THE BEAST MUST DIE (1952)

Jorge Rattery, an awful bully hated by the family and friends present at his dinner table, is ranting about Felix, a guest brought to the house by Jorge's sister-in-law, actress Linda Lawson. Felix has been kicked out of the house—we don't know why—and in the middle of the rant, Jorge drops dead after taking his medicine. We see his young stepson Ronnie surreptitiously take the bottle away before the police arrive. The others at the table include Violeta, the wife, whom we learn was beaten regularly by her husband; Linda, the actress; Mrs. Rattery, Jorge's mother who didn’t like Violeta and did her own bullying by pointing out Jorge's affairs to her; Carpax, Jorge's business partner; and his wife Rhoda who was Jorge's most recent mistress. Felix is called back by the police from the hotel he was banished to. It's discovered that Felix, a writer of crime novels, wrote out an elaborate plan to kill Jorge but never enacted it (or so it seems). In a long flashback, we learn why Felix hated Jorge. Some months back, Felix was celebrating his birthday with his young son Martie on a misty night when the boy was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Felix is devastated and devotes his life to finding the guilty party. After months, he gets a break: while researching a new novel, he makes contact with the actress Linda Lawson and eventually pieces together what happened. Jorge was driving his car, trying to make out with Linda who was fighting back when he hit Martie in the fog and drove away. Felix and Linda begin an affair which is how he gets invited to the Rattery home for a weekend stay. Felix becomes close to Ronnie, who had, in addition to seeing Jorge abuse his mother, been bullied by Jorge. Felix plots to kill Jorge on a canoe at sea and writes his plans out in a diary, but Jorge reads it and is ready for him. With the attempt unsuccessful, Jorge gives Felix the boot, and we're back to where we started. Who actually did carry out the murder?

This Argentinian film noir is based on a well-known mystery novel by Nicholas Blake (pen name for the British poet Cecil Day Lewis). Its fractured narrative structure, which is very effective, differs from the novel which plays out chronologically. The book was also part of a series which featured the detective Nigel Strangeways; here, Nigel is a relatively minor character (and, if I got this right, is Felix’s lawyer, not a detective). But little unsung gem can be appreciated as a noir or a mystery or a psychological thriller. I was unfamiliar with any of the actors but they are quite good, especially Narciso Ibanez Menta (pictured) as Felix, Laura Hidalgo as Linda, Nathan Pinzon as Carpax, and Humberto Balado as Ronnie. Felix's grief feels real—a scene of Felix in his son's bedroom after the death where he finds the boy's birthday present to him is almost unbearably sad. Despite the broken timeline, the story is easy to follow, though I admit to getting a little confused when it came to the ins and outs of Felix's diary entries. Well directed by Roman Vinoly Barreto and beautifully shot by Alberto Etchebehere, the film is full of odd angles and atmospheric scenes. Felix’s birthday meal and the death of his son look like something from a Val Lewton movie. The ending is sad but satisfying. Highly recommended. [Criterion Channel]

YOUR PAST IS SHOWING (1957)

In London, we see a string of visits by magazine editor Nigel Dennis to prominent persons. He threatens to expose their secrets in his magazine The Naked Truth unless they pay him blackmail money. Some do, some commit suicide, and at at least one, a member of Parliament, has a panic attack in public. We then see, in more detail, Dennis approach four other celebrities: Wee Sonny MacGregor (Peter Sellers), a simpering family-friendly impressionist and TV host; the married womanizer Lord Mayley (Terry-Thomas); mystery author Flora Ransom (Peggy Mount); and sexy model Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton). Individually, the four try to find ways to silence Dennis including sabotaging his houseboat, blowing up his car, and poisoning him with a knockout drug. Nothing works but the four wind up together at Flora's apartment. When Sonny says, "We've been killing ourselves trying to murder him," they decide to work together and, because they were able to steal his secret documents, they come up with a plan that ends up involving all the potential blackmail victims. This seems like an early entry in the black comedy genre—we see one successful suicide and one possible death at the climax—with some similarities to something like A Fish Called Wanda. The funniest bits, however, involve exaggerated performance and occasional slapstick antics. Sellers, using his talent for multiple personas, is the standout, particularly in the opening scenes of him on TV as Wee Sonny. Terry-Thomas is amusing as well doing his twit shtick. I was unfamiliar with Peggy Mount but she's quite funny as a hyperactive Miss Marple type, especially in her early suicide attempt when she jumps from her apartment window but is saved by a shop awning. Shirley Eaton (the golden girl in Goldfinger) has less to do but is quite appealing. Dennis Prince as the publisher is less obviously funny but he has his moments. Joan Sims (Flora's daughter) and Georgina Cookson (Mayley's put-upon wife) are good, and Kenneth Griffith shines in a smaller role as Porter, Wee Sonny's manager (and roommate, and possibly lover in what struck me as a heavily gay-coded relationship). At 90 minutes, it runs out of steam, and the finale is quite strange, as though the filmmakers couldn't quite decide how to end it. It's the most improbable part of the story though I ended up liking it. If you can deal with dark whimsey, this is for you. Original British title: THE NAKED TRUTH. Pictured at left, from left: Sellers, Price, Terry-Thomas, Mount, unidentified player. [TCM]

