and T & H are adorable. George Cukor directs a great script. Host Shelly Brisbin with David J. Loehr, Nathan Alderman, and Micheline Maynard.
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121: Chekhov's Unbroken Hand
Barbara Stanwyck (Lorna) in a boxing movie? OK, sure. But you’ll also see the film that began her lifelong friendship with William Holden. Bill (Joe) is a violinist who wants to try his hand at boxing. Because there’s money in that. Stanwyck’s Lorna is the girl who loves him. What price must Joe...
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120: Stella Dallas versus Veda Pierce
We begin Stanwyck Summer with one of her most iconic films, and greatest performances. Stella Dallas is pure melodrama, so sudsy that the name was taken by a radio soap opera. Stella is a working-class woman with a daughter she wants to give all the things she never had. Will she succeed? Will…
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119: I'm Still Watching...
This George Stevens (best director Oscar) epic looms large. It’s a classic “roadshow” film of the 1950s, complete with West Texas vistas, Technicolor, big stars like Rock (Hudson), Liz (Taylor) and Jimmy (Dean), but no intermission, even though it’s three hours long! It also looms large in the...
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118: Planting Bulbs in the Spring
Bette Davis brings the melodrama, right here in the imperial phase of her Warner Brothers career. She’s rich, she’s spoiled. Oopsie. She has a health crisis! Will she become a better person? Will she find love? Will she out-act Humphrey Bogart, George Brent (yeah she will) and Geraldine…
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117: Alligator Pears
The first film Fritz Lang made in the US after he fled the Nazis, Fury is the story of a man who is lynched by the residents of a small town. The film is not a groundbreaking 1950s independent production, but an MGM star vehicle from 1936, featuring one of the studio’s then newest stars, Spencer...
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116: His Personal Murder Concierge
If you meet up with Lawrence Tierney in a dark alley - or in a kitchen, for that matter - chances are the encounter won’t end well. Tierney is truly the bad boy of film noir, and no film shows it better than “Born to Kill.” Claire Trevor is great, as always, but I do question her taste in men. I...
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115: Gene Kelly's Guns
Greatest musical of all time, you say? Plenty of people would agree. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly co-direct Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds through a delightful Comden and Gteen score, not to mention dance numbers that have achieved legendary status. For anyone who admires clever,...
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114: There's Lots of Nice Coats...
This film was a passion project for George Cukor and Katharine Hepburn. RKO let them do it, but the studio was sorry, when the movie confused audiences in 1935, and made no money. It has attained a bit of a cult following since. Hepburn and her father, Miracle on 34th Street’s Edmund Gwynn are...
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113: Untapped Reservoir of Cool
Let the show’s 5th year begin! LTS regular Micki Maynard turned me onto this one. Paul Newman and Sidney Pottier star as jazz musicians in Paris. Their love interests are Joanne Woodward and Dihann Caroll, repectively. Louis Armstrong plays a character called Wild Man Moore. If my synopsis seems...
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112: The Holiday Show
Host Shelly Brisbin with Randy Dotinga, Micheline Maynard, David J. Loehr, and Nathan Alderman.
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111: Go Out In Flames and Drama
We return surprisingly often to the Hitchcock well, but his 1940s films are so interesting. Here is a gothic romantic mystery, with poor Joan Fontaine just trying to get her bearings in an old, dark house. Why are her new husband, Laurence Olivier, and his housekeeper, Judith Anderson, so mean to...
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110: Bogart: Life Comes In Flashes
A new film tells the story of Humphrey Bogart through the lens of the women who were most important in his life - his mother and his four wives. Shelly talks with Bogey’s son, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, about the new film. Host Shelly Brisbin.
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109: More Beer!
AUDIO FIXED: Join us for peak 1950s MGM musical. If that doesn’t interest you, I can’t help. Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dance their hearts out, Oscar Levant levants, and Vincente Minnelli does his usual excellent job as director. We take issue with the plot and at least one of the main...
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108: Let Me Tell You A Story About Heroin
Susan Hayward won an Oscar. Susan Hayward was a protege and fan of Barbara Stanwyck. Susan Hayward would like NOT to be put to death for her part in murder, please. Robert Wise (Star Trek: The Motion Picture AND The Sound of Music) directs. And this film showcases not only Miss Hayward, but a…
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107: Gayer Than The Cast of Bewitched
Previously, on Lions, Towers & Shields, we’ve talked about one western. It was an unusual one, and included themes a modern audience tends to read as gay. Well guess what? We’re doing it again. Desert Fury puts Lizbeth Scott, Bert Lancaster and John Hodiak into a love triangle. Film noir expert...
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106: I Can Be Demagogued, Apparently
An entertainer from the rural south rises to become a political demagogue. And he’s played by Andy Griffith. This is all kinds of messed up! It’s actually a great film, with A LOT to say to us in the 21st Century. It’s directed by Elia Kazan, and also stars Patricia Neal. Host Shelly Brisbin with...
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105: We're Gonna Digress
In 1970, Arthur Hailey’s blockbuster book, Airport, became the first film in that decade’s disaster movie cycle. It also led to three more Airport films, and the adaptation of Zero Hour (also a Hailey story) into Airplane!. This second installment, Airport 1975, celebrates its 50th anniversary…
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104: Also, Don't Go Through That Gate
We close out International Summer Vacation with a film most of us haven’t seen, or even heard of. It comes to us from Argentina, and director Carlos Hugo Christensen. It’s based on a story by noir stalwart, Cornell Woolrich, and consists of two stories involving the door of the title. It’s also...
