THE TERRORNAUTS (1967)

In England, Simon Oates is the head of Project Startalk, a small group of scientists who are searching for radio transmissions that might come from intelligent life in space. Oates was inspired by a childhood incident in which a strange, possibly alien, black box artifact dug up by his archeologist uncle triggered a vivid dream vision of being on a barren planet with two moons. For years, their progress reports have been singularly empty and Max Adrian, the cranky bureaucrat in charge of their funding, gives them ninety days to get concrete results or lose the project. Later, Oates and his colleagues (Zena Marshall and Stanley Meadows) discover a repeating transmission coming from the asteroid belt, though Adrian says that an asteroid is very unlikely to support life. That evening, while an accountant (Charles Hawtrey) is going through their books and a tea cart lady (Patricia Hayes) is dispensing beverages, a giant spaceship appears in the sky and pulls their small building up into space and attaches it to the bottom of the ship. A spindly Dalek-like creature seems to be testing their intelligence, though the humans suspect that it may be merely an "ultrasonic hallucination." They also run across the body of a long-dead humanoid, and soon stumble (literally) onto a transporter platform that sends them to a planet that is exactly like what the young Oates saw in his vision, which serves as a warning about a fleet of advanced aliens who will likely attack Earth soon. The black box that Oates had as a child is a repository of knowledge and power, and several are given to the earthlings; can they master the boxes and beat back the coming attack?

Doctor Who meets Thunderbirds in this rather juvenile low-budget sci-fi film from Amicus, a rival of Hammer Studios in the 60s and 70s. In fact, the whole thing is so silly that I'm surprised this wasn't a pilot for a kiddie TV series. Weirdly, the script is by John Brunner, a respected SF author who won a Hugo just a couple of years later for Stand on Zanzibar, an experimental novel which is still in print, and it's based on a novel by Murray Leinster, a pulp writer whose books also remain available. The plot may have some good ideas, such as the boy's vision and the concept of the black boxes, and the theme of aliens communicating to warn us about some danger is interesting, but the cheap production values (especially the Space Invaders climax) and the strained comic relief of the accountant and the tea lady hurt the film. Charles Hawtrey was a British comic actor well known for his participation on the Carry On series of comedies from 1958 to 1972, though I know him for a shoutout he gets on the Beatles' Let It Be album ("I Dig a Pygmy by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf-Aids"). Patricia Hayes has a small part as the dog-walking old lady in A Fish Called Wanda. They add nothing much to the narrative except as the voices of non-scientists; I didn't get too irritated by them but I could have done without them. In a different era, they might have been played by Edward Everett Horton and Una O'Connor (thanks to my husband for that insight). Simon Oates' performance doesn't get much critical love, but I thought he was a good low-key hero. The other two actors practically vanish while they're on screen, but again, they don't give offense. Posters for the film reference a "virgin sacrifice to the gods," which is a 20-second scene that leads nowhere. Favorite line: Oates says, "The laws of the universe weren't made by an accountant," and Hawtrey drily replies, "Pity." Despite the title, there isn't really a moment of terror here. [Streaming]

I, JANE DOE (1948)

Stephen Curtis is found shot to death, and the apparent killer is a European woman who refuses to give her name or indeed any explanation at all. She is put on trial as Jane Doe, doesn't testify, and is found guilty and sentenced to death. She promptly faints in the courtroom, and when it's discovered that she is pregnant, her execution is delayed. Stephen's widow Eve, a former lawyer, returns to her practice to defend Jane in a retrial, granted due to her pregnancy. In court, Jane finally identifies herself as Mrs. Stephen Curtis. Flashbacks to the beginning of the war show that Eve and Stephen were happy until evidence cropped up suggesting that Stephen had been unfaithful. Before Eve can think the situation through, Stephen is drafted and sent to France where his plane is shot down and Jane, whose real name is Annette, saves him from the Nazis who are hunting him. They fall in love and marry (with Annette not knowing this makes him a bigamist), with Stephen saying he'll take her back to the States once he's released from the service. The end of the war comes but Stephen doesn't; instead he asks for an annulment, so Annette gets a forged passport and heads to New York City. Stephen is surprised to see Annette, Annette is surprised to see Eve, and Eve is, well, that might be a spoiler. Suffice to say that a confrontation occurs leaving Stephen dead and the two women in a potentially sticky situation. Much of this narrative, including the ending, strains credibility, especially for anyone with much knowledge of the American legal system. As a B-movie courtroom thriller, it works OK. Ruth Hussey is the standout cast member as Eve, acting kind of like a feminist icon here: sly, powerful, dignified. I can't remember if we ever get an explanation as to why Eve didn't testify about the case's background from the beginning (she may have been out of the country), but it feel like a contrived situation. John Carroll, a favorite B-lead of mine, is attractive and slimy as Stephen. Gene Lockhart goes a bit against his grain as the occasionally angry prosecutor. John Howard and Benay Venuta are fine in supporting roles. Most critics find Vera Ralston, as Jane, to be a problem. Ralston's lack of talent made her the butt of jokes in Hollywood, and she is stiff and unnatural here, but I thought that more or less fit the character, a simple country woman who gets into things above her head, and she spends much of the film looking like a deer in headlights. The narrative structure, with two long flashback sequences, is interesting, but the plot itself is bland and developed in a by-the-numbers way. How to wrap this up? Rarely exciting, sometimes straining credibility, but watchable. A must for Ruth Hussey fans. Pictured are Carroll and Hussey. [YouTube]

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (1940)

Playboy John Howard has just paid out $100,000 to settle yet another breach of promise lawsuit and has to break it to eccentric scientist John Barrymore that he can no longer finance Barrymore's projects, the latest of which involves making living beings invisible. But Barrymore has already placed an ad in the newspaper looking for a willing subject for his experiment. Virginia Bruce, a dress model, applies, thinking of it as a fun adventure. Her boss (Charles Lane) is a despicable bully and she plans on getting revenge against him while invisible. The experiment is a success and the invisible (and naked) Bruce goes to the office and literally kicks Lane's ass until he promises to be a better boss. Meanwhile, wanted gangster Oscar Homolka, in hiding in a Mexican border town, gets wind of the device and sends his thugs to steal it so he can turn invisible and return home. Barrymore takes Bruce to Howard's hunting lodge to prove his machine works. After some visible and invisible flirtation, the two fall for each other, and when Bruce gets a little drunk, Barrymore soon discovers that ingesting alcohol makes the invisibility last longer than it should. When the crooks get hold of the machine, slapstick scenes ensue until the machine is recovered and Howard decides to abandon his playboy ways and settle down with Bruce.

I first saw this on TV when I was a young horror movie fan and I was very disappointed to find that, despite being considered a sequel to the Universal horror classic The Invisible Man, it's not horror at all, but a kind of sci-fi screwball comedy. Watching it as an adult, I actually found the whole thing fairly delightful. The titillation factor (considering the era in which it was made) is high; much is made of Bruce being naked for most of the film, though of course we never actually see any skin because, well, she's invisible. Instead, there are several scenes of her getting dressed or undressed in addition to the various special effects, similar to the ones used in the 1933 original and its first sequel. The cast is pretty much B-level, but they're more than up to the task of giving fizzy performances. Bruce, one of my favorite B-actresses, is very good (and very attractive) in the title role; Howard is fine, Lane is nicely mean until he reforms, and Edward Brophy and Donald McBride are in good form as Homolka's bumbling goons. Barrymore, who had fallen on hard times due to his drinking, still manages to give a solid comic performance, and actually has more screen time with Bruce than Howard does. However, the most fun comes from Charlie Ruggles as Howard's butler who doesn't have a lot to do but is present for much of the film and always drily funny. Margaret Hamilton (pictured with Barrymore) has a small role as does Mary Gordon who was Sherlock Holmes’ landlady in the Basil Rathbone movies. Things bog down a bit in the middle at the lodge, but overall, at 72 minutes, the pace is about right. [Blu-ray]

SANDOKAN THE GREAT (1963)

In Victorian era British Malay, Lord Hillock's forces have ruled using brutal treatment of the natives. We see the execution by firing squad of three rebels who shout the name of the rebel pirate Sandokan as they die. The local sultan is being held in jail and his son Sandokan has vowed to free his father. His plan is to kidnap Hillock's niece Mary Ann and hold her hostage. His chief assistant, the Portuguese Yanez, impersonates a British messenger and tells Hillock that Sandokan is dead, which results in the British letting down their guard and allowing Sandokan and his men to get away with the niece. She is, of course, indignant, but a few things change her opinion about Sandokan: she learns his mission, she discovers that Hillock was responsible for the death of Yanez's wife, and Sandokan saves her from a tiger attack. Oh yeah, and they fall in love. As Sandokan's group heads for a sea escape, the British follow, aided by a traitor among the rebels. Yanez is wounded and gangrene is about to set in when they wind up in a native village and a blue-haired witch doctor woman applies mildew (which we know is related to penicillin) to the wound, saving his life. Eventually Sandokan is captured and set to be executed, but with the help of Yanez and Mary Ann and, most importantly, the natives, the British are sent packing after a number of them are slaughtered, with the natives left in charge of the area and Mary Ann staying with the wandering Sandokan.