GREED (1924)

In early 20th century California, McTeague works at the Big Dipper Gold Mine. He's tough but sensitive; when he finds an injured bird and tries to rescue it, a co-worker slaps it out of his hands, and McTeague knocks the guy down into a gorge. From then on, he always keeps a pet bird or two. When an unlicensed traveling dentist named Painless Parker shows up in the area, McTeague's mother, wanting a better life for him, gets Parker to take her son on as an apprentice. In a while, he has his own (unlicensed) practice in San Francisco, and is friends with Marcus, a worker in a dog hospital. Marcus is sweet on his cousin Trina, but McTeague also falls for her, and he kisses her while she's under ether for a tooth extraction. Marcus relinquishes his interest in her and McTeague and Trina get married. When Trina learns that a lottery ticket she bought has won her $5,000, Marcus is angry, thinking that because he gave her up, he missed out on the money, but it turns out that having the money makes Trina greedy. She won't put any of it toward the household, she spends time on her bed polishing her gold coins, and McTeague has to go begging to her for some drinking money. The one thing she splurges on is a large gold tooth sign for her husband's practice, something he's wanted for a long time. Three years later, the two are unhappy, mostly because of Trina's miserliness. When Marcus reports McTeague to the Dental Board for having no license, he has to quit his practice, and his relationship with Trina goes further downhill. At one point, he brutally bites her fingers to get some money, and we're told that this incident, which results in an amputation, arouses a "morbid, unwholesome love of submission" in her (though we never really see how this affects her). On Christmas Eve, McTeague kills Trina and, as a hunted criminal, takes off with his pet bird and winds up in Death Valley, with Marcus hot on his heels. No one gets out of this alive.

Erich von Stroheim made this silent adaptation of Frank Norris's novel McTeague. His cut was nine hours; the studio, MGM, pressured him to reduce it to four, then MGM released it at two hours. I saw the two hour version many years ago and thought it was a great work. Since then, TCM commissioned a restoration of the four hour version. None of the cut footage still exists, but as was done with Frank Capra's Lost Horizon some years ago, film preservationist Rick Schmidlin used production stills and a copy of the script to "restore" two hours worth of story, mostly consisting of subplots that had been totally removed by MGM. The result, despite its good intentions, winds up feeling more like a visual essay about a movie rather than a coherent and engrossing narrative. The subplots are fairly obvious comments on the main plot. One involves a junkman who becomes obsessed with valuable gold plates his wife claims to own; his obsession ruins their lives in much the way that Trina's ruined hers. The other subplot focuses on an older man and women who live next to each other in McTeague's apartment building. The two lonely people pine for each other and eventually pair up with little concern for money; he has money but she doesn't care. This is a dark and depressing story, though Stroheim's inventive camerawork and incident-filled script keeps it from bogging down. The ending is a gut punch, even though we know where it's going. The acting is excellent. Gibson Gowland makes McTeague a brute, but one that we still sympathize with for much of the running time; ZaSu Pitts, known more for comedy, does a similar thing with Trina; at various points, it seems like she might shake herself out of her greed but she never does, and when she's touching her gold and dreaming of money, an almost sexual energy takes her over. Jean Hersholt (of the Oscar's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which is still given) is good as Marcus, though overshadowed by the leads. If you get a chance to see the 2-hour film, grab it (it's currently streaming on Amazon Prime). The longer version feels padded and enervated compared to it. Pictured are Pitts and Gowland. [TCM]

