THE TONG MAN (1919)

The Bo Sing Tong is a powerful secret society in Chinatown which maintains its grip on the community through blackmail and assassination—the film starts with a man being shot dead on the street one night by a Tong member. Ming Tai, the Spider of Chinatown, is the head of the tong and keeper of the tong's joss, or idol, a large dragon head with a hollow interior. Ming Tai's latest concern is merchant and opium smuggler Louis Toy who refuses to pay protection money to the tong. Assassin Luk Chen, whose weapon of choice is a small hatchet, is assigned to deal with Louis Toy, but complications arise when he falls for Toy's daughter, Sen Chee. In a balcony scene right out of Romeo and Juliet, Chen tells Sen Chee that he plans to have enough money soon to leave for a new life in China. Ultimately, Chen can't bring himself to kill Toy, so Ming Tai bargains with Toy: he will spare Toy's life if he can claim Sen Chee for himself. Also involved is Lucero, a sailor who stabbed a white man who had cheated him in gambling and is on the run from the law. He is taken in by Toy and, in Shakespeare terms, becomes a kind of Friar Lawrence or Nursemaid sidekick to Chen and San Chee, especially when he hears Ming Tai decide that Chen must die. At the climax, there is a messy street melee (filmed in bad day-for-night shots) and someone gets a hatchet in the face (explicit but not gory—figure that one out). Our romantic couple gets a happy ending as Lucero tags along with them to China. I've talked about Sessue Hayakawa, who plays Luk Chen, on this blog before. He was that rarity in Hollywood films of the era, an authentic and popular Asian lead actor. He was Japanese, but plays Chinese here, as does the Japanese Yutaka Abe as Lucero. Other lead roles are taken by Anglo actors in yellowface: Marc Robbins as Ming Tai, Helen Jerome Eddy as San Chee (though to be fair, she's not so much in yellowface as drabface), Yutaka Abe, who later became a director, is skinny and handsome with a modern short-on-the-sides haircut. His character has promise, but is basically around just to help our hero. The acting is largely of the traditional silent type, with lots of melodramatic glances and secretive stares. In addition to being inspired by Shakespeare, it's based directly on a novel, The Dragon's Daughter by Clyde Westover, which is still in print. At an hour, it's paced fairly well and, for silent movie fans, is worth watching. Pictured at right is Yutaka Abe. [TCM]

CREATURE WITH THE BLUE HAND (1967)

David Emerson, of the wealthy Emerson family, is found guilty of the murder of his family's gardener and sent to Dr. Mangrove's asylum and tossed in a solitaire cell, proclaiming his innocence all the way. Someone tosses a key to him through his meal slot and he escapes (leaving behind a dead nurse whom he may or may not have strangled), heading for the family mansion, Castle Gentry, where no one really believes he's innocent, except maybe for his cousin Myrna and his twin brother Richard. After he arrives, he finds Richard is absent, so he borrows his clothes and passes himself off as Richard (seeming not at all insane). We find out that Lord Emerson took off years ago when accused of embezzlement and is assumed dead (but is he?), Lady Emerson and the family butler both act a bit suspicious at times, and soon someone with a sharp-clawed blue gauntlet (the Blue Hand of the title) begins killing people off. Police inspector Craig is soon on the case. Myrna gets a call to meet David at an empty bar and once there, she's attacked, though it's her brother Robert, trying to help her, who ends up dead. David, still as Richard, proves to be quite rational and winds up working with the police, and Myrna finds out that Dr. Mangrove takes bribes to declare people insane who aren't, and that the dead nurse from the beginning knew about him. Myrna herself is stashed away in a cell and threatened with snakes and rats. We find out that Dr. Mangrove, though definitely a bad guy, is himself taking orders from someone else. Ready to cry uncle yet? I hope not, because the revelations come fast and furious in the last half-hour, and the viewer needs to pay close attention.

