This week, we’re talking about Chulas Fronteras (1976), Les Blank’s vibrant, soulful documentary celebrating the music, culture, and communities of the Texas Mexico borderlands, and we’re joined by Maureen Gosling, whose work as a filmmaker and editor was instrumental in shaping the film itself.

More than a music documentary, Chulas Fronteras captures a living cultural tradition in motion. Through performances by artists like Flaco Jiménez and Lydia Mendoza, the film becomes a record of identity, migration, and creative exchange, all observed with care and curiosity rather than explanation. It’s no surprise the film was added to the National Film Registry. It preserves not just songs, but a way of life.

Our conversation with Maureen Gosling offers a rare, firsthand perspective on the making of the film: how it came together, what it meant to document these musicians at that moment in time, and why the film continues to resonate decades later. It’s a reminder of how preservation isn’t only about images on screen, but about honoring voices, traditions, and communities that deserve to be seen and heard on their own terms.

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Music by Mike Natale

"My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you."

Dr. Vaughn Joy joins us on the show to talk about the musical biopic that won James Cagney his Academy Award, the patriotic propaganda piece Yankee Doodle Dandy. We talk George M. Cohan's cultural significance, the film's seemingly waning place in the consensus cinematic canon, and how the film laid the groundwork for the type of Hollywood pro-American propaganda films of the Cold War (the subject of Dr. Joy's new book, Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy).

Buy Selling Out Santa: Hollywood Christmas Films in the Age of McCarthy here, or wherever you buy your books.

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Music by Mike Natale

“All I want is a place to live and a job.” – Nothing But a Man (1964)

This week, we’re taking time to honor the life and legacy of filmmaker Michael Roemer, who passed away in May 2025. Roemer’s work has always stood apart as quiet, honest, deeply human, and we start with the film that introduced so many people to his voice: Nothing But a Man. It’s a landmark in independent cinema, a National Film Registry inductee, and one of the most compassionate portrayals of Black working-class life ever put on screen.

From there, we spend some time with Roemer’s other major works, Vengeance Is Mine and Dying. Each of these films shows a different side of what made him such a singular filmmaker: his empathy, his curiosity, and his ability to sit with people at their most vulnerable without ever forcing sentiment or judgment.

This episode is both a reflection and a celebration: an appreciation of a filmmaker whose perspective mattered, and whose films continue to resonate in ways that feel as immediate now as they did when he first made them.

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Music by Mike Natale