THE CHINESE RING (1947) / SHANGHAI CHEST (1948)

In THE CHINESE RING, a Chinese woman comes to Charlie Chan's house, and though his butler Birmingham Brown tries to get rid of her, she gives him a ring to show Chan that indicates she is royalty. But before Chan can talk to her, she is killed by a poison dart gun shot from the window of Chan’s study. As she dies, she scrawls the name "Capt. K" on the desk blotter. The dead woman is Princess Mei Ling who was in the process of having a shipment of planes sent to her warlord brother in China. Chan and police officer Bill Davidson discover two Captain Ks: Captain Kong, the captain of the Shanghai Maid, the ship the planes were supposed to be on, and Captain Kelso, head of Kelso Aviation, maker of the planes. The princess had a million dollars to draw on to pay for the planes and the transportation, but Chan learns that most of that money is gone and unaccounted for. With the unwanted help of feisty reporter Peggy Cartwright (who seems to be casually dating Davidson), Chan and Davidson try to track down the killer, who strikes again by killing Mei Ling's maid with the same dart gun. This is the first of six Charlie Chan films with Roland Winters as Chan (pictured) These were also the last six Chan movies in the lengthy series that started in 1929. Going against critical consensus, I have found that Winters' portrayal of Chan is perfectly acceptable, though this introductory film is not the strongest of the batch. The antics of the supporting characters Tommy (Victor Sen Yung) and Birmingham (Mantan Moreland) are amusing, but the storyline is both convoluted and underwritten, and at just 70 minutes, it bogs down in the middle. For some reason, though Victor Sen Yung played Chan's son Jimmy in many of the earlier films, in the Winters movies his name is Tommy. No one has a good theory as to why. Warren Douglas is bland but serviceable as the cop, as is Louise Currie as the reporter. My favorite scene in the movie has Douglas manhandling Currie, followed by Currie slugging him. I was so surprised by her reaction that I yelped out loud. Philip Ahn is fine as Kong as is Byron Foulger as the banker. Not the best of the Winters Six but watchable.

SHANGHAI CHEST begins as someone sneaks into Judge Armstrong's study and goes through the papers on his desk. When the judge enters, the intruder stabs him. Vic, the judge's nephew, who had been denied entrance to the house by the butler, comes into the study through the window and is knocked out by the killer. Despite this, Vic is the chief suspect in the judge's murder; he knew that his uncle was planning to disinherit him due to his mishandling of the judge's finances. Vic's fingerprints are found on the murder weapon, but so are the prints of Tony Pindello, a killer who was executed six months ago. Charlie Chan helps police lieutenant Mike Ruark (known as Lt. Mike) investigate. When the local D.A. is shot and killed a couple of days later, Tony's fingerprints are again found at the scene. Chan soon discovers that Judge Armstrong, who had sentenced Tony to death, had recently found evidence that Tony may have been innocent, and his case may have a bearing on an insurance swindle that the D.A. was investigating. When Tony's grave is opened, his body is gone. The jurors on Tony's case are put under police protection, but one man who can't be found turns up hanged. This is looking like revenge from the grave; can Chan and Lt. Mike find a flesh and blood killer behind this carnage? This is the third Roland Winters Chan movie and it's totally average in quality. Victor Sen Yung is again Chan's son Tommy and Mantan Moreland is again Birmingham Brown. In a weird but amusing scene, Brown sees actor Willie Best (playing himself) in jail for loitering in a bank—at midnight. Tim Ryan plays Lt. Mike for the first of three such appearances, and he's an asset. A fairly bland supporting cast includes John Alvin, Deannie Best and Erville Alderson. Milton Parsons is somewhat memorable as a creepy undertaker. The title means nothing—at no point is a Shanghai chest presented or referred to. (I’m avoiding making a pun about a Chinese man’s torso.) [DVD]

THE LADY REFUSES (1931)

Hungry, unemployed and desperate, June is wandering the foggy night streets of London, attempting to start a business as a streetwalker—a cop says she must be new to be out on such a night. As the police close in on her, she stumbles to the door of a fancy townhouse where Sir Gerald, seeing her plight and feeling sorry for her, takes her in, telling the police that she is his niece. Sir Gerald is a bit down as his playboy son Russell has once again dashed Gerald's plans for a nice dinner together in order to go out on the town with his latest gold digging paramour Berthine—who has a jealous admirer/pimp (I was never sure how their relationship was supposed to work) named Nikolai. Gerald shares his disappointment with June who tries to give him advice by telling him that there are two times when no one should try to advise a man: when he's drinking too much and when he's in love with the wrong kind of woman. But Gerald doesn't listen: he hires June to get Russell out of Berthine's arms, and figures getting him off alcohol will be a side effect. June proves good at her work; their very first night together, he's drunk, she takes him to her apartment (which Sir Gerald has provided) and he wakes up confused but under her good influence. Over time, Russell stops partying, quits seeing Berthine, and gets serious about his architectural work. But June has fallen in love—not with Russell but with Sir Gerald. When this comes out, so does the information that June has been doing Sir Gerald's bidding. Gerald fears he's lost his son and, to help them make up, she goes into full Cockney hooker mode to make Russell think that she's no good. Just when you thought the melodramatics couldn't be dialed up anymore, Berthine is found dead and Russell is blamed, though we're sure the culprit is that nasty piece of work, Nikolai. The ending is interesting if not totally satisfying.

This pre-code melodrama, which starts out almost as a drawing room comedy, is interesting rather than compelling. One problem is a total lack of characterization. I feel like fifteen minutes of backstory is missing. And partly due to this, we have to take a lot of the plot points on faith. For example, it's not clear why Sir Gerald trusts June to start with. There is zero chemistry between the nearly 60-year-old Gerald and the 20-something June, and why she falls for him is a total mystery, unless the attraction is misguided gratitude. I was never sure if June and Russell were sleeping together (it doesn’t seem like it) but then we're not given any reason to buy Russell's transformation, which happens far too quickly. I never knew exactly what the relationship between Berthine and Nikolai was. And so on. It's a B-movie from RKO, which means production values are good, but the acting is scattershot, and I’m willing to blame the problematic script for some of this. I've never been a fan of Betty Compson (June) and this movie doesn't change my mind. She lacks an inner spark that would help make her character rounder, though she does pull off the closing hooker persona well. David Farrow is handsome and, I don't know, 'fluffy' as Russell. I'm not sure what I mean by that, but he is the most charismatic performer here. Gilbert Emery (Sir Gerald) is about average in a fairly non-demanding role. Ivan Lebedeff barely has to act at all as Nikolai, just look severe and dangerous. Margaret Livingston is OK as Berthine. My favorite lines: Gerald's butler thinks cocktails are too modern to serve: "They even put ice in them in America." Gerald: "I don't think we'll go that far." Pictured are Livingston and Darrow. [TCM]

THE GOLDEN EYE (1948)

Manning, owner of the Golden Eye mine in Arizona, is in San Francisco and visits a Chinatown curio shop to speak to his old friend Wong Fai. Manning says his mine and his life are in danger and he asks about getting in touch with Charlie Chan for help. While Wong phones Chan, Manning is shot at from the street but not hurt. Chan agrees to take on his case and, along with son Tommy and chauffeur Birmingham Brown, heads out to a dude ranch, The Lazy-Y, near Manning's mine. At the pool, Chan observes a rather ostentatiously drunken guest named O'Brien, who is actually police lieutenant Mike Ruark undercover, looking into why the Golden Eye has suddenly gone from being almost fallow to producing a large increase in gold, and Lt. Mike cultivates a relationship with Driscoll, the mine superintendent, to get more info. Visiting Manning's home, Chan meets up Manning's daughter Evelyn and local assayer Bartlett (who seems a bit sweet on Evelyn), and finds out that Manning had a serious injury in the mine and is recovering in his bedroom, wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, under the constant supervision of a somewhat suspicious nursing sister (in a plot point borrowed from THE LADY VANISHES). In short order, Chan and Lt. Mike discover a gold smuggling operation, with cheap Mexican gold brought in across the border and passed off as coming from a new vein of gold at the mine. Given the small number of characters, it's not difficult to figure out who is behind the operation, but how will Chan expose the guilty party?