YOUNG CASSIDY (1965)

This biopic of the early years of Irish playwright Sean O'Casey never mentions his real name, calling the main character John Cassidy, though it uses the real name of his first play, The Plough and the Stars. In researching the film, I discovered that the movie is based on O'Casey’s autobiographical writings, which were written in the third person, using the name John Cassidy for himself. It seems to fit the recent term ‘autofiction,’ for a memoir that is, to some degree, fictionalized. In early 20th century Dublin we meet Cassidy (Rod Taylor) as a rough and tumble young man, living with his mother and sister. He seems to have talent as a writer but he works as a ditch digger. Soon he falls in with some revolutionaries and at the instigation of his friend Mullen, starts writing pamphlets at night for the Irish Citizen Army (the IRA, I assume), an underground group looking to throw off the tyranny of the British. During a strike riot, he escapes arrest by darting off with a young beauty (Julie Christie) with whom he has a brief affair. But he also begins a longer relationship with Nora (Maggie Smith), a bookstore owner. She catches him stealing books and takes them from him, but later sends him the books as a gift. Though Nora seems a bit chilly and staid, she warms up as they begin dating. The episodic narrative follows Cassidy's life over the next several years (it's difficult to say how much time is passing as the movie goes along); his sister dies, basically of extreme poverty; his brother, an actor, joins the British army; Mullen, who becomes his roommate, eventually deserts Cassidy; Cassidy himself comes to abandon violence, channeling his fervor for Irish independence into a play which comes to the attention of the founders of the Abbey Theater, the poet Yeats (Michael Redgrave) and Lady Gregory (Edith Evans). Despite an audience uprising at its opening—it's seen as vulgar and insulting to the Irish, with one woman yelling, "There are no prostitutes in Ireland!"—Yeats and Lady Gregory continue to encourage him, and he finds international fame, though in the final scene, Nora decides that he no longer needs her and stays behind as he heads overseas. 

I knew nothing about O'Casey before I watched this, and I’m not sure I know much more now, though paradoxically I do feel like I know the fictional John Cassidy. In the person of Rod Taylor, Cassidy does come to life as a fairly rounded character: handsome, husky, energetic, boisterous, loyal, intellectual, and capable of tenderness. But based on the biographical bits I've read about O'Casey, this doesn't strike me as very revealing of the real man. Taylor is, if I'm not mistaken, in every scene in the movie and he does a smashing job holding the center. I always like Taylor but this might be his best performance. Maggie Smith (pictured at left with Taylor), before she became a superstar, is delightful as the complex Nora, managing both the aloof and earthy aspects of the character. Redgrave and Evans are fine in what are basically star cameos as the only identified public figures in the movie. Other cast standouts include Flora Robson as Cassidy's mother, whom he mourns deeply; Phillip O'Flynn as Mullen who casts off Cassidy because he doesn't have the courage of his convictions; and Jack MacGowran as Archie, the brother, played as mild comic relief. The Irish situation that forms the political and historical background for the film is left ambiguous at best (another reason why I don't think this is a success as a movie about O'Casey), so the more you know about the times, the more centered you'll be. The movie is serious but has many lighter moments including a bar brawl, a 15-minute fling Cassidy has with a married woman, and a scene in which the Irish Army members argue about uniforms. The opening credits call this a John Ford film, though it was directed by Jack Cardiff; Ford shot a few days of material, but was too ill to continue. Some critics lament the fact that it doesn't have the feel of a Ford movie, saying he would have made the action scenes longer and more compelling, but as it stands, I find it quite watchable and would recommend it. [TCM]

OPERATION ATLANTIS (1965)

