SOLE SURVIVOR (1970 TV-movie)

[Spoilers galore!] In the middle of the Libyan desert, a wrecked Air Force plane sits with its five crew members hoping to be found. But we quickly learn that the plane crashed during World War II and it's now seventeen years later—the men are ghosts, doomed to stay with the plane until their remains are found. The backstory, which is filled in over time, is that the plane was lost at night over the Mediterranean and the navigator, Hamner, panicked, parachuted from the plane, and survived. The other five crewmen kept flying and wound up over the desert. But, as we are told by an investigator, the desert at night can look just like water, and the men jumped from the plane in a rubber raft. Four of them eventually died. The fifth man, Tony, went back to the plane to get water but was killed when he tried to burrow under the plane's tail to avoid the heat of the sun. In the present day, the wreck has been found and a crew of military investigators, accompanied by Hamner, who is now a general, heads out hoping to figure out what happened and to find remains to be buried. Hamner insists that the pilot, Mac, ordered all the men to jump over water, and that they did, and that the plane must have continued flying for some 700 miles into the desert on its own, though the chief investigators, Devlin and Gronke, find that hard to believe. Tony's body is still under the plane, but the others are miles away where the rubber raft fell; the ghosts try to expose Hamner as a liar and steer the investigators to find the bodies, fighting against Hamner's insistence that the bodies are in the Mediterranean. 

Though it may feel as if I've spoiled all the surprises, there are a couple more twists, one involving the backstory of Devlin which explains why he is so adamant about finding the bodies. The plot is based loosely on an actual occurrence in which a military plane that vanished without a trace in 1943 was found seventeen years later in the desert, and a Twilight Zone episode, King Nine Will Not Return, dealt with that story in a similar fashion. This might have worked a bit better at a shorter length—it's 100 minutes but could have avoided some padding at 60 or 70 minutes. Still, it's an interesting fantasy with decent performances. Vince Edwards and William Shatner are good as the chief investigators. Patrick Wayne (John's handsome son) and Lawrence Casey (from The Rat Patrol) are nicely low-key as two of the crew members. There is a little scenery chewing from Lou Antonio as the emotional Tony and Richard Basehart as the gruff Hamner. The supernatural rules involving the ghosts are a bit unclear—they can't be seen but they manage to manifest briefly in front of Hamner; they seem to be able to hold and carry things but this doesn't help them get attention. At least one online critic thinks the moving ending is ambiguous; technically the narrative is unfinished but it's pretty clear how it will end. There isn't much humor; at one point, Shatner, trying to placate Edwards, says, "The Libyan desert is no place to make waves." The song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is used hauntingly. Well worth seeing. I watched a blurry YouTube print but it has been issued in much better shape as a region B Blu-ray. I hope a region A release comes soon. [YouTube]

IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH (1970)

A title card tells us that a violent shock can damage the mind. Next up, it's night in a big house overlooking the sea; the decapitated corpse of a man, Andre, is surrounded by a woman and two children. We assume a situation in which a wife has killed her abusive husband, and the kids, as per the title card quote, will be damaged by seeing this, but we're not sure. [As viewers will soon figure out, virtually nothing in this film can be taken at face value, so you may assume that many of my assumptions as I summarize the plot are eventually revealed to be wrong.] As some cops chase a motorcyclist on a nearby road, the woman, named Lucille, starts an empty motorboat and pushes it out to sea. Pascal, the motorcyclist and crook on the run, sees her bury the headless body on the property. Pascal is captured even as the cops tread all over the fresh grave. Another title card quotes Freud: "What has been remains embedded in the brain, nestled in the folds of the flesh." Thirteen years later, Lucille still lives at the seaside villa with the two grown children, the possibly neurotic Colin and the possibly frail Falesse. Michel, a cousin of Andre's, arrives for a visit, bringing his German shepherd. We discover that the world believes that Andre died by misadventure in the motorboat we saw Lucille set adrift. But Michel's dog snoops around and starts to dig up the 13-year-old grave, so Colin strangles it—remember it, because we'll see it again. Then Michel is caught snooping around in the house and after Falesse has sex with him, she kills him. Colin and Lucille take the body to the cellar to dissolve it in acid. The next visitor is a boorish goateed man named Alex, friend of Michel's. Colin and Falesse engage in erotic dancing and deep kissing in front of him (this seems to confirm the incestuous vibe we've been getting from the two). When Alex makes out with Falesse, he slips her wig off, she complains that only her father can touch her hair, then she decapitates him. We see a seemingly unrelated scene of a psychiatrist at an asylum taking custody of a young woman. Next, back at the villa, who should show up Pascal, with a gun, wanting to use the knowledge he has about that night thirteen years ago to engage in some blackmail. He seems to have the family at a disadvantage, until he doesn't.