This entry in the Charlie Chan series, featuring the fourth appearance of Roland Winters as Chan, is a bit above average if only due to the unusual Arizona setting. Winters is fine, Mantan Moreland steals most of his comic relief scenes as Birmingham, and Victor Sen Yung is, once again, son Tommy. Tim Ryan, in his second appearance as Lt. Mike is good, though his drunk scenes come perilously close to going over the top. The amateurish Wanda McKay barely registers as the daughter. There are really only two possible bad guys; as Bartlett, Bruce Kellogg gives the best supporting cast performance more or less by default, since Ralph Dunn is fairly colorless as Driscoll. The very best moment in the film is the final minute: after Chan has explained the case, Birmingham turns directly to the camera in wide-eyed wonder and says, "Ain’t that somethin'? Good gracious me!" This might not turn you into a Winters fan but it's enjoyable if you already are. Pictured are Kellogg, McKay and Winters. [DVD]

THE FEATHERED SERPENT (1948)

We open with an exposition dump presented by a group of people at a streetside cafe in a Mexican village. Professors Scott and Farnsworth were searching for a lost Aztec city but have gone missing, and this group, which includes professors, fiancées and relatives, has vowed to find them. Meanwhile, Charlie Chan, on a vacation road trip in Mexico with his number one and two sons, Lee and Tommy, and his chauffeur Birmingham Brown, find an older man collapsed in the nearby desert. It turns out he is Prof. Scott, who says that he and Farnsworth found the city but have been held captive and forced to decipher hieroglyphics which tell the whereabouts of a hidden fortune. Scott is knifed in the dark and Chan agrees to join the search since Farnsworth is a friend of his. One of the search party members, however, is the villain behind the hostage taking, though one is also a police spy in disguise. One by one, people find the secret entrance to the city and one by one, get captured by the bad guy, though there is more than one baddie in the mix. But with Chan and sons on the case, justice will prevail. The fifth of six movies with Roland Winters as Chan, this is notable primarily for being the only entry in the 47-film series to feature two sons in action with their dad. Victor Sen Yung plays the youthful and bumbling Tommy, and Keye Luke is the older "number one" son Lee. Luke played this character, also youthful and bumbling at the time, in several of the 1930s Chan films. It's fun to see the contrast here between the more mature Lee and his kid brother, and they get to kick some bad guy ass in the end. Interestingly, Luke and Winters in real life were the same age, and Yung was only eleven years younger than Winters. As in all the Winters movies (and many earlier ones), Mantan Moreland is a comic relief standout as Birmingham. I noticed here that Moreland pronounces "Tommy" as "Toe-mee"; I don't know if that is an accent thing or what, but he does it in all the Winters films. Included in the mostly colorless supporting cast is Nils Asther, whose career peaked in 1932 with The Bitter Tea of General Yen. Busy character actor Erville Alderson, who seemed to specialize in older and sickly roles, is old and sickly as the ill-fated Prof. Scott; Robert Livingston is OK as Prof. Stanley. Things begin to drag a bit in the last half, and the promise of the somewhat exotic setting is fulfilled only a bit by the Aztec temple set. Despite the title, the serpent is a tiny part of the story, and its name, Quetzalcoatl, is never mentioned. Pictured from left are Yung, Luke, Winters and Moreland. [DVD]

WAR OF THE PLANETS (1966)

A narrator intones this bit of profound philosophy: "The universe is endless and timeless—who knows how it all began?" This has nothing to do with the story which begins on a New Year's Eve in the future as the population of the space station Gamma 1 celebrates with dancing, drinking, and putting on spectacular tableaux shared with the other space stations of the World's United Democracies on video displays, like spacewalk acrobatics done to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne," or an array of dozens of astronauts floating in space spelling out Happy New Year like a band at a college football game. But troubles are about to arise. On Earth, people are concerned that Captain Dubois of Space Command has not turned up for his shift. We see him attacked by glowing green clouds of gas, and we realize later that he has been possessed by invisible alien forces, called Diaphanoids; they are referred to as "bodiless patterns of energy" who act a bit like Star Trek's Borg in taking over individual beings (called hosting) for the greater force. A distress call from the space station Delta 2 ends the partying. Commander Mike takes a small crew, including his girlfriend Connie and his buddy Jake, to Delta 2 where they find the crew members frozen in place, not quite alive but not yet dead. When Dubois shows up on Earth, he is said to have "gone galaxy," but he's actually now a spokesperson for the aliens and heads up plans to possess some of the Delta 2 folks and dispose of the rest. There is much more to the plot but I am pretty unsure about the details, so I'll leave the summary right here.

Despite a confusing narrative and cheap effects (green gas is a lot cheaper than making dozens of alien costumes), this is fun to watch.  It's the second of four films that director Antonio Margheriti (aka Anthony Dawson) made which were retroactively labeled the Gamma 1 Quadrilogy. I reviewed the first one, WILD WILD PLANET, some years ago, but I'm reviewing this as basically a stand-alone film and not trying to parse out connections of characters or places. The miniature sets, in the Thunderbirds style, are cheap and charming, as are the interior sets and costumes. The laser guns they use are basically flamethrowers. After the first 20 minutes, I wasn't always sure where scenes were taking place but I don't think it mattered all that much. The acting is exactly what you'd expect from a mid-60s dubbed Italian sci-fi movie, alternately serious, humorous and campy. American Tony Russel, who made his name in Italian films, is the commander who frequently fights with his 'feisty' gal (Lisa Gastoni). Franco Nero (best known as Lancelot in CAMELOT) is nice eye candy as the buddy. I like that Connie calls Mike out as a martinet for ordering her about. My husband and I kept referring to Capt. Tice as "big head" because his head looked ready to pop right out of his space helmet. Not suited for viewers of the current generation who take their sci-fi seriously, this is pretty close to delirious fun for the rest of us. In the picture above, Tony Russel is in the center of the crew. [DVD]

MAN ALIVE (1945)

Speed McBride comes home one night, excited to show his wife Connie his latest bowling trophy, but Connie is disappointed because she was expecting a birthday present. But Gordon, an old college friend of theirs, who had a crush on Connie in the past, shows up for a visit with a lovely bouquet of flowers for her. Gordon is recently divorced and Speed, jealous over his attentions to Connie, goes out to a bar to drown his sorrows. He meets a hobo who goes by Willie the Wino and the two get drunk together. When Speed tells him he'd give Willie the shirt off his back, he wants to prove it so the two switch jackets. Speed lets Willie drive him home, but the inebriated Willie winds up driving off a pier into a river. Speed is picked up by Kismet, a riverboat captain and they soon read in a paper that Willie's body was identified as Speed's and the world thinks Speed is dead. Instead of just going home and clearing the matter up, Speed is talked into remaining underground by Kismet so he and Speed go back to Speed's house where Gordon is being very solicitous to the widow. When the will is read, it's discovered that Speed encouraged Connie to get remarried in the event of his death, and worried that she and Gordon will do just that, Speed and Kismet, encouraged by his Aunt Sophie's belief in spiritualism, plan for Speed to pose as his own ghost. Of course, complications ensue.

This is mild B-movie fun, though a big chunk of suspension of disbelief is required to believe that Speed wouldn't just take the easy way out and come clean to Connie right away. Kismet's influence is what pushes him to engage in the scheme, but it's still odd that he lets it go on as long as he does. The actors all do their best. Pat O'Brien as Speed is likable; Ellen Drew (Connie) and Rudy Vallee (Gordon) are fine—though it feels a bit like a second-string cast, which of course as a 70 minute B-movie, it is. The whole thing feels overplotted, with new kinks in the proceedings popping up every ten minutes or so. The funniest moments occur fairly early: on the riverboat, a musical number is performed with cast members dressed as angels singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," so Speed thinks he's woken up in Heaven. Then he sees Kismet, dressed as a devil (pictured above) and assumes he's in Hell. Minna Gombell has a small, inconsequential role as the seance-holding Aunt Sophie. Directed competently by the prolific journeyman Ray Enright. It's hard to dislike this film if you take it as a trifle, but it could have been much more interesting (and funny) with a stronger script. [TCM]

KING OF THE ROCKET MEN (1949 serial) / LOST PLANET AIRMEN (1951)

Scientists from a research group in Oasis, New Mexico called Science Associates (SA) are dropping like flies in suspicious accidents, but we know they are the work of Dr. Vulcan, whom we only see in shadow. In one case, Prof. Drake is driving a car which is taken over remotely by Vulcan and driven over a cliff. In the latest incident, we see Prof. Millard get a verbal warning through a speaker about his death, followed by an explosion in which Millard is assumed dead. But he survives and is whisked away to a secret lab by Jeff King, one of the SA scientists, who suspects that another SA scientist is actually Dr. Vulcan. Millard continues his work on several inventions, including an atomic-powered jet pack (with a mask and control dials that say Up, Down, Fast and Slow) that will allow a man to fly through the air. King, keeping Millard in hiding, goes back to the SA board, now down to only six, and is appointed to investigate the mysterious deaths. He gets help from Burt Winslow, SA's PR man, and reporter Glenda Thomas. When a gang of Vulcan's thugs led by Dirken steal an experimental missile, Jeff dons the jet pack, flies up in the air after the missile is fired, and manages to shoot it down before it causes harm. The heroic flier comes to be known as Rocket Man, though no one except Millard knows his identity. Jeff comes to suspect Conway, the head of SA, as being a bad guy; he is but he's not Vulcan, and as he's about to tell who is, Dirken throws a knife at him. Attempts are made to steal Millard's Decimator which can melt rocks and earth, as we see in an impressive cave incident which, surprisingly, proves fatal to one of our good guys. Eventually Vulcan and Dirken get their hands on one and threaten to destroy New York City with a massive tidal wave unless they get ransom money. Can Rocket Man save the day?