This goofy chunk of 1960's Eurospy adventure begins in Rome with George Steel, our handsome American James Bond stand-in, having his Japanese vacation derailed by agreeing to work with the RIU, an international uranium research group. Somewhere in North Africa there is a plot of land rich in uranium and an evil mastermind named Ben Ullah has plunked himself and his cohorts (including a kidnapped research scientist) down on the land and surrounded it with a radioactive forcefield. Descendants of the mythic land of Atlantis also live there and possess some futuristic devices like a gun that encases people instantly in ice and then disintegrates them. Steel is supposed to defeat the baddies and get the land for the RIU. That is pretty much it for the plotpoints I was able to follow. As usual, I took fairly copious notes as I was watching but I realized halfway through the movie that my notes were incoherent so I stopped. (I think, but I’m not sure, that the Atlanteans were just a Communist Chinese scam.) Still, I got some enjoyment out of this mess. For starters, there's John Ericson (pictured) as Steel; he's handsome and moderately hunky, and he looks like he actually knows what's going on throughout the story. There are at least three sexy women whose roles in the adventure remained ambiguous to me, and whose names I couldn’t quite figure out. The first is a busty blonde stewardess whom we see at the beginning and the end (and I think a little bit in the early middle). The second is a woman possibly named Fatima (Maria Granada) who is with Steel the most and who seems to switch from good to bad and back. There's a Queen of Atlantis figure (maybe played by Erika Blanc?). 

There's a thug who kills people with a gigantic metal claw device—nifty but a bit unwieldy to cart around. There's a previously unknown element called Rubidium, native to the asteroid belt, that can make people temporarily insensitive to pain and heal wounds instantly and is used as a torture device. People, including two of our hero's women, get packed into trunks and flown in the baggage hold of passenger planes. Clunky spacesuits are worn by the good guys to get past the forcefield, which itself is sometimes deadly and sometimes not. Steel has a radio transmission device implanted in his elbow. There's a mild catfight scene which Steel watches with a bemused and possibly aroused look on his face. I think this happens twice. Steel gets spritzed, in public at a nightclub, with a knockout drug and carried out, raising  no one's suspicions—I think this is when he gets packed in a trunk. There's an OK car chase. Near the end, there's even the destruction of Atlantis, ineffectively presented, followed by a concluding scene. The print on YouTube, in faded color, has no subtitles and the dialogue is occasionally murky which is why I was unclear about some of the names. I almost gave up on this a couple of times but John Ericson pulled me through. Your mileage will differ. BTW, IMDb spells the hero’s name as Steele, but in the movie, he spells it out as S-T-E-E-L, so that’s what I went with. [YouTube]

ELLERY QUEEN AND THE PERFECT CRIME (1941)

Storms and flooding threaten the South Valley Power Company dam. John Matthews, head of the company, gets word that the dam will break. He lies to stockholder Ray Jardin and tells him that the dam is sound, but Matthews then sells his stock and that of his son Walter. The next day, after the dam bursts, Walter, who is dating Jardin's daughter Marian, finds out that because of what his father did, Jardin has lost his life's savings, as did his valet Henry. Walter verbally attacks his father, then using the money he saved, goes to the auction of Jardin's estate and, with his friend Ellery Queen as a front, buys it all to give back to Jardin. The next day, when Walter goes to visit his father to try and make peace, he finds him dead in his study, a knife in his chest, and he himself is knocked unconscious. Ellery's dad, a police inspector, suspects Walter because of the bad blood between father and son. But in Matthews' house, there are two other suspects: Matthews' flighty sister Carlotta (whose life seems to revolve around her pet monkey Togo) and Matthews' lawyer Anthony who claims that Matthews was in the process of disinheriting Walter and leaving everything to Carlotta, who happens to be Anthony's lover. Good motive, right? But the police discover that the knife wound didn't cause Matthew’s death, poison did, and that he was probably killed out on a patio and dragged into the study, which puts Walter back under suspicion. There is also a sinister looking Chinese servant around. Even the monkey comes under suspicion. Can Ellery work with his dad, clear his friend and find the real killer?