There are more plot points, more kink, and eventually explanations, but unlike some online reviewers, I won't spoil the surprises—some ridiculous, some delicious—since full enjoyment of this film depends on us watching the characters and motivations get untangled. In addition to incest and decapitation and rape and insanity, we get flashbacks to a Nazi concentration camp, Etruscan skulls, caged pet vultures, sexual psychosis, plastic surgery, an ingenious bathtub murder set-up, and some very strange and colorful fashion choices for the adult children. I'm not sure that everything is explained clearly—I'm still uncertain about the incest angle—but it doesn't matter for this deliriously nutty giallo. The film has a decadent feel, but there's not much sex or nudity, and the murders, especially the decapitations, are more campily artificial than gory. I suspect the actors, directed by Sergio Bergonzelli, had little idea what was going on from scene to scene, so any judging of the acting has to be on a superficial level. Eleonora Rossi Drago grounds the film as best she can as Lucille, who generally remains calm and keeps a level head no matter what craziness is going on around her. Emilio Gutierrez Caba (pictured at left) is absolutely right as the debauched but passive and generally ineffective Colin; he’s good looking in an unhealthy way. Pier Angeli, who had a strong Hollywood career in the 50s (Somebody Up There Likes Me, The Silver Chalice) doesn't seem comfortable as Falesse, but her role is the most difficult since she’s carrying the most secrets. Fernando Sancho is gross and off-putting as Pascal, as he should be. The only other cast member to stand out to me is Victor Barrera (pictured at top right with Angeli) as Alex, and that’s more for his looks than anything else, since he's not around very long.

Everyone calls this a giallo, and while it does have that feel from time to time, it's not a traditional whodunit. We know who's doing most of the killing because we see the murders happen—except for the very first death which does remain shrouded in mystery until the end. It also has other markers of the giallo, with crazy camera moves, psychedelic visual fragmentation, a convoluted (some might say nonsensical) plot, heavy if not explicit sexual content, and bright colors all around. Bergonzelli seems to want to subvert most of our expectations of giallo—the most nudity we see is, perhaps offensively, in the Nazi flashbacks—and some critics call this a dark comedy or a giallo parody, which I totally get. I didn't notice the background score too often, but the main theme borrows a few notes from Doctor Zhivago's "Lara's Theme." This is not the movie to use to introduce newcomers to the giallo genre, but presented with gin martinis all around, this might be a good party movie for serious film buffs. [Criterion Channel]

CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS (1937)

This is a bit of an oddity in the Charlie Chan series, invoking two timely real-world references: the Berlin Olympics of 1936, at which American runner Jesse Owens won four gold medals, and the German dirigible Hindenburg, which exploded with much loss of life just weeks before this movie was released. Otherwise, it's not a particularly noteworthy entry. The first twenty minutes take place in Honolulu. As Chan's son Lee (Keye Luke) is heading to Berlin to compete in the Olympics as a swimmer, Chan (Warner Oland) gets roped into helping authorities figure out what happened to a plane that vanished during a test flight for an invention that could guide a plane by remote radio control. The pilot was forced by a stowaway to fly the plane to a deserted beach where he was killed and the device taken. The spies, who now have the remote control, are on the ocean liner Manhattan, headed to Berlin where the Olympics will give cover to their attempt to sell the device to a foreign power. Also on board: the U.S. Olympic team, including Lee Chan, his gal pal Betty and her boyfriend Dick, a pole vaulter. Dick gets sidetracked by the attention paid to him by the sophisticated white fox-fur wearing Yvonne, whom we're pretty sure is one of the spies. Chan, along with Hopkins, owner of the device, and Cartwright, inventor of the device, take the Hindenburg to Berlin in order to arrive before the ocean liner. Once there, Chan and the spies play cat-and-mouse games, with Chan getting hold of the device but the spies kidnapping Lee to force Chan to give it up. But, as usual, the villains have underestimated Honolulu's finest policeman.