When I was a kid, I got this movie title confused with the title of an Outer Limits episode, Demon with a Glass Hand, so I always assumed this was a science fiction film. It's not. It's a German krimi, based on a book by prolific crime writer Edgar Wallace. It also partakes of the Gothic 'old dark house' genre with horror overtones. Somewhat surprisingly, there is no real romance subplot, and the comic relief is kept to a minimum, mostly provided by Inspector Craig's boss, Sir John. A recurring "gag" involves men looking into the cell of a female inmate, a former stripper, who spends her time constantly stripping as though for an audience. The narrative is absolutely clotted with incident and plot twists, but it's fun to watch and ultimately getting confused is not a bar to enjoyment. Klaus Kinski plays the dual role of Paul and Richard, going over-the-top sweaty as Paul and calm and collected as Richard (or Paul as Richard). Though Kinski is the biggest name in the cast and gets lots of attention, Harald Leipnitz as the inspector is really the main character, with the Emerson brothers dropping out of the plot occasionally. The actor reminds me of John Vernon, who played Dean Wormer in ANIMAL HOUSE. Generally, it's good krimi fun, a bit more crazy-assed than is the norm. Pictured are Kinski and Leipnitz. [YouTube]

THE OMAHA TRAIL (1942)

The expansion of railroad service across the country in the 1870s meant an end to alternate ways of travel, one of which was the ox train, wagons pulled by oxen. Dean Jagger, boss of one of the bigger ox train companies, is feeling threatened by this expansion. In Habersford, an oxen hub town with a direct route to Omaha, we see that Jagger is planning on marrying Pamela Blake, sister of his right-hand man (Howard Da Silva). Meanwhile, handsome drifter James Craig (pictured) rides into town on Da Silva's ox train, lazily soaking up some sun while he plays a tune on his jaw harp. As Craig flirts with Blake, we meet Chill Wills, a guitar-playing buddy of Craig's, and Henry Morgan, a shifty little runt of a guy who often does dirty work for Jagger. Edward Ellis wants to get his locomotive car to Omaha to help stimulate railroad travel from Omaha west. The only way he can do it is to have it hauled by oxen, and he hires Craig to do it. Hearing of this, Jagger buys up all the oxen in town and forces Craig to pay handsomely to have him and his men lead the oxen that will pull the train. What Craig and Ellis don't know is that Jagger is planning to make sure that the train car never gets to Omaha. Things climax, as they often do in westerns of the era, in a gunfight in the middle of town. This B-western from MGM is glossier than most other B-westerns of the era, and benefits from a strong supporting cast filled with old reliables. Wills is mild comic relief who never gets too obnoxious, Morgan's quiet villainy has a sharp edge—he shoots an Indian in the back in an attempt to start an Indian attack against the train car; Donald Meek is fine as a train engineer and Da Silva's character starts out on Jagger's side but slowly moves to Craig's. Jagger is fine as always, and the handsome Craig makes a sturdy hero, though Blake is just so-so in the female lead. There are a couple of songs, including the catchy little ditty "Taters and Corn" which is sung by both Craig and Wills. Predictable and a bit corny but enjoyable. [TCM]

TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR (1957)

Teenager Tammy (Debbie Reynolds) and her moonshine-making grandfather (Walter Brennan) live on a houseboat in a backwoods swamp in Mississippi. Tammy's getting restless to experience life and Grandpa is indeed considering having her schooled somehow. One day, a small plane crashes nearby. Tammy and Grandpa pull the pilot, Peter Brent (Leslie Nielsen, pictured with Reynolds), out of the wreckage and nurse him back to health. Peter, probably ten years older than Tammy, is the handsome bachelor son of a wealthy family in Natchez where they live on a plantation called Brentwood. Tammy is quite taken with Peter, but eventually he leaves to go back to Brentwood. A few weeks later, Grandpa is arrested for his moonshine activities and he sends Tammy to Natchez to stay with Peter for a spell. She walks the entire way with her pet goat Nan, and arrives on the night of a swinging party. The family takes her in, assuming that Grandpa has passed away, and soon she has worked her charms on not only Peter but his father, his eccentric Aunt Renie, his best friend Ernie who tries to date her, and even Peter's high-class fiancée Barbara. The only one immune to Tammy is Peter's mother (Fay Wray), an uptight matriarch who is concerned that her presence will mar the upcoming Pilgrimage Week festivities. Slowly, it becomes clear that Peter himself is falling for Tammy, but can such a love overcome obstacles such as age and class?