Of all the lead characters in the continuing detective series of the classic era, Ellery Queen is perhaps the most generic. He's basically a playboy who unofficially helps his inspector father solve cases. Queen was created by two authors who used the pseudonym of Ellery Queen, and in the books, he is known as a writer who writes about the cases he works on. Here, he just seems to be helping out an old friend. Ralph Bellamy, who did not impress me as Ellery in the same year's PENTHOUSE MYSTERY, is again not especially impressive—he does nothing to put a unique stamp on the part. Charley Grapewin, again playing the father, is equally bland. It's up to the supporting cast to liven things up, and to be fair, Ellery doesn't seem to have much more screen time than anyone else. Spring Byington, always a delight, is the dotty Carlotta who may not be as dotty as she leads people to believe. Sidney Blackmer, a low-key old reliable who frequently looks like he has something devious on his mind, comes close to stealing his scenes as the lawyer. Old timer H.B. Warner is good as Jardin, and Douglas Dumbrille is fine in his limited time as Matthews. Margaret Lindsay (pictured with Bellamy) has a couple of nice moments as Queen's sidekick secretary, and John Beal is Walter. Not to spoil things, but one of the big plotlines winds up disappointingly being a red herring, and the actual solution is a bit of a letdown. As for the monkey, I've never understood the appeal of sidekick monkeys in movies (or on TV as in Friends). I understand their presence in jungle movies, but even there, they usually irritate me more than they entertain me. Of all the Ellery Queen actors I've seen, including Bellamy, William Gargan, Eddie Quillan and Donald Cook, the best is probably Jim Hutton who played him on TV. [YouTube]

LOVE AND DEATH IN THE GARDEN OF THE GODS (1972)

An ornithology professor has rented a villa in the country and, while out birding, finds some discarded and tangled audio tapes. He takes them back to the house, plays them, and pieces together, through flashbacks, a sordid tale involving the previous tenants. Flame-haired Azzurra is living in the villa with her new husband Timothy, a concert pianist. Her handsome brother Manfredi stays with them, but the situation in the house grows uncomfortable as we see Azzurra and her brother engage in flirty behavior, including a kiss. Manfredi leaves but returns weeks later with Viola, a blonde girlfriend. As a mutual indifference grows between Azzurra and Timothy, Azzurra starts spending more time with Manfredi. At some point, Azzurra tries to kill herself in a bathtub but is saved by Viola. Soon Azzrurra and Viola are on the verge of getting physical. Azzurra starts seeing a therapist named Martin (the tapes the professor is listening to are recordings of their therapy sessions) who, it's made clear, is attracted to her. The chronology of the narrative is fractured, so I was sometimes unsure of what was happening when, but in the last fifteen minutes, a brutal revenge plot of murder plays out that comes to involve even the professor. Between the broken timelines, the incest, the insanity and the blood, this is surely crazy-ass cinema. I'm saying that mostly as a positive thing. It's Italian and has sex and murder, so it's often considered a giallo, but until the end, it didn't feel like one to me. It's more a kind of Gothic melodrama (without a Gothic look). The leads are all attractive and acting-wise are adequate. Erika Blanc, an actress associated with giallo, plays Azzurra; Orchidea De Santis is Viola; Rosario Borelli (aka Richard Melville) is Timothy. Best is the handsome German actor Peter Lee Lawrence, who later made a name in spaghetti westerns before his untimely death at 30 of brain cancer, as Manfredi, the most interesting character, though it must be said that character is not a strong element of the plot. I'm not sure if this is a spoiler or not, but at one point, Azzurra tells Manfredi that he is not her blood brother, but a bastard who was brought to live with her family. This may or may not be true, but it doesn't lessen the incest vibe, since they did indeed grow up living as siblings. The fragmented chronology is confusing and probably unnecessary, but the general plot outline is discernable, and a creepy vibe is sustained nicely. Is this really giallo? I feel it’s not, but it's maybe giallo adjacent. Pictured is Peter Lee Lawrence. [YouTube]

TARZAN THE FEARLESS (1933)

In an African jungle, we first see Tarzan (Buster Crabbe), the legendary and mysterious white man raised by apes, horsing around with chimps up in the trees. When he sees a young deer tied up and being used as bait by a tribe to catch a lion, he swings down on vines, kills the lion and lets the deer go free. Tarzan is buddies with Dr. Brooks, a scientist doing research in a jungle shack (what he's studying is never made clear). Meanwhile, Brooks' daughter Mary and her boyfriend Bob are searching for Brooks, whom they assume is missing, guided by Jeff and Nick. However, Jeff has an ulterior motive for the trip: he has been sent by the Greyfriar family in England to bring back proof that their heir, apparently lost in the jungle as a child, is actually dead so they can clear up snags with the family inheritance, and he has been promised a large reward for doing so. But wait, Jeff and Nick have another mission: to find the fabled Emeralds of Zar which belong to a hidden tribe (who dress like ancient Egyptians). While Mary is swimming in her scanties in a river, a crocodile comes after her and she is saved by vine-swinging Tarzan, and the two hit it off. Jeff figures out that Tarzan must be the missing Greyfriar son, but as he plots to shoot Tarzan out of the trees, Tarzan saves him from an attacking lion. In the middle of a storm, the group finds Brooks' shack but the scientist has headed out to the Caves of Zar. The group plans to follow him and soon all wind up being held captive by the High Priest of Zar, who is fearful that if let go, they will tell the world about his tribe. Jeff steals a huge emerald from a large statue of Zar as they escape, then tells Mary that he will kill Tarzan unless she agrees to marry him. But with the Zar tribe on their tail, there's no guarantee that any of them will ever make it back to civilization, unless Tarzan can save them.

