CAIRO (1963)

Major Pickering (George Sanders) arrives in Cairo seeming a bit paranoid. A career criminal who is getting on in years, he just got out of a Greek prison and he's in Cairo for one last job: stealing $250,000 worth of valuables from the King Tut exhibit at the Cairo Museum. His first stop is a visit to Willy, an old acquaintance who used to work as a safecracker for Pickering. Willy, now a family man, is reluctant to join up but the estimated amount of his take for just an hour's worth of work convinces him to help. Nicodemos, a slimy casino owner, is Pickering's chief contact and helps him find the rest of his crew, including Kuchuk, a shady businessman who puts up the cash for the operation, and Kerim, a coffee shop owner who will serve as the driver. Ali (Richard Johnson), a shifty hashish smoker with a belly-dancer girlfriend and who owes lots of money to some dangerous people, joins in, hoping to take his money and go back to his boyhood village along the Nile to reclaim his family's sugar cane farm. The robbery seems to go off without a hitch until the explosives they use to break into the museum resonate all over the neighborhood and set off alarms in the area. As you might predict, the best laid plans go awry, leading to tragic consequences for all. 

It took me until about the 30-minute mark to figure out that this is a remake of THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, with Sanders in the Sam Jaffe role, Walter Rilla (Kuchuk) in the Louis Calhern role, and Richard Johnson (Ali) in the Sterling Hayden part. Sanders is top billed, and he's fine, but it's Johnson (pictured) who is the heart of the movie, both his character and his acting. He could have played the part in a very surface way, looking tired and unhealthy, but he is absolutely riveting, even getting our sympathy despite his unwholesome aura. It's a bit astonishing to realize that Johnson played the relatively suave lead ghost hunter in THE HAUNTING the same year. Visually, this has a less urban look than most noir films—it was filmed on location in Cairo—but a handful of shots mirror closely some shots from ASPHALT, including the memorable ending. Though most of the roles are taken by British actors, many supporting parts are filled by Egyptian actors, including iconic Egyptian actress Faten Hamamah as Ali's girlfriend. The director, Wolf Rilla, is the brother of Walter Rilla. The film bogs down a bit in the middle, but it's worth sticking to the end, largely for Richard Johnson. [TCM]

DEAD EYES OF LONDON (1961)

Blind Jack, a creepy, burly, blind Tor Johnson lookalike, is stalking the foggy night streets of London. He grabs a man walking in the fog and throws him into a waiting van. The man is later found dead in the River Thames, and it's assumed that he was wandering drunk in the fog and fell in, but the coroner finds that he was killed before he hit the water, and is part of a string of recent deaths of older men all of whom had recently taken out insurance policies with one company. Because pieces of paper inscribed in braille are found on the bodies, Inspector Holt (Joachim Fuchsberger) suspects the killings are the work of Blind Jack who has a violent reputation. Holt goes to a church which functions as a home for blind pensioners where Blind Jack has been known to stay, and asks for help from the Reverend Dearborn (who is also blind) and his assistant Nora. The insurance company, owned by Stephen Judd, is also investigated. Supposedly, the payout from the policies go to charity, but suspicions remain, especially when Judd's assistant is a creepy guy named Edgar (Klaus Kinski). This German krimi is based on an Edgar Wallace novel that provided the basis for the American B-film THE HUMAN MONSTER (aka Dark Eyes of London). The plots play out similarly, though this version is stuffed with more characters and plotlines that it can really balance. Both films also have a horror movie look and feel, but they are both fairly traditional urban crime stories. This one, directed by Alfred Vohrer, has an interesting, somewhat gimmicky visual style with some surprising shots including one which, for no apparent purpose, is from inside the mouth of a man using a waterpik. It seems like a 3D stunt, but the movie was never in 3D. There is also a memorable death scene in an elevator, a TV set with an attack gun inside, and the breaking of light bulbs with bare hands to facilitate the murders—the playing of Beethoven's 5th is what sets Blind Jack on his sinister missions. Fuchsberger is fine as usual, reliable if not exciting, and Karin Baal is a slightly better than average damsel in distress. Eddi Arent is again serviceable comic relief as an assistant Scotland Yard detective who knits. Ady Berber is memorable as Blind Jack—in real life, he was a pro wrestler and later ran a successful restaurant in Vienna. Dieter Borsche deserves mention as the blind minister. Not perhaps the best of the krimi lot, but quite watchable. Pictured are Fuchsberger and Arent. [YouTube]

