THE FLYING SERPENT (1946)

At the site of an Aztec temple in New Mexico, a treasure is rumored to exist, guarded by the flying serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Slightly demented archeologist Forbes (George Zucco) has found the treasure and also discovers that Quetzalcoatl (known hereafter as Q) is real: when his wife was holding an ancient feather from the bird, the flying serpent attacked and killed her. Somehow, he manages to trap the creature in a cell in the ruins. Forbes and his grown daughter Mary (Hope Kramer) live near the ruins, and Forbes has tried to keep others away from the temple. All this is presented as exposition; when the film begins, Forbes is upset that an ornithologist named Lambert has published an article about the ruins. So he does what any mad scientist would do: he plants a Q feather on Lambert, then lets Q out of its cell so Q can attack and kill Lambert, drain his blood, and fly back to the temple with the feather in its mouth. As more people get interested in what's happening, Forbes repeats the above, over and over, until radio journalist Richard Thorpe (Ralph Lewis) catches on and sets up a plan that involves catching Forbes and Q during a live radio broadcast.

Despite the nicely exotic touch of Quetzalcoatl in the title role, this is essentially a Poverty Row remake of an earlier Poverty Row film, THE DEVIL BAT which featured Bela Lugosi in the George Zucco role. Most critics disparage this film, mostly for the cheap puppet with the visible wires that is used for the serpent, but I rather like Q; he's creepy looking, generally not visible too long so he doesn’t look too Muppety, and he's certainly better than the sad-looking buzzard of THE DEVIL BAT. The serpent attacks are quite effective for this grade of movie. I like Zucco, but he doesn't hit the campy heights that Lugosi does. Ralph Lewis is quite acceptable as the B-movie hero, and Hope Kramer is fine as the heroine. Less fine is Eddie Acuff in a lame comic relief role. No gem, but slightly better than its reputation. [DVD]

CAST A DARK SHADOW (1955)

Great opening: a close-up of a middle-aged woman in darkness, screaming, then quick shots of scary figures in the dark. It turns out that the woman, Monica (Mona Washbourne), is in a Tunnel of Love ride with her handsome and considerably younger husband Teddy—full name Edward Bare (Dirk Bogarde). Her lawyer is convinced that he married her for her money and counseled her to make a will leaving the house to him but her money to her sister Dora who lives overseas, but now she is ready to change her will to leave both the house and her money to him. Teddy finds out she's making a change and, thinking it will leave him out in the cold completely, kills her and makes it look like an accident. Of course, he winds up with just the house, so he goes on vacation looking for another rich meal ticket, which he finds in Freda (Margaret Lockwood), an attractive widow. She's on her guard, but thinking that he has a fortune, she marries him. He then begins plotting how to get her money. Meanwhile, a woman named Charlotte (Kay Walsh), new in the neighborhood, gets friendly with the couple, and maybe a little too friendly with Teddy, making Freda jealous, despite her suspicions about her new husband. Soon tensions between the three explode, but I can say no more about the plot except to note the satisfying ending.

Though I don’t see this as a film noir as some critics do, this is definitely a solid woman-in-peril thriller in the mold of NIGHT MUST FALL—young psychopath terrorizes older woman—but with a couple of interesting twists. The first is that Teddy misreads the situation in the beginning, leading to the murder of Monica—it's based on a play called Murder Mistaken; if he hadn't been so quick to assume, he would have been in clover for the rest of his life. The second twist is that Freda is no naïve and helpless damsel; she's aware that Teddy might have ulterior motives, and she goes into the marriage as something of an arrangement rather than "true love." The third twist is that there is more to Charlotte than meets the eye. The look of the film (inky shadows, odd angles) is probably what gets it called a noir, but Bogarde (pictured) is no anti-hero, he's a bad guy, plain and simple, though a charming one. He gives a strong performance, but Lockwood is every bit his equal. The only other notable performance comes from the reliable character actress Kathleen Harrison as Monica's (and then Teddy's) maid.  A very good thriller, recommended. [TCM]

THE PLEASURE SEEKERS (1964)

Rarely has a movie title been more misleading. This is a remake of THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN in which three young American women spent time in Rome looking for love. The title of this version, along with the presence of three sexy 60s starlets, might indicate a high quotient of hedonistic activity, but these rich girls are actually looking for commitment rather than sheer pleasure. Carol Lynley, a secretary at a news agency, and Ann-Margret (pictured), a lounge singer and dancer, share a fabulously spacious apartment in Madrid; as the movie begins, they welcome their friend (Pamela Tiffin), the least worldly of three who is (gasp!) still a virgin. Romantic complications occur as follows: 1) Lynley is trying very hard to have an affair with her married boss (the considerably older Brian Keith), ignoring the hunky but somewhat prickly reporter (Gardner McKay, pictured below) who is clearly in love with her; 2) Ann-Margret is grazed by a hunky but shy doctor (Andre Lawrence) on a motorcycle; they strike sparks but her money comes between them; 3) Tiffin falls hard for a hunky but philandering playboy (Anthony Franciosa) who had dallied with Lynley last year; Lynley warns Tiffin about his nasty ways, but Tiffin is sure she's tamed him—until she goes to meet his family.