That summary is a little sketchy and here's why. This was originally made as a 12-chapter serial which is now considered lost. This version is an 86-minute feature film condensation which is, like many such serial shortenings, choppily edited and missing entire subplots and cliffhanger scenes. Sources indicate that this is basically the first four chapters and the last two cut together. The print viewed, a Platinum Corporation DVD from 2004, is splicy and a bit murky, with chunks of dialogue muffled by badly mixed background sound. Though some of the plot details may be off, it still follows the plots of most of the classic-era Tarzan films: our hero saves white folks tramping through the jungle (some with good intentions, some with bad) from attacks by natives and animals, and falls for the heroine whose current beau is sent packing. Johnny Weissmuller is the gold standard Tarzan for the 1930s, but Crabbe does a decent job playing the character in a lighter tone. He's lithe and handsome, and shows a good deal of butt in his skimpy loincloth. His vine and rope swinging scenes are impressive, even if some of them are performed by stuntmen. There's a nicely done scene of Tarzan falling into a lion trap pit and an elephant getting him out. His jungle bellow is strained-sounding, but his fights with animals are pulled off nicely (again, certainly with stuntmen involved). My favorite comic relief scene involves Tarzan getting freaked out when a portable phonograph starts playing—the last scene in the film shows chimps dancing to the record. Crabbe had played a Tarzan-like character a few months earlier in KING OF THE JUNGLE so he had some practice going into this. His love interest, Jacqueline Wells, later known as Julie Bishop, is fine, as is Edward Woods as the nice-guy but passive boyfriend who we know will lose her to the jungle man. Philo McCullough mostly sneers and looks suspicious as Jeff, and Mischa Auer is effective as the high priest. A much better looking print is available on YouTube. A semi-restoration of the serial is on DVD—it adds in footage from two previously missing chapters along with stills and title cards, in the fashion of the restored LOST HORIZON. This is perhaps the best of the non-MGM Tarzan knock-offs of the 30s. [DVD]

THE GHOST CAMERA (1933)

John Gray is driving through the English countryside on his way home from a vacation. When he passes a hillside castle, we see (but he doesn't) someone throw a camera from the castle cliff which lands in his back seat. At home, he complains to his valet Sims that he's tired of boring vacations, then is excited to discover the camera, thinking he has a mystery to solve, as in, how did it get there and who does it belong to? He exposes one picture, thinking it will be beach vacation shots of "proud parents and vacuous progeny," but it seems to show a man stabbing another man. Distracted by the doorbell, Gray leaves his darkroom and someone enters and takes the negative and the camera. When he discovers the theft, Gray thinks he might be in the middle of an adventure, though he tempers that somewhat by suggesting that he and Sims are talking "like characters in a mystery melodrama." He develops another picture which shows a young woman in a doorway; he recognizes the neighborhood, finds the house and meets the woman, May Elton. The camera belongs to her brother Ernest who took a road trip through the countryside to take some "snaps" to enter in a competition and hasn't come back. With May as his sidekick, adventure is officially afoot, especially after they learn that Ernest is wanted by the police as being an accomplice in connection with a robbery at a jewelry store where he worked. They stay the night at an inn where Ernest stayed before he went missing and they trace his trail to the castle ruins, Norman Arches, which we saw at the beginning of the film. Soon enough, one of the jewel thieves turns up dead, Ernest is found and arrested for the murder, and John and May keep playing detective as they slowly fall in love. Despite its title, this is not a horror movie, nor is there anything supernatural going on, though the scenes in the darkroom and later in the castle are nicely creepy. It's a romantic comedy hidden in a traditional mystery, and it's entertaining. Directed by busy B-filmmaker Bernard Vorhaus, the most striking things about it are the camerawork (by Ernest Palmer) and the film editing (by the future director David Lean) with jump cuts and some intended shakiness, breaking the film out of the early sound rut of static shots and leisurely pacing. Henry Kendall is fine as John, the somewhat nerdish hero, and Ida Lupino, who was only fifteen at the time, is good—and unrecognizable—as May. British stalwart John Mills, 25 at the time, is Ernest, and Victor Stanley has a couple good moments as the valet. One of the better of the British B-movie quota quickies of the era. Pictured are Kendall and Lupino. [Streaming]