Many of the more popular classic-era serials (multi-chapter adventures which could total up to over three hours) were eventually edited down to shorter feature-length films, often for showing on television. As an experiment, I decided with this serial from Republic to watch the short distillation (LOST PLANET AIRMEN) first and compare the two. For starters, both titles are quite misleading. There are no Rocket Men (ort Airmen), just a Rocket Man. He's also no one's king (though his last name is King). There is no Lost Planet involved, just Earth. AIRMEN, which is just over an hour, is fast-paced, filled with action, and is relatively coherent. ROCKET MEN, at twelve chapters, is almost three hours and has the burden of providing a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter. AIRMEN cuts out a few chapters, discarding entire subplots, including one that involves the death of an SA scientist who in AIRMEN just disappears, and Glenda suspecting that Jeff is Vulcan. An entire contraption, the Sonitron, is also missing from the shorter movie. Perhaps the biggest change is at the climax. In ROCKET MEN, the tidal wave does, in fact, destroy Manhattan, with good use made of some impressive special effects scenes from the 1933 film DELUGE. The good guys still rejoice, presumably because Vulcan is killed, and the mayor proclaims that the city will rebuild (and, despite the large-scale destruction, we see there are somehow still plenty of skyscrapers still standing outside the mayor's window). In AIRMEN, Vulcan is stopped before he can inflict much damage, and the DELUGE scenes are shown merely as the imaginings of Vulcan as he plots his evil deed.

Though the later-era serials are usually considered inferior to those of the 30s and 40s, this one is still enjoyable enough. The full serial conforms to the typical formula, with cliffhangers and fisticuffs in each chapter, generally bland characters, and a posse of bad guys in suits who are rarely differentiated from each other. Famous stunt man David Sharpe (pictured at right) does stunts here (and very well) but also has a role in a couple of chapters as a bad guy. The identity of Vulcan is, as I expected it would be, a disappointment, like the writers chose him randomly from the SA board, but Dirken, the chief thug, is well played by Don Haggerty. Tristram Coffin, often a movie villain, is Jeff, and is adequate if not compelling—in stunt scenes, it's Sharpe in the masked Rocket Man outfit. Mae Clarke (from FRANKENSTEIN and THE PUBLIC ENEMY) and House Peters Jr. are better as Jeff's sidekicks, and luckily one or both is almost always present. Clarke gets to throw a punch at a thug and Peters gets a nice bound-and-gagged scene near the end. James Craven is very good as Millard, putting a bit of life into the stock role of the helpless scientist—in the full serial, he briefly gets to wear the jet pack! Some fun lines: when the Sonitron is destroyed, Millard takes it like a champ, saying jauntily, "Well, we can build another one!"; when King reveals he's the Rocket Man, Dirken replies, "Yeah, and I'm the King of Siam!" Even though some major storylines are absent from AIRMEN, I think I liked that better, and I'm surprised at how complete it felt. Republic made two more Rocket Man movies and one TV series using the same costume but with different lead characters, including two with Commando Cody, which I'll get around to watching soon. Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that these films inspired the naming of the 70s band Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, best known for their 1971 cover of the novelty song "Hot Rod Lincoln." Unofficially known by serial fans as Rocket Man 1. [Blu-ray]

HOTEL (1967)

A couple at the New Orleans airport take their room key from the hotel they were staying at, the Saint Gregory, and having forgotten to turn it in, throw it into an ashtray where it is picked up by a professional thief (Karl Malden) who heads to the hotel, ready to begin a burglary binge. At the hotel, we see that the #3 elevator is a bit rickety but hasn't been reported yet (let’s call this Chekhov's elevator). The hotel owner (Melvyn Douglas), who laments the passing of the old days (he is, among other things, against desegregating the hotel), has to sell the hotel. His choices: 1) sell to hotel magnate Kevin McCarthy who wants to completely renovate it into a modern mechanized place full of conveyor belts, which would most likely displace most of the current workers; 2) get funding from a union, which would, of course, mean unionizing the current workers; 3) sell to a real estate company that wants to tear down the hotel and put up an office building. Douglas relies on his manager (Rod Taylor) to help him make a decision even while Taylor has his hands full with the day-to-day concerns of the guests. McCarthy and his retinue are staying in a high-class suite; he makes his assistants pray with him on their knees to make their mission a success, even as he has meetings in an open bathrobe and sleeps with his younger French mistress (Catherine Spaak). In another suite are a British duke (Michael Rennie) and duchess (Merle Oberon); we first see them sneaking up to their room by the service stairs because they're ducking a hit-and-run investigation involving the death of a child. Rennie is up for an important diplomatic post and Oberon bribes the house detective (Richard Conte) into getting rid of their car. McCarthy sends Spaak to be squired about the French Quarter for a day by Taylor so she can play spy and report back with information McCarthy can use in negotiations. She gets some info, but Taylor takes her to his apartment where they listen to jazz and have sex. In another plotline, a Black couple show up with reservations, but Douglas turns them away; it turns out they are part of McCarthy's plan to squelch Douglas' deal with the union by exposing the incident to the press. And let's not forget that elevator which hasn’t been fixed yet.

Many critics see this as an update of the old warhorse GRAND HOTEL which follows various characters and their interlocking relationships over the period of a couple of days. Here, however, there is a central character, Taylor, who is far more charismatic and interesting than any of the guests. The two main plots (McCarthy's machinations and Oberon's attempt to save her husband from the law) are fairly predictable, and Spaak is the only one to get a fleshed-out backstory. In Malden's sideplot, he is stuck with grinning idiotically as he creeps about in rooms and runs from the cops. His predictable story runs out of steam quickly. That leaves Taylor carrying the movie, and he is almost successful. Taylor is handsome, charming, and dynamic, though his character is awfully flat considering we're supposed to identify with him. Taylor, far and away, does the best acting here, with Oberon and Rennie doing OK. Spaak feels like she's sleepwalking through her part, and McCarthy doesn't have the gravitas to make his character seem serious or threatening. There are some nice side turns by Clinton Sundburg, Alfred Ryder and Harry Hickox (the anvil salesman from The Music Man), and jazz singer Carmen McRae is good in a small role as, yes, the singer in the hotel's bar—she and Taylor show hints of an interesting relationship that isn't examined. Oddly, I feel like this movie is a bit too short. A couple of side stories are glimpsed (in addition to McRae, there's a bell captain who meddles in things and a couple of rich lads who invite whores up to their room for a party) that might have been interesting. There are a handful of location shots in New Orleans but they don't amount to much. Still, the hotel sets are effective. The ending is not especially satisfying, with the Rennie/Oberon story left with loose ends, but the last scene is nice. Directed by Richard Quine, a character actor in the 40s who became a rather undistinguished director in the 50s (except for Bell, Book and Candle). Based on a bestseller by Arthur Hailey (Airport). The whole thing is lazily involving if not engrossing, but I’d watch it again for the sexy Rod Taylor (pictured). [TCM]

LOVERS AND LOLLIPOPS (1956)

Ann is a young widow who lives in Manhattan and works as a model. She has a 7-year old daughter named Peggy who is entering a mildly bratty phase. One night, Ann goes out with Larry, an old friend who has just returned from a few years working as an engineer in South America. Larry buys Peggy a toy boat which she insists on taking with her as they head out for a day on the town. At the Museum of Modern Art, Peggy proves to be a bit of a handful, eventually floating her boat in a pool in the sculpture garden and needing help getting it out. Generally, it seems like Peggy has taken to Larry's presence and he and Ann start to talk about a future together, with Larry willing to talk to his bosses about transferring to Manhattan. The two start spending more time together and Peggy, possibly threatened by the growing relationship, starts acting out around Larry. She hides from him in a beach parking lot, then disobeys orders not to take all the lollipops out of a beach bag (she tries to stuff them all in her mouth, then plants them in the sand). On a trip to Macy's toy department with Larry to pick out a new toy, Peggy dawdles on purpose which irritates Larry. When they get home, Peggy claims that Larry slapped her (he didn't) which causes Ann to slap her. It seems like Peggy might be successful in spoiling Ann and Larry’s relationship, but after a break of a couple of days, Larry tries one last tactic: a new puppy.

