Acteurist Oeuvre-view – Lilli Palmer – Part 1: CRIME UNLIMITED (1935), SECRET AGENT (1936), and THE GREAT BARRIER (1937)

There's Sometimes a Buggy

In our first Lilli Palmer Acteurist Oeuvre-view episode, we spend some time with Lilli in England and take in her screen debut, in the "Quota Quickie" Crime Unlimited (1935); her small role in Hitchcock's eccentric Secret Agent (1936), in which she gets to play with an unhinged Peter Lorre; and a thankless role in a lyrical ode to Canadian nation-building a.k.a. labour exploitation, The Great Barrier (1937). Then, in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we grapple with Angela Schanelec's Music, the one 2023 TIFF festival movie we got out to see, and our first time seeing a Schanelec on a really big screen, which was the right way to see this visually stunning film.

Time Codes:

0h 00m 45s: Preliminary Words on Lilli Palmer

0h 05m 12s: CRIME UNLIMITED (1935) [dir. Ralph Ince]

0h 22m 51s: SECRET AGENT (1936) [dir. Alfred Hitchcock]

0h 34m 47s: THE GREAT BARRIER (1937) [dirs. Milton Rosmer and Geoffrey Barkas]

0h 47m 51s: Fear & Moviegoing in Toronto – TIFF’s presentation of Angela Schanelec’s Music (2023)

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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring

* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”

* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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