I have vague memories of seeing a couple of episodes of the Tammy TV sitcom from the mid-60s, but had never seen any of the Tammy movies. I assumed that the title character was, like Gidget, a suburban teeny-bopper type. So I was surprised by her backwoods origin, and found her closer to being a Pollyanna type, as enacted by Hayley Mills in the 1960 Disney movie: perky, confident, and able to charm everyone she meets. Reynolds inhabits the role nicely, though at the age of 24, she never really looks or feels like a teenager. Nielsen, long before he became famous as a comic actor in Airplane!, was 30 and more or less looks it, so going just on visuals, their age gap isn't too bothersome. Still, I spent a good chunk of the movie assuming that Nielsen was going to be a father figure, not a boyfriend, so I had mixed feelings when the romantic feelings flared up late in the story. The movie is brightly colored and well shot, and even Brennan's rickety houseboat looks nice. Brennan is Brennan, predictable but reliable. Wray gets to shine a bit as the nasty mother who does finally soften at the end, in a fun scene in which Tammy captivates the Pilgrimage Week tourists by telling an impromptu story. Sidney Blackmer is fine as the father, as is Craig Hill as Ernie who never quite becomes as slimy as I think we're supposed to take him for. Best is Mildred Natwick as the flighty artist aunt who I wish had a bit more screen time. The film was not an immediate hit. It wasn't until Reynolds' recording of the title song became a hit that the film found an audience. In the movie, she sings the Oscar-nominated song about her love for Peter to herself in her bedroom in a moment that, for me, doesn't really fit. Still, a harmless and comfortable romantic comedy in which Reynolds shines and Nielsen gets to be a handsome leading man. [TCM]

TRIPLE CROSS (1966)

In late 1930s England, the Gelignite Gang is making headlines for a series of safecracking crimes, but we see that the Gang is actually one man, Eddie Chapman (Christopher Plummer, pictured) whom the police eventually catch up with while he's vacationing on one of the Channel Islands. While he's imprisoned, the island is occupied by German forces and he offers to be a spy for the Germans if they let him go. Colonel Steinhager (Gert Forbe) and his mistress the Countess (Romy Schneider) visit him in prison (where the Countess is whistled at by the rowdy prisoners) and they accept his offer. Chapman's death is faked and he is given his assignments by Baron Von Grunen (Yul Brynner). First he is parachuted into England in what turns out to be a loyalty test; Von Grunen thinks he will not transmit information so he is actually dropped in France, but in the nick of time, Chapman figures it out and passes with flying colors. Then he's sent on his real mission: to blow up a British weapons factory. Once in England, he makes contact with the military and offers his services to them as a double agent. They fake the explosion and back in Germany, Chapman gets an Iron Cross, despite some suspicions among the Nazi brass. He is sent back to get information about some bombing targets and again works with the British to supply false coordinates. The title comes from the idea, touched on in the final scene, that maybe there was a third element here that he was more loyal to than either Germany or England.

This is based on a true story; Chapman was real and this movie was based in part on his autobiography (and his story was told more recently in a well-received book called Agent Zigzag). While this movie is always watchable, it's rarely compelling. In some ways, it's unique in the genre of mid-60s spy films. It's not campy, it's not slam-bang action, and it's not disillusioned gloomy like John LeCarre films can be. Plummer was probably anxious to distance himself from the character of Capt. Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, but some of his actorly traits here smack of Von Trapp mannerisms. His best scene is one in which he is about to kill himself with a poison pill because he thinks the Germans have figured out his game and are about to torture him. More interesting are Frobe as one of his handlers and Brynner as a Nazi whom we eventually find somewhat sympathetic. Romy Schneider has little to do except look good. Trevor Howard has a small role. The tense musical score tends to get over the top at times. The production values are good, though the atmosphere rarely seems of the 1940s, but the script and the overall tone could have used some more work. [TCM]

NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR (1952)

This Argentinian film noir from director Carlos Hugo Christensen adapts two stories by American mystery writer Cornell Woolrich ("Rear Window"). They are unrelated but tied together by a quote from an opening title card: "Good is your enlightened home, evil is your dark jungle; the door between them should never be opened." Though the noir label fits, both stories are reminiscent of episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock anthology series of the 1960s. In the first story, "Somebody On the Phone," Luisa, who shares a fancy penthouse apartment with her rich brother Raul, is up to her ears in gambling debts. At a nightclub, Raul, seated with friends, sees Luisa across the club sitting with a thuggish fellow named Prestamista. It looks like he is demanding money from her. Late that night at the apartment, he confronts her but, despite being obviously upset, she declines to share any information with him. The next day, Raul discovers that his bank account of some 70,000 pesos has been drained dry by Luisa. He also discovers that someone (we assume Prestamista) has beeen calling her using a ring code—he lets the phone ring five times and if she doesn’t pick up, he hangs up and calls right back, assuming that she is alone. Though Raul tries to help, Luisa ends up jumping to her death from the apartment. In Raul's mind, she was as good as murdered and he vows to get justice for her, leading to one of the most ambiguous (yet still satisfying) endings in all of noir.

The second story, "The Hummingbird Comes Home," begins with a note about how important touch and sound are to this story, and indeed, the central character, Rosa, is an older blind woman who lives a quiet life in relative rural isolation with her adult niece Maria. Rosa lives in hope of seeing her son Daniel again after an eight-year absence. The women hear a report on the radio of a jewel robbery we have just witnessed in which the thieves killed someone and are now on the run. The report notes that the killer is being dubbed the Hummingbird because of his propensity to whistle a current pop tune called "Uno." Shortly, Daniel shows up at his mother's house and, of course, he's the Hummingbird killer. He and an accomplice drag in a third thief who was badly wounded in the robbery. The women remain in the dark about Daniel's activities; Daniel is fairly cold towards his mother but she is so happy he has returned that she doesn't really notice anything is wrong until later in the evening after he has insisted that Rosa and Maria go to bed (while he and his associate drag the now-dead third man outside). In the quiet night, Rosa hears Daniel whistling "Uno" and then we have a Hitchcockian set-up, a bit like the last part of Wait Until Dark, with blind Rosa deciding what to do and how to do it. As good as the first story is, this is the real nail-biter, beautifully shot in the dark and well acted by all involved. Both stories use stark noir nighttime lighting very well. Though all the acting is solid, the best performances come from Angel Magana as Raul and Ilde Pirovano as Rosa. You don’t have to be a noir fan to enjoy this film and I would recommend it highly. Pictured are Angel Magana as Raul and Renee Dumas as Luisa. [TCM]

CIPHER BUREAU (1938)

Three menacing looking men riding in a car one night arrive at a suburban home. They look like bad guys, but when they enter the house looking for a man named Wormer, a German-accented man claims he's not there, and by Hollywood rules, we know they're good guys looking for a Nazi spy (though neither Germans nor Nazis are actually mentioned at any point). The three men, led by Philip Waring (Leon Ames), find code books, but another man in the house manages to set off some tear gas, and the two spies escape. They contact Grood, their boss, and get the codes changed for messages that are about to be sent. Philip, head of the government's Cipher Bureau, sends his younger brother Paul, a naval officer, on a mission to take readings on the code transmissions to find out where they're coming from. On a train back to Washington, Paul flirts with Therese; he is first given the brush-off but later she goes with him to the train's observation platform where they get better acquainted. We soon see Therese report to Grood and we discover she is setting what they call a "honey trap" in which to ensnare Paul. Paul begins dating Therese and one night, his cocktail is drugged and Grood's spies take his government papers. Paul is dishonorably discharged, but what he and the judge don't know is that the papers were plants containing unimportant information in order to draw out the spies. Meanwhile, Therese seems to have developed real feelings for Paul; can Philip enlist her to help track down the spies for good?