THE THREE FANTASTIC SUPERMEN (1967)

Two things right off the bat about this Italian film: this is not a superhero movie (despite how it is sometimes described in blurbs) and it is great fun. Two men dressed in superhero tights and capes have pulled off a number of daring headline-making heists, and we see them in what looks to be another such heist, stealing jewels while fighting a bunch of armed men, though the guns are no good against the mens' bulletproof outfits. But then we discover that the brawl was actually a test set up by FBI man Brad Harris who wants to recruit the two men to help to rob a safe at the embassy of a newly established Mideast country which the FBI suspects of dealing in money laundering. One of the two, Tony Kendall is a handsome playboy (who someone refers to as Sir Anthony at one point); the other, Aldo Canti, is a deaf acrobat who communicates in grunts and giggles. Brad is given his own costume and the three pull off the embassy job for real. When Tony and Aldo decide they want more of the money than the FBI promised them, they steal some from under Brad's nose, but later Brad drops the bad news that all the money is counterfeit. When Brad is taken to meet Carlo Tamberlani, the professor who invented the bulletproof outfits, they all learn that another invention of the professor’s, a "universal reproducer," was stolen and is responsible for all the fake money. The machine can create duplicates of cash, gold, and even people, and the trio go after the master criminal who calls himself Golem, though in public, he's a philanthropist who runs the Golem Beneficent Foundation, a home for orphans. Golem is out to take over the world with his cloned materials, but when he duplicates a big batch of orphans and they are imperfect (reproduced as mirror images), their lives as well as the safety of the planet, depend on our Three Fantastic Supermen.

I'd hate to oversell this movie, which is kin to the Eurospy action flicks of the 1960s, but I did find it lots of fun. Harris and Kendall appeared together in the lightweight Kommissar X spy series and they basically reproduce their personae here—Kendall as the suave, cocky one, Harris (pictured at left) as the hunky, serious one. Aldo Canti, primarily a stunt man, adds a fun dimension to their chemistry; his athletic prowess causes Harris to nickname him Jumping Bean (and Kendall calls Harris “FBI”). At first, I thought his yips and laughs would get annoying, but I got used to them. His stunt work is great fun. Apparently in real life, Canti was involved to some degree in organized crime and he was found dead years later in what may have been an underworld killing. There is a rampant rumor that he was let out of jail to be in this film, but I doubt that. The charisma of the three leads sort of makes all the other performances somewhat forgettable, especially that of Jochen Brockmann as the not terribly threatening Golem—his primary asset is a goofy "heh, heh" laugh. There are also sexy ladies of varying loyalties, nice sets, and good fight scenes, including when two evil clones of Brad Harris come after his buddies, followed by the real Harris. 

There is excellent use of a trap door, and equally excellent use of a yo-yo type weapon that is deployed frequently against people and objects. When the clones are injured, they fall to the ground and break like glass (a cheap but fun effect). One scene of Kendall getting dressed turns into a short musical number. Golem's climactic act of villainy is to attempt to kill the orphans by locking them in a freezer. This conjures up an uncomfortable Holocaust-related sight when we look through a window in the small chamber at the frightened children corralled together, but that's a rare misstep in the movie—generally, it’s outlandish fun, and a kicky 60s score is the sprinkle on the donut. There were sequels, but none featuring the original three, though Brad Harris did return for one. This wasn’t released in the States until 1973, and was often presented as a kiddie matinee. The YouTube print is widescreen but a big smudgy; I’d love to see a pristine print of this. [YouTube]

ONCE A THIEF (1965)