This is a very low-budget film, shot on location on the streets of New York with a small cast and post-dubbed dialogue. The directors, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin, had a fluke hit a couple years earlier with a similar child-focused slice of life story called Little Fugitive. This didn't have the same success and it's a bit rough around the edges, but it has mild charms. The acting is deceptively good all around, with the three leads seeming very natural, all probably fighting the temptation to exaggerate their feelings and actions as in a typical Hollywood film. Peggy's acting-up never leads to anything dangerous; when she hides in the parking lot, I was sure there would be drama, but she doesn't run out in the path of a car, and Larry refuses to overreact to the situation. Of course, this means the movie lacks some energy and tension—there was no doubt in my mind that lonely Ann and nice-guy Larry would wind up together. Cathy Dunn (Peggy) never made another movie but she certainly shows low-key promise here, being cranky and irritating without overdoing it. Lori March (Ann) went on to soap operas. Gerald S. O’Laughlin (Larry), a favorite tough-guy character actor of mine, does a nice job as the suitor, sensitive to Ann's situation and not willing to give up on winning over the mercurial daughter. One nice situation has Peggy see a hippopotamus named Larry at the zoo; later she draws the hippo and his name in chalk on the sidewalk, but when Larry shows up, she tries to erase the name, afraid that he'll think she was insulting him by comparing him to a hippo. I'm glad I saw this low-key film but it won't be everyone’s cup of tea. [YouTube]

JUST IMAGINE (1930)

In the year 1980, people have numbers instead of names, they use one-person planes instead of cars (a bit like the Jetsons do), they need governmental approval to marry, and they get children from vending machines on the street. John Garrick is in love with Maureen O’Sullivan and meets her in mid-air as their two planes hover to discuss their situation. Another man (Kenneth Thomson) has applied to marry her, and as Garrick has been judged the less impressive of the two, Thomson has been given priority. She loves Garrick, but he has only a couple of months to do something in his field (he's a pilot) that will make him stand out above Thomson. To help him forget his troubles, Garrick's roommate (Frank Albertson) takes him to see a scientist resurrect a man who died in 1930—he was struck by lightning while playing golf. The man (El Brendel), rather like Woody Allen in Sleeper, is reanimated and is confused and astonished by the future world, and Garrick and Albertson take him in. Meanwhile, another scientist tells Garrick about a spaceship he has built and suggests that if Garrick could fly it to Mars, that might be enough to get him married to O'Sullivan. The roommates take off, with Brendel as a stowaway. On Mars, the three get involved with King Loko and Queen Loo Loo, discover two different tribes of beings, witness an elaborate dance scene performed around a huge idol, and finally make it back home where Garrick is praised for his trip and gets to marry O’Sullivan. 

You would think an early talkie sci-fi musical would be fun, if only as a period piece, but this ludicrous mess is hard to take. The only reason I sat through it was the fabulous set design. Apparently a big chunk of the films' budget went to its look: the modern apartment, the New York cityscape (looking much like the city in Fritz Lang's Metropolis), the scientific labs, the Martian landscape. The plot seems to have been thrown together in a few days to justify the visuals. In fact, the weak plot may be a consequence of the film being a musical, with the narrative seen as relatively unimportant compared to the songs and production numbers. The Mars sequence, which has a convoluted and forgettable plot, features a spectacular number, the abovementioned dance with the giant idol which was reused in the original Flash Gordon serial. It also contains a running joke that would not have been possible under the Production Code a few years later: the king of Mars is apparently gay and has a thing for El Brendel. The funniest line in the movie is when Brendel realizes that he's being flirted with and says, in reference to the queen of Mars, "She’s not the queen, he is!" In the end, Loko returns to Earth where they just might wind up as together as Garrick and O’Sullivan. Another standout line: When Garrick complains to a spinsterish census taker about the unfairness of the law, she replies, "The Marriage Act, like the Volstead Act—a noble experiment." (Prohibition, the Volstead Act, was still the law of the land in 1930.) The songs are unmemorable, El Brendel's shtick is quite dated (though I did laugh at a few of his bits), Garrick is flat, and O’Sullivan is given little to do, which leaves Albertson and Marjorie White, as his girlfriend, as the bright spots in the film. They are both energetic and amusing, which the leads are not. It doesn't help that the only available print, one shown on the Fox Movie Channel some years ago, is in poor shape. For the visuals alone, this might be worth restoring, but I won't hold my breath. Many critics have done political and cultural readings of the film, particularly as concerns the low status of women reflected in the future, but I can't work up the energy to participate. For me, this movie is all about the sets. In the photo above, Albertson and Brendel at to the left and Garrick is to the right. [YouTube]

REVOLT OF THE BARBARIANS (1964)

In 300 A.D., northern areas of Rome are besieged by, well, revolting barbarians. Darius and his men of the 10th legion are on their way home to Rome after months of battle when they are stopped by Claudius, an emissary of the emperor, and given a new task: head to Gaul and stop the systematic robbery of gold, intended for the soldiers' payroll, by the raiding barbarians. The legion heads to the town of Trivero where Darius and his buddy Marcus disguise themselves as merchants. They get to know Demetrius, head of the city; Livia, who is anti-Rome because Romans were responsible for the death of her father; her aunt Augusta, a woman of indeterminate loyalty; Brutus, the head of the Praetorian Guard. There is more going on here than we see on the surface: it appears that the gold pieces (which are marked with a distinctive 'X') are being stolen by barbarians who are being controlled by Demetrius, and Darius sees the coins turning up in Trivero. Claudius orders Darius and his men to stage a fake gold delivery as bait for catching the bandits. It turns out there is a conspiracy apparently headed by Brutus, but Darius suspects that he has higher-ups controlling him, as a series of double-crosses confirms.

This is not uninteresting, but if you're new to the peplum genre, this may not be the one to start with. The presence of oiled-up musclemen and people in togas are two of the primary criteria for the genre; here, you will find togas but no muscles, or even bare male chests, muscular or otherwise. Roland Carey, as Darius (pictured), is an OK hero that we can root for, and he's handy with a sword, but he is strictly of average build, as is Marcus (Gabriele Antonini). The women are attractive but not as buxom as one might expect. Once you get past the physical glitches, the rest is entertaining enough. The plot is a tiny bit more complicated than usual, and the sword fights are pulled off well, if a bit padded out at times. The soundtrack, as with most Italian movies of the era, is completely dubbed, not only in English speech but with background noises done by foley artists as well, but here the foley department went a bit overboard, with, for example, the sound of two men running sounding like horses clomping. When horses actually are clomping, the sound is overwhelming. There is a musical theme used in some of the fight scenes that is reminiscent of the Rumble music from West Side Story. Ultimately, the title has little meaning, as any barbarian revolt is secondary to the actual intrigue. [YouTube]

DOCKS OF NEW ORLEANS (1948)

In the only scene in this movie set at the title location, two suspicious looking men, Grock and Pereaux, try to stop a shipment of chemicals from going to South America, but the ship is too well guarded. Meanwhile, LaFontanne, the head of the chemical company, calls on Charlie Chan, fearing a "secret enemy." The chemical, a variation of perchloric acid which can be used as a weapon, was produced in a partnership with Castanaro and Von Scherbe, On the morning that Chan is to meet with LaFontanne, Castanaro and Von Scherbe show up at the office and demand that LaFontanne sign an agreement that ensures that, if one of the partners dies, the others will get his share of the profits. He is reluctant but does eventually sign. Then, LaFontanne has a new visitor: Oscar Swenstrom, the inventor of the chemical, who feels cheated by the partners because he won't get a share of the profits. LaFontanne's secretary (and niece) Rene calls the cops, but by the time they get there, LaFontanne, who went into his office to listen to a radio concert, is found dead, possibly of a heart attack. When Chan arrives, he figures out that poison gas was actually the culprit, but how it happened and who did it are unclear. There end up being four parties of interest: 1) the remaining partners; 2) Grock and Pereaux (and a woman who calls herself the Countess) who are after the formula for the chemical; 3) Swenstrom (and his opera singing wife whom we never meet but who is mentioned more than once); 4) the niece Rene who had a chunk of the partnership, and the office manager Thompson who is Rene’s tagalong buddy. Chan is on the case with help from the cops—and hindrance from his son Tommy and chauffeur Birmingham Brown.