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103: Very Much About The Vibes
We return to France for King of Hearts, directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Alan Bates and Geneviève Bujold. The suggestion to see this film comes from our own Erika Ensign, who praises its anti-war message, among other attributes. The film is set in a small French town during World War…
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102: Am I A Bad Cinephile?
Tokyo Story is on numerous lists of the best films of all time. It’s in my personal top five. This movie is considered the masterpiece by legendary filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, and it stars his luminous muse, Setsuko Hara. Tokyo Story is a black and white time capsule of life in Japan after World War…
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101: From It Girl to Queen of the Movies, and Beyond
Starring Joan Crawford is Samuel Garza Bernstein’s new appreciation of the screen queen. It’s a great book, and I wanted you to meet the author, Samuel Garza Bernstein. We’ve known each other since I was 16. These two things are only partially related. Host Shelly Brisbin with Samuel Garza...
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100: The Smell of Murder
Forgive a film noir detour during our international vacation season. This is episode 100, and so I’ve picked a movie I love, and that feels right in the collective LTS wheelhouse. James M. Cain’s story of betrayal and murder was directed by Billy Wilder, and stars Barbara Stanwyck (natch), Fred...
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99: Jesus versus the Bikini Girls
Our summer travels continue this week to Italy, where Federico Fellini is our guide. The title translates to “the sweet life” in English, and that’s what star Marcello Mastroianni seeks in Rome, over the course of seven days. Mastroianni is a tabloid journalist, and we follow him through seven...
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98: Toshirô Mifune Can Get It!
Shot in the postwar ruins of occupied Tokyo, Akira Kurosawa’s early buddy-cop thriller will make you feel every drop of sweat in its sweltering summer heat wave. A rookie cop (Toshiro Mifune) loses his gun to a pickpocket; the gun ends up in the hands of a desperate ex-soldier with nothing to…
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97: Come On, Someone Shoot Him!
We begin our International Summer Vacation season with a prime example of the French New Wave. Breathless is directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. The film is notable for its visual style, and the impact it had on the careers of its leading actors. Belmondo...
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96: I Think He *Might* Be A Sociopath
Down in the depths of precode cinema, where Shelly likes to spend torrid nights, there’s a depiction of how a department store can be a little Peyton Place, and how Warren William is never to be trusted. The great precode lothario stars with very young Loretta Young and Wallace Ford (who we just...
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95: My Film Erogenous Zones
Here are Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift at their hottest, with an adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. Just as in Night of the Hunter, Shelley Winters maybe ought to watch her back. George Stevens directs, and here, he’s beginning his epic period. In the 50s, he’ll direct...
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94: Mourning Culottes
Johnny Guitar (1954): It’s unusual, it’s weird, and it’s unlike any other film made by these stars. And it’s our first LTS western. Because maybe your show runner has a slightly twisted appreciation for the genre. Nicholas Ray, whose directorial chops we last experienced with In A Lonely Place,...
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93: Situational Gales
Every once in awhile, your host takes a flier, choosing a film for us to watch that I’ve seen once or twice, if at all. Also arising from the 2022 draft episode is this English romance from 1945. It’s from the filmmaking team of Powell and Pressburger, and stars Wendy Hiller, so on credentials...
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92: We've Got All the French You Need
Gene Kelly was at the height of his powers in 1951, starring in musicals for MGM, and choreographing some of them. Here, Vincent Minelli directs, but the dancing is by Kelly. Leslie Caron makes her film debut, and the rest of the cast has a decidedly continental vibe. The film is “inspired” by...
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91: I Wouldn't Go to Salinas Either
Unlike the mid-40s film that first brought us Bogie and Bacall, The Breaking Point is a relatively faithful adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s story, To Have and Have Not. This one stars John Garfield (in one of his final films) and Patricia Neal. Michael Curtiz directs, but if that suggests a...
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90: Ruth Chatterton is Jacked
This 1936 film is based on the well-known novel of the same name, by Sinclair Lewis. It’s the story of a successful middle-aged man (Walter Huston) who wants something new from his life. That’s what his wife (Ruth Chatterton) wants, too, but their ideas are very different, and not compatible. And...
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89: You Can't Be Evil in a Cardigan
If the Jeopardy answer is “A Christmas-themed film of the mid-1940s”, you might expect the question to be “What is ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’” or “What is ‘Miracle on 34th Street.’” But on this year’s LTS holiday episode, those questions would be wrong! Our movie this year comes with stars like…
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Lions, Towers & Shields have?
Lions, Towers & Shields currently has 148 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Lions, Towers & Shields about?
A celebration of films from the classic Hollywood era. Shelly Brisbin leads a merry band through recaps and reviews of great old movies from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.
How often does Lions, Towers & Shields release new episodes?
Lions, Towers & Shields publishes regularly with 148 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Lions, Towers & Shields?
You can listen to Lions, Towers & Shields on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Lions, Towers & Shields?
Lions, Towers & Shields is created and hosted by Shelly Brisbin.
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