One night, two men whose faces we don't quite see hold up a small convenience store in Chinatown, killing one of the proprietors, Mrs. Wing. Her husband glimpses one of their faces, hears one of the men call the other "Eddie," and sees them get into an old Model-A car to get away. Police detective Mike Vido (Van Heflin) is certain that the killer is Eddie Pedak (Alain Delon), an ex-con who Vido is certain shot him in the stomach years ago during a robbery attempt. Eddie, out of jail, gainfully employed, and struggling to provide for his wife Kris (Ann-Margret) and young daughter Kathy, insists he didn't do it, even though he does have a Model-A car. The bitter Vido picks him up and puts him in a lineup, but Mr. Wing insists the killer is not Eddie, so Vido has to let him go, while keeping a close eye on him. The arrest leads Eddie to getting fired, and when he discovers he's not eligible for unemployment, Kris decides to get a job at a nightclub. This frustrates Eddie, especially when he finds out that part of her job involves taking off her wedding ring and flirting with male customers. Out of prideful desperation, Eddie agrees to help his criminal brother Walter (Jack Palance) and a couple of thugs pull off one last job, stealing bars of platinum from a warehouse where Eddie used to work. Meanwhile, Vido comes to suspect that Walter's thugs killed Mrs. Wing and tried to frame Eddie. All the ingredients for a happy ending, right?

French actor Alain Delon, who passed away recently, is quite good in this, his first Hollywood lead (playing an Italian, no less), and is his usual reliably sexy self. He works up some heat with Ann-Margret who was trying to build a career in dramatic roles after her earlier successes in comedies and musicals (most notably in BYE BYE BIRDIE and VIVA LAS VEGAS), though eventually her role calls for her mostly to be hysterically upset over, first, her husband's attitudes, and second, the kidnapping of her daughter, played extremely well by six-year-old Tammy Locke who, in the face of all kinds of unpleasantries around her, remains chipper. I had a very hard time believing that Delon, one of the most handsome men in movies, would have a brother who looked like Palance, one of the most unattractive men in movies, and they never quite seem brotherly to me, but the important thing is that Palance come off as menacing and he does. But even more menacing are Walter's two lowlife associates: Sargatanas (John Davis Chandler, with a creepy ice-cold demeanor, white hair and a vocal delivery that suggests he is always strung out) and Shoenstein (Tony Musante, a thug with missing front teeth). It's really the two of them who bring most of the threatening behavior here. Equally interesting if not terribly important to the plot is Zekial Marko, who wrote the screenplay and original novel, as a small-time hood named Luke who is always under the influence of some illicit drug—his vocal delivery, provided by masterful voice artist Paul Frees, is truly unsettling. Heflin is fine as the world-weary cop who actually does want to do right, despite his prejudice against Eddie. This noir is shot in crisp black & white and has an effective jazz music score; the credit scene focuses on an energetic performance by a jazz drummer in a nightclub, intercut with strange bits of dialogue from audience members. It's certainly predictable and maybe a bit too long, but worth watching, not just for the stars but the supporting cast as well. Other ideas for Alain Delon tribute viewing: PURPLE NOON, LA PISCINE, and L'ECLISSE. [TCM]

HERCULES VS. MOLOCH—aka CONQUEST OF MYCENAE (1963)

Earthquakes cause the city of Mycenae to collapse in flaming destruction. The dying king, convinced that the city's worship of the dark god Moloch (using human sacrifices) has caused the destruction, asks Queen Demeter to move the city to a new location and allow its people to go back to worshiping the Earth Mother goddess. He also asks the pregnant queen to take his first born daughter Medea with her. Twenty years later, the worship of the Earth Goddess is allowed, but Queen Demeter still encourages the worship of Moloch, especially since her son was born horribly disfigured and she has installed him as the incarnation of Moloch. He remains hidden away in an underground chamber, wearing a scary metal mask (pictured at left). He is surrounded by half-naked women in chains (whom it's implied that he tortures), and his mom periodically brings him sacrifices from conquered lands. Strong man Glaucus from the threatened city of Tiryns poses as a conquered slave in order to infiltrate the city. In Mycenae, he calls himself Hercules (just because he can, I guess) and he's offered a job with the Queen's guard even as he makes contact with a group of resistance fighters. But when he clashes with Mycenaen general Penthius who tries to assault Medea (the Queen wants them to marry against Medea's wishes), Glaucus is tossed in with the other slaves in the gladiator pool, gets friendly with Medea, and has to try and save her when the Queen decides she'd make a good sacrifice. The climax is, as the title has prepared us for, a battle between Glaucus and Moloch.