This B-spy film was made before WWII broke out which is why the nationality of the spies is never made clear—though with the heavily accented actor Gustav von Seyffertitz playing Grood, the spymaster, there is little doubt that we're dealing with Nazis. The unique aspect of this movie is the focus on code breaking. There is a lengthy (and, unfortunately, not very compelling) scene showing Ames and his co-workers breaking a code, and a more interesting scene later showing a message being coded into music to be performed over the radio. Otherwise, it's par for the course for a second-feature spy thriller, which means it's watchable if it doesn't stand out from the crowd. Ames made his name playing nice-guy fathers so it's always fun to see him in one of his earlier films going against type. Here, he's only slightly against type; he's a good guy but a heroic brother instead of a beleaguered father. There’s a barely developed romantic connection between Philip and his secretary Helen (Charlotte Wynters) that gets a small pay-off at the end, and there was also a follow-up film with Ames and Wynters playing the same characters. Joan Woodbury, who had a long career as a B-character actor, is fine as Therese, and I always enjoy seeing Seyffertitz as a Germanic villain. Don Dillaway, in his mid-30s at the time, still looks young enough to be playing the semi-juvenile role of the younger brother. There is a MacGuffin here, the plans for a new long-range gun, but it's forgotten almost as soon as it's mentioned. Made by Grand National, a short lived indie company, it is a bit slow, but at only an hour, it serves as a fine distraction for a Saturday afternoon. Pictured are Ames and George Lynn, a fellow spy. [YouTube]

VIY (1967)

In 19th-century Russia, a group of seminarians are released for what seems to be the equivalent of spring break. Though the rector tries to preach placid behavior, they are clearly full of piss and vinegar. As they travel that night through rural fields, three of them get lost. They come upon a farmhouse where a very old woman they refer to as Granny reluctantly lets them stay. Two of them sleep inside but one, the attractive but frat-boyish Khoma, has to sleep in the barn. In the night, Granny comes to Khoma and starts groping him, but when he resists, she jumps on his back, riding him like a horse until they levitate and start flying through the air. When they land, he pushes her to the ground and beats her violently, assuming she's a witch, and afterwards her unconscious body transforms into that of a voluptuous young woman. Khoma races back to the seminary where he is told the next day that he has been requested to conduct ritual prayers for the healing of a rich merchant's dying daughter. Sure enough, the young woman (referred to only as a "pannochka," or young unmarried woman) is the one Khoma has beaten, and she dies just before he arrives. The merchant asks him to stay and sit vigil alone for three nights of ritual prayers by her body in a barn-like chapel on the merchant's property. He tries to get out of the obligation but because the woman asked for him by name, the merchant insists. The first night, he stands nervously at a small pulpit and prays, getting more frantic when he sees a tear of blood on the corpse's cheek. Then the candles blow out and the witch rises out of her coffin. Khoma draws a holy chalk circle around him into which she cannot enter. The second night, the coffin itself flies up in the air and the witch curses Khoma by turning his hair white. The next morning, Khoma begs to be relieved of his job, but the merchant, now convinced by Khoma's stories that his daughter did indeed befriend Satan in her witchcraft ways, insists that Khoma stay for the third night so she might find redemption. But the third night winds up being the worst for Khoma as a parade of creatures and demons infests the chapel. Will he be able to hold to his sanity, or his life, to face another dawn?

This is a wild little gem, in Russian and only 75 minutes long. It doesn't look or feel like a movie from more than fifty years ago; indeed, except for the fact that the special effects are not CGI, it could pass for a fairly recent production. The colorful sets and effects are occasionally a bit artificial looking, but for me, that just added to the unique atmosphere of folk horror and fantasy. The Nikolai Gogol story this is based on was pawned off as folklore, but it appears to have been completely the work of Gogol's imagination. Still, it very much feels like an authentic folk story, though if there is a lesson or moral to the story, it's ambiguous at best (be nice to old ladies?). Though there are several actors and roles, this feels like a one-man show, carried very well by Leonid Kuravlyov as Khoma (pictured). If I'm not mistaken, he is in virtually every scene of the movie and his doofish befuddlement which turns to fear is conveyed well throughout. Near the end, he tries to escape the merchant's land but, as in The Blair Witch Project and episodes of The Prisoner, he winds up right back where he started from. It is said that the original story inspired Mario Bava's classic film BLACK SABBATH. The YouTube print is of the Blu-Ray restoration and it looks great. A little gem for Halloween night. [YouTube]

HAND OF DEATH (1962)