SEA OF SAND (1958)

It's October, 1942 as the British army prepares for a major offensive against the Germans at El Alamein in Egypt. The soldiers from a Long Range Desert Group are harassing Rommel's men, disrupting communications and supply lines. The group, led by Capt. Cotton (Michael Craig, pictured), operates in fairly non-standard ways which the newly assigned Capt. Williams (John Gregson) from the corps of engineers isn't completely comfortable with. Their next mission is to destroy a German petrol dump. Cotton, who should be taking leave, stays, perhaps needing distraction because of a recent break up with his wife. The two are at loggerheads for a time, but as war movie buffs will know, they'll eventually come to respect each other. Given the fairly large number of characters, it's surprising that they aren't more distinctly differentiated. The two we get to know most are Brody (Richard Attenborough), the snarky bloke who sneaks brandy in his canteen—even spitting brandy in the face of a German soldier at one point—and Matheson (Barry Foster), the young recent recruit with a new baby back home he hasn't seen yet. Behind enemy lines, they mostly manage to avoid the Germans, and when a German patrol goes past them while they're on the side of a road, Williams manages to con them by speaking German. There's an interesting scene in which a lone German armored car approaches slowly; the Brits think it might go right on by but it does engage them in a short battle. The attack on the depot is successful but getting back to base is crucial as they have important information about hidden German tanks to pass on. Their trek becomes quite dangerous with several casualties and one critically wounded man (Percy Herbert) who ends up with the most compelling storyline of the characters. There is despair and sacrifice in the hot desert as we wonder if any Desert Group survivors will make it back to base. One reason I liked this movie is that it reminded me of the 1960s TV show The Rat Patrol which was also about a group of Allied desert disrupters. There were only four men in the Rat Patrol (3 Americans, 1 British) but there are nearly a dozen soldiers who have at least some dialogue here. I wouldn't say there is a lack of stereotypes but they are downplayed a bit, and the sometimes bumpy camaraderie of the men feels right. It was filmed in Libya, giving the locations a look of realism. Acting is solid all around, with Michael Craig and John Gregson largely underplaying to good effect. Attenborough is perhaps a bit showier and Percy Herbert is a standout as the doomed wounded man. (Others are doomed as well.) This British film was released in a shortened version in the States as DESERT PATROL. Quite watchable. [YouTube]

THE TIGER WOMAN (1945)

Private detective Jerry Devery goes to the Tiger Club nightspot thinking he's been summoned to meet a cop but instead he's met by Sharon Winslow, wife of the club's co-owner Fred. Sharon knows that gambling kingpin Joe Sapphire is about to put out a hit on Fred for his huge debts and she asks Jerry, a friend of Sapphire's, to negotiate an understanding, despite the fact that she is in love with Fred's business partner, Steve Mason. Jerry summarizes the case as, "Wife wants to keep hubby intact to keep boyfriend out of trouble." Jerry finds out that the hit is off, as Fred has recently made a big payment to Sapphire which may have been embezzled from the Tiger Club. Sharon plans to tell Fred about Steve, but Fred is found dead at his study desk, a suicide note next to him. To ensure that Sharon gets the insurance money, Steve burns the suicide note, and when the cops declare it murder, Sapphire worries that he'll be a suspect, though Jerry assures Sapphire that he is Sapphire's alibi since they were together at the time of Fred's death. A cleaning lady says a desperate young woman named Carrington was the last person to see Fred alive, and soon the cops are after her. Steve starts feeling guilty about the innocent woman being framed, but we find out (and have suspected for some time) that Sharon is the actual murderer, and she's not about to risk losing her insurance money for anyone. This is a nifty little hour-long B-film, sometimes referred to as film noir because it involves a femme fatale. The various twists in the plot are good ones, and though some are predictable, they are still fun to follow, and a couple are surprising. Kane Richmond, handsome and underrated B-movie star of serials and mysteries, is very good as Jerry, who comes off as pretty smart but still a half-beat behind the bad girl, Adele Mara as Sharon, also very good.  The two have good chemistry even though you know it won't last. Familiar faces include Richard Fraser (Steve), Gregory Gaye (Sapphire—it's nice to have a gambling thug who is a bit civilized), and Cy Kendall as the cop, who doesn't have a lot to do but is always a welcome face. The plot is tricky but easy to keep track of. Don't get this confused with the 1944 serial with the same name—there are no literal tigers here, and no jungle goddesses. Still, entertaining. Pictured are Mara and Richmond. [YouTube]

