Rachel Robbins
Bio
Writer-Performer based in the North of England. A joyous, flawed mess.
Please read my stories and enjoy. And if you can, please leave a tip. Money raised will be used towards funding a one-woman story-telling, comedy show.
Achievements (1)
Stories (86/0)
- Top Story - May 2024
Delicious NightmaresTop Story - May 2024
There is nothing novel in the observation that a good cinema experience is akin to a waking dream. We sit in darkness and become enveloped in a world of images that we piece together to form a narrative. Sometimes the images overpower us and we struggle with the paralysis of a nightmare. And then the lights come back up and we take a breath to remember it was not real, we were not in that car crash, we were not in a fight, we were not a lover being romanced. And we need a moment between the last credit and the real world to gather our thoughts to find meaning in what we have seen.
By Rachel Robbins9 days ago in Writers
- Top Story - May 2024
Spellbound (1945)Top Story - May 2024
As part of my ongoing ambition to be a 1940s screenwriter, I have re-watched Hitchcock’s Spellbound. Of course, he is the master of suspense. During the 1940s and 1950s Hitchcock used his years of experience in the film industry to direct some of the most thrilling and frightening films of the era. They are full of heightened emotions, conflict and twisted plot-lines.
By Rachel Robbins24 days ago in Geeks
Dorothy Comingore (1913 – 1971)
Hollywood is a bully. As an imaginary 1940s Hollywood screenwriter, I have learned to keep quiet, to avert my gaze, not complain. It is my dream job and a nightmare. I want to be a story-teller that weaves magic about sassy women who stand up to the men. But this is 1940s Hollywood, so I know that not all fights, no matter how just, will be won and that gutsy women need to know their place. Cautionary tales about the women who spoke up, hide in every dark corner of every salacious fanzine.
By Rachel Robbinsabout a month ago in Geeks
The Search for the MacGuffin
"The MacGuffin is the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn't care." (Alfred Hitchcock). Here I am again, sitting in front of my typewriter. I have a sharp suit and seamed stockings. I have a cigarette permanently at one side of my mouth and I drink whisky with my black coffee for lunch. I’ve got to keep up with the boys in the writing room.
By Rachel Robbins2 months ago in Geeks
Casablanca (1943)
In 1942, Janis Wilson was working on her first film – Now Voyager, playing the young Tina, a neglected child to be adopted by Bette Davis’s Charlotte Vale. And in breaks from her filming she would sneak onto an adjourning lot and watch the movie that some of her co-stars were filming in overlapping schedules.
By Rachel Robbins2 months ago in Geeks
Gene Tierney (1920 - 1991)
Every few years a newspaper publishes an opinion piece by a woman writing about how she struggles to make friends, but is still successful because of her ‘pretty’ privilege. The comments section suggests that most people do not, in fact, find her attractive and that she is kidding herself. Because even though we know that there is a privilege to prettiness (to the extent that we don’t want to face the world with a pimple, or a ‘bad-hair' day), we don’t want to hear about it. It feels like bad taste to suggest you are a person benefitting from looking good.
By Rachel Robbins2 months ago in Geeks