Sandokan is a pulp fiction pirate hero from a series of Italian novels. Largely because Steve Reeves plays Sandokan, this movie is often classed as a sword and sandal (peplum) film even though it’s set in the 19th century, has more guns than swords, no sandals, and few bare chests—though we do see Reeves shirtless for a split second. As a pulpy anti-colonial adventure story, it works well enough. Reeves, dressed more like an Arabian Nights character than a pirate, is fine as a heroic lead; he'd only make two more movies before retiring from the screen, still in his 40s and still looking good. Genevieve Grad is a bit lightweight as Mary Ann, seeming more like a college girl than a member of the British ruling class. Better are Andrea Bosic as Yanez, Sandokan's chief support, and Rik Battaglia as Sambigliong, a native associate who actually is shirtless for much of the movie. A handsome fellow named Mario Valdemarin plays one of Hillock's men. There's a good attack scene early on, a not-so-good tiger attack, pulled off with a stuffed tiger, and a great kick-ass action sequence in the last ten minutes with Reeves manning a gatling gun and slaughtering Brits by the dozen. Location filming in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) is an asset. Good Saturday afternoon entertainment. [DVD]

THE FAT MAN (1951)

At a dental conference at a Manhattan hotel, California dentist Dr. Bromley is attacked and thrown out of a window to his death on the sidewalk below. The official police verdict is accidental fall, but his nurse Jane (Jayne Meadows) suspects foul play, especially because a set of dental x-rays was stolen. She approaches private detective Brad Runyon (J. Scott Smart) whom Bromley had an appointment to see. Known as the Fat Man for his large size and his love of gourmet food—we see him give a cooking demonstration as though it were a medical operation—he is reluctant to get involved until Jane and his associate Bill (Clinton Sundberg) are attacked. Jane relates the odd story of Roy Clark (Rock Hudson), the patient whose x-rays were stolen: he arrived one day looking disheveled and confused and needing a tooth pulled. A week later, he appeared in the office to pay for his extraction, dressed in nice clothes with a wad of cash and a chauffeur. Back in California, some interesting discoveries are made. Roy met a woman named Pat (Julie London) in a bar and they hit it off. He tells her of his criminal past: he served time for an armored car robbery though his accomplices escaped. When he was released, he went to Gene Gordon (John Russell), the planner of the robbery and now a respectable ranch owner, though the local police are sure he's got connections to the underworld. Gene gave Roy some money, but not his full share of the robbery dough, and now Roy is missing. Runyon tracks down Roy's former cellmate, Ed Deets, now a clown at an amphitheater circus. When Jane is murdered because of her suspicions, Brad and Bill have to get serious in order to get the guilty parties.

The Fat Man was a radio show character created by Dashiell Hammett and voiced by Smart, who plays him here. Smart is OK, amusing and light on his feet (especially in a short dance scene with Pat), but he lacks the gravitas and charisma of someone like Sydney Greenstreet who could have done this part in his sleep. Clinton Sundberg is fun as the doofusy but reliable assistant, Jayne Meadows is a standout as the nurse, and I like B-actor John Russell as the shady Gene. But the real standouts here are sultry singer Julie London and hunk Rock Hudson in one of his earliest featured roles. Later, Hudson acquired a veneer of seriousness even in his fluffy romantic comedies with Doris Day, but here he is fresh and baby-faced and casually sexy and is quite good. London gives her role some depth, and I'm sorry that both actors have somewhat limited screen time. Jerome Cowan is fine as the cop, and real-life clown celebrity Emmett Kelly is surprisingly subtle in a rare dramatic role as Ed Deets. There are characters named Pinky and Shifty and Happy, and both Brad and Bill call everyone "Sweetheart." Though Smart is adequate, I don't think he could have carried a Fat Man series, even a second feature series. Pictured are London and Hudson. [YouTube]

THE DEVIL BAT’S DAUGHTER (1946)

In the small town of Wardsley, a young woman is found in the street, unconscious. She had just come to town and a cab driver took her to the Carruthers house, which is empty after the death of Dr. Carruthers years ago. It turns out she is Nina, the doc's daughter. Years ago, Carruthers was accused of being a vampire, having bred gigantic bats which attacked and killed a number of townspeople before they turned on him. With Nina still unresponsive, Dr. Elliot gets Dr. Morris, a psychiatrist, to attend to her. Nina wakes up but becomes hysterical as she has visions of giant bats, and of turning into a bar along with her father. Morris's wife Ellen insists on Nina staying with them, and we soon discover that Ellen's marriage is on the rocks, with Morris having an affair with Myra, an old friend of Ellen's. Ted, Ellen's son from a previous marriage, arrives for a visit and mild romantic sparks begin between him and Nina. However, Nina's condition worsens and Ted's dog is found dead in Nina's room, with Nina insisting that she must have killed it while possessed by her evil father. As plans are made to institutionalize Nina, Ellen is found dead in her bedroom, with Nina passed out in the hallway. It seems obvious that Nina is the killer, but Ted doesn't think so and with help from Dr. Elliot, Ted visits the Carruthers house and finds evidence that points to someone else as the killer. Can Ted clear Nina's name, and maybe even her father's name as well?

In theory, this is a sequel to a 1940 B-horror film called THE DEVIL BAT which featured Bela Lugosi as Carruthers, though the connections don't quite work. In the original film, the doctor is indeed a madman (with no daughter in sight) murdering people with bats for revenge. But this movie concludes with Carruthers being exonerated—it's not explained in detail except that the killings were not his fault—so I guess PRC, the Poverty Row studio that made both movies, assumed that no one would remember the details of the first film. The screenwriter, Griffin Jay, pulled similar rewriting moves when he scripted some of the Mummy sequels for Universal. The earlier Lugosi film is straight up horror, but this, despite flirting with a spooky atmosphere, is really more a psychological thriller akin to GASLIGHT. Everything about the film screams B-movie (or B-minus movie): cheap production values, scattershot writing, and bottom of the barrel acting. The actors seem to have been hired for their blandness. Rosemary LaPlanche is pretty bad as Nina—she can handle the catatonia at the beginning, but any emotions are beyond her reach. There is zero chemistry between her and John James (Ted), who himself is just mildly better than LaPlanche. The other actors aren't even worth mentioning. At some point, poor LaPlanche actually has to say the cliche line, "What’s to become of me?" The fact that we don't care shows how weak this movie is. Pictured is LaPlante with Michael Hale. [YouTube]

CHARLIE CHAN IN PANAMA (1940)

A group of travelers leave their ship, which is about to go through the Panama Canal, and instead take a sea plane that will get them to Panama City more quickly. It's 1940 and the U.S. wasn't officially in WWII yet, but the American naval fleet is about to pass through into the Pacific Ocean and the city is filled with spies. One of the passengers, Godley, visits Fu Yuen's hat shop, but Fu Yuen is actually Charlie Chan and Godley is a government agent asking for his help in tracking down a mysterious spy named Ryner who might be about to pull off a major act of sabotage. But Godley drops dead in the shop, victim of a poisoned cigarette that was planted on him by one of the sea plane passengers. Chan, with his son Jimmy, investigates. Among the suspects: Compton, an English novelist; Miss Finch, a maiden schoolteacher; Manolo, owner of a cabaret in the city; Dr. Grosser, an unfriendly research scientist; Cabot, an American engineer; and Kathi Lenesch, a woman with a mysterious past who is going to sing at Manolo's cabaret. Jimmy, who engages in his usual bumbling antics, actually discovers something potentially helpful: Grosser has a cage of rats that he has injected with bubonic plague; could that be part of a sabotage act? Or could it involve the liquid explosive that is discovered in a burial vault? This is one of several WWII Chan films in which Charlie worked for the government, using his detective skills to catch spies. This is a particularly strong entry in the series, packed with action scenes and a solid supporting cast which includes Lionel Atwill (Compton) who was equally at home as a villain or a red herring; the handsome and sturdy Kane Richmond (Cabot) who was usually a hero but not always; Jean Rogers (Kathi) who was best known as Dale Arden in the first two Flash Gordon serials; Mary Nash (Miss Finch) who was Katherine Hepburn's mother in The Philadelphia Story; and Jack La Rue (Manolo), frequent portrayer of gangsters. Victor Sen Yung (pictured) is quite appealing as Jimmy, coming off a little less bombastically than he sometimes does, and Sidney Toler is near the top of his game as Chan. Even though it's not quite a traditional mystery story, this would be a good place for a Chan novice to start. [DVD]