Though Jesse Owens is not singled out in the narrative, we do see newsreel footage of him running in the relay race for which he won a medal and we hear someone yell, "Come on, Jesse!" Footage of the Hindenburg, with the swastikas blurred out, is shown briefly, though the zeppelin trip is not a major part of the story. What story there is winds up being both convoluted and predictable, and aside from Oland and Luke, the best acting comes from the bad guys: Katherine DeMille (Cecil's adopted daughter) as the exotic Yvonne and C. Henry Gordon as Hughes, an arms dealer trying to get the remote control for himself before it can be sold to a foreign diplomat named Zaraka. Pauline Moore is nicely perky as Betty; Allan Lane is in good physical form as Dick, the pole vaulter. Other familiar faces are John Eldredge as Cartwright and Jonathan Hale as Hopkins, both of whom, despite being the inventor and the owner of the device, act a bit suspicious at times. Nine-year-old Layne Tom Jr. (pictured at left) has a couple of cute scenes as Charlie Jr., a young Chan son (whom Chan misidentifies as Son #2; all Charlie Chan fans know that is actually Tommy) and he has a running joke about his fascination with the phrase "white fox fur." The last part of the film degenerates into people running in and out of rooms, and despite the real-life references, this is about par for the course for the Oland series. I watched this over the weekend to coincide with the current winter games. Pictured at top: Oland, Luke and Gordon. [DVD]

YOU AND ME (1938)

After hearing a song about money ("Whatever you see that you really want / You may have, provided you buy it"), we see Helen (Sylvia Sidney), an employee at Morris's, a department store, catch a woman trying to shoplift a blouse, and the soft-hearted Helen lets her go. Helen is an ex-con on parole who has been given a second chance by Mr. Morris, the store's owner. In fact, Morris makes it a habit of hiring ex-cons. Another one of them is Joe (George Raft), who works in sporting goods and is sweet on Helen. She knows about his past, but he doesn't know about hers. He's fallen in love with her and on a whim they decide to get married. She tells Joe they must keep the marriage secret because it's against the store rules. It's not really but she's still on parole and can't get married. He tells her how much he doesn't like jailbirds and liars which makes her very uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Gimpy Carter (who works in the shoe department) is visited by Mickey, an old crony, who tries to tempt Gimpy into one last heist: robbing the department store. A handful of the ex-cons fall in but Joe refuses until he finds out that Helen has been lying about her past. Helen finds out about the plans, tells Morris, and the gang have a surprise when they break into the store that night: Morris is there and forces the men to listen to a lecture Helen has prepared, complete with blackboard, showing mathematically that crime, or at least the crime they're planning, won't pay enough to be worth it. Will the men listen? Will Morris forgive them? Will Joe go back to Helen, and if so, will Helen's parole status be threatened?

Some critics refer to this as Runyonesque (as in Damon Runyon, whose whimsical crime stories were the basis of the musical Guys and Dolls) and it definitely is. Except for Mickey (Barton MacLane), these crooks are a likable bunch of guys we sympathize with, even if the quickness with which they agree to pull off the robbery is a bit jarring. Sidney is quite good as the conflicted heroine. It is difficult to side with her as she continues to lie to Joe, although that is the plotline that supplies the most conflict. Raft is out of his element early on as the romantic lead, but is more convincing in the last half-hour as he reverts to his more typical criminal persona. I liked Harry Carey as Mr. Morris, and the strong supporting cast includes Roscoe Karns (whose highlight is a scene in which he threatens a little girl into liking a toy), Warren Hymer, George E. Stone, Cecil Cunningham, and Robert Cummings. Director Fritz Lang, not known for a light romantic touch, throws in some unusual scenes. There is music by Kurt Weill; the opening song, "Song of the Cash Register," is backed by impressionistic abstract montage shots of consumer goods. Later, as the crooks reminisce about the old days, "The Knocking Song" has them all chanting song-like dialogue against dark montage shots. It's an interesting moment but it doesn't really fit. Actually, the various moods of the story (comedy, melodrama, romantic comedy, noir visuals) mesh uneasily, and the happy ending doesn't exactly feel earned. But it's an unusual film for the era and is worth a shot. [Criterion Channel]