This isn't really a bad movie—after all, Ann-Margret dances in skimpy clothes (at least twice, her wardrobe conjures up her character in BYE BYE BIRDIE) and there are some nice shots of Madrid, and a short art history lecture in the Prado about El Greco—but it is very predictable. The only two who seem to actually engage in anything remotely scandalous are Ann-Margret and her doctor who spend one illicit night together before they decide to commit. [Spoiler (but not really): they all wind up happy with their appropriate hunky men.] All six of the lead couples are attractive, though the acting is variable; Tiffin is one-note and irritating, and Lawrence is rather bland. The apartment set is very cool—I wish they had spent more time there, though the few scenes that do take place there are marred by the running joke of a peeping Tom neighbor. There’s a weird "private weekend" middle-aged men orgy that Keith takes Tiffin to in order to finally start their affair, but Keith's wife (Gene Tierney, in her last screen role) gives Tiffin a scolding and a slap, and that's that. Contrary to some reports, this isn't really a musical. Annie does get to sing and dance a few times—the best number is "Everything Makes Music When You’re in Love" which she performs on a beach—but most of those songs are in the context of her job as a singer. Ultimately, rather ho-hum. [FMC; be sure to catch a widescreen airing]

SHE'S MY WEAKNESS (1930)

Young Marie Thurber has been dating young Tommy Mills, and he plans to marry her whenever he sells some land that was left to him. Marie's folks like Tommy, but Marie has gotten tired of Tommy being such a goody-goody around them, with Tommy going so far as to choose to play bridge with the parents rather than go out on the town with her. Marie's uncle David, who lives with them, thinks more of young Bernie Norton as he's more of a go-getter—he has an orange and green car, after all! Things come to a head when Mr. Thurber tries to get his town's civic improvement association to buy some property from him. Problem #1: Tommy is making arrangements to sell his land to them first, not aware of Mr. Thurber's attempt. Problem #2: Uncle David actually prefers Tommy to Bernie but thinks that Tommy needs some more backbone, so he encourages Tommy to act sourly toward the Thurbers, assuming that will impress Marie. Problem #3: Bernie has already gotten a marriage license. After more complications and crossed signals, Marie eventually chooses Tommy, and both Tommy and Mr. Thurber get to sell their land.

This is a cute B-romantic comedy, though your enjoyment of it may depend on your tolerance for Arthur Lake (Tommy), known best as Dagwood Bumstead in the Blondie movie series of the 30s and 40s. Here, he's a lanky juvenile who bounces between cocky and mild-mannered. IMDb reviewers tend to find him irritating but I thought he was fine—certainly no more bothersome than the average comic juvenile. Sue Carol, who made only a few more movies before retiring from the screen in 1937 (and who later married Alan Ladd), is charming as Marie. The only other actor to stand out is William Collier Sr. as Uncle David. There a number of fun scenes: in one, Mr. Thurber and Uncle David argue over Tommy and Bernie; in another, Tommy tries his best to be rude to the Thurbers. The final scene, played in pouring rain (see picture), has the drunken Tommy sneaking into the Thurber house through a window to tell off Marie—which, of course, leads to their reconciliation. A cute movie considering its age and its static, stagy style. [TCM]

WHIPLASH (1948)

Dane Clark is a struggling young artist who lets café owner S.Z Sakall put his stuff up on the walls, even though Clark is embarrassed at the crudity of his work. One day Sakall sells one of Clark's pictures to the lovely Alexis Smith (pictured with Clark), visiting from New York City. Clark goes to get it back, but after a brief period of verbal sparring, they wind up taking a moonlight stroll along the beach and he declares his love. The next morning, as Smith waits in Sakall's café for Clark, a slimy looking guy pops in and plays the jukebox, leading Smith to leave and head back to NYC. After some soul-searching, Clark follows and discovers that Smith is unhappily married to bitter, crippled nightclub owner and fight promoter Zachary Scott, a former boxer now confined to a wheelchair, who sent the slimy jukebox guy out to find her. Scott is able to hang onto Smith because of the power he has over her brother (Jeffrey Lynn), a surgeon whose botched operation may have been responsible for Scott's disability. To stay near Smith, Clark, who boxed in the past, agrees to be become Scott's protégé, but during a tussle with one of Scott's thugs, he gets a concussion which could mean dangerous brain damage. Still, Scott insists that Clark fight, hoping that he'll get a blow which might kill him.