The generally accepted Charlie Chan film canon consists of over forty films made between 1931 and 1949. Three different actors played Chan. The first and best known is Warner Oland; after his death, Sidney Toler took over, followed by Roland Winters. Winters, who seemed the least yellowface Chan. is often regarded as the least of the three (partly because his movies, made by Monogram, had the lowest budgets, sometimes being shot is just a week or so), but in an attempt to look at him with fresh eyes, I found that he's not bad. He doesn't have the spark that Oland had, but he also is less lethargic than Toler was—Toler did his last few Chan films while suffering with cancer, but even before that, Toler was not terribly energetic. In this, the second of six Chan films that Winters starred in, he tries to follow the Oland template of quiet dignity with occasional subtle snark directed at those who underestimate Chan's talents. Black comic actor Manan Moreland played Birmingham in several Chan movies, and despite usually being depicted as scared and bumbling, he is usually a highlight of the films, as he is here. His interplay with Victor Sen Yung (as Tommy, also a bungler) is fun—they even get to do a short song, "The Chop Suey Boogie," on violin and piano. He also does a funny double-talk bit with Haywood Jones (fine in the only movie he ever made). The rest of the cast is adequate, mostly a bunch of middle-aged white guys in suits and hats who can be difficult to distinguish from each other. John Gallaudet is good as the police captain, as are Virginia Dale (Rene) and Rory Mallinson (Thompson). If you're familiar with the concept of Chekhov's gun, the opera singing wife who sings on the radio is the Chekhov's gun here. There's not a lot of action but the clever climax plays out nicely. The movie is basically an uncredited remake of MR. WONG DETECTIVE, an earlier Monogram movie. Best lines: one impatient character, wanting Chan to cut to the chase, says, "Forget the parables, Chan!" and later, "Never mind the platitudes, Chan, talk!" Of course, Chan wouldn't be Chan without those platitudes and parables. More Roland Winters coming up soon. Pictured are Moreland, Winters and Sen Yung. [DVD]

THE GREAT WALTZ (1972)

This biopic about the great waltz composer Johann Strauss Jr. is related to but not directly based on the 1938 film of the same title. It begins with Strauss's father (Nigel Patrick) in the middle of conducting a concert when he is confronted by his estranged wife Anna (Yvonne Mitchell) because she has learned that his mistress Emily has borne him a child and named him Johann, just like his legitimate son (Horst Buchholz, pictured). After he refuses to rename the child, Anna, in revenge, springs the news on him that Johann Jr. has decided to become a violinist, a career his father was set against because of its financial insecurities. But another reason might be jealousy, as we find out when Anna tells Johann Sr. that the son's teacher believes that Johann Jr. is likely to surpass the talents of his father. When Johann Jr. gives his first concert, his mother has "Jr." put on the poster in tiny letters, and when the audience sees him, they express their disappointment loudly (his small orchestra is belittled as a "ragtag group" of tavern musicians). Two men who were hired by Senior to disrupt the concert begin booing loudly, and the audience joins them, but eventually Johann wins them over and his father eventually softens when he hears him play. That night, he meets opera singer Jetty Treffz (Mary Costa) who encourages him. He shoots to fame quickly and a few years later he runs into Jetty again, who is the mistress of Baron Tedesco (Rosanno Brazzi). The Baron senses an attraction between Jetty and Johann and tries to keep them apart, but eventually they marry, with (more or less) the best wishes of the Baron and of Johann's mother. Their relationship is troubled a bit by Johann's roving eye and Jetty's buried secret (she has a bastard son). All that remains is for the Blue Danube Waltz to shoot Johann to everlasting fame.

This is much like Andrew Stone's earlier biopic, SONG OF NORWAY which was about Edvard Grieg. Both are long musicals about 19th century classical composers, both treat large swaths of their lives, and both incorporate several dance numbers set to the melodies of the composers. They are good-looking films seemingly made with adequate budgets. And despite having some fans, both were commercial bombs, both being part of that ill-fated Hollywood movement to find another musical blockbuster like THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Unlike NORWAY, this one has less pandering to a family audience, but it's not necessarily a better movie; it's not a bad movie, but it is overly long and frankly, the musical numbers, arriving every ten minutes or so, wore me out. But the clincher may be the terrible, at times unintentionally comical, sung narration, lyrics set, I'm assuming, to Strauss melodies, though I'm not sure. Horst Buchholz is on screen most of the time and he's really very good (and easy on the eyes) but the script doesn't make him a very consistent character. Mary Costa (Jetty) is an opera singer, probably best known as the voice of Disney's Sleeping Beauty. She looks the part but gives a rather bland performance, as does Rosanno Brazzi who is wasted, left mostly to look sad or mildly perturbed. The musical numbers I mentioned above are actually quite nicely done with lots of athletic leaping and swirling, but there are just too many of them. The very good choreography is by Onna White who did fine work in BYE BYE BIRDIE, THE MUSIC MAN and OLIVER! The production values are good, as is the cinematography. Despite all that, it never fully came to life for me. [TCM]

BOWANGA BOWANGA (1951)

We are told through voiceover that the story we are about to see is one of any number of legends about unknown Africa. "Is it fact or fiction? Who can say?" Indeed. Next we see Count Sparafucile and his buddy plain old Kirby on safari, seeing (via badly inserted stock footage) lots of animals in the brush and one gorilla who seems ready to head off for some affection with a human woman, the two never to be seen again. Then they find an unconscious man on the ground whom Kirby recognizes as a guide named Trent. The man wakes up delirious, having become lost, mumbling something about "white sirens of Africa," and Kirby and the Count nurse him back to health. In a flashback, we see Trent, living with his alcoholic father in Africa, witness a group of white female natives, called Ulama, perform a frenzied dance ceremony (involving a quick shot of bare breasts). Years later, he has returned to Africa to get proof of the existence of the "white sirens." Kirby and the Count join him and soon enough, they are captured on a plateau where the Ulama, some of whom can speak broken English, live. The trio see that the women have enslaved some men, and learn that the Ulama use the strong men to service their queen and the weak ones to sacrifice to the Fire God. The queen gets excited when she sees the moderately hunky Trent and claims him for her use, irritating a group of jealous sirens, with the other two marked for sacrifice (though if I'm not mistaken, Count Sparafucile gets used himself by a lesser siren). Conflict ensues with one of the younger, more suburban looking sirens, Owoona, helping the men escape from the clutches of the queen and the Fire God in the nick of time.

This exotic B-movie melodrama runs with the whole "wild white women" thing (its alternate title is WILD WOMEN), with Black Africans shunted off to the background. Usually in a movie of this genre and era, the white women are in danger and need saving, or perhaps are misguided and need saving, but here, the white sirens don't need any saving at all—they’re rather vicious and only need men for procreation—forget the weaklings and the nerds. (To be fair, neither the Count nor Kirby are really weak or nerdy, but just not as studly as Trent.) It's almost surreal how much cutting back and forth there is between studio scenes and grainy, sometimes blurry stock footage, much of which was apparently taken from silent movies. In its own weird way, it's effective. The acting is of two qualities: trying hard and not trying at all. The women don't try at all, barking out syllables, looking pissed off, while decked out in make-up and nicely done hair. Of course, they're not really playing characters. Even the queen (Dana Wilson, who later married Albert Broccoli, producer of the James Bond films) isn't given much to differentiate her from the other sirens. Only the wholesome looking Owoona (Charleen Hawks) has any character at all. The men acquit themselves a little better because they actually have sketchy characters to portray. Lewis Wilson (the original Batman in the 1943 serial) is fine as Trent, Mort Thompson is likably casual as Kirby, and Don Orlando is mild comic relief as the Count. There are a few tribal dances to enliven the sometimes slow proceedings, including the "Hoy-ya, Boy-ya, Hoom-bah" song. I just had to see this for the title, and at a skosh over one hour, it’s mostly painless B-jungle movie fun. [YouTube]

SHADOWS OVER SHANGHAI (1938)

