Tag: 1940s

Superman and Captain America at the Smithsonian!

The Smithsonian has a bit on Action Comics #1 and Captain America #1 and their recent acquisition of both: “Taken together, the comics reflect societal anxieties and aspirations alike—whether in Superman’s immigrant origins or in Captain America’s wartime ethos. ‘The pivotal creators of these comics—Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Joe […]

From the Archives: (Some of) The Women Who Wrote Hitchcock

Hitchcock gets a lot of credit for his mystery and suspense films, rightfully so, but sometimes that credit goes as far as erasing the writers who came up with the mysteries, twists, dark jokes, thrills and stories Hitchcock built his films on. Hitchcock himself gave credit where it was due. He put writers’ names on screen for everyone to see. But if film history has taught us anything, it’s that credits, dedications and acknowledgments are not enough to keep women both trans and cis, genderqueer and nonbinary people from disappearing from memory and history.

The Casebook of Dr. Louis Judd, Terrible Psychiatrist

thought that I was done writing about terrible people for the year. But I need to ponder just one more, Dr. Louis Judd. Judd is a supporting character played by Tom Conway in two RKO horror movies: Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (USA, 1942) and Mark Robson’s The Seventh Victim (USA, 1943). Dr. Judd while suave, sophisticated, sardonic and lightly mustachioed is a remarkably bad psychiatrist. He drifts into and out of Manhattan’s occult and supernatural demimonde. Like many a tourist, he is not careful and he leaves more than memories.