I like all three leads (Clark, Smith and Scott) and they're all at pretty close to full strength, so I enjoyed this, even though I am not a fan of boxing movies. To be fair, the boxing scenes take up a small part of the film and the rest is an average noir-tinged romantic triangle melodrama reminiscent of GILDA. The acting is fine and the dialogue a notch above B-melodrama fare. The wonderful Eve Arden lends strong support as a sympathetic neighbor of Clark's. There's a cute club number, "The Guy with the Spanish Drawl" with the chorus "Besame mucho, y'all." Jimmie Dodd, later the host of the original Mickey Mouse Club, is seen briefly as a piano player. [TCM/DVD]

THE LOOKING GLASS WAR (1969)

In Finland, a German pilot makes contact with a British spy, passing him a roll of film which contains information that would confirm or deny the existence of secret Russian nuclear weapons, but the spy is killed on the road and the roll of film falls on the ground, unnoticed by anyone. Back in England, spymaster Ralph Richardson has recruited a hunky young Polish sailor (Christopher Jones, pictured) who has defected to the West to see the girl (Susan George) who is carrying his baby. Jones is trained by Richardson and a younger agent (Anthony Hopkins) to go on a mission to find the film or to see the missiles for himself. Jones finds George and after a quick roll in the hay, she tells him that she had an abortion. He and Hopkins go drinking together and Jones doubles down in his spy training. Unfortunately, poor Jones is still a bit of a loose cannon, and once he is past enemy lines, he kills a truck driver who tried to seduce him and winds up stuck out in the middle of nowhere. In the end, Jones meets a tragic fate and Hopkins is left pissed off that Jones was sacrificed in what amounted to a game, the outcome of which was not crucial to the Brits or the Russians. This bleak, cynical thriller, based on a John LeCarre novel, is interesting but doesn't really stand above any of the others in this genre (THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, THE KREMLIN LETTER). Jones is handsome, coming off a bit like a James Dean/Brad Pitt type, and carries the weight of the central role well, and Richardson and Hopkins are fine as always. Anna Massey and Susan George are also in the cast. The first half, with the scenes of Jones and Hopkins training, is the best. [DVD]

SPLIT SECOND (1953)

The day before an atomic blast test is scheduled to take place in the Yucca Basin in Nevada, Stephen McNally and Paul Kelly break out of a Carson City prison. With Kelly wounded, the two pick up another convict and wind up at a gas station where McNally pistol whips and eventually kills the owner, taking Alexis Smith and her boyfriend hostage. Meanwhile, reporter Keith Andes, who has been assigned to cover the breakout, is on the road having picked up Jan Sterling, a showgirl heading for Reno. Their path soon crosses that of the crooks, and when Smith's car runs out of gas, McNally forces everyone into Andes' car. Even though Smith is estranged from her husband, McNally finds out that he's a doctor so he forces Smith to send for him to patch up Kelly; the whole group holes up in a ghost town waiting for him, unaware that they are at ground zero for the atomic blast which will take place at sunrise. This is a solid, tense thriller that briefly makes you think they might actually blow everyone up, good guys and bad. Aside from the novelty of the setting, the cast of B-actors is the most interesting thing here. Kelly always provides reliable support, especially as a villain; I'm always happy to see the handsome Andes (pictured with Sterling) pop up, and Alexis Smith is one of my favorite B-level leading ladies of the classic era. McNally is serviceable, though as he is the lead baddie, I wish he and Kelly had switched roles. Richard Egan shows up briefly as the doctor and Robert Paige is fine as Smith's lover. My favorite line—socialite Smith to chorus girl Sterling: "You must run into a lot of men in your line of work"; Sterling to Smith: "I run into a lot of men when I’m just loafing." Dick Powell directed; even though the tension comes and goes, it's worth sticking around for the ending. [TCM]

HAT, COAT, AND GLOVE (1934)

Lawyer Ricardo Cortez is in a department store shopping for a new coat; he runs into his estranged wife (Barbara Robbins) who is shopping for a hat; another shopper, buying gloves, is John Beal, a struggling young artist and Robbins' lover. They're all very civilized even though Cortez is still hoping for a reconciliation. She invites Cortez to dinner at her place that evening, but when Beal calls from his Greenwich Village apartment, she leaves to spend the night with him. The next day, Cortez goes to Beal's place, hoping to talk things through, but instead he finds Dorothy Burgess, a former lover of Beal's, who has just faked a suicide attempt in an effort to win Beal back and is in the middle of getting very drunk. At some point, Burgess picks up a gun, Cortez tries to take it away from her, and she winds up shot and killed. Cortez leaves, Beal is arrested, and Robbins (who doesn't know that Cortez was involved) asks Cortez to defend her lover in court, agreeing to return to Cortez after the trial, no matter what the verdict. When the hat, coat and glove of the title come into play in the courtroom, can Cortez keep his cool and save Beal without incriminating himself?

This is a short, fun, fast-moving melodrama which must have sneaked in at the tail end of the pre-Code days—the ending is unpredictable only because under the Production Code, it could never have happened. Of course, the frank bedroom arrangements could also not have been made quite so explicit under the Code. Cortez (pictured to the right of Beal) is one of my favorite 30s actors, never a big star, but always welcome as a slick leading man, lover, or crook, and he's very good here. Robbins is colorless, but Beal and Burgess make the most of their roles, and Margaret Hamilton has a fun scene as a dressmaker who calls herself Madame Du Barry. Favorite line, concerning Beal's choice of gloves: Robbins: "That glove spells quiet dignity"; Cortez: "In fact, it shrieks quiet dignity." [TCM]

VERBOTEN! (1959)

In the German village of Rothbach during the last days of World War II, David, an American soldier (James Best) is trying to draw out a sniper. When he's wounded, a young German girl named Helga (Susan Cummings) tends to him; he's wary but she insists she's not a Nazi, though they debate the complicity of the German people in Hitler's reign of terror. She and her young brother Franz (Harold Daye) hide him until the Americans come through to finish cleaning out the town. He falls in love with Helga but any relationship with her would be "verboten," or forbidden under military rules. After Germany's surrender, David returns to Rothbach, a civilian now, working for the Army with refugees and no longer forbidden to woo Helga. But Helga is surrounded by people, led by a neighbor named Bruno (Tom Pittman), who belong to a group called the Werewolves; emboldened by rumors that Hitler isn't really dead, they believe that they can rally the people and fight off the occupiers. When Franz begins falling under the spell of the other Nazi youths, she takes him to Nuremberg to witness the war crime trials. He begins to see the light, but can any of them stop Bruno's gang of terrorists?

We're in director Samuel Fuller's territory here, meaning things get sloppy but intense. It's a scrappy little black & white movie, partly scored to Beethoven and Wagner—one effective segment has Wagner playing over scenes of terrorist activities by the Werewolves, who are dismissed by the Army as merely juvenile delinquents. The forbidden romance between Best and Cummings never really heats up, and in fact is shunted off to the back burner when the focus switches to her brother and his torn allegiances; it feels like he wants to believe his sister but also feels peer pressure to run with the Bruno and his buddies. The actors are fine, especially Best, and Pittman is very good—sadly he died at the age of 26 before this film was released, from injuries sustained in a car accident. Best, handsome in an almost teen-idol way, went on to a long career in TV, probably known best as Sheriff Roscoe in The Dukes of Hazzard. Actual footage of Berlin and Nuremberg is used to good effect, as is a brief shot of concentration camp atrocities at the trials. There is one major misstep, and it's right at the beginning: a lush theme song with the refrain, "Our love is verboten," sung by the young Paul Anka. Get past that and you'll enjoy the rest. [TCM]

SMASHING THE RACKETS (1938)

FBI agent Chester Morris grabs a female bystander (Frances Mercer) and pushes her to safety while he and his fellow agents nab some dangerous crooks. At first, she's upset but he thaws her out a bit and they go on their separate ways. The DA gets Morris to leave the FBI and take a high-profile job in his office, but Morris soon realizes that it's basically a do-nothing position; he's just there to make the DA's office look good. Frustrated, he almost quits but decides to take on the slot machine racket, which is headed by crooked lawyer Bruce Cabot. In doing so, he runs into Mercer again; her younger sister (Rita Johnson) is dating Cabot. After a child is accidentally killed in a roughing-up that the thugs give a shop owner who doesn't want slots in his store, Morris manages to put an end the racket (though Cabot's nose remains clean), is made a special prosecutor, and then doubles down on efforts to stop Cabot, even if that means trouble for Johnson.

This routine B-crime movie is enlivened by a couple of interesting scenes: in the first, Morris and his associates torture a thug in order to get the thug's buddy to talk; in the second, Morris subjects a gathering of young women (it's unclear if they are waitresses or hookers, but their testimony is crucial to Morris's case) to a viewing of a dead woman pulled out of the river, killed by Cabot's thugs. Neither scene winds up being exactly what it seems, but it's still startling to see them in a movie of this era. Morris (pictured) is fine, but Cabot is better, and it's never a good idea to have the bad guy outdo the good guy. Cecil Kellaway has a small uncredited role, and Libby Taylor gets to play an African-American woman who isn't a maid. [TCM]