During the Chinese-Japanese war, at the Woosung Refuge for War Orphans in rural China, Irene, a teacher, wishes that the world's populations could all get along like all the children do. Of course, as soon as she says this, a group of boys begin fighting, causing the old guy who runs the place to chuckle knowingly. Hearing a biplane buzzing past, she sees that it's her brother Peter, who frequently stops by when he's in the air. (We never really know what he does; is he a military pilot or a courier or just a recreational pilot?) This time, however, he zooms on by, being chased by another plane piloted by a villainous looking fellow in a goatee named Sargoza. Peter is shot down and Irene, discovering the wreckage, pulls him out, injured but alive. He gives Irene a half of an amulet and asks her to sail for San Francisco and deliver it into the right hands; when matched with the other half, it will free up five million dollars donated by a Chinese-American family for the Chinese to spend on munitions. She immediately heads for Shanghai to catch a ship that is evacuating foreigners. Meanwhile Sargoza has followed her and tries to kidnap her off the street in broad daylight. She is saved by photographer Johnny McGinty, but doesn't stick around to thank him. As it happens, Peter has sent Irene to rendezvous with a man named Barclay, and McGinty is an old pal of Barclay's, so fate throws them together again. McGinty is planning on catching the next ship out and says he will accompany her, but she needs a passport to get on the ship and doesn't have one. (I note here that we never find out what nationality she is; she looks like an all-American gal but has a slight unidentifiable accent.) Barclay suggests that she and McGinty get married so she can get on the ship with him, then get it annulled in San Francisco, so they do. He also agrees to hide the amulet in his camera case. Here, the story begins to fall apart before our eyes. In addition to Sargoza (a former Russian embassy worker who is out to get the money for himself), a Japanese official named Yokahama is now on their trail, apparently also after the amulet half. Irene gets an incense burner as a wedding gift and they decide to hide the amulet in there, but then they don't. Irene is told that because of new rules, being married to an American will not be good enough to get her on the ship (but at the end, she gets on anyway). Finally, in a spectacularly anti-climactic ending, Roosevelt bans all shipments of munitions to countries at war, so all this effort has been for naught. Or maybe not all the effort: it seems that McGinty and Irene enjoy being married after all (though she has given no sign of that at all) so they head off to San Francisco as a happy couple.

Yeesh! This movie is a bit of a mess. It's a Poverty Row production, and the script and acting problems inherent in such films are magnified here. The sets and costumes are plain and cheap looking, the plot logic is lacking, and the acting is just bad all around, with everyone seeming tired or bored. I have never liked James Dunn (McGinty); he always comes off as weak and unlikable (except in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for which he won a supporting actor Oscar in 1946) and he's no different here. The man hasn't an ounce of romantic chemistry in him. His left arm is injured and out of commission, and the only reason for this plotwise seems to be that it's a good excuse for McGinty's bosses to send him back to America for a desk job. (I wondered if Dunn's arm had been injured in real life, but I couldn't determine that.) Lynda Grey (Irene) is drab and wooden. Ralph Morgan (Barclay) is, like Dunn, an actor I have never warmed to. He is always stiff and free of charisma. But of the three leads, he comes off the best, perhaps because he is basically a peripheral character who operates as a key to certain plotpoints. Robert Barrat, a respectable character actor with over 150 credits on IMDb (I know him mostly from westerns and crime movies), gives by default the best performance, though his role as Sargoza is one-dimensional. Edward Woods (Peter) shows promise, but vanishes after the first ten minutes, though we are given to understand that his character survives his injuries.  Unless like me you enjoy trolling through the YouTube algorithm suggestions for little-known B-movies, there is no reason to watch this. It's not painful, but it's not interesting or fun. Pictured are Grey and Dunn. [YouTube]

HOLIDAY FOR SINNERS (1952)

It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans and we see lots of celebrating revelers, except, as a narrator tells us, down "narrow streets where the bands and cheering were barely heard." Down one of those dark alleys, a handsome priest (Richard Anderson) visits a tenement apartment where a worn out young doctor (Gig Young) has been attending to a dying man. The priest performs last rites and the two, boyhood friends, chat on the way out about the future. Anderson is sure that the diocese will fund a new neighborhood clinic, but Young, no longer very optimistic, has accepted a research position in India, and his girlfriend (Janice Rule) has tentatively accepted his offer of marriage. At his apartment, Young, who owns a pet monkey, is visited by an older blustery but broken down boxer (Keenan Wynn) who is going blind with little hope of a cure, and trying to get $1500 that his former manager owes him. The manager, however, claims that Wynn has gone batty and should be institutionalized. Soon, Anderson finds out that the church has put off investing in a new clinic. One more character is introduced: a reporter (William Campbell) who takes advantage of Wynn's situation to get a headline. These sad lives intersect, leaving at least two dead by the end, but a glimmer of redemption remains.

This gloomy melodrama has some good performances and some nice location shooting in New Orleans (though the overall look of the film is dark and claustrophobic) but ultimately has nothing special going for it to distinguish it from other B-range dramas of the era. Part of the problem is that there isn't a compelling main character. Young is the one who is central to all the stories, but he has little charisma and from the opening he comes off as beaten down and disillusioned. He and Anderson and Wynn are supposed to have been childhood friends but they don’t really come off as strongly connected. Wynn gets lots of critical praise, but to me it felt like he was chewing scenery occasionally, and his character is a self-defeating, sometimes obnoxious mess. Anderson, Campbell, and Rule give the best performances. I could take the gloom and sadness if I cared about the outcomes of any of the character plotlines, but I really didn't. Pictured are Anderson and Young. [TCM]

A VERY MISSING PERSON (1972)

Westering (Ray Danton) is the leader of a small new age cult who lives on a houseboat and plans to take his followers to a faraway island and start the colony of New Eden. But we know he's a bit too slick and handsome (and horny) to be genuine—he is in the process of dumping his current mistress Eve for a woman who calls herself Sister Isabelle. The group comes to the attention of Inspector Oscar Piper (James Gregory) when a banker asks for assistance in finding Lenore, a runaway heiress, last seen in a hippie van heading out to join a commune. She is needed to attend to various financial matters and Oscar, head of the homicide department, says they will do their best to return Lenore to "the bosom of her bank." Technically, the case is not part of his beat, but his sort-of girlfriend, retired teacher Hildegarde Withers (Eve Arden), eggs him on to let her investigate, with travel assistance from her handsome young neighbor Aloysius Fister (Dennis Rucker); he drives a motorcycle and she rides in the sidecar. Charmed by Hildy, the hippies let her on the boat and she is witness to the death of Westering when he drinks a glass of wine poisoned with arsenic. Now that there has been a mysterious death, Oscar can get involved. He believes that the trip to an island would never have happened because the boat isn't seaworthy. Soon, they discover that Sister Isabelle is Lenore, so she's a suspect, as is Westering's wife Aleatha (Julie Newmar) who runs a fancy French restaurant, doesn't belong to the cult, and claims not to have been bothered by Westering's affairs. Hildegarde also discovers that the restaurant has a supply of the wine that was poisoned. A mysterious middle-aged hippie named Onofre, who was planning a rival cult, is also a suspect—Hildegarde calls him Rasputin because of his long hair, long beard, and flowing robe. Lenore, who may be in danger because of her money and her status as mistress to the dead man, lives with Hildy temporarily which allows Aloysius to flirt a bit with her, as well as be her protector. Another death or two is in store before Hildegarde figures things out.

If you've been a long time reader of my blog, you might remember Hildegarde Withers as the main character in a handful of 1930s mysteries based on a series of books by Stuart Palmer. Her best portrayer, Edna May Oliver, played her as a prickly, aloof spinster who carries on a mildly flirtatious relationship with Oscar. In this movie, based loosely on a posthumously published novel that was finished by another author, Arden plays Withers with no hint of spinster and just a little hint of prickliness. But the character never quite gels and she winds up feeling like a poor fit for the hippies & drugs milieu into which she is thrust. James Gregory, immortalized as the cranky Inspector Luger in TV's Barney Miller, is certainly cranky here, but not as charming as James Gleason was in the 30s movies. He has little to do and maybe because of this has zero chemistry with Arden. This may be an idiosyncratic observation of mine, but both actors have very distinct and mannered performing styles—Arden drily overemphasizing her dialogue and Gregory growling his—and the combination got irritating after a while. Aside from the TV show Our Miss Brooks, Arden was not usually a leading lady, and her delivery may be why. Danton has dark charisma here but he's not around long. Rucker, as Hildy's boy pal, looks like a TV version of Robert Redford and is quite good, giving a well modulated performance that gives us a rest from the more dominating tones of the leads. Robert Easton looks appropriately unappealing as the rival cult leader, Julie Newmar is not convincing as the suspicious widow, and Skye Aubrey is bland as the heiress. You may recognize Bob Hastings (Carpenter in McHale's Navy, Kelsey the bartender in All in the Family) and Pat Morita (from The Karate Kid movies) in supporting roles. A big clue to the killer's identity is provided by Hildegarde when she notes that a supposed suicide note is fake because the uneducated writer of the note properly used a semi-colon—nice that they worked in a nod to her teaching days, far-fetched as it is. This was a pilot, like the 1972 Hound of the Baskervilles, for a TV series of rotating detective shows. Much as I usually like Arden, I don’t know that I would have kept watching these. Pictured are Arden and Rucker. [YouTube]

DON'T MAKE WAVES (1967)

A drifter named Carlo (Tony Curtis), who has all his possessions in his car, parks along a coastal hillside California road to admire the view and sees Laura (Claudia Cardinale), a beautiful young artist, throwing a fit about her ruined painting. When she gets in her car and pulls out onto the road, she accidentally drags Carlo's car out as well. It goes rolling down the road, eventually crashing in front of Laura's car and catching fire. Laura takes him back to her Malibu apartment to search for her insurance papers but she can't find them so she invites him to stay the night on her fold-out couch. In the night, Carlo is awakened by a knock at the door from Rod (Robert Webber), Laura's "patron” (in her words) and owner of a swimming pool company. He's married but because his wife is a sickly invalid, he can't get a divorce. Carlo and Laura try to explain their situation, but when Rod says he believes them, Laura gets pissed off that he believes such a crazy story. Carlo agrees to sleep on the beach overnight, and the next morning, he awakens in the midst of a bunch of surfers and beach bums. A gorgeous young woman who goes by the name Malibu (Sharon Tate), a skydiver who spends most of her beach time bouncing on a trampoline, saves Carlo from drowning. Carlo immediately falls for her, though she already has a boyfriend, a sweet but dumb muscle hunk named Harry (David Draper). All the main characters have been introduced, although later we meet Rod's wife Diane (Joanna Barnes) who is most definitely not a sickly invalid, and from here the movie takes off into total craziness and I found events difficult to follow. But at heart, this is an old-school screwball comedy and despite many crossed connections, everyone (quite improbably) winds up happy at the end.

Critical response to this movie is split between those who love it (including, oddly, Leonard Maltin who gives it three stars) and those who hate it. My feelings aren't strong enough to be called love or hate—it's more that I tolerated it enough to stick with it to the end. My problem is that it moves so quickly from one utterly unbelievable situation to the next that it was hard to follow with any precision. At one point, a character played by Mort Sahl basically gives Carlo a hillside house and a fancy car, and I never quite figured out why. Carlo, blackmailing Rod with the knowledge about his healthy wife, gets a job as a pool salesman for Rod and one of the more coherent scenes involves Carlo selling a pool to Jim Backus and his wife, playing themselves. Backus breaks into his Mr. Magoo voice for Carlo, saying, "Friends love me at parties!" It helps that the actors throw themselves into the material with straight faces, even though I suspect that some of them had no more idea what was going on than I did. Tony Curtis, at the center of the movie's madness, is actually the weak link, seeming to be particularly at sea, but he is surrounded by strong supporting players. Cardinale, speaking in a thick accent that I found hard to decipher sometimes, mostly busies herself by being in constant motion, and Tate does the opposite, looking bored. But Webber and Barnes manage to feel like real characters, as does Draper, who in real life was a famous bodybuilder who was Mr. Universe at the time of filming. Perhaps he's not acting at all, but he at least seems natural amongst all the artificial folks around him. Edgar Bergen has a droll cameo as a horoscope writer who goes by the pen name Madame Lavinia and who reiterates the advice of a chiropractor friend of Harry's that "sex steals away strength like a thief in the night." The finale, which involves the slow destruction of the hillside house in a mudslide, is fun and impressively pulled off. At one point in my notes, I wrote, "This was made by Martians who had no idea how Earthlings behave." Another thing that put me off is the huge amount of post-dubbing of dialogue which frequently acts as a distancing device for me. The natural sound scenes are so few that they stand out. A novelty for sure, annoying at times but watchable. Pictured are Draper and Tate. [TCM]

SHORT CUT TO HELL (1957)

In Oakland, California, a young totsy walks into a hotel room occupied by young tough Kyle (Robert Ivers, pictured) and his cat. She has flirting on her mind, but he shoos her away and eventually heads downtown to the city engineering building where he calmly shoots a building inspector and his secretary who were about to expose some shoddy engineering problems in city buildings. He steals incriminating documents, then visits a man named Bahrwell who takes the documents and pays Kyle for the killings. But then Bahrwell double crosses Kyle by paying him in bills which have serial numbers which he has reported as stolen to the police. When he tries to pay his hotel bill with the bad money, he is reported but gets away before the cops can catch him. Looking for revenge, he hops a train to Los Angeles where Bahrwell's company is located. Also on the train is Glory (Georgann Johnson), a nightclub singer who happens to be dating Stan (William Bishop), an Oakland cop. Kyle tries to steal a five from Glory's purse; she catches him but takes pity on him and they start to bond. Bahrwell is also on the train and reports Kyle's presence to the police. They stop the train, but Kyle and Glory get away. In Los Angeles, A.T., Bharwell's boss, gets involved, as does Stan. After a series of captures and escapes and chases, Kyle and Glory end up trapped in an aluminum factory, finding refuge in an unused bomb shelter, leading to a climax that satisfies both the audience and the Production Code.

This is based on the 1942 noir film This Gun for Hire, itself based on a novel by Graham Greene. It’s a B-film adaptation, directed by James Cagney, who gives a brief on-screen introduction praising the two stars, both newcomers, neither of whom would go on to great heights. Indeed, Ivers seems to be sleepwalking through his part, but I realized eventually that this was a legitimate interpretation of the character—he unemotionally tells Glory about his various hit jobs but gets emotional when he has to kill a cat in the bomb shelter that could give away their location. Johnson is OK but has little charisma, though she does develop a believable chemistry with Ivers. Bishop gets top billing as Stan the cop and he's fine, but we don't really get to know him. Jacques Aubuchon, channeling the better Sydney Greenstreet, plays Bahrwell with some gay subtext (at one point, he claims to be a show tune fan), and Richard Hale plays A.T. as an evil Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. Cagney's direction is a bit slack until the end when the climax works nicely. No classic but interesting in fits and starts, and it's a legit film noir. [Blu-ray]

NAKED ALIBI (1954)

Bakery owner Al Willis (Gene Barry) is being held on suspicion of involvement with a series of robberies. The drunken Willis loses control and punches Lt. Parks who punches him back. The department is skittish because of current headlines concerning police brutality, so Joe Conroy, the chief investigator (Sterling Hayden), lets Willis go. In the middle of the night, Parks is shot dead on the street and the cops chase down Willis, who claims he was in a neighborhood church at the time. Despite Willis seeming to be an upright citizen and family man, Joe is convinced that he's guilty. When two other cops who were involved in Willis's interrogation are killed in a car bombing, Joe goes after Willis but a journalist gets a photo of Joe manhandling Willis and he is kicked off the force. Joe hires a private investigator to follow Willis 24/7, which spooks Willis enough that he goes on the run to Border City (i.e., Tijuana) where he hangs out with his mistress Marianna (Gloria Grahame), a second-rate club singer. Now we see what Willis is really like: he practically assaults Marianna backstage, and when he kisses her, he thrusts his whole body against her, over and over. By now, Joe is also in Border City and when he gets rolled by three thugs and knocked unconscious, he is taken into a boarding house where, coincidentally, Marianna also lives. She and a friendly lad named Petey take care of him. Joe doesn't tell Marianna about his mission, but soon he sees her with Willis, and she finds a photo of Willis in Joe's possession. The climax occurs back in California when the destiny of the three main characters plays out.

This little-known film noir doesn't have a great critical reputation because the direction of Jerry Hopper is seen as weak, especially in dialogue scenes. But though the film does bog down a bit at times, I liked it quite a bit. Interior scenes may be unimaginative, but exteriors, shot by Russell Metty (who photographed a wide range of films such as Touch of Evil, Flower Drum Song, Written on the Wind, Spartacus and Thoroughly Modern Millie), are beautiful noir scenes of shadow and light, as pictured above (though the location shooting in Tijuana, which might have been done by a second unit man, leaves something to be desired). The three central performances are all great. Hayden excels as the restless, obsessed cop who presents a deceptively laid-back demeanor. Not a pretty boy, he is beefy and rawly attractive, and Grahame is his equal as a sexy woman a bit past her prime, seemingly unable to imagine a romantic life in which she is not abused. Gene Barry is a revelation; I think of him as an average, tamped-down guy in his famous role on Burke's Law, an actor I might occasionally accuse of phoning in his performance. But here, once we know his character is guilty, he gives a violent, unhinged performance that is, at times, scary. Some critics think he overdoes the psycho aspect of his character, but I think he's spot on. The shots of him banging disturbingly against Grahame while kissing her are startling. The general story line is predictable, and the final chase scene goes on a bit too long, but otherwise this is a noir that is a notch above average. My favorite line: Grahame, to Hayden, "I don't understand you and you don't understand me—we got a lot in common.” Thank you again, Eddie Muller, for showcasing this on TCM's Noir Alley. [TCM]

I MET HIM IN PARIS (1937)

Kay (Claudette Colbert) is a New York department store employee who is on her dream trip to Paris, alone without her pleasant but boring boyfriend (Lee Bowman), where she hopes to let loose and possibly disgrace herself. In the hotel bar, she asks for an English speaking waiter, who arrives saying, "You have the ask to wish for me your pleasure?" She meets two buddies, frivolous playboy Gene (Robert Young) and struggling playwright George (Melvyn Douglas), who squire her around the city. Gene falls for Kay, and George, knowing that Gene is married (though unhappily so), acts as their chaperone. When Kay suspects that George thinks she will give into Gene's advances, she insists that the three head off to a ski resort in Switzerland where she will prove that her relationship can stay platonic (so much for possibly disgracing herself). George has also fallen for Kay and he privately warns Gene to take it easy or he will spill the beans about Gene's marital status. They each get their own room and spend days indulging in various winter sports, but eventually George proclaims that he is in love with Kay and can't be a chaperone anymore. That's when Gene's wife (Mona Barrie) shows up; she's there to tell him that she has finally agreed to a divorce, but Kay, learning the truth and pissed off at both men, goes back to Paris alone where she finds her boyfriend had arrived, worrying that she will not remain faithful to him. Gene and George soon show up in Paris, and it looks like Kay is going to have to choose between a man who distrusts her, a man whom she cannot trust, and a man who broke his chaperone promise.

This is a fairly mild romantic comedy; it wants to be a legitimate screwball comedy but it's not paced quickly enough and occasionally seems rather labored. It feels at times like a squeaky-clean version of Noel Coward's DESIGN FOR LIVING. The dialogue is snappy: at one point, Douglas says to Bowman, "Drink your martini before I hit you over the head with it"; Douglas calls bobsledding "a pleasant form of suicide." The actors are fine, especially Douglas and Bowman, though I missed the spark of pro screwballers like Cary Grant or Irene Dunne. However, I quite enjoyed the location shooting at the ski resort (with Idaho standing in for Switzerland). It's effective to see the actors' breath in the cold and to see them do their own ice skating. The bobsled sequence is genuinely exciting; Colbert falls off her sled and has to be nimble to avoid being hit by the next sled. As with most screwballs, character motivations are often weak or downright silly—it's not clear why Douglas doesn't tell Colbert about Young's wife right away. The way the three stars are billed will tell you who Colbert winds up with, but I was kind of pushing for her to get back together with Bowman. Amusing and worth a viewing for fans of classic-era comedy. Pictured are Bowman, Young, Colbert and Douglas. [Criterion Channel]

OLD LOS ANGELES (1948)

Los Angeles, 1848. Outlaws are on the rampage, attacking gold miners and hunters and blowing up dams. Prospector Larry Stockton sends a letter to his brother Bill, a former U.S. marshal, about their troubles, asking Bill to join him. But shortly after, crooked Johnny Morrell (John Carroll) forces Larry and his partner to sign over their claim to him, then he shoots them both dead. Bill (Bill Elliott) and his buddy Sam (Andy Devine) ride into town and when they discover that Larry is dead, they vow to hunt down the killer. Among the folks they run into: Savarin (Joseph Schildkraut), a seemingly respectable bar owner who is the secret head of the outlaw gang and who's trying to get control of as much land as possible; Marie, a singer and girlfriend of Savarin's; and Johnny and his gal Estelita. Bill starts a flirtation with Marie who only wants to marry Savarin because of his money. While a group of citizens gather to repair the dam that the outlaws blew up, the outlaws raid a cattle ranch. But Savarin's gang is still interested in the dam because there is supposedly a vein of gold buried there. Soon we're not sure who is on what side: Marie, Estelita and the town's marshal (Grant Withers) may not be what they seem to be on the surface. At the climax, there is tragedy but justice is served. Bill "Wild Bill" Elliott was in over 200 movies, most of them B-westerns. This is the first starring vehicle of his that I've seen. He comes off as a bit of a stick here, but he was certainly popular back then. Better are the handsome John Carroll (usually a B-hero, here a villain) and Joseph Schildkraut who was seen more often in character parts in A-films (THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA). Old reliables Grant Withers and Henry Brandon (as Larry) are fine, but the females are rather bland. Catherine McLeod (Marie) is best known as the daughter with the headache from the 1960s Anacin ad who yells, "Mother, please, I'd rather do it myself!" (Am I the only person around who remembers these ads vividly?) Estelita Rodriguez (Estelita) married her co-star Grant Withers a few years later. The plot is perhaps a bit more complicated than the norm for a B-western, but overall it's not particularly memorable. Reissued in the 1950s as California Outpost. Pictured are Elliott and Carroll. [TCM]

JUNGLE MAN (1941)

We meet Betty and her father William indulging in the upper-class joy of watching a yacht regatta when her fiancé Bruce announces that he and his buddy Andy are soon heading to Africa in search of the lost City of the Dead. Betty wants to go along for the excitement and, as her father's brother James is a missionary over there, they both decide to go. In Africa (after a few minutes of stock footage of hippos and crocodiles and snakes and zebras) we see Father James conferring with Bob, a research doctor who is on the verge of finding a cure for the dreaded malaka fever. When our American visitors arrive, Betty is nearly attacked by a leopard which Andy shoots, and a little later, Bob saves her from a lion. (Despite Betty coming off as strong-willed, she spends most of the movie screaming for someone to save her.) James is happy to see his brother and niece, and Betty seems happy to make the acquaintance of the handsome Bob, something which triggers a bit of jealousy in Bruce. Rounding out the group are Buck, the nervous nelly comic relief, and James' pet tiger Satan. After Bruce and Andy set out for the lost city, Bob gets news that a shipment of his fever cure has gone down with a sunken ship off the coast, just as an attack has broken out in a nearby village. He and Betty go to the village to tend to the sick as Bruce finds the lost city and snaps lots of photographs. When Bruce and Andy return to the village, Bruce has malaka fever, so Bob decides to head to the coast to try and salvage the sunken serum. He does, but on his return, Betty has the fever as well. Can Bob save them?

One of the things I liked about this and that separates it from the average jungle melodrama of the era is that there is no villain, no bad guy actively trying to sabotage either the city seekers or the doctor. Also, despite the title, there is no real Tarzan figure, though there is a former Tarzan actor, the hunky and stoic Buster Crabbe, as Bob (pictured) who, while never donning a loincloth manages to get shirtless a couple of times. It was fun to see him co-starring with Charles Middleton as Father James; their previous work together was as good guy Flash Gordon and bad guy Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials—and Middleton is passive and laconic here, looking nothing at all like Ming. Sheila Darcy makes for a colorless Betty, just as she made a colorless Dragon Lady in the Terry and the Pirates serial. For the record, Weldon Heyburn and Robert Carson are OK as Bruce and Andy, though Vince Barnett has the sadly thankless part of Buck who meets an unhappy end, rare for comic relief characters. I liked seeing the City of the Dead, which was actually the real life Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia. Other viewers have noted that it feels like stock footage fills up almost half of the movie's one hour running time, but such footage is par for the course for a B-adventure film of the time. Best exchange: Bob, as he prepares to give Betty the serum, "You’re my first guinea pig"; Betty, "It's nice being your guinea pig." I liked this, but it's pretty much for die-hard B-jungle film fans (or Buster Crabbe fans) only. [YouTube]