THE BLACK PARACHUTE (1944)

In 1942, the Nazis occupy a small European country led by King Stephen. Radio broadcasts from the king ask his people to cooperate with the Nazis, but the leaders of the underground movement suspect that he is being coerced into making these statements—and we discover indeed that the Nazi general Von Bodenbach is holding the king in "protective custody" and having a voice double make the broadcasts. American reporter Michael Lindley, in Europe to cover the war, is asked by resistance leaders Kurt and Erik to help free the king. He agrees and is parachuted into the country with a black parachute, supposedly less visible in the night, but the Germans still see him and try to chase him down. He gets help from a reluctant farmer and his daughter; the man Michael had arranged to contact is now dead, and the farmer is suspicious. But they offer him refuge in a cellar and then test him by undertaking a fake raid. Convinced of his loyalty, the group accepts him, and after they kill a small Nazi convoy, Michael takes the uniform and ID papers of Captain Mir and gains entrance to King Stephen’s castle. Bodenbach is fooled, but his mistress Marya knew Mir in the past and knows he's not Mir, but she doesn’t give him away. She asks Michael to take her with him when he frees the king (with the help of some resistance fighters who are present in the castle), but can she really be trusted? The title of this unassuming B-movie ultimately means nothing, as the black parachute doesn't really work. But it is kind of a cool title and the reason I watched this when it came up as a YouTube algorithm suggestion. At seventy minutes, it's about the right length for what it sets out to do, which is to tell a story about a resistance rescue. Larry Parks (pictured), who plays Michael, is not exactly the heroic type in build or voice, but he suffices for a B-movie lead. John Carradine is the Nazi general, and of course, he could do this kind of role in his sleep. Osa Massen is very good as Marya, keeping us guessing about her loyalty and motivations until the climax, though at times she sounds like Madeline Kahn's character in Blazing Saddles. Charles Wagenheim (Kurt) sounds a little like Groucho Marx. Busy character actor Jonathan Hale is King Stephen. It's a decent propaganda piece, as most wartime films were, and builds to a tense conclusion. [YouTube]

FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1962)

A folk music theme, sung by Kingston Trio imitators, tells us that men known as the Mighty Sons of Hercules, "once thundered through the years"; they were "men as men should be"; they "could never feel the curse of a coward's fears"; they come around "to show that might and right still survive." In a time thousands of years ago, a glacial ice cap spread south, turning some tribes into nomads escaping the cold. We see a group of sun worshipers, led by Doric and his son Aydar, build a new village, but nearby is a lake with a giant sea serpent. When it threatens Aydar and his wife-to-be Raia, wandering loinclothed muscleman Maxus (Reg Lewis) comes to the rescue, slaying the beast. But the Sun People's problems have barely begun. That night, a tribe of moon worshipers, led by the dark and hairy Fuan, attacks, burning homes, killing many of the men, and carting the women off to be human sacrifices to the Pale Goddess at a ritual to be held at the next full moon. Doric is killed and the tribe's central fire pit is extinguished. All is not well among the Moon People; Fuan's woman Moah resents Fuan for killing off her family and staking a false claim to the throne. Maxus finds the Sun People, restarts their fire (how in the world do these people not know how to make fire?), and agrees to go off and try to free their women. He does, with some help from Moah, but Fuan catches them and buries them both up to their heads in the ground. Luckily, a volcano (or earthquake, or both) erupts, saving the two. The Moon People go off to get help from a nearby tribe of cannibal barbarians, leading to a climactic battle in which Maxus and Fuan have a knock-down, drag-out fight before Fuan is killed by a gigantic stone carving of the sun.

