LOVE HAS MANY FACES (1965)

Our theme song, sung by Nancy Wilson, includes the line, "Love has many faces and I mean to kiss every one," so this might be a long movie. We begin on a beach in Acapulco as the body of a young beachside gigolo, Billy Andrews, washes up on shore. The police assume suicide—his last words the night before as he headed out to sea were, "I want to find where the sun goes down"—but leave open the possibility of murder. He's wearing a bracelet with the words, "Love is thin ice" engraved on it, which is traced to rich American socialite Kit Jordan (whom we discover later made headlines years ago as Kathryn Lawson Chandler when she got an abortion) who lives in a gorgeous house above the beach. She admits to having had a fling with Kit before her recent marriage to Pete Jordan, himself a former golddigging beach boy who lives off of Kit's money. In fact, it seems that the entire beach is filled with tanned, well-built, Speedo-clad beach boys out to give rich American women a good time, for a price. Kit and Pete are unsettled and snarky to each other. She notes that when there are others around, "we don’t zing, zing, zing each other." He replies, "We just drink, drink, drink." Hank is another beach boy (maybe beach bum is a better word as he is near 40) who is currently mentoring the young (20-something) Chuck. Hank latches onto the vacationing middle-aged Margot which leaves Chuck with her friend Irene. The group is soon joined by Carol, Billy's fiancée, searching for answers concerning Billy's death. Kit resents her presence (as Carol verges on blaming Kit for Billy's death) but Pete takes a shine to the innocent young Carol and the two embark on a dragged-out "will they or won’t they" game of guilty flirtation. Back at Hank's place, he seduces the very willing Margot then snaps a picture of her sleeping naked in his bed to use as blackmail to get more money out of her. For her part, Margot lets him know she was willing to bankroll him indefinitely, but his tactics have turned her against him. Chuck, who is not as hard-edged yet, gets disillusioned seeing what Hank has resorted to. Our central triangle (Kit, Pete, and Carol) gets sorted out in a climax which involves all concerned present at a matador training session which turns potentially deadly.

I was having a hell of a lot of fun during this movie's first two-thirds: sun, sand, ocean, cocktails, women in bikinis and, most importantly, men in bathing suits. It's prime soap opera material and the actors are all game. Lana Turner, in one of her last big movie roles, still looks great and is perfect as the bitchy but suffering rich lady. It's a little unclear how much we're supposed to like or dislike her, but ultimately I think she has to suffer a bit too much by the end (mild spoiler: Pete finally does reform and agrees to get a paying job). Cliff Robertson (Pete), only a couple of years younger than Turner, is just as good as the "hero," accepting of being kept by his wife but also restless and, once Carol enters the picture, a bit ashamed. The manly, hairy-chested Hugh O'Brian (Hank) walks a nice line between being proud of being a gigolo and coming to realize that he may be getting a bit old for the part. Stefanie Powers (Carol) comes up a bit short, partly because the role is not fleshed out very well. Also, as a supporting player, she comes in second to Ruth Roman (Margot) who gives an excellent performance in a role she probably could have phoned in. Ron Husmann is very cute and sweet as the newbie Chuck, and Virginia Grey is fine as Irene. Ricardo Montalban's brother Carlos has a small role as a matador.

I was never quite able to decode the Kit/Pete relationship. It seems like the screenwriter, Marguerite Roberts (who later scripted True Grit) couldn't decide if one or the other was to blame for their mildly decadent entanglement. Traditionally, we'd blame the woman for emasculating the man, but here, both come off as rather numb to their situation, and Pete's traditional masculinity doesn't really seem threatened. Partly due to this, the movie doesn't, for me, hit the camp mark; it's all a little too serious with no one, not even Turner, going over the top (even though Turner has a dozen fabulous costume changes and was dressed by the legendary Edith Head). However, as other viewers have noticed, the film could be mined today for queer content as Hank and Chuck, usually seen together, chests glistening in their Speedos, come very close to coming off as an on-the-lowdown gay couple, with Chuck giving Hank some worshipful glances now and then. The only real misstep is the last fifteen minutes—the bull training segment drags on and on and provides an overly melodramatic climax. But I'm just quibbling here; I quite liked this and could make it regular summer viewing. At top right, Turner and Robertson; at left, O'Brian and Husmann. [Amazon Prime]