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (1952)

This is the ur-text, so to speak, of my obsession with Thanksgiving fantasy films, that is, films that were run on local TV stations during Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas break. This one I think I saw on both holidays back in the 60s and early 70s. I hadn't seen it since sometime in the 80s when I had a bargain basement VHS tape of it. A re-viewing of something like this is always a dicey proposition as the magic that made me love it when I was young is usually hard to capture again—see my review of THE 5000 FINGERS OF DR. T. It’s an odd duck of a movie as it stars Abbott and Costello in a fairy tale retelling. One online critic put it well—it's basically a kiddie movie with A & C shoehorned in for an uncomfortable fit. The two were coming to the end of their long run as a comic team (Bud Abbott was in his 50s and Lou Costello was in his 40s and both had lost some of the energy of their earlier films) though they would make seven more movies in the next four years before calling it quits. It opens with Lou playing an out-of-work fellow who happens to walk into an employment office as a request for a babysitter comes in. Lou and Bud, who calls himself Lou's agent, have a brief run-in with a big beefy cop before they arrive at the home of a precocious 8-year-old named Donald as his adult sister Eloise (Shaye Cogan) and her boyfriend Arthur (James Alexander) leave to attend a play rehearsal. Lou reads to Donald from a storybook of Jack and the Beanstalk, but when words like "terrorize" and "ferocious" prove too much for Lou, the kid takes over. Lou falls asleep and dreams the story with himself as Jack, Bud as a butcher named Dinkelpuss, the tall cop as the giant, Eloise as a princess, and Arthur as a prince. From there, the story is familiar. Jack sells a cow to Dinkelpuss for magic beans which sprout gigantic stalks. Jack climbs them in order to save the prince and princess who have been kidnapped by the giant. Dinkelpuss follows, greedily after a hen that lays golden eggs. The giant has a talking harp named Patrick and a tall housekeeper named Polly (the receptionist from the employment agency) and after some action scenes and a couple of songs, Jack slays the giant (he falls from the beanstalk and plummets through the earth all the way to China), the prince and princess decide to marry, and Lou wakes up when Donald beans him with a vase. The beginning and end are in sepia tone and the middle in color, but because this film is in the public domain, there are many murky prints of this out there. I saw a nicely restored Blu-ray print on YouTube which is certainly better looking than this movie was on TV back in the 1960s. The songs are unmemorable, and the only fun musical bit is a dance in which the very tall Polly (Dorothy Ford) keeps smacking Jack around with her extended arms. You can see the germ of a fun idea here, but the direction is bland, and even Lou Costello seems like he’s running at 75%. Strictly a novelty view. Pictured are Jack and his beloved cow with rouge and lipstick on. [YouTube]

THE SINGING PRINCESS (1952/1967)

The title character in this animated feature set in Baghdad is Princess Zelia. As she has now reached marrying age, her father the Caliph has sent a messenger out to three nearby lands asking for any interested princes to come to Baghdad to be looked over as husband prospects. But the evil Jafar plots with his magician buddy Burk to stop the search. Burk uses a magic cloak made of the wings of bats and owls to fly to the messenger's canoe and turn him to stone before he can reach the other lands. Meanwhile, Zelia wanders through the land with Amin, her young companion and musician, and sings and dances out of enjoyment. Jafar asks for her hand, but three government ministers (Tanko, Zirco and Zizibe) advise her against it. Burk conjures up a magic ring that, when placed on Zelia’s finger, will cause her to fall in love with Jafar. Amin's pet magpie Calina steals the ring and the ministers plot to give the ring to the ugliest woman they can find, but Amin is kidnapped by Bork who kills the magpie. Amin manages to rip off a part of Burk's cloak to use for himself to escape. Zelia comes to realize that she loves Amin and eventually, Aladdin's lamp, complete with genie, enters the narrative to help good be rewarded and evil be punished.

This one hour film, mostly forgotten by pop culture today, is interesting for a few reasons. First, there's the tangled distribution history. Made in Italy in 1949, it was written and directed by Anton Gino Domenighini, and according to IMDb this was his only film credit. Under the title La Rosa di Bagdad, it won a prize at a children's film festival and in 1952 was dubbed into English, with the voice of the princess provided by 17-year-old Julie Andrews (her first film credit), and released in England. In 1967, after Andrews had become an international star, it was released in the States as a weekend kiddie matinee feature with an ad trumpeting "the magical voice of Julie Andrews." It’s largely vanished from view since then, though it did get a DVD release in 2005. With this kind of pedigree, the movie wouldn't seem promising, but it's quite watchable. The animation has the look of early Disney or Max Fleischer films; it's not quite as colorful or detailed as later Disney films would be, but I think it still holds up. The world-building of this fantasyland version of Baghdad is minimal but fun: the magic bat-wing cloak, a place called the Valley of the Lost, the fact that Zirko is the Minister of Beautiful Things. It's also interesting to look at influences. There are scenes here reminiscent of Fantasia, particularly a nifty dance that three snakes perform in mid-air, and one that the magpie does as it steals the ring. It feels like it might have inspired the Jafar character in Disney's Aladdin, and his somewhat sinisterly effeminate tone isn't too far from that of Scar, the chief villain in The Lion King. Andrews' voice is fine, but if she's the only reason you're watching, you'll be disappointed as her role is overshadowed by the other characters. The operatic tone of Andrews' voice rendered most of her lyrics unintelligible, but the songs aren’t really important to the plot. Recommended to animation fans and as a novelty. [YouTube]

MOTHER HOLLY (1965) / FRAU HOLLE (1954)

A German town in a fairy tale past is, we are told by a narrator, old and tired, because there have been no children born there for years. The figure of Mother Holly gave the town a magic fountain—if anyone drinks from it and wishes to have a child, they will. But the demonic prankster Black Peter has polluted the fountain with trash and no one will drink from it. Statues of the kindly Mother Holly and the demonic prankster Black Peter stand in the town square, and one day Black Peter emerges from his statue to create havoc at the marketplace. (Mother Holly is absent, away in her "underground empire"). When two orphans, Freddie and Caroline, enter the town, he influences them to trash the market, destroying stalls and spoiling food. The kindly lad Hans gives all of his money to the townspeople to make up for their losses, but his upset mother sends him into exile for a year. We also meet a mother and her two daughters, the kind and hardworking stepdaughter Rose Marie and the foolish and lazy birth daughter Elsie Marie. As in the tale of Cinderella, the mother favors the vain Elise and mistreats Rose. Elsie is courted by the effete Prince Von Pants who, though supposedly rich, lives in a dilapidated castle and is as lazy as Elsie. Hans is in love with Rose, but when she drops a spindle in the fountain, she follows it and vanishes, so Hans heads out for his exile year.

Rose ends up in Mother Holly's underground empire which is basically a lovely aboveground field with houses and a garden. Freddie and Caroline end up here also, put on trial by other children for their bad behavior, but when they explain that Black Peter made them do it, they are exonerated. Rose spends a year with Mother Holly, willingly taking on chores and becoming a friend to the children. The year passes. In the town, Hans has returned and has something like an engineer's degree, and he oversees work on the town fountain. Rose leaves Mother Holly's land, transformed by a thick golden shower (dirty minds, begone!; pictured at right) and dressed most regally in a golden gown. Elsie, egged on by her mother, jumps into the fountain and lives in Mother Holly's land for a time, but is lazy and when she leaves, she is rained upon by mud or oil or excrement. The children all come to the town where they are accepted into the homes of the villagers, Black Peter is banished into his stature, and Rose and Hans get married.