Where to start? I guess with the title. Though there are some monsters here and there (none very impressive), they have nothing to do with fire. Maxus is not a literal son of Hercules; Sons of Hercules was a group title for a repackaging of some peplum movies for American television and they were all given the same title song. (See MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES.) In the original Italian version, the hero is Maciste. Reg Lewis (Maxus, pictured above) was a professional bodybuilder—this was his only speaking part in a movie, though he apparently toured in a stage show with Mae West. He didn't need to be a good actor, just have a good physique, which he does. Andrea Aureli is nicely menacing as Fuan, but no one else in the cast stands out. There are a few moderately effective battle scenes with people and boulders tossed about, and the climactic fight is well executed. The fact that it's not set in Greece or Rome is a novelty but I did miss the big palaces and stadiums of the traditional sword and sandal adventures. The presence of a cannibal tribe is promising, but nothing is done with this. The English dubbing is worse than usual, and apparently the original Italian version (the title of which is translated as Maciste Against the Monsters) is a slightly different cut. It was released in England as Colossus of the Stone Age, but never seems to have gotten a theatrical release in the United States. It's not one of the worst peplum films, but approach with low expectations. [YouTube]

GIRL WITH HYACINTHS (1950)

Lovely young Dagmar is playing piano one night at a small party. She seems depressed and after a couple of interactions with guests, she leaves for home, seeming almost suicidal as she looks longingly into a dark river from a bridge. A man passes by noticing her mood and says, "Don’t let it worry you; he's not worth it." She replies, "There is no he." At her apartment, she slumps into a chair and stares at an empty lamp hook on the ceiling. The next morning, she is found dead, having hung herself from the lamp hook. Her neighbors across the hall, writer Anders and his wife Britt, are told she left a note leaving her possessions to them. Intrigued partly because they didn't really know her all that well, they begin an investigation into her life and the possible reason she committed suicide. At her funeral he talks to a rather cold man, a banker, who might be her father and whom Dagmar's mother tried to blackmail over his possible paternity. He finds other people from her past life including Gullan, an actress who befriended Dagmar on a lonely Christmas Eve; Korner, an alcoholic struggling artist who painted a portrait of her (from which the film's title comes); and Willy Borge, a crooner who gave copies of his albums to all his lovers and says that she came from a generation that would "rather jump out a window than acknowledge our need for tenderness." Anders and Britt also meet Dagmar's former husband, a soldier named Brink. He says despite being married to her for four years, he felt he never knew her. He read a letter he found to her from a former lover named Alex, but because Dagmar insisted that there had been no other man before him, Brink felt he could not trust her and they divorced. It seems like Dagmar is going to remain a cipher to Anders as she was to most of the people who knew her, but in the end, Britt discovers the truth.

[Major spoiler follows] Though I'm disappointed that the Criterion Channel has bought into the teasing overuse of the phrase 'film noir' and included this Swedish movie, directed by Hasse Ekman, in a collection called Nordic Noir, I'm pleased to have been able to see it. Much is made of this film's narrative similarity to Citizen Kane, in that it is a search for the secret to a dead person's identity through a series of flashbacks triggered by people from the past. The sometimes stunning shadowy visual style also borrows from Kane which I think is why the noir label has been attached to this. But most of the defining themes of noir are not present. Interestingly, though Kane's 'Rosebud' doesn't really explain Kane, Dagmar's Rosebud moment at the end does, at least on the surface, explain her death. Britt discovers that Dagmar's mysterious Alex from the past was not a man but a woman; Dagmar encountered her at the party seen at the beginning and we see that scene again at the end, able to piece together at least a cursory explanation for the suicide. Apparently, Swedish audiences from 1950 went home from this movie largely unaware of what the ending meant given the absence of gay and lesbian signifiers in pop culture. Viewers today will probably pick up on the gay subtext along the way, though the ending still has a nice frisson to it. The acting is excellent throughout. Eva Henning's Dagmar (pictured)  has a melancholy tinge though she also manages to come off as both simple and complex, as both transparent and mysterious. Ulf Palme (Anders) and Birgit Tengroth (Britt) are nicely grounded as a pleasant, average couple and their scenes together are light in tone. Anders Ek is eccentric as the artist and Keve Hjelm is sympathetic as the ex-husband, despite a moment when he expresses admiration for the Nazis. Highly recommended, though not as a film noir. [Criterion Channel]

THE SHANGHAI STORY (1954)