ISLAND OF LOST MEN (1939)

In Singapore, nightclub singer China Lily (Anna May Wong) is noticed by Gregory Prin (J. Carroll Naish), a Malaysian plantation manager. He invites her to join him on a trip upriver to visit his digs. His interest, most likely, is sexual, though nothing seems to happen between them; for her part, she notices that he wears a medallion that belonged to her missing father. We eventually learn that her real name is Kim Ling and she is looking for her disgraced father Ahn Ling who is assumed to have embezzled $300,000 from the Chinese government meant to purchase arms. She finds out that Prin hires mostly outlaws and men on the run from their pasts to work as overseers along the river, and she thinks she might find her father there, though she doesn't tell Prin her motive. At the main outpost, we meet Prin's primary overseers: the Chinese Chang Tai (Anthony Quinn) looks young and healthy, but the middle-aged white men Frobenius and Prof. Senn seem a little the worse for wear. We also meet Prin's valet Herbert (and his annoying pet monkey Egbert), who may be a bit obsequious but also maybe smarter than he comes off. Kim and Chang recognize each other; he is a secret service member who is also looking for Kim's father. As they secretly work together, another man, Ballister (Broderick Crawford), shows up, oozing slime that he tries to pass off as charm, and, knowing the situation, is looking to engage in a little blackmail of Prin, keeping quiet in exchange for a chunk of the stolen money. Signs of native uprisings begin to appear. The man in charge of a large trading post at Tenwek quits; Prin lets him, but then has him killed on the river. Chang Tai, suspecting that Ling is being held there, gets himself sent up to Tenwek to investigate. Soon Prin learns Kim's real identity and seems to have the upper hand against Ballister, but Kim finds the stolen money, Chang finds Lin, and when Prin cruelly shoots and kills Herbert's beloved pet monkey, the tables turn.

This B-melodrama (no, dear fellow bloggers, it's not noir) is a remake of 1933's WHITE WOMAN, following the main plot beats with lesser stars in the lead parts, but the supporting cast in particular here makes this one worth seeing. Wong is weak and wooden as usual, and practically disappears into the background, both as an actor and a character. Naish, usually an asset, overacts and uses an outrageous accent that sounds exactly like the one Peter Sellers adopted satirically years later when he lampooned Charlie Chan in MURDER BY DEATH. But the movie is saved by others. Anthony Quinn is young and sleekly handsome and in control as the initially mysterious Chang Tai; Eric Blore gets a little more to do than usual as the valet Herbert—he is mild comic relief but also plays an important role in the climax. Ernest Truex (Frobenius) and Rudolf Forster (Senn) underplay their roles while still bringing their characters to life just enough to make us care a little bit about them. Best of all is Broderick Crawford, pictured, as Ballister. For starters, he's far more appealing looking than he usually was; he's beefy but not yet obese, and in some shots is almost handsome. His character is interesting; he appears as a spoiler to Prin's plans but he has to fight to keep the upper hand. The exciting climax plays out between Ballister and Prin, and we're not really sure who we want to win. It's sort of fun to realize about a third of the way in that none of the characters like each other, except Kim and Chang, and they seem more bonded by circumstance than anything else. This comes fairly close to being as good as the original; the presence of Charles Laughton and Carole Lombard in the 1933 film gives it the edge. Not to be confused with Island of Doomed Men or Island of Lost Women or Island of Lost Souls or Isle of Missing Men. [YouTube]

THE MURDERERS ARE AMONG US (1946)

Berlin, 1945, just after the Allied victory. The streets and buildings are ravaged and full of rubble. Hans is a former doctor who has been mentally damaged by the war. Because of trauma—we discover later that he witnessed an atrocity involving murdered children—he can no longer practice medicine and stays drunk as much as he can, having taken up residence in an apartment with broken windows. Susanne, former occupant of the apartment, has just been released from a concentration camp where she's been since 1942. She had a long-term lease on her rooms and returns to take up residence, but Hans refuses to leave so she agrees to let him stay. Slowly, the two become friendly, and he expresses hope that someday, he will be capable of loving her. Mondschein, an ailing optometrist who lives in the building, has been waiting for the return of his son, a German soldier, and goes to a medium to see if she can tell him if his son is still alive. She has a vision of the two of them meeting on a bridge so he keeps hoping. Susanne discovers that Bruckner, a soldier that Hans knew and assumed was dead, is still alive and she encourages him to visit. He is reluctant and when he does, he takes a gun, intending to shoot Bruckner, who was responsible for the massacre that Hans witnessed. He is interrupted by an emergency request for help for an ill child who is having trouble breathing. Hans overcomes his aversion to doctoring and successfully helps the child. It would appear that he is starting on a road to recovery. He and Susanne become a couple and he gets a medical job, but the arrival of Christmas leads to a tragedy for Mondschein and a renewal of trauma for Hans (the massacre happened at Christmas), and on Christmas Eve, Hans sets out to exact revenge against Bruckner.

This was the first feature film to come out of Germany after the war. It has been labeled as the first in a series of "rubble films" which were shot on location in the bombed-out streets of German cities. They usually addressed issues of reconstructing both cities and lives, and often involved the avoidance or acceptance of collective guilt over the war. Directed by Wolfgang Staude, the movie has astonishing visuals, using what I assume are actual sites of destruction for an authentic atmosphere (though it's possible that the apartment scenes were shot in a studio), and a style which invokes German expressionism of the 1920s—lots of shadows and tilted camera angles. An atmosphere of dark gloom hangs over the whole film; near the climax, there's a gorgeous shot of snow in a ruined church, and a remarkable shadow effect as Hans approaches Bruckner. The ending is cautiously optimistic but does not wipe away the darkness that has built, in the film or for the characters. Both leading actors are excellent. Hildegard Knef (Susanne) went on to a successful career in both Germany and Hollywood; Wilhelm Borchert (Hans) continued acting in Germany and also did a lot of German-language dubbing of Hollywood films. Neither of them (both pictured above) strike a false note in their performances. [Spoiler:] The director's intended ending has Hans killing Bruckner on Christmas Eve, but the final version instead has Susanne talking Hans into turning Bruckner into the authorities, which dramatically is probably the better ending. If there's a fault in the script, it's that neither lead is fully fleshed out—that's especially a problem with Susanne who begins as the central character. We learn nothing about her camp stay and she seems remarkably unscarred by her experience. The focus shifts to Hans who is given more backstory as Susanne recedes into the background. But this isn't a major flaw. This noir-flavored melodrama is well worth searching out. [TCM]

THE GREEN HORNET (1974) / FURY OF THE DRAGON (1976)

After the untimely death of Bruce Lee in 1973, followed by the huge success of his posthumously released martial arts film Enter the Dragon, anything with Lee’s name attached was guaranteed an audience, so 20th Century Fox released a theatrical feature film drawn from the 1960s Green Hornet superhero TV show. The lead role was taken by Van Williams, but Lee, as the Hornet's sidekick Kato, employed impressive kung fu moves to kick ass and became a breakout star, even though the show only lasted one season—and he is first billed here. The movie was a rather artless editing together of four TV episodes. The backstory, which is not featured in the film: The Green Hornet, a Batman-like crimefighter, is actually Britt Reid, a wealthy newspaper publisher. With his martial-arts trained valet Kato (the two wear small masks that barely hide their identities, as pictured at left), he comes off as a villain to the public but actually helps the police with tough cases. In the first episode, the Hornet discovers the existence of a list of racketeers being targeted for murder by a group headquartered at the high-class Explorer's Club, then finds out that he is next on the list. A two-part episode follows in which a UFO lands and shiny-suited space aliens (or so they seem) are after a new atomic bomb devised by a Dr. Mabuse. Though it's an interesting plotline, it's difficult to get past chuckling at the rather chunky bad guy in an unflatteringly tight silver outfit, although the more dangerous alien is an attractive woman in gold. The last story centers on a tong rivalry in Chinatown. There are no transitions between episodes, and instead of commercials, there are just fadeouts to the next scene. 

The Green Hornet series was played straight, not as camp like the Batman show, but even with TV budgets and cheap sets, this is fairly fun to watch, mostly to see Bruce Lee enliven the fisticuffs scenes with his martial arts moves. A couple of familiar faces crop up, including Tom Drake (the Boy Next Door in Meet Me in St. Louis), Frank Gerstle (a very busy tough-guy character actor) and Mako (a Japanese actor who was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for The Sand Pebbles). The Hornet's car, which Kato drives, is called the Black Beauty but it's a plain old sedan with green headlights and a small handful of tricked-out features. A second theatrical compilation, Fury of the Dragon, came out a few years later. Again made up of four episodes, this is more of a cheat on the moviegoing public, as the TV source for the movie is not in the title and is indicated nowhere in its marketing (see a New York city ad at right). Instead it's presented as though it's a kung fu adventure like Lee’s later films. Rather than coming from Fox, it was released by producer Laurence Joachim who worked on the original series. In addition to being a major league cheat, it's shoddily put together with most of the episodes chopped off at the end with no resolution to the storyline. This is especially egregious with the second episode involving a young cop who is trapped into a theft ring with his older partner. We never find out what happens to either cop. There is also an assassination attempt against Prince Rafia from Kahara, an art heist which targets Britt Reid, and some dope smugglers on a ship. If you just want to see Bruce Lee in action, you'll see some of that, and even the Hornet gets in a few moves, but overall the movie is a shambles. The best moment is when the Green Hornet commands Kato to "activate the Hornet Mortar," a powerful mini-missile shooter on the car. The TV shows have never been released to home video, but these films were released on DVD. Only for Lee fans and those curious about the TV show. Don't confuse with the 1940 serial. [YouTube]

THE MURDER MANSION (1972)

The first fifteen minutes or so of this Italian/Spanish gothic thriller is a confusing mish-mash of incidents that wind up being largely irrelevant to the rest of the movie. On the road to Milan, two people in a green car wind up racing with a motorcyclist, and a couple in a VW also get involved. They all end up lost in fog and take refuge at what looks to be an abandoned mansion near a cemetery. The group includes Fred, the handsome motorcyclist; Laura, a young woman he picked up; the goateed Mr. Porter, driver of the green car who had been coming on to Laura before she switched cars; Tremont, a lawyer, and his wife; Ernest and his mistress Ellen; and Elsa who is meeting Tremont to (I think) finalize her divorce from Ernest, from whom she needs a signature. These folks enter the mansion and discover it’s inhabited by its owner, the sexy but aloof Marta, who tells them that a vampire epidemic caused most of the nearby villagers to leave town. Bolstering her story is a creepy witch and her apparently zombified chauffeur who are wandering around in the fog. The visitors soon discover that the mansion is about as creepy as the foggy exterior, with odd paintings of an occult bent hanging on the walls and mysterious noises coming from the cellar. The witch, who might be Marta's late aunt, and the chauffeur put in apparitional appearances, people start dying (though at least one person, found dead on a meat hook, later shows up alive), and Elsa seems to be going mad.

The first part of the film is so off-putting, I almost quit watching. But once everyone is in the house to stay, things become easier to follow. Though hints of supernatural happenings are everywhere, this is really a gothic old dark house mystery with elements of Agatha Christie and Scooby-Doo. That may seem like a spoiler, but it's fairly obvious from early on that the witch and the chauffeur aren't ghosts. What I won't spoil are the identities of the bad guys and the motivations for their dastardly plans. Even if you think you have it figured out, there are some nice surprises near the end. Visuals are good even if the script has its problems, and the acting is about par for the course. Best are Analia Gade as Elsa (pictured) and Ida Galli as Marta. Everyone else seems a bit stymied by their underdeveloped characters, but that doesn't hurt the film much. The musical score is a bit bombastic at times but effective—cackling shrieks are part of the score. Dubbing is poor (again, par for the course). On balance, I'd say this is worth seeing. Some critics call this a giallo, but fans of that genre will be disappointed. [YouTube]

DARK MANHATTAN (1937)

L.B. Lee's office has a plaque that refers to him as a real estate expert, but he's actually a numbers banker running a kind of clearinghouse for the daily numbers game in Harlem. As such, he has various bookies that report to him. One day, while investigating a fall-off of money from Jack Johnson's account, a pool hall down in a rough area known as The Jungles, he sees young Curly Thorpe breaking up a fight. Curly is talked up by Johnson, so Lee hires him as an assistant, letting him know that, though the numbers game is illegal, he operates in an aboveboard manner. On his first day, Curly shows up dressed to the nines, to the amusement of some of the number runners, but he proves such an asset that Lee's lawyer suggests that Lee follow his doctor's advice and relax, perhaps by traveling. Lee is reluctant to leave his main squeeze Flo who sings at the Club Congo, but after he suffers a heart attack, he stays in bed and lets Curly take over daily operations. Unfortunately, Curly takes a gangster attitude to the business; instead of talking to a bookie who is underperforming, he goes into the storefront with a couple of goons and busts it up good. This leads to gang battles and a police crackdown. He also begins seeing Flo on the side. Lee, called into a meeting of other numbers bankers, vows to end this "reign of terror," though it’s not clear if he knows that it's largely Curly's fault. When Curly announces that he is now Lee's full-fledged partner, Lee leaves for a rest in South America. The cops find numbers slips in Curly's possession and, though he's not arrested, a cop takes down his personal information in what he calls a DOA (dead on arrival) document, implying that Curly will wind up dead if he doesn't watch it. By the end, that document will come in handy.

This Poverty Row race movie is considered the first Black gangster film, though any viewer expecting much in the way of action will be disappointed. Until some gunplay in the last five minutes, the atmosphere is placid, stagy, and fairly artificial, and the sets are bare bones, especially disappointing in the Club Congo scenes. I make a couple of assumptions in my summary because some plot points were a bit unclear. But I found this worth sitting through for the solid acting, especially from Ralph Cooper as Curly. Known as the Dark Clark Gable, he only appeared in a handful of movies (including THE DUKE IS TOPS) but was handsome and projected a confident persona. He's in almost every scene but his character remains fuzzy. His movement from being almost sweet-natured to being violently aggressive isn't motivated, it just seems to happen. The character of Flo (played flatly by Cleo Herndon) adds almost nothing to the narrative. Clarence Brooks is fine as L.B., though he more or less vanishes from the last part of the story. Sam McDaniel, Hattie McDaniel's brother, is Jack Johnson, and Rubeline Glover is the numbers office secretary. I fault the director, Harry Fraser, for the slow and overly emphatic dialogue delivery of much of the cast. This is a bit slow going but different enough in content to make it worth seeing for race movie fans. Cooper is pictured in the center of the photo above. [YouTube]

DORIAN GRAY (1970)

This 1970's update of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray follows the original plot (using the same character names) fairly well. The young and handsome playboy Dorian Gray has his portrait painted by high society artist Basil Hallward. Art dealer (and general bad influence) Henry Wotten encourages Dorian to live a life of giving into temptation while he's young before he turns into "an old and hideous puppet." Dorian takes that advice and wishes out loud that he would stay young and his portrait would grow old instead. Over the years, Dorian becomes a decadent wastrel but remains beautiful while everyone else ages. Wilde leaves most of Dorian's immoral actions unclear, but he leads women to ruin and eventually commits murder. In the end, he slashes up his painting which has become ugly then drops dead; when he's found, his body is old and ugly but the painting again is beautiful. This version, which was promoted as almost softcore porn, would seem to be able to make more explicit what Dorian's decadence consists of, and it does a bit—in addition to ruining women, he ruins some men as well (and has what seems to be a one-off encounter in the shower with Henry, after he's slept with Henry's wife). But though there is some nudity, there is nothing even approaching porn here. The beautiful Austrian actor Helmut Berger is absolutely right in terms of looks as Dorian, but he's too restrained in his performance, just as Hurd Hatfield was back in the 1945 MGM version. The cheap looking portrait features a shirtless Berger in hip-hugging jeans which fails to capture any of Berger's beauty. 

Dorian's first step toward evil, as in the book, is his casual acceptance and rejection of young actress Sybil Vane—when he first sleeps with her, she's a virgin—and she falls so hard for him that her acting suffers. When Dorian sees how bad her performance in Romeo and Juliet is, he cuts her loose, causing her to kill herself, an act about which Dorian feels nothing. The character's gay side, which is only hinted at in the book, is a bit more clearly drawn here, but generally we still have to take the word of others that Dorian has become mad, bad and dangerous to know. Herbert Lom (pictured with Berger) is quite good as Henry, if not quite as good as George Sanders was in 1945, and he gets a handful of Wilde quotations to spout, though not nearly enough to come off as especially witty. Richard Todd is fine as Basil and Marie Liljedahl makes a decent updated Sybil. An actor named Stuart Black is fine as Sybil's brother but he did not go on to an acting career. The look of the film is problematic; though many years are supposed to pass, the whole movie looks like it's set in the mid-sixties. For some reason, the ending here is changed. Instead of stabbing the portrait and falling dead, he stabs himself and falls dead before the restored portrait. I agree with the critics who wish this had been a sleazier feeling movie. Because Dorian mostly remains a handsome cipher, we don't much get concerned with his journey. Aka The Secret of Dorian Gray. [YouTube]

THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (1947)

In 1900 London, widow Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) has decided, one year after the death of her husband, to take her daughter Anna and move out of her mother-in-law's house and live in a small town on the coast. Angelica, the mother-in-law, and Eva, the spinster sister-in-law, are downright angry about her taking a stab at independence, maybe because her maid Martha is going with her. Lucy takes an interest in Gull Cottage, a lovely house which sits right on the seashore, but the local realtor tries to talk her out of it, and she is creeped out a bit by a painting of the former owner, a ship captain named Daniel Gregg, which she is hanging in a dark room. The realtor tells her that Gregg committed suicide and people who have tried to live in the house complain that it's haunted, and Lucy, almost taking the situation as a challenge, decides to stay. On her first night in the house, during a storm, the ghost of Gregg (Rex Harrison) appears. He's talkative but not necessarily friendly, and insists that he didn't kill himself but accidently knocked over a gas heater while falling asleep. They get used to the idea of each other and he decides to let her stay without bothering her, and promises that he can only be seen by her. They get used to each other's company until one day when Angelica and Eva visit to tell her that her gold mine investment has stopped paying dividends. They want her to come back to London and she doesn’t want to. Gregg has an idea: he will dictate the colorful story of his life to her and she can sell it to a publisher. She does, it's a hit, and she buys Gull Cottage outright. She also meets a children's book author (George Sanders) who writes as Uncle Neddy, and the two begin dating. The ghost gets jealous and warns her against Neddy, but he finally realizes that she needs to get on with life, so one night while she's sleeping, he decides to stop visiting, making her think that any memories she has of him are from dreams. Unfortunately, Neddy turns out to be a scoundrel—he's married with children. Will Gregg return, or will Lucy live out her days at Gull Cottage alone? The answer might surprise you.

This gentle fantasy was part of a postwar trend of movies about ghosts and angels meant to appeal to people who had lost loved ones in combat. Others include It's a Wonderful Life, The Bishop's Wife, The Uninvited, The Canterville Ghost, and with more direct wartime plots, A Guy Named Joe and A Matter of Life and Death. It has a comic touch but by the end, the overwhelming feeling is one of melancholy. [Spoilers:] Gregg never does return, and Lucy remains alone for many years with vague dreamy memories of him. When she dies, Gregg returns and walks with her into the mists of the afterlife. Is this a happy ending? In a way, I suppose, but I was sad for all those years when she might have been in contact with Gregg, as a friend even if romance was, as he claims, impossible. We see that her adult daughter remains in her life, as does the faithful Martha, but we know of no attempts at dating or even socializing that she does during all those years. I guess it left me with much the same feeling as I have at the end of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town: sadness leavened with a little hope. Tierney and Harrison have very good chemistry that stops just short of being truly romantic, though the longing is there just under the skin. I like Lucy's habit of using "Blast!" as a curse word like Gregg does. Some of his hardness rubs off on her, as does some of her softness on him. This feels largely like a two-character drama, even though there are good moments from Victoria Horne as the unlikable sister-in-law, Edna Best as Martha, and Robert Coote as the real estate agent. Natalie Wood is the daughter though she only has a couple of short scenes. The old-age makeup on Tierney is quite well done. Directed competently if without much style or atmosphere by Joseph Mankiewicz. The cinematography is by Charles Lang, and some shots here remind me of shots in The Uninvited, which Lang also did. Of all the supernatural movies listed above, this one has a unique and ambiguous tone. Recommended, though it’s not one I watch as often as some of those others. [DVD]

HARLOW (1965; 2 versions)

Jean Harlow was probably the first sex symbol of the sound movie era. In the 1930s she made over twenty movies, was a box office champ, and mostly played ditzy blondes, though in real life, she was apparently nothing like that. She died in 1937 at the age of 26 due to kidney failure, under circumstances that were never officially clarified. For many years, she remained an object of pop culture interest. In 1964, Irving Shulman published a scandalous tell-all biography of Harlow that became a best-seller, though in the years that followed, most of what he wrote has been shown to be based on rumors or untruths. In 1965, two biopics of her were released, both titled Harlow. The film from Paramount, which starred Carroll Baker, was officially based on the Shulman book but wound up almost totally fictionalized, using very few real characters. The film from Magna, a lower budget affair starring Carol Lynley, hewed a bit closer to the historical record, depicting several real people (Marie Dressler, Louis B. Mayer, Laurel & Hardy), but was shot in what was dubbed Electronovision, having been recorded on video tape and transferred to film, and the image was dark and murky. Neither version was a hit but both followed similar narratives and featured hazy biographical tidbits that continue to be accepted by some as true.

The Paramount film with Carroll Baker has a big studio gloss to it. We meet Harlow as a struggling movie extra doing minor slapstick bits. Her mother (Angela Lansbury, only six years older than Baker) is a driving stage mother and her stepfather (Raf Vallone) is a freeloader who is presented as having lust in his heart for Jean. She finds an agent, Arthur Landau (Red Buttons), who is the good guy of the movie, getting her big breaks and looking out for her mental health when he can—he says she has "the body of a woman and the emotions of a child." (Landau co-wrote the Shulman book and by all accounts, comes out here as way more important than he really was.) She is signed by the fictional Majestic Studios, becomes a star and has a relationship with an actor (Mike Connors) but she marries producer Paul Bern (his real name, played by Peter Lawford) whom she discovers on their wedding night is impotent. He beats her up and eventually kills himself. This sends Harlow on a streak of alcoholic promiscuity (apparently not based on real life) and she dies of pneumonia. Despite the glossy surfaces, this suffers from a lack of real life details—none of the movies she made or the stars she acted with are real, though the Mike Connors character seems based on William Powell with whom she had a long term relationship. Baker looks the part but can't break out of the trappings of soap opera melodrama which overpower the movie, never quite bringing Harlow to life. Buttons, Lansbury and Connors are good as are Martin Balsam and Leslie Nielsen in smaller parts. Pictured at left are Baker and Buttons. [TCM] 

The Magna film, which uses more real names, begins with Harlow (Carol Lynley, at right) doing small roles for Laurel and Hardy. Actor William Mansfield (this film's version of William Powell, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) mocks her ambitions to be more than a sexy extra, but he comes in and out of her life and eventually encourages her in her career. Mom (Ginger Rogers) and Stepdad (Barry Sullivan) remain stereotyped figures, only out for what they can get from Jean. She becomes a star and gets career advice from grand old acting lady Marie Dressler (Hermione Baddley) with whom Harlow appeared in Dinner at Eight. MGM is not mentioned but Louis B. Mayer signs her to a contract. She marries Paul Bern (Hurd Hatfield), still impotent but no longer a physical bully, even though she calls him a "pathetic cripple." Again, the drinking (mixed with gambling) and promiscuity. She turns her back on her career, studying acting briefly with Maria Ouspenskya, returns to Hollywood and seems to be back on the road to success when she becomes ill—no explanation given—and dies a glamorous Hollywood death. As with the Baker film, soap opera is the rule and her life is treated with no real understanding or detail. Lynley is slightly better than Baker, but neither one is very good. Zimbalist is fine, but Rogers almost fades into the background in a role that should have had more energy. The most obvious problem with this movie is the video shooting. It was filmed in eight days, so it could be released a month before Paramount's version, and it looks rushed, with long takes and some uncomfortable close-ups. The film is difficult to find, and unfortunately the print on Amazon Prime is awful; it’s in pan-and-scan and was clearly taped off of a TV showing with a huge loss of visual detail. Both films seem to have been largely forgotten, and even Harlow herself is mostly unknown today except to film buffs, despite her being name-checked in Madonna’s 1990 hit song "Vogue." If you don't already know Harlow, my advice would be to skip both of these movies and catch her on TCM where her movies still show up with some regularity. Most of her MGM output is also available on home video. [Amazon Prime]

GIRL IN THE HEADLINES (1963)

At the opening, we seem to be witnessing a fashion shoot of a sexy female model asleep in a chair, but actually it's a crime scene: the girl, Ursula, was shot dead in her apartment and the police are taking photos. Leading the investigation are Inspector Birkett and Sgt. Saunders. The only clues found at the apartment are the gun, hidden in the toilet tank, and a ball point pen found outside. Because of an annoying barking dog upstairs, the two interview her neighbor, a popular TV actor named David Dane whom Birkett suspects of being gay. Other persons of interest include Ursula's mother, Mrs. Gray, who has been more or less estranged from her daughter ever since Ursula had an abortion in her teen years; Perlita, another model; Perlita's husband Hammond and his brother Jordan who have some shady connections about town. Clues lead the cops to a gambling club called Blakeney's where an older woman named Lavalle, a former opera singer (of whom Birkett is a fan), is glimpsed looking ashamed to be seen there. I took lots of plot summary notes but they don't really need to be summarized here except to note that, before all is said and done, there is a visit to a rather sad little gay bar where another murder occurs, some blackmail attempts, and the discovery of a drug smuggling ring. Most of these wind up being red herrings, and the final solution to the reason behind the murder of Ursula is a true surprise.

The word that comes to my mind in thinking about this British mystery film is “likable.” Despite the fairly sordid circumstances in which most of the characters are engaged (and, despite the American title, The Model Murder Case, Ursula is more known as a high class call girl than a model), this is a briskly paced, if somewhat cluttered, cop movie, and the two cops are the main draw here. Ian Hendry, as Birkett, is excellent as a good-natured and thoughtful family man (a young Jane Asher plays his daughter). He shares, with the film, a slight homophobic bent; when Birkett's wife wonders if David Dane might have wanted to marry Ursula, he replies that "Dane might like to be married to me." The scene in the gay bar ends with all the patrons getting arrested despite the fact that absolutely nothing untoward was going on. Of course, it’s worth remembering that homosexual acts were still illegal in Britain until 1967. Before his looks got thick and craggy, apparently from alcoholism, Hendry was a handsome man and he commands the screen well. His sidekick Saunders is played by Ronald Fraser who, with his beefy face and squinty eyes, might have been pegged as comic relief; though he does a bit of that here, he's mostly taken seriously and is respected by Birkett. The two have a great bantering chemistry and I would love to have seen them reprise their roles. Jeremy Brett, later famous as Sherlock Holmes on British television, is almost shockingly handsome as Jordan; Peter Arne plays his brother. Margaret Johnston, memorable in BURN, WITCH, BURN, has a couple of good moments as Ursula's mother, and James Villiers, who often played snooty types, is David Dane. The actress who plays Ursula, only seen as a corpse in the first few minutes, is uncredited and no one seems to have figured out who she was. Plot strands multiply though it all remains mostly easy to follow, and, somewhat oddly, as the movie features more action in its last twenty minutes, it also slows down a bit. Still, this is a delightful find. Pictured are Hendry and Fraser. [YouTube]