Mike the mailman is driving down a rural route and passes a small house with several dead sheep lying on the ground. He stops to investigate and as soon as he enters the yard, he falls to the ground. Two men in hazmat suits come out of the house and take the mailman in and resuscitate him. Scientist Alex (John Agar) and his grad student assistant Carlos tell Mike that they are conducting military experiments with a knockout gas made from cactus derivatives. When they walk Mike back outside, the sheep are up and alive. Later, Alex goes to visit his mentor Dr. Ramsey to tell him about his success. The nerve gas will paralyze its victims, then hypnotize them to follow commands. Alex thinks this is a humane way to reduce wars; Ramsey is less enthusiastic but urges him to keep working. Meanwhile, Alex's girlfriend Carol is also not happy about the gas, but especially not happy about the slow speed at which their relationship is developing. Back at the rural house, Carlos worries that Alex is moving too quickly, getting in over his head, and sure enough, when Alex knocks over a beaker filled with the gas in liquid form, he gets some on his hands. He has a seizure and passes out, as visions of beakers and mice race through his head (pictured at right). The next morning, his arms are covered with what look like dark burn marks, and when Carlos touches him, he collapses and dies. Soon Alex's entire body is encrusted with dark scabs (he looks exactly like the Thing from the Fantastic Four) and he discovers his touch remains deadly. Ramsey and his assistant Tom work on an antidote, but once you've tampered in God's domain, it's difficult to patch things up.

This one-hour B-film was once thought lost, and honestly it's no neglected masterpiece, but it has an outsized impact on some of us baby boomer monster movie fans because an image of the Thing-ish monster was published in some of the monster movie magazines, wearing a hat and trenchcoat, and I've always remembered that picture. John Agar is known for being a bit wooden in his roles, and because of that, we don't work up much empathy for his character (also because we don't know anything much about him or his relationship with Carol). But really, that's OK here, because it's the monster we're waiting for. The opening scene is fairly effective, though a bit too short to really set up the creepy mood it should. The guy who plays Carlos, John Alonzo, went on to become a respected cinematographer on movies like Chinatown and Scarface. Stephen Dunne (Tom, Ramsey's assistant who plays a part in the finale) looks and acts a bit like Gene Nelson (Will Parker in Oklahoma!). Paula Raymond suffices as Carol but her character feels inserted because they figured they needed a damsel in distress. Butch Patrick, who went on to play Eddie Munster on TV, has a short scene as a menaced boy on the beach. There's an OK score with some theremin music here and there. Because it's fairly slow paced and predictable, it's hard to recommend this except to fans of early 60s monster movies. [YouTube]

THE SPACE CHILDREN (1958)

The government has set up a mobile home park on the California coast to house the families of workers who are engaged in a top secret mission: to build a new missile called the Thunderer that can send an atomic payload into space. Dave Brewster's kids, Bud and Ken, see a streak of light in the sky and later, while playing on the beach with some other kids, see a ray of light shoot down from the sky to a small cave where it seems to deposit something before it vanishes. The kids find a brain-like blob which glows and pulsates and communicates telepathically with Bud. The creature becomes something of a protector to the children. When Dave thinks Bud is lying about the blob and aggressively grabs his son's arm, Dave's arm goes numb. Tim, another kid, is attacked by his abusive drunken stepfather, who winds up dead in his trailer. It soon becomes clear that the alien wants to stop the Thunderer launch and is using the children (and, perhaps, Dave, the only adult who figures out what's going on) to achieve its goal. The film's director, Jack Arnold, made a number of classic 50s sci-fi films (TARANTULA, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE). This doesn't quite have the impact of his other films, partly because of what must have been a very low budget—mostly filmed on a beach and in trailers, and skimpy on special effects. Still, its unusual focus makes it interesting: children are the main characters but it's not a children's movie—Village of the Damned would expand on this idea two years later. Individually, only Michel Ray (as Bud) and Johnny Washbrook (as Tim) get any real characterization, and adults get most of the lines, but it's the actions and fate of the group of children that interest us most. Among the adults, Adam Williams (as Dave) comes off fairly realistically as a distracted dad—he's also one of the least movie-star-looking actors to get a lead role in a 50s movie. Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester on The Addams Family) plays another dad, and Russell Johnson (the Professor on Gilligan's Island) is the drunken stepdad. Also recognizable are Raymond Bailey (Mr. Drysdale on The Beverly Hillbillies) and Ty Hardin (hunky TV Western star of Bronco). I'm glad I don't give star ratings with my reviews because I wouldn't know what to give this one. It's short (a bit over an hour) with fairly threadbare production values, but on its own terms, it works well enough. [Amazon Prime]