It's difficult to find accurate information about this movie online, but I did some research to discover that this was filmed in Germany and released in 1954. In 1965, the producer K. Gordon Murray bought the English language rights to the movie and had it dubbed into English. Instead of giving it a kiddie matinee release as he did with other similar acquisitions, he sold it as part of a package of kids movies for television broadcast. IMDb gives a 1961 release date for the movie, but that was apparently for a German reissue. It may have wound up in American theaters years later, but I couldn't confirm that. The basic plot involving the sisters is based directly on a Grimm Brothers folktale. In Europe, Black Peter is usually associated with St. Nicholas; how he wound up here is uncertain. Watching this as an adult is a bizarre experience, with unclear character motivations (who knows why Mother Holly, pictured at left, does what she does, why Hans feels the need to give all his money to the townspeople), unclear plot points (why couldn't the villagers have cleaned up the fountain during those earlier years, where did the orphans come from, can’t the villagers have sex), and unclear moral lessons, aside from hard work being rewarded. Though completely shot on outdoor locations, the whole thing does have an artificial feel to it which is a plus for a fairy tale movie. Much of the story is told less in dialogue than in narration by a rather overbearing narrator, so the acting is hard to judge. This is similar to those weird Russian folktale movies of the 60s like The Day the Earth Froze that Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured occasionally. It's interesting but probably not for kids. [YouTube]

THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE (1961)

We are told that Simon Hart lived in a time of "great hope for human progress," which seems to be the late 19th century, with its airships and steamships and submarines. Hart is working as an assistant to Professor Roch who is dabbling in the invention of a new explosive which turns out to be atomic in nature. Roch is doing it purely for the challenge, not at all concerned about "practical applications," but some villainous pirates in the service of Count Artigas arrive at Roch's seaside house, very interested in its applications. Disguised as shipwreck survivors, they kidnap Roch and Hart and take them away on a huge submarine from which the pirates destroy ships at sea to plunder their goods. They take on Jana, a survivor from the latest ship attacked, and head to their hidden city Back Cup, located under a volcanic island. In a boy's adventure pulp plot, only loosely based on Jules Verne, Hart tries to stop Artigas from using Roch's invention to conquer the world. This Czech film directed by Karel Zeman was released in the States three years after its production in an English dub with the Jules Verne title, aimed at children's matinee showings. It probably disappointed many of its viewers back then, but now it is mostly appreciated as a unique and beautiful work of film art.

Often described as animated, the film actually uses a mix of traditional animation, stop-motion animation, patently artificial sets, special photographic effects, and live action. The film's texture looks like Victorian woodcuts or steel engraved illustrations which would have illustrated Verne's works in their original editions. Virtually every frame of the movie has thin, sometimes barely visible, horizontal lines running across the screen in imitation of engraved illustrations. Matte shots are used prolifically for backgrounds, and animation is mixed with live actors to create a magical world. The story which plays out in this world is secondary to the fabulous visuals—trumpeted as being done in Mysti-Motion in the American ads—and kids should not have been the focus audience for the American promotion of this movie. The Verne connection is real—it's based on a little known novel called Facing the Flag—but probably disappointing to viewers expecting a traditional action movie like MASTER OF THE WORLD. There is a reference in the opening narration to the Verne character Robur, featured in MASTER, and the submarine will conjure up memories of 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. But in some ways, all that is a smokescreen for the experimental film style of Zeman. It seems clear that Terry Gilliam was influenced by Zeman when he created the animated sequences for Monty Python. I could spend another paragraph describing many of the visual marvels to be found here, but you should just see it for yourself. Though a bit misleading, the American title is better than the literal translation of the Czech title, Invention for Destruction. It's also been released as The Deadly Invention. [Criterion Channel]

SABU AND THE MAGIC RING (1957)

In this B-movie Arabian Nights fantasy, Sabu is a lowly stable boy in Samarkand who takes care of the caliph's elephant. When a large yellow diamond is discovered missing from the elephant's headdress, Sabu scrounges the ground until he discovers a shiny ring. Ready to toss it away, he accidentally rubs it against his vest and a genie named Ubal appears (actually, he insists he's an ifrit, a demon, saying "I eat genies for breakfast" though he never acts demonically) to grant his wishes, though he warns Sabu that he is a slave to the ring, not the person, so if Sabu would lose the ring, Ubal would not longer serve him. Sabu discovers that his boss Kimal and the prime minister Mazufa have stolen the elephant's diamond and sold it to finance a revolt against the caliph, and that they are now looking for the magic ring. He gives it to his girlfriend Zumila for safe keeping, but that means when Mazufa captures Sabu, he can't call on Ubal for help. At one point, a goose swallows the ring and Sabu tries to keep it out of the clutches of the bad guys until it lays an egg with the ring in it. With the help of the genie, Sabu and Zumila stop an assassination plot against the caliph and restore stability to the kingdom. I remember this from my youth when it was run on Saturday afternoons or at Thanksgiving, and I’d searched for it off and on for years, so I was pleased that it popped up. It was shot as a TV pilot and wasn't picked up, so it's got a shoddy low-budget look. Most of the scenes take place in a stable and a marketplace, and the magical effects are pretty much limited to the genie appearing and disappearing. For a one hour movie, it's a bit sluggish, though things move at a better pace in the last half. Sabu again plays a character named Sabu and, again, he gives it his all. William Marshall (later Blacula and Pee-Wee Herman's King of Cartoons) makes a good genie, looking imposing and wise though not perhaps as threatening as he might be. The two bad guys, Peter Mamakos as Mazufa and John Doucette as Kimal, are pretty good. Daria Massey is an uninspiring heroine. Though it was shot and released in color, the only print I could find is in black and white, which robs it of whatever interesting visual elements it might have had. Kids today would be bored silly by this, and boomers looking to relive a pleasant memory will be disappointed. Pictured are Marshall, Sabu, and Massey. [YouTube]

THE EMPEROR'S NIGHTINGALE (1951)

A little boy, living in a big house and being raised by his old aunts because his father is always traveling, would seem to want for nothing, but he is lonely, with only his toys for company, and he has to follow too many rules. He sees a little girl outside playing but can't join her because he has to stay within the gates of his property. On his tenth birthday, his father sends him a music box with a mechanical nightingale on it, but the boy falls ill and the doctor says he has no remedy for the sickness of too many rules. That night, he dreams of a child emperor in China who, like him, lives a life surrounded by artificial things and too many rules. His life is run by routine, literally by a large mechanical figure named Clang, the Ruler of Routine. He plays with glass swans on a mirror lake and a "philharmonic fish" statue that makes music. On his birthday, a sailor in a hot air balloon visits and gives him the gift of a picture book featuring images of China's natural world which the Emperor has never seen. He is particularly taken with a picture of a nightingale. He tries to find out how to see one. The court astronomer is too busy counting the stars, but a young kitchen maid knows where to find one, and leads some courtiers, who feel disoriented out in the natural world, to get one. The nightingale sings for the boy who is enchanted. He keeps the bird in an ornate cage and listens to his song, but soon even that pleasure becomes routine. On the Emperor's next birthday, the sailor sends him a golden mechanical nightingale which captives the Emperor and his court, and the real bird, now ignored, flies away. The golden bird's song is artificial, like everything else in the Emperor's world, and soon the boy grows sick and Death comes to call, preparing to take the boy. The real nightingale finally returns and sings a song at the Emperor's window, bringing him back to health and banishing Death. The child orders the shattering of routine in his kingdom. When the real-life boy awakens from his dream, he too shatters his guardians' rules, jumps over the tall fence around his property, and joins the little girl to play.

It's Thanksgiving week so it's time to review fantasy and adventure movies of the kind that my local TV stations used to play during the Thanksgiving weekend when kids were home from school in front of the television. This is a Czechoslovakian stop-motion puppet animation film from director Jiri Trnka. Originally produced in 1949, this version, released in the U.S in 1951, features narration by Boris Karloff. Though based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen with a running time of just over an hour, it's probably not ideal viewing for children, now or back then. The animation is nicely done and the sets are gorgeous, and Karloff's narration, as with his later How the Grinch Stole Christmas, is very effective. But the pace of the film is incredibly slow and I imagine children checking out before the half-hour mark. Near the end of the film, there is a ten-minute passage with no narration that, though both lovely and creepy (featuring Death stalking the Emperor), put me to sleep. The full musical score by Vaclav Trojan is, like the narration, very effective, and a suite of his music from the film has been performed and recorded. The frame story of the lonely boy is in live action, with the animated dream world consisting mostly of things from the boy's room. The themes of nature versus artifice, rules versus freedom, companionship versus friendship, are clear, perhaps too much so. The colorful film has been restored for DVD, but the YouTube version of this print is way too murky and dark to really be enjoyed, with much loss of image detail. I even suspect that the YouTube print doesn't get all the colors right. But unless I can find the DVD, this viewing will have to suffice. [YouTube]

THE MALE ANIMAL (1942)

It's homecoming weekend at Midwestern University and English professor Henry Fonda is unsettled for two reasons. First, a student of his who is a campus newspaper columnist (Herbert Anderson) has just published the fact that Fonda plans to read to his class on Monday a letter by notorious anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Fonda is doing it as part of a lesson on rhetoric, and Anderson's article backs him up, but the school is not happy about it—there's a Red scare on campus and Anderson calls the administration fascists—and head trustee Eugene Pallette is threatening to fire Fonda if he goes through with the reading, even though he is about to be offered a full professorship. But Fonda is perhaps more upset by the weekend visit of former football star Jack Carson, an old flame of his wife's (Olivia de Havilland). He's coming because Midwestern is playing their chief rival Michigan, and he arrives in town bearing flowers for de Havilland for her birthday, a fact which Fonda has forgotten. Carson then announces that he is leaving his wife, a fact that makes Fonda certain that Carson is going to work on snagging de Havilland for himself. In a mirroring situation that combines the two concerns, Joan Leslie, de Havilland's younger sister, is torn between Don DeFore, a beefy jock, and Anderson, a skinny glasses-wearing intellectual. Fonda is still determined to read the letter, but he is less certain about fighting for his wife, preparing instead to let her go if she wants to. That night, Fonda and Anderson get drunk and Fonda goes on a rant about how he should behave like a "male animal," like a wolf or sea lion or tiger, or even a penguin, and fight for his position. Ultimately, he doesn't have to physically fight, as it's his principled stand on reading Vanzetti (which has to be done in an auditorium because of the interest it's generated) that clears everything up.

Based on a hit play co-authored by James Thurber, this is an odd duck of a movie, a political drama about freedom of speech which gets hijacked by a screwball romantic comedy. Or maybe it's vice versa. Either way, it's a somewhat uncomfortable fit but it does remain entertaining on its way to a rushed Capraesque ending. It took me a while to like Fonda and de Havilland, both seeming a bit lightweight in academic surroundings. But this isn't Harvard, it's Midwestern, which is a lightly disguised Ohio State University (hinted at by the Michigan rivalry, the Big Red Team football nickname, and a reference to a romantic getaway at an inn in Granville—which I've actually been to). Fonda eventually grows into the part, de Havilland less so. Jack Carson is his usual jovial doofus self, and Joan Leslie, not yet 20 in real life, is quite good. I was quite charmed by Herbert Anderson who underplays the nerd role nicely; he would be best known years later as the father in the Dennis the Menace sitcom. The whole Red Scare aspect would have made it impossible for this to get made a few years later, and the issues of academic freedom brought up are once again, unfortunately, relevant. Near the end, Fonda says, "You can't suppress ideas in this country because you don't like them; nobody can—yet." The Trump administration is proving that "yet" may be right now. Watch this movie while you can. Pictured are Fonda, de Havilland, and Carson [TCM]

MOONLIGHT SONATA (1937)

In a forest in Sweden, we see Eric (Charles Farrell) trying to tell Ingrid (Barbara Greene) how much he loves her. She replies that, though they've known each other for some time, she has never felt that way about him. At midnight, she'll turn eighteen and he plans to propose to her, but she says, "Please don’t rush me," and is clearly unenthusiastic about his plan. Suddenly, a small plane makes an emergency landing nearby. The two passengers are Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a famous concert pianist (as he was in real life) and Mario de la Costa (Eric Portman), a stage magician and hypnotist. Eric and Ingrid take them to the large country home of Ingrid's grandmother, Baroness Lindenborg to stay until the plane is fixed. Paderewski is charming and friendly, and is pleased to hear of a special connection he has to the family: Ingrid's parents became engaged after hearing the pianist play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata at a concert. Mario is less pleased as he is in a hurry to get to Paris, but manages to turn on the charm for Ingrid, who will come into some money on her birthday. The next day, Eric presses his case again but realizes that naive Ingrid is falling for Mario, and they argue. Eric finds out that Mario is married, though supposedly estranged from his wife, and the Baroness fears that Mario is a fortune hunter. Ingrid remains in thrall to Mario until the Baroness offers Mario money to leave the house. Does Eric still have a chance with Ingrid? Maybe if Paderewski can work some magic again by playing the Moonlight Sonata.

This 90-minute movie is an average romantic melodrama with one difference: the first twenty minutes of the film is a concert by Paderewski where he plays works by Chopin and Liszt, followed by the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. The music is interrupted when a small child chases a ball up to the stage, but the pianist is not upset because he knows the little girl. [Spoiler!] She's the daughter of Eric and Ingrid, and the rest of the movie is a flashback to how they got together. I admit to eventually skimming through the concert scene (even though I like pieces he plays) to get to the story, but the story has its own problems. Eric is apparently employed by the Baroness and lives at the house. We don't know how long his crush has gone on, but it seems surprising that he would suddenly spring his feelings on her just before he proposes marriage. Greene is the age of her character (18) but Farrell is 37 and, though still nice looking, looks too old to be mooning after this kid. It seems the Baroness has not actively discouraged his interest in her granddaughter, but aside from the fact that he's handsome and pleasant, we're not given much reason to think that he'd be a good husband. Farrell and Greene don't have much chemistry, and frankly Greene and Portman (pictured above) do, though we know from the get-go that there is something unsavory about him—while Paderewski handles the plane situation with grace, Mario is cranky and unpleasant until he figures out that Ingrid could make a nice meal ticket. Portman does the best acting, though Marie Tempest is fine as the Baroness. Paderewski is not an actor, and struggles through his lines. He does get to play piano again in a scene in which the Baroness takes him to a school to play for the kids. People who watch this for the allure of the music will probably be bored by the soapy drama, and people who want the romance will be bored with the music. [YouTube]

HELL BOUND (1957)

A freighter bound for Los Angeles stops to rescue a man in a raft whose small fishing boat sunk—a narrator refers to the man as Accomplice A. As the ship waits for docking clearance, a port health officer, Accomplice B, boards to do his duty, but the officer is a diabetic and he claims to feel sick. As he rests, we see him give himself an insulin injection to bring on insulin shock. A sets a small fire to set off smoke alarms and in the confusion, sneaks into the hold and steals a package which he puts in the jacket of B. When an ambulance arrives to take B, Accomplice C, a nurse, boards, takes the man's jacket and the stolen package and eventually mails it to Accomplice D. The package is full of narcotics to be sold illegally, but we discover what we've seen is actually a filmed rehearsal, using actors, of the operation. The real-life Accomplice D is Jordan who has made this film to convince gangster Quantro to fund his plan. Quantro's moll, Paula, wants to be the nurse and flirts outrageously with Jordan; he lets her participate but shuts down the flirting. Jan, a real nurse (and we assume a mistress of Jordan's) who works in tandem with ambulance driver Eddie, has agreed to call off for a week and gets Paula to take her place. Paula trains with Eddie, who is not in on the plan. and the two begin to bond, especially after Paula reacts emotionally to the death of a child during an ambulance run. Jordan brings Herbie, an actual health officer and diabetic, into the scheme. He blackmails Stanley, a recovering drug addict, into playing the part of the sailor in the raft; Stanley was a medical student who performed an illegal abortion which resulted in the death of the woman. In case we had any doubts about Jordan's morals, we see him run down and kill the man who has provided a key to the storage area where the drugs are kept on the ship. But things start to go wrong in violent and unpredictable ways and, this being very close kin to a film noir, almost no one escapes unscathed.

This was a real surprise: a B-crime film with solid performances, a nicely twisty plot (if you can overlook some silly and convoluted contrivances), and some unexpectedly brutal violence. From the beginning, it's clear to the viewer that the plan is needlessly elaborate and there are too many places where things can go wrong, but I suspended disbelief and went along for the ride. John Russell, as Jordan (pictured), gives a great B-lead performance; he's kind of handsome and sexy while also being slimy and despicable. He pitches his portrayal at the sweet spot—his tension never dissipates and never quite goes over-the-top. Without him, the movie would not work as well as it does. June Blair is good as Paula, whose horniness is signaled by the taking off and putting on of her shoes; her high spot is her first encounter with Russell in Quantro's office. She starts as a femme fatale but does a nice job softening up her character as she gets to know Eddie, and she's very good in a violent, climactic confrontation with Jordan. Stuart Whitman is fine as Eddie, playing him as innocent but not a chump. George Mather is a fine sweaty mess as the addict, and Margo Woode does well as Jan. The climax was filmed in an actual scrap yard full of old trolley cars which winds up being crucial to the conclusion. Even though most of the scenes take place in broad daylight, this definitely qualifies thematically as noir, and it should be a more established entry in the noir canon. The violence is not exactly graphic but it is shocking. This is a bright spot discovery of my film watching year. [Streaming]

DIRTY GERTIE FROM HARLEM U.S.A. (1946)

On the Caribbean island of Rinidad (not Trinidad but Rinidad), nightclub owner Diamond Joe has prepared a big welcome at the Paradise Hotel for Gertie La Rue, a big name stripper from Harlem. She’s brought her troupe with her to perform at the Diamond Palace though they all wish they were back in Harlem. Gertie has done her man Al wrong and the fact that he has threatened to kill her is what has brought them to Rinidad. She immediately attracts the attention of two sailors she calls High Pockets and Tight Pants who accompany her all over the island and stay up until 5 in the morning in her company. She also attracts the attention of two missionaries, Jonathan Christian and his young companion Ezra. Christian, with single-minded zeal, calls her a "painted trollop" and a Jezebel, though she gets her own back by calling him a "dirty psalm-singing polecat." Christian insists she either reform or leave the island, though Ezra is more interested in actually seeing her show. The piano player at the Diamond Palace seems to know her from somewhere, and she gets spooked when she hears him play a slow low-key tune. (This is a plot point that goes nowhere.) Gertie tells her pals that she could have Christian if she set her mind to it. (This also goes nowhere.) When a voodoo fortune teller sees only darkness in Gertie's future, she's understandably nervous. Her opening performance is disrupted by Christian, but an even bigger problem awaits later up in her room. 

This low-budget race film (made by Black filmmakers and actors) came near the end of that genre's cycle and has been called the first race film to approach the quality of a mainstream Hollywood B-movie. I'm not sure I'd go that far; it looks a little better in terms of sets and costumes but the writing and acting hamper the overall effectiveness of the project. Francine Everett (pictured) doesn't have the charisma or talent to really hold the screen, but she's OK in the lead. She was a dancer in offscreen life but only gets to do a minute of that here. Most of the other actors come off a little better. Walter Hawkins has a minor Denzel Washington vibe as Christian and David Boykin brings a bright energy to the part of Ezra whom I suspect won't be in the missionary business for long. I liked Hugh Watson as Tight Pants (whose sailor pants are, in fact, not tight at all) and Don Wilson as Diamond Joe. The director, Spencer Williams, dons drag to play the fortune teller, but he speaks in a masculine voice and has a mustache, and I was unsure of what to make of that. It might be a reference to transgender traditions among Caribbean voodoo practitioners, or it might be that Williams stepped in on short notice when the original actor bowed out. This is loosely and unofficially based on Somerset Maugham’s "Rain," the famous story of the prostitute Sadie Thompson and her tropical run-in with a preacher, except Gertie, though definitely a good-time girl, doesn't seem to be selling her wares. We never find out how Gertie did Al wrong, or how the piano player knows her, though we can make guesses in both cases. Gertie's fate is also quite different from Sadie's. The pianist's name is Larry but he is almost always referred to as Blues in the Night, a song that plays at the climax. Rather than see Francine Everett dance, we see a couple of specialty dancers who come off like low-rent Nicholas Brothers. For as much as there is wrong with this movie, I was entertained and never bored. [Criterion Channel]

THE SPIDERS (1919/1920)

This is a two-part silent film, in the spirit if not the specifics of the matinee serial genre. Two more parts were planned, but director Fritz Lang went on to different projects. The first half, The Golden Sea, begins with an older man frantically climbing rocks on a shore, being chased by someone. He scribbles a note, puts it in a bottle, and tosses it into the sea before being shot in the back with an arrow. In San Francisco, playboy adventurer Kay Hoog, favored to win an upcoming yacht race, suddenly announces that he's dropping out after finding that bottle. The note, from a missing Harvard anthropologist, hints that he has found a secret Incan civilization. by a "golden sea," which is sitting on untold riches. It also notes that he is being held to be a human sacrifice to the sun god. Hoog starts an expedition, as does an underworld group, the Spiders, led by high society woman Lio Sha. Their name comes from their calling card, a dead tarantula left next to the body of its victims. Hoog heads to South America, racing to catch a ride with a hot air balloonist who will drop him over the secret land. But Lio Sha is in hot pursuit with a bunch of cowboys she has hired to help her. At the land of the Golden Sea, Hoog falls for Incan princess Naela when he saves her from a huge snake. When Lio Sha is captured and held for sacrifice, Naela, who is against the sacrifice ritual, and Hoog save her. They all escape without the gold but with their lives. But as far as Lio Sha, once a villain, always a villain, and when she realizes she cannot have Hoog for her own, she takes a deadly revenge.

The second half, The Diamond Ship, begins somewhat obscurely but soon settles into another treasure hunt that sets Hoog against Lio Sha and the Spiders, this time looking for a Buddah-shaped diamond that will supposedly (as in the Fu Manchu stories) allow its owner to bring the Asian empire back to its former glory. Diamond dealer John Terry is suspected of having the gem and the Spiders kidnap his daughter Ellen to force his hand. This half feels fairly slapdash; it wasn't always clear to me where we were or what was happening. Some scenes feel out of context and unrelated to the main narrative. But both halves are fairly fun and you can turn off your mind and follow the shenanigans. Carl de Vogt as Hoog (pictured) is a sturdy hero, and Ressel Orla is good as Lio Sha. There are secret passages, poisons, the use of "hypno-telepathy" by a yogi, and even pirates in a plot thread in the last half of the second movie. Two more nifty developments: Hoog discovers a secret underground city beneath Chinatown, and later fits out a large crate with books and an electric light so he can sneak his way onto a cargo ship. The Spiders themselves remain a fuzzy presence—we know they are run by a small cadre of rich people but they are never better defined than that. The obscurity of the plot and characters probably adds to the movie's occasional dreamlike feel. Though not actually a serial, this will appeal to serial fans. [Blu-ray]

CHARLIE CHAN IN EGYPT (1935)

At an archeological dig in Egypt, Prof. Arnold pounds away at a wall in the ancient tomb of the high priest Ameti. The moment he breaks through, an Arab worker drops dead. Is there a curse on the tomb? A month later, detective Charlie Chan arrives by biplane, called in by the French Archeological Society to find out why some relics from the tomb have been showing up in other museums when they were all promised to the Society. Chan finds out from Arnold's daughter Carol that Arnold left the site a month ago and is considered missing. Carol and her brother Barry are concerned, though Arnold's associate Prof. Thurston and young assistant Tom Evans (also Carol's boyfriend) think Arnold has deliberately isolated himself. When the mummy case of Ameti is examined, it's discovered to contain the dead body of Arnold. Chan finds out that a man named Racine has been providing money to finish the dig, and Thurston is the one behind the leak of relics, trying to raise money to pay Racine back. Strange incidents begin happening: people have glittering visions of the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, Carol has spells of confusion, cigarettes are drugged, poison gas is unleashed, and Barry drops dead while playing his violin. A secret passage is found in the tomb leading to a hidden treasure, and there is gunplay before Chan unmasks the villain who wants to keep the treasure for himself. 

The first few minutes here seem to promise a different kind of Chan movie than usual. Though King Tut is never mentioned, he is obviously the inspiration for the possibly cursed tomb of Ameti, and the mysterious Egyptian atmosphere is effective, but this settles into the usual Chan template, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Warner Oland is still at the top of his game as Chan, and the supporting players are fine, including Thomas Beck (pictured) as Tom and Rita Hayworth, billed early in her career as Rita Cansino, as a servant. Pat Paterson is good as Carol, though she had a short film career—she married Charles Boyer and retired from the screen in 1939. James Eagles, who mostly did uncredited roles, has, as the son Barry, a bit of the look and carriage of John Carradine. No Chan children appear, though son Lee is mentioned. What might make this movie uncomfortable viewing for some is the appearance of Black actor Stepin Fetchit as the servant Snowshoes. Fetchit made a good living playing shuffling, dim-witted, and slow talking servants which is largely what Hollywood wanted out of Black actors back then. The character was won in a card game by Tom and is tricked by a local into thinking that his "great-great grandpappy" might be found in an Egyptian tomb. As comic relief, he's just not that funny these days; in the 1940s, Mantan Moreland was able to take a similar role, as Chan’s valet Birmingham Brown, and make him a full-blooded character, something that Fetchit wasn't allowed to do in his era. His performance in the first ten minutes literally made me cringe and he pops up a few more times. I realize it's what directors wanted out of him, but that doesn't make it any easier to watch him. [DVD]

PARANOIAC (1963)

We see a graveside memorial service for John and Mary Ashby who died in 1950, and their son Tony who, years later, committed suicide at the age of 15 by jumping off a cliff into the sea. Harriet, John's sister, raised his other children: Eleanor, a nervous and sensitive type, and Simon, a cocky and bitter alcoholic who plays the organ at the town church.  Simon is about to come into a major inheritance (which he needs to pay off large gambling debts) but he has to split the estate with Eleanor. Simon frequently implies that Eleanor might be certifiably insane—which would leave Simon sole heir. At the service, Eleanor sees a figure in the woods and is sure that it's Tony come back to life. A nurse, Françoise, has been hired to care for Eleanor, but she's also Simon's lover. Meanwhile, John Kossett, the family accountant, and his son Keith are accused by Simon of embezzlement. That's the dysfunctional situation when Eleanor, certain that the figure she saw at the memorial was Tony beckoning her to join him, tries to kill herself by jumping into the sea. The man saves her and does claim to be Tony, having faked his suicide all those years ago. He is back, it is implied, to save Eleanor from both Simon and Harriet who may not have Eleanor's best interests at heart. Soon after, Eleanor's car is tinkered with and she almost dies in an accident, eerie organ music is heard from an unused chapel, and a choirboy figure in a grotesque mask (which makes his lovely singing seem creepy) threatens Tony.

This is a fun gothic melodrama from Hammer Studios with lots of plot twists. Somewhat bizarrely, the biggest twist of all is given away about 40 minutes into the 80-minute movie, which lets some of the tension out of the proceedings for a time. I'll give no spoilers here, and I think it was done in the name of plot clarity, but I do wish the big reveal had been held for maybe another 10 or 15 minutes. Most critics highlight the work of Oliver Reed as the wicked, no-good, possibly psychotic Simon, and he's fine, but he doesn't stretch much past his early 60s persona. I was more impressed with the lower-key performance of Alexander Davion as Tony; as a figure of mystery, Davion has to be a bit restrained. Is he Tony? Is he an imposter? And in any case, is he a good guy or a bad guy? Was Tony's apparent suicide for real, or did someone try to kill him? And what about those weird incestuous vibes that he and Eleanor (Janette Scott) give off? Scott is good as the damsel in distress, and she has to keep us guessing a bit as well—is she truly unbalanced or is she playing her own games? The film does manage to regain its momentum after spilling its main secret too soon, and a good old-fashioned blood-and-thunder finale wraps things up nicely. Pictured are Reed and Davion. [DVD]

PARIS INTERLUDE (1934)

Otto Kruger and Robert Young are American reporters stationed in Paris. The older, more famous Kruger occasionally takes advantage of the younger cub reporter Young, treating him like a 'legman' who runs errands, but they're good drinking buddies. When Lindbergh lands in Paris at the end of his famous flight, Kruger beats all the other reporters in filing his story, has a drink with Madge Evans, his sorta girlfriend, and drunkenly proposes to her. The next day, without telling Evans, who took his proposal seriously, Kruger leaves for a hot story in China and doesn't come back. Young wants to marry Evans, but she turns him down and makes a name as a fashion writer with her buddy (Una Merkel) doing illustrations. Evans starts hanging with George Meeker, an American golfer, and they grow close. Eventually they get word that Kruger has been killed by Chinese bandits and Evans decides to marry Meeker, until a misunderstanding leads to Young being present in Evans' apartment in his underwear, and Meeker storms off alone. Just as Young works his way into Evans' good graces, a telegram arrives saying that Kruger is alive and will be in Paris soon. When he shows up, in bad shape, Young pays for his hospital stay. Kruger decides to marry Evans after all, until Merkel reads him the riot act about his irresponsible behavior. Evans winds up with Young as Kruger heads for a story at the South Pole.

This mild romantic comedy has maybe one too many plotline for its own good, and characterization suffers a bit. I like that Kruger is not a total jerk; he's a bit brusque and thoughtless but mostly because he's clueless, not deliberately cruel—and in the end, he tries to fake cruel behavior to let Evans down easy, but of course she sees through him (a trope in romantic stories). His performance is fine but a little artificial. Young and Merkel are both good in standard roles of likable good guy and streetwise tough cookie, and I wish Merkel had more to do. One extraneous plot point involves Kruger having lost an arm in WWI, though nothing really comes of this. Another involves an American woman with a thick Southern accent (so thick I assumed it was supposed to be fake, but I don't think it is) who tries to sneak jewelry past customs and is given a huge fine—Evans thinks that Young turned her in for a reward, but he didn't. The only point of that bit is to drag out for another few minutes Evans' decision that Young is an OK guy. The Evans character is particularly fuzzy; I never felt simpatico with her as she verges on being unsympathetic, and at the end I didn't care much about how she ended up. The original New York Times review refers to Young and Merkel as actors who can "talk flip"; that’s a good description and a reason why they come off a notch above the others who should be flip-talking characters but can't quite pull it off. Other actors include Edward Brophy and Ted Healy in minor comic roles. A pleasant enough movie, with, as she often was, Una Merkel as the saving grace. Pictured are Young and Evans. [TCM]

LOVE SLAVES OF THE AMAZONS (1957)

As the title credits roll, we see a woman whose face is covered in dark green makeup trilling some high notes against a jungle background. The story begins with archeologist Pete Masters (Don Taylor) arriving in Brazil to visit a museum, but a nutty old guy named Crespi sidelines him, claiming that if Pete bankrolls his expedition, Crespi can take him into the Amazon to find a lost tribe of women, their queen, and their treasures. Silva, the head of the museum, tells Pete about a previous expedition that vanished, and Pete sees just enough evidence from Crespi that his institution agrees to pay for a trip into the jungle. Fernando and Carlos, two shady (and beefy) brothers, try to join their crew but Crespi won't allow it, so the brothers follow Pete's boat closely and eventually board it by force, clearly intending on joining in and taking some of the Amazon queen's booty. A fight ensues—a nicely grimy mud battle— leaving Pete on shore unconscious with malaria, Crespi wandering the jungle looking for help, and the pirate brothers gone. Women in green body paint find him and take him to their village—this is indeed the lost tribe that Pete and Crespi are looking for. He meets Gina and Mario, two people from a previous lost expedition, and he is stripped (to the waist only) and scrubbed in a big tub by a bunch of older, chubby, giggly women before he meets a group of younger, sexier, starlet-looking gals who congregate with their queen Conori and spend their time engaging in chorus-girl dancing and occasional catfighting over the attentions of Pete. Mario warns Pete that the women just need a male to help expand their population and that they will kill him when they get what they want. Indeed, Pete is drugged and an orgy is implied, during which, one assumes, Pete spreads his seed. The next day, the pirates are sighted in the area and a battle ensues. Mario is killed and Pete and Gina escape into the jungle with the missing Crespi their only hope of rescue.

A movie with a title like this can be tricky. You're not going to expect a serious melodrama, though you might expect a comedy or a high-camp adventure story. This isn't quite any of those. It’s a little like Tarzan lite. By far the best part of the movie is the Technicolor orgy in which Pete is drugged and the Amazons are suddenly wearing glittery Las Vegas costumes while they do their showgirl choreography. I love that the scene's fade-out suggests that they all had their way with him, or tried, whereas in an earlier era, something would have interrupted the threat to our hero's purity. I guess that makes him the sole "love slave" of the movie, and he doesn't object much. The giggly bathing scene goes on way too long, and let me be shallow and say that I might have enjoyed it more if someone a bit younger and hunkier than Don Taylor was being stripped and scrubbed. I generally like Taylor but he has virtually no heroic gravitas here, and he often overdoes his comic reactions to a ludicrous degree. Eduardo Ciannelli goes in the other direction, taking his role too seriously, though he vanishes for most of the middle of the movie. Gianna Segale is not terribly memorable as Gina; Ana Maria Nabuco (pictured) has little to do but is luscious eye candy as the queen. Wilson Viana and Eugenio Carlos are bright spots as the pirate brothers—if you like your villains sweaty and beefy, here you go. The ending is a bit anticlimactic but satisfying enough since your expectations aren't all that high. Apparently there is some background footage that was actually shot in Brazil. Directed by Curt Siodmak who wrote the original Wolf Man movie in 1941. [YouTube]

THE ADVENTURES OF NICK CARTER (1972)

New York City, 1912. A man sees an unconscious woman being carried out of a hotel room, put in a carriage, and driven away. He tries to follow but is shot and killed coming down the fire escape. Sam, the dead man, had worked with private eye Nick Carter (Robert Conrad, pictured), though at the time Sam was working for Freddy Duncan, a son of the rich (and dying) big shot Otis Duncan, keeping an eye on Freddy's estranged wife Ivy, the woman who was kidnapped. Nick decides to get to the bottom of his death. Nick goes to the Plush Horse, a fancy club and gambling house, where Freddy is celebrating his birthday, and picks a fight with Freddy's men, getting tossed out. Next, Nick goes to Otis for information. (Otis: "I don’t like private detectives"; Nick: "I don’t like robber barons"; Otis: "Fair enough.") Otis hires Nick to track down Ivy, though Otis' other son, Neal, doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about helping out. In time, Nick crosses paths with Bess Tucker, owner of the Plush Horse, who also doesn't seem happy about being questioned by Nick, and Lloyd Deams, a favorite of Bess' who may have been having an affair with Ivy. Nick gets into fisticuffs, dons disguises, and has run-ins with Capt. Dan Keller, a crooked cop who was the reason Sam quit the police force years ago. Ivy's body is pulled out of the river, but Nick soon suspects that it's not really Ivy, and he's right.

This is the third TV-movie pilot for a rotating detective series from ABC that was never picked up, the other two being for Sherlock Holmes and Hildegarde Withers. This one certainly had potential, with Conrad in a comfortable role as a crime fighter (see the 1960s series Hawaiian Eye and The Wild Wild West). He's a good-looking and manly fellow, but his sex appeal is downplayed here—he has no romantic ties, though his secretary Roxy (Brooke Bundy) could have been developed into one eventually. This has the strongest cast of the three movies. Shelly Winters is Bess, Broderick Crawford is Otis, and Dean Stockwell is Freddy (an underdeveloped character who gets sort of lost in the plot twists). Best of all are Pernell Roberts (Adam Cartwright on Bonanza) as Neal and Sean Garrison as Lloyd, both becoming important characters. I'm not typically a fan of the gruff Neville Brand, but he's good here as the crooked cop. The period setting is par for the course for a TV movie, and there are good fight scenes, especially the climactic one on city rooftops. Nick Carter got his start as a pulp hero in the 1880s and books featuring him were published up to 1990, by which time he had become a secret agent. I've never read a Carter story but I reviewed a 1940 B-film with Walter Pidgeon playing Carter as a rather generic detective. [YouTube, and widely available as a grey market DVD]

THE WAGONS ROLL AT NIGHT (1941)

Nick Coster (Humphrey Bogart) runs the Coney Island Carnival, a small-time traveling circus with merry-go-rounds, strong men, and dancing women, though the carnival's main claim to fame seems to be the lion taming act of Hoffman the Great (Sig Ruman). Flo (Sylvia Sidney), who presents herself as fortune teller Madame Florina and who is Nick's mistress, thinks the carnival needs some razzle dazzle to take it to the next level, especially as Hoffman has been letting his drinking get the better of him—one night, Nick has to hose him down to get him in shape to perform. A few nights later, the untamable lion Caesar escapes into town, winding up in a general store run by Matt Varney (Eddie Albert, pictured). Matt keeps his cool and manages to save the day, and the townsfolk proclaim him a hero. Nick, looking for some good publicity, hires Matt to make an appearance at the lion show and he's a success. Nick talks Matt into taking a permanent job as Hoffman's assistant, and one night, with Hoffman in a drunken stupor, Matt takes charge and is again a success. Hoffman later attacks Matt but gets too close to Caesar's cage and is viciously mauled. When the cops are called and Hoffman's buddies blame Matt, Flo sneaks him out of town to stay with Nick's mom, dad and sister at their farm until the carnival moves on. While there, Matt falls in love with Nick's young sister Mary (Joan Leslie). Despite Matt being a bonafide small town innocent, Nick is adamantly against Mary getting involved with carny people. Despite nursing a small crush on Matt herself, Flo tries to intercede on Matt’s behalf, but nothing works. Eventually, with Flo threatening to leave the carnival, Nick goes a little nuts and plots to get Caesar to kill Matt in the ring.

This was the first movie in which Bogart was top billed, being released a few months after High Sierra where Bogart has the starring role but was billed behind Ida Lupino. Right after this came The Maltese Falcon and the rest is movie history. Though Bogart is the bad guy, he starts out as a relatively admirable character, and he becomes something of an antihero at the end. It's not a subtle performance like the one he would give as Sam Spade in Falcon, but subtlety is not called for in a Warner Brothers melodrama like this. Up and comer Eddie Albert, known for a light comic touch, is very good here moving in a more dramatic direction while still carrying off the likable innocent persona. Sylvia Sidney and Joan Leslie, overshadowed a bit by the men, are fine, as is Sig Ruman. Look for John Ridgely and Clara Blandick in small roles. Charley Foy, of the famous Seven Little Foys vaudeville act, is noticeable as a pickpocket. At times the narrative is a bit bumpy—how Nick’s carnival escapes both lion incidents without major law troubles (or lawsuits) is beyond me, but this is still watchable with Albert coming close to stealing the show from Bogart. [TCM]

SPIES (1928)

An opening title card says, "Strange things were taking place around the world." This is probably always true, but most of these strange things in 1928 involve the theft of important diplomatic documents from various embassies. The big MacGuffin here, which is never quite explained, is a secret peace treaty between England and Japan which, if exposed, could start a major "war in the East." Haghi, who to the public is a respectable German banker (Rufolf Klein-Rogge, pictured at right), is the criminal mastermind behind all these thefts, running a huge spy network, though it's never explained what his endgame is—in one sense, Haghi himself is a kind of MacGuffin. His spies are responsible for the deaths of many German Secret Service agents, but one in particular is quite a thorn in his side: a man only identified as 326 (Willy Fritsch), whom we first see in disguise as a scruffy homeless tramp. The head of the Secret Service assigns 326 to get to the bottom of the treaty thefts, but Haghi gets wind of this and has Russian femme fatale Sonya (Gerda Maurus) seduce him. She does, but she also falls for him. The dandyish Col. Jellusic is working with Sonya but I never really figured out who he worked for, though he seems ready to betray anyone for enough money. There is also Matsumoto, the Japanese diplomat who is trying to keep the treaty safe; he sends three couriers off with copies of the treaty, but when Haghi gets hold of them it turns out that Matsumoto has bluffed him. Things do not end well for Matsumoto. Lady Leslane is a rich socialite who has a secret opium habit and is being blackmailed by Haghi to help him. Finally, there is German agent 719 who to the public is Nemo the Clown and who seems harmless but is not.

This 150-minute silent spy movie by Fritz Lang is crammed full of plot—what I've laid out above accounts for what I could keep clear in my head, but there's lots more going on, all tied to the central story of the treaties. But really, you can enjoy this film even if you can’t follow it. Most of the running time is packed full of incident, making it feel a lot like a serial, and the film might make more sense if watched in short chapter bursts, but then you would lose the propulsive forward motion. Well, most of the film is propulsive. In the first 20 minutes, I took almost a page full of plotpoint notes, but then things slow down a bit, pick up a bit, slow down a bit, and end with some slam-bang action scenes. Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who for some of the film is in a wheelchair with slicked-down Hitlerish hair, played bad guys for Lang before (Rotwang in Metropolis, the title character in Dr. Mabuse) and continues his mad mastermind ways here. (And if you’ve seen those films, you know that coherent plotting is not exactly in Lang's wheelhouse.) He overacts a smidge, what with villainous facial tics and such, but that's par for the course for evil masterminds. Willy Fritsch (326) was primarily known as a handsome, clean-cut romantic figure, and the opening scenes of him as a hobo played against his persona. He's fine as a kind of proto-James Bond figure. Gerda Maurus is also good as Sonya, and Lien Dyers plays another sexy agent named Kitty (whose part in the proceedings was a bit murky to me).

The reason to watch this movie is for the sets, the visuals and the camerawork. A famous shot from this film, which actually has little to do with anything (see left), is of criss-cross staircases in Haghi's secret lair; it's just fun to look at. This was filmed on a lower budget than Metropolis, which lost money for the studio, and some of the sets do look cheap, in particular Haghi's main office, but the occasional sparse set actually adds to the weird atmosphere. There are lots of notes passed, lots of smoking, lots of close-ups, lots of characters not always well delineated. I first watched this over ten years ago and took copious notes for my blog review, but I lost the notes. About two years ago, I found them but couldn’t make sense of them. But I’m very glad I decided to watch it again (on a very nice Blu-ray restoration from Kino with a good hour-long documentary about the movie). My advice is to put the movie on and just go with the visual flow. It’s worth being a little confused and even bored now and then. [Blu-Ray]