In Shanghai, a crackdown by the Communist government occasioned by an outbreak of spy activity has a number of foreigners interned as prisoners in an emptied-out hotel. Among them: Dan, an American doctor; Paul, a seemingly harmless artist; newlyweds Emilio and Leah; Knuckles, a young sailor; and Ricki, a neutral citizen who is suspected of being an arms dealer. Also among the internees are a minister, an older man with a heart condition, and an American family. There is one internee, Rita, who has a fair degree of freedom in coming and going. Despite some possible sparks between her and Dan, he suspects that she may be the mistress of Zorek, the security officer. The story develops episodically. One of the Communist guards kills a dog for biting him on the ankle; a young girl falls ill and Dan tries to get Rita to use her influence to allow her to be taken to a hospital; an assassination attempt is made on a spy suspect. One man discovers that Paul has a radio hidden in his room, but when he excitedly tries to tell Zorek, it's assumed he is trying to escape and is shot dead. Dan figures out a way to get information out to spy contacts, but has to rely on Rita for help, not being quite sure if he can trust her. This is a B-movie cross between a spy melodrama and a soap opera. It takes place almost completely in the hotel and the two genres do battle throughout. The characters, though well differentiated, aren't all that interesting, with Paul (Whit Bissel) and Knuckles (Richard Jaeckel) brought to life the best. Ruth Roman is fine as Rita, whom you know from the beginning will wind up on the side of the good guys, but Edmond O’Brien (as Dan) is a bit stodgy and their implied romance goes nowhere. The soapy Grand Hotel elements of the film don't build convincingly, but the mild spy action scenes are pulled off fairly well. Taking place on a handful of hotel sets, the whole thing is very much like a play, though it was actually based on a novel. The director, Frank Lloyd, turned in some fine work in the 30s (Cavalcade, Mutiny on the Bounty) but in this, his next-to-last film, he seems uninspired. It’s paced fairly well and at 90 minutes, seems about the right length. Though it's not set on a train, fans of train movies, with various characters stuck together in a limited space, may enjoy this. Pictured are Jaeckel and O'Brien. [TCM]

BLIND SPOT (1947)

In his opening narration, author Jeffrey Andrews (Chester Morris) tells us that we may have seen too many movies about authors living the high life, but writing good books and writing books that sell may not be the same thing. We see a drunken and grizzled Andrews get dressed as he looks at himself in a cracked mirror (pictured at left), takes another slug of booze, and heads off to visit his publisher Henry Small, looking for a loan or an advance. Though Small is in a meeting with successful mystery writer Lloyd Harrison (Steven Geray), Andrews rudely pushes past Small's secretary Evelyn (Constance Dowling) and demands a new contract. Small refuses but gives him twenty bucks and encourages him to stop writing literary books and aim for the bestseller list. Harrison, who is himself looking for a new contract, admires Andrews' books and seems sympathetic to his plight. Andrews mumbles something about how easy it would be to come up with a plot for a locked room murder mystery then hits a bar where he relates his murder plot to the bartender, and later to Evelyn who arrives at the bar upset over Small having tried to force himself on her. Later, even more drunk, he goes to Small's empty outer office and tears up his old contract. The next morning, Small is found dead in his locked inner office and the police arrest Andrews as a suspect since the death is very much like the murder he had outlined the night before. Andrews can't remember the solution to the mystery he had dreamed up. Harrison talks the police into letting Andrews go in his custody. Trying to track down the two people to whom he told the plot, Andrews discovers that the bartender has been found dead and Evelyn has disappeared. He also finds a $500 check in his pocket from Small, indicating that the publisher had heard the whole story and liked it. He eventually finds Evelyn and suspects her (her earring is found near the bartender's body) but they strike sparks. Evelyn: "Do you really think I killed Small?"; [long rough kiss]; Andrews: "Yes." Still, the two join forces to figure out Andrews' forgotten solution and find the real killer.

This is a nifty little low-key film noir. There aren't quite enough suspects around so the killer's identity is obvious (as is, if you've ever read a locked room mystery, the solution to Andrews' plot), but the movie is drenched in noir visuals and the acting is quite good. Chester Morris gives a far more layered performance than he was allowed to give in his Boston Blackie detective films, and he's very convincing as a drunk at the end of his rope, though he overdoes the drunk acting a bit in the beginning. In a couple of scenes in which his stubbled face is nearly engulfed in shadows, you can practically smell the sweat on his skin and the booze on his breath. Dowling was in the classic noir BLACK ANGEL and did a Boston Blackie movie with Morris the year before. Though she never broke out of B-films, she's great as the dame who may or may not be a femme fatale. Geray is convincing in a difficult role; as with Dowling, we're not quite sure how much to trust what he does and says. In addition to the opening meta-reference to movies, there's also a brief reference to THE LOST WEEKEND, the famous film from 1945 about an alcoholic writer. Thanks to TCM host Eddie Muller for bringing this to light on his Noir Alley show. [TCM]

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1969)

Two men assault a trash truck driver, knock him unconscious, and send his truck into reverse to crash into a nightclub, killing a crime boss named Grinaldi and his bodyguard (discovered later to have been a CIA agent). Grinaldi's mistress, Revel Drue, had been sitting with him just moments earlier when she went to chat with Johnny Cain, the club owner and a former lover. Cain, who lives on a yacht, is generally known as a playboy adventurer and the day after the crash, he is called to a nighttime meeting in the offices of a department store. Grinaldi had belonged to a small group of supposedly respectable businessmen who are secretly involved in criminal activities. The men, whose group is codenamed West (for the Western United States, I presume), aren't unhappy that Grinaldi is dead, but they are worried about the motivation of the killer so they hire Cain, under threat of death, and give him 72 hours to find those responsible. A starting point: Grinaldi was in the process of smuggling a priceless Tibetan statue called Yama. Cain gets some help from Crawford, a police lieutenant who may not like Cain but is sympathetic to him. Later, the CIA, who are looking into the smuggling, strongly encourage Cain to share what he learns with them—some months ago, a Caribbean CIA outpost was blown up, with all but one agent killed, and the Yama statue may be linked to that incident. Along the way, Cain meets: Grinaldi’s widow, an amateur actress who seems pretty numbed out by booze and drugs; a tired old man named Hash who served as Grinaldi's accountant; an art history professor who works a side gig as a stripper; studly pilot Race Rockwell; and engineer Ah Ling, whose name Rockwell helpfully identifies as "oriental." We're never quite sure who can be trusted, especially the somewhat mysterious Revel. The specter of Communism becomes a MacGuffin, just like the Yama statue, so ultimately, there doesn't seem to be much at stake for the audience to care about.

This is a deliriously fun bad movie that MST3K or Rifftrax should get their hands on. The main reason for watching is Adam West who stars as Cain. West's claim to fame until the day he died was playing Batman on TV in the mid-1960s. His handsome face and oddly deadpan demeanor were perfect for this role, but he never got very far putting Batman behind him, and to his credit, he eventually embraced the stereotyping and wound up with a very long career (with almost 200 credits on IMDb), often playing himself. This was his first movie role after Batman and he's actually OK, coming off as nice-looking and almost hunky but a little dim—he frequently has sort of a dead-eyed look that works with this character, and I'm a little sorry he never got to repeat the role. Online critic Ian Jane says of West here that he’s "kinda charming in his seemingly oblivious way," and that's a great description of what I see as one of the movie's pluses. 

The real problem here is, well, everything else. Though in terms of visuals, it looks good (the Blu-ray print is spectacular), it's clearly a B-movie affair with an incredibly slapdash script that feels like it was written as they filmed, and the narrative goes off the tracks by the halfway point. Nancy Kwan (pictured above right with West) was one of the first Asian actresses to gain Hollywood stardom with her first two movies, The World of Suzie Wong and Flower Drum Song, but she was soon relegated to lesser roles and movies; as Revel (great name!) she’s good here but is basically a less tarted-up Bond girl. Very busy character actor Nehemiah Persoff keeps his dignity as the cop. But no one else comes off very well, including Robert Alda and Mark Roberts as two of the West group, and Frank Baxter in the two-line role of Race Rockwell (again, great name!). Patricia Smith overacts every moment she's on screen as the zoned-out widow. Lisa Todd, as Sugar Sweet, the art history professor, can barely say her lines, let alone give them any feeling. Buddy Greco, a legit pop singer, plays Lucky, the club performer; he handles what little acting he has to do OK, but all three of the songs he sings are just awful, with lyrics like, "I’m alive to the memory of at least a dozen mistakes, freakish little nothings" and "Abreast of the times, way out in the spaces of your mind." The fistfights are well staged; one is pictured at left. There's a great scene of a dead body slowly coming down an escalator. If I'd seen this in a grungy panned-and-scanned print, I would not have stuck with it, but in crisp, clean widescreen, it was worth hanging around until the end, even if I had to shut my mind off. [Blu-ray]