This is a decent example of the "muscleman in loincloths" genre, with one major irritant in that they bother to have the lead guy call himself Hercules just so they could legitimately use the name in the title. The alternate title is more to the point, though even that isn't quite right—Mycenae is never really conquered; the entire time, it's run by royalty (some good, some bad) and at the end, it's not so much conquered as freed. But these movies rise and fall largely on their hero and Gordon Scott is fine. He played the 'real' Hercules later and was a very serious Tarzan. He's got the physique and some actual acting talent, a combination not always present in these films. This has the typical B-movie production values, and it looks like some of the special effects (death and destruction mostly) were inserted from other films. We don't see too much of Moloch, and when we do, the mask is actually more effective than the face make-up. The attempted sacrifice of Medea at the climax is nicely done. Pretty much a run-of-the-mill peplum flick. [YouTube]

THE STRANGER (1973)

Neil Stryker is an astronaut heading home from a deep space mission, but navigational problems put the last leg of his trip home in jeopardy. There is an accident of some sort that knocks Stryker unconscious, and when he wakes up, he is in a hospital bed. Though he feels alright, the kindly Dr. Revere tells him that his vehicle crashed, his fellow astronauts died, and that he;s too weak to be released yet. Neil begins to suspect that he is being held against his will by Russian agents—when he mentions the doctor's namesake Paul Revere, the doctor doesn’t know who that is. We find out that Stryker's paranoia is legitimate: he is being watched through a one-way mirror by Benedict, Revere's boss, and he's given drugs to sleep so he can be interrogated by Benedict. Stryker manages to escape and is shocked when a telephone operator claims to have never heard of Florida, and especially when he sees three moons in the sky that night. He soon discovers he is not on Earth but on a twin planet called Terra which is opposite Earth and never seen in the sky. The Terran civilization is awfully similar to Earth's but is ruled by something called the Perfect Order which prizes peace over free will—propaganda piped constantly over the radio includes the phrase "Live in harmony and peace." He meets an elderly bookstore owner who shows him history books that only go back 35 years to the establishment of the Perfect Order. Anyone who is unhappy with the government is taken to Ward E to be reprogrammed, (i.e. lobotomized). Even as Benedict tries to track Stryker down, Stryker falls in with a small group of rebels and is given hope that he'll be able to hitch a ride on a space rocket to get back to Earth. But the Perfect Order sees all…

This is a TV-movie from the golden age of such vehicles, and its open-ended conclusion is a sign that it was also a pilot for a show that would presumably focus on Stryker as he remains on the run, like The Fugitive. The cast includes a couple of grand old pros (Lew Ayers, Dean Jagger), one old pro cult figure (Cameron Mitchell as Benedict), busy character actor George Coulouris as the bookstore guy, and a good performance by Tim O'Connor as Dr. Revere. Glenn Corbett (pictured) is the mildly handsome leading man, but it often feels like he's sleepwalking through the proceedings—in the beginning, that befits his status of drugged captive, but his tone doesn't change much through the film. Sharon Acker is quite bland as the putative love interest (though things never get that far), and a day after I watched this, I could barely remember anything about her character. It's fine on a TV-movie level, and didn't really deserve the treatment that MST3K gave it under its later video release title, Stranded in Space. [YouTube]

BONJOUR TRISTESSE (1958)

[Spoilers included] In Paris (in black & white), we see young Cecile (Jean Seberg, at left) on a night on the town: she starts at an art show, then goes to find her father Raymond (David Niven) who is with his mistress Denise, then hangs out with Jacques in a club. The whole time she seems bored or dissatisfied, which we can tell from her actions and from her sad inner thoughts which we hear on the soundtrack. The title song ("Hello Sadness" in English) is sung in a nightclub by Juliette Greco, then a flashback begins and the film goes to color. It's last summer on the Riviera. Cecile is staying with her father (and Elsa, his young blonde mistress) in a house on the shore as she finishes up her classes, which she is in danger of flunking. While swimming, she runs across a young man, Philippe, whose canoe's mast has broken. She helps him to shore and these two very pretty people begin a casual fling. This summer idyll comes to an end with the surprising arrival of Anne (Deborah Kerr), a dress designer and old friend of Raymond's late wife. Raymond forgot that he invited her, and her straight-laced moral attitude disrupts their behavior. Slowly, sparks fly between Anne and Raymond, though she won't sleep with him unless they get married. Elsa is more or less kicked out of the house, and Anne, turning into a strict mother figure, tries to break up Cecile and Philippe. Angry because both of the men in her life, Philippe and Raymond, are alienated from her, Cecile begins plotting. First, she loses her virginity to Philippe, then she gets Elsa to come back and flirt with Raymond so that Anne will catch them together. Anne does, and driving off in a fury, she drives over a cliff, killing herself. Was it an accident or a suicide? Back in Paris in the present day, it doesn't seem to matter as both Raymond and Cecile are living the high life again.

This melodrama, based on a bestseller by 19-year-old Francoise Sagan, was seen as a vehicle for Otto Preminger to cement the reputation of 20-year-old Jean Seberg, whom he had introduced the year before in Saint Joan, which was a flop. Seberg's mannered performance was disliked by many critics, but I think it works quite well here. It keeps the character at a distance which makes it difficult to judge her for her machinations—is her behavior because she's young and spoiled, or is she mentally unbalanced, or is she just acting out and accidentally causing harm? Of course, that all overlooks her intimate relationship with her father. Jeffrey Kauffman at Blu-ray.com uses the term "platonic incest" for this pair and I think that nails it. Niven and Seberg play them as very close, but I didn't read any sexual tension between the two, though clearly they are too close, given that Seberg short-circuits any other relationship that one of them gets involved in. Seberg is beautiful and wholesomely sexy in her looks, Kerr is worldly but pinched off emotionally. Niven is middle-age-playboy attractive, but we shouldn't forget that if he hadn't betrayed Kerr, even if it was just a playful incident, the tragedy wouldn't have played out like it did, no matter how Seberg arranged things. Mylene Demongeot (Elsa) and Geoffrey Horne (Philippe, at right) are good looking and relatively innocent, and I wish they had been developed a bit more; both of them are used and get hurt to some degree but we're sure they'll rebound. I assume the Paris scenes are in black & white for easy identification, as they pop up periodically throughout the flashback. The location shooting is gorgeous. I liked this much more than I expected to; ultimately, it's a pretty-people soap opera, but it's entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking. [Criterion Channel]

HIGH PRESSURE (1932)

Mike is searching for his buddy, promoter Gar Evans, by calling every bar, club and whorehouse in the area. Francine, his mistress, says he left days ago to buy cigarettes and never returned—though she's used to these shenanigans from him. Eventually, Gar turns up, unshaven and passed out in the back room of a bar. As Mike gets him sober, shaven and steady on his feet, he tells Gar that a man named Ginsberg knows an inventor who has come up with a formula for making rubber out of sewage, and he wants Gar to come up with a money-making plan. Right away, Gar is up and running: he comes up with a name (The Golden Gate Artificial Rubber Company); hires Clifford, a homeless friend, to pose as the president; rents an entire floor in an office building and talks the landlord into renaming the building after the company;  hires a bunch of salesman, and makes them attend a seminar on selling (given, of course, by him); and even gets Francine to help out. The company gets investors right away, but a major problem arises when Ginsberg can't find the inventor. When he does, it turns out the inventor is a crackpot. What's a shyster promoter to do to save his ass? This is a fast-paced pre-Code comedy with a good cast and fun plot. William Powell brings his usual delightful light touch to the role of Gar, who we really shouldn't be rooting for, but we do. George Sidney (not to be confused with the George Sidney who directed Bye Bye Birdie) exaggerates the Jewish humor a bit with the character of Ginsberg—a type of characterization that ended with the whitewash of the Production Code in 1934—but he's fun, as are Frank McHugh as Mike and the always reliable Guy Kibbee as the mostly befuddled Clifford. Evalyn Knapp and Ben Alexander are fine as a secondary romantic couple. The only real weak link is Evelyn Brent as the mistress, who plays the part in a cranky monotone. Harry Beresford, as the inventor, gets a very funny moment near the end, and it's a nice touch to have him with a "inventor's degree" that he got years ago from a bogus diploma mill run by Gar. Pictured are Powell and Brent. [TCM]

COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN (1960)

First things first: 1) There is no one named Colossus in this movie. There is no one who even looks like he might be called Colossus; 2) The movie is mostly a comedy, a mild parody of the typical sword and sandal film. We meet our heroes, two veterans of the Trojan War, at an athletic competition that looks more like a frat boy free-for-all than an Olympics game. Glaucus (Ed Fury) is a lithe blond muscle man and Pirro (Rod Taylor) is his less beefy but still hunky buddy. That night, during an actual frat boy (or ancient Greek equivalent) free-for-all in a tavern, two merchants hire the buddies to board a ship and keep watch on the treasure being transported. But it's a trick: the merchants drug the crew and take them to an island where the merchants collect treasures left on the beach and leave the men. Our heroes have been caught up in what might be called a human trafficking scheme. The tribe of Amazon women on the island have turned their men into domestic workers while the women are the ruling class and the warriors. We see two men doing laundry and bitching quite queenily about being stuck at home doing housework. The kidnapped sailors are used as manual labor slaves (and, we assume, sex slaves on the side). Glaucus strikes sparks with Antiope whom he first sees swimming nude, but the cranky Melitta wants him put to death for being too cocky. Antiope saves him by claiming him as her concubine, so to speak. But there is a dangerous context here: the Amazon Queen of the movie's title (a supporting character at best) is thinking of giving up the throne, perhaps partly because the queen must be chaste. Antiope and Alitta are in the running for the title, and Alitta steals the Girdle of Aphrodite which is part of the transference ceremony for the title of queen. Pirro sees her hide it and he takes it, blackmailing Melitta into claiming him as her lover. Eventually, pirates arrive to plunder the island by using tall palm trees to catapult themselves into the walled city, and the enslaved men help the Amazons defend themselves, leading to, perhaps, a more equal society, and to the queen deciding it's OK for the leader of the Amazons to have sex.

My plot details differ from the details in some other online summaries, and I can't actually vouch for the accuracy of my summary because there were occasional plotholes and unexplained bits of business. But plot details aren't terribly important here when you've got the following: hunky men in togas and women in outfits that expose one breast (albeit covered with colored silk); a man fighting a bear; three men in skimpy loincloths leading a production number with choreography that reminded me of “Cool” from West Side Story (pictured); a pirate who says he's from Southern Greece and then proceeds to claim some of the Amazons by saying, "Y'all is my women now!" (That may have been a deliberate joke, but it's hard to tell.) Ed Fury and Rod Taylor make a nice buddy team. Fury is a somewhat colorless hero, but Taylor is quite game for the rowdy comedy—he even gets to be a little femme when he gives fashion tips to the Amazons. Sadly, his familiar voice is dubbed by another actor, and all the dubbing is terrible. An actress who goes by the name Dorian Gray plays Melitta. The score is quite bizarre (possibly on purpose) with snatches of cocktail hour music heard next to more traditional action movie music. The pan-and-scanned print on the Alpha video I watched is in awful shape, and I liked this just enough to wish there was a legit widescreen version available. If you give yourself over to the ridiculous proceedings, you’ll eventually find yourself smiling and not feeling too guilty when it's over. [DVD]

THE GREAT VICTOR HERBERT (1939)

A young understudy goes on in the lead role in an operetta written and conducted by the famous Victor Herbert. She's in good voice, but seems at sea onstage until she sees someone in the audience who calms her down. We then flash back several years to see small town girl Louise Hall (Mary Martin) in New York City, sending a letter to her hometown boyfriend to say she's giving up on forging a singing career in New York City. But that afternoon, she gets tangled up with a mass of people in the streets who are serenading Victor Herbert (Walter Connolly) on his birthday. John Ramsey (Allan Jones), a lead singer in Herbert's shows, is impressed, both with her voice and her looks, and takes her into Herbert's home for an unofficial audition. Dick (Lee Bowman), the hometown boyfriend working on building a practice as a pediatrician, comes to the big city to bring her home, but by now, Louise is on her way to a successful musical career, and also being actively romanced by John, which makes his former gal Marie jealous. John's manager Barney (Jerome Cowan) watches things play out with a jaundiced eye; when John says he intends to marry Louise, Barney warns him that getting married might cost him his female fans (just as the Beatles were warned in the 1960s). Sure enough, as her career rises, his falls and their marriage suffers until they finally separate. As we return to the beginning of the movie, we realize that the terrified young singer is Louise and John's daughter Peggy. As understudy to her mother, she has taken over Louise's role and she overcomes her fears when she sees her estranged father in the theater, who joins her onstage.

As all reviewers of this film will tell you, and as you might figure out from my summary, this is not, despite its title, a biopic about Victor Herbert who wrote operas, operettas, and musical plays, perhaps best known now for his shows Babes in Toyland and Naughty Marietta. This film is stuffed with Herbert songs like "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" and "Toyland," but Herbert himself is a distinctly minor character. This is actually a Gilded Age 'Star is Born' story whose main appeal now would be that it features a rare appearance by Broadway star Mary Martin (Peter Pan, South Pacific, The Sound of Music). Martin's film career never really took off, perhaps because it was difficult for her to find a niche on the Hollywood treadmill (to mix metaphors, I suppose). In some of her films, she was basically presented as a novelty act (see her rendition of "Hit the Road to Dreamland," a highlight of STAR SPANGLED RHYTHM) but when playing characters, she seemed a bit stiff and, frankly, sexless. She's fine here in her first movie, but she lacks star charisma—and her leading man Allan Jones isn't much more winning in the personality department. Walter Connelly is colorless as Herbert who pops in and out just enough for us to remember that he is a character. The standouts are Lee Bowman as the jilted boyfriend (who also pops in and out of the narrative) and Susanna Foster in the small role of Peggy. Jerome Cowan is fine in the mostly thankless role of the manager. This seems to have vanished from the legit world of home entertainment (no VHS or DVD releases that I could track down) but a decent print is available on YouTube, recommended only if you're already a Mary Martin fan. Pictured are Connelly, Martin and Jones. [YouTube]

HOW AWFUL ABOUT ALLAN (1970)

Allan (Anthony Perkins, pictured) wakes up in the night to find the family house on fire. He is urged by his sister Katherine (Julie Harris) to save their father, but Allan freezes. Katherine runs into Dad's room but the flames have engulfed the room, and it's possible the fire was caused by Allan leaving a can of paint too close to his dad's space heater. Dad dies, Katherine's face is scarred, and Allan winds up with psychosomatic blindness. Months later as Allan is about to be released from the hospital, his doctor tells him that he needs to overcome his guilt over his father's death and his sister's scarring to regain his sight. He goes back to the family house to live with his sister who seems to have adjusted well and wants to help Allan recover, which also feeds into Allan's guilt. Also staying in the house to help with expenses is a graduate student named Harold who, due to a throat injury, speaks with a pronounced rasp. We never see his face except when we see him through Allan's eyes, and then all we see is a murky blur. Allan's former fiancée Olive (Joan Hackett) shows up to lend a helping hand, but Allan begins sinking into paranoid fantasies (or are they?) involving Harold whispering his name and spying on him at night. Katherine's former boyfriend Eric has moved to Australia, but Olive reports seeing him around town. And guess what: he has a throat injury just like Harold. Is Harold Eric? Is Katherine getting revenge on Allan for her disfigurement? And is Olive part of it? This horror film from the golden age of TV-movies is pretty tame but generally works as a mood piece. Even at the relatively short length of 75 minutes, it's a bit slow, but luckily revelations into motives and backgrounds keep popping up, and though there are some plotholes, it has a satisfying ending, though I don’t really like the gimmicky final moment. Perkins isn't given much stretching to do in his acting—he's just another less deadly version of Norman Bates—but we're in good hands. Harris doesn't seem totally committed to her part, and Joan Hackett has a fairly thankless role. Classic-era actor Kent Smith (Cat People) appears briefly in a flashback as the father. Cult director Curtis Harrington (NIGHT TIDE, QUEEN OF BLOOD, GAMES) handles this one as an assignment and not an inspired personal work, but it’s entertaining enough. [YouTube]

THE LOST MOMENT (1947)

Famous author Jeffrey Ashton disappeared mysteriously back in 1843. Many years later, American publisher Lewis Venable (Robert Cummings) hears from poet Charles Russell that Ashton's lover Juliana may still be alive, albeit over 100 years old, and may be in possession of infamous love letters from Ashton that have been long sought by publishers. Lewis goes to Venice and contacts Charles who puts him in touch with Juliana (Agnes Moorehead). Very old and feeble, but in need of money, she agrees to let Lewis, who is posing as a writer, rent a room at her villa. The old woman's grand-niece and caretaker Tina (Susan Hayward) is not happy about the situation, and the family priest, a sort of unofficial caretaker from afar, tells Lewis that the two women live in a fragile balance. As Lewis tries to soften both Juliana and Tina up as he searches for the letters, life in the decaying villa takes on a Gothic aura, what with mysterious piano music, a wandering cat, a blackmail attempt by Charles, and the startling discovery that Tina has a split personality: at night, the uptight Tina literally lets her hair down and takes on the earthier persona of the young Juliana, and begins flirting with Lewis, thinking that he is Jeffrey Ashton. When Lewis talks to the priest about this, the priest suggests that if Tina could find love with someone in real life, she might be cured of her disorder. Could Lewis, who is in the house under false pretenses, be that person? What will he do if he does indeed find the love letters? And can he figure out what happened to Ashton?

This is a very loose adaptation of Henry James' novella The Aspern Papers. The basic situation is the same but the movie is much more melodramatic, especially at the end. The best things about this movie are the elaborate sets and the Gothic atmosphere, conjuring up, on occasion, movies like GASLIGHT and REBECCA. The script, as melodramatic as it gets, is fine, but the performances could be better. Cummings is a lightweight who can get by in comedy but not much else (the exception is THE BLACK BOOK) and he's not really convincing here; he mistakes passivity for subtlety and more or less sleepwalks through the movie until the end. Agnes Moorehead is present in only a handful of scenes, mostly shot from behind (perhaps because the filmmakers didn't trust her old-age make-up, she's only seen clearly in a couple of shots) so she is not used to her full potential. Hayward (pictured with Cummings) is OK, but she has only two modes: severe and repressed (as Tina) or wild and sexy (as her alter ego), so the part doesn't feel fully inhabited. John Archer is good as Charles Russell, as is Eduardo Ciannelli as the priest, but neither has terribly much to do. This is the only movie directed by Martin Gabel, better known (if at all nowadays) as a Broadway producer and a panelist on TV's What’s My Line, along with his famous wife Arlene Francis. For all its actorly problems, it's a very watchable movie. I'd certainly watch another movie by Gabel. [Blu-Ray]