HELL-BOUND TRAIN (1930)

The Hell-bound train is always running and its engineer, the devil himself, is always on duty. This hour-long silent film was made by James Gist, a Christian evangelist, and his wife Eloyce, and the two would take this and other short films on the road to show in churches and at revival meetings. This one doesn't actually have a narrative; instead, it's a series of episodes showing people engaging in bad behavior that ensures them a ride on the train. The sinning in the first coach is triggered by dancing, which inevitably leads to drinking and bootlegging and sex and adultery and babies. When a jealous woman stabs another to death after too much dancing, the devil (a man in a Halloween devil costume) hops up and down with joy, and we see the title card, "The devil rejoices" for the first of several times. In the second coach, drunkenness prevails, leading to rape. In the third, it's jazz music which drives children mad and causes a woman to collapse. Someone yells out, "Stop the blues and bring the hymn book!" but it’s too late—she's dead. Thievery is the next sin as we see two street kids steal food from a grocer and get sent immediately to work on a chain gang. Murderers, gamblers, adulterers, and liars get their due, with a whole coach devoted to hypocrites and backsliders who strayed from the church. One man is asked to join the church, declines the offer, and dies of a heart attack. Playing pool is bad, as is talking back to your parents. One woman takes "medicine to avoid becoming a mother" which is "murder in cold blood." Finally, we’re told that "the good time midnight life crowd will be lost in Hell," as we see the train, full of sinners, enter a tunnel and burst into flames, undoubtedly a representation of the flames of hell. 

Almost a hundred years after its production, this film is fun to watch and easy to mock, but the sincere tone mitigates a bit against it being seen as camp. (Of course, a sincerely made movie can still be campy, as with the notorious MANOS THE HANDS OF FATE). Though the outcomes for the sinners seem exaggerated, the acting isn't, except for the prancing devil; that guy (there are no credits) is having a really good time rejoicing over sin. Filmed mostly in a Black neighborhood in Indianapolis in wintertime, as there is frequently snow on the ground in exteriors, the only existing print of this film was cobbled together from a number of sources but it makes a satisfying whole. The camera work is rough and ready, but that also adds to the appeal here, as the camera is almost always on the move. Claims have been made that this movie is "visually stunning" and a very important find. Those are exaggerated claims, though the film was chosen for the National Film Registry in 2021. The genre of non-professional religious films is surely an underrepresented one and I'm glad to have seen this. [Criterion Channel]

NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948)

One night, Jean Cortland tries to kill herself by jumping in front of a train, but her boyfriend Elliott Carson saves her. She says she feels like the stars are watching her. At a nearby diner, Elliott and Jean meet up with John Triton, a clairvoyant who foretold her death. In flashback, we learn that Triton used to be a fortune telling con man, the Mental Wizard, who worked with confederates Jenny and Whitney to trick his audience, until one night in 1928 when he got a legitimate vision of a woman’s children being endangered by a house fire. The woman gets home in time to save her children, but Triton is freaked out by this new power. At first he uses it to predict horse race winners and stock market results. Later, he has a vision of a newsboy being killed in a hit-and-run accident and isn't able to stop it. Then he sees the death of Jenny, his fiancée, in childbirth, and he breaks up the act and leaves. However, Jenny marries Whitney and, in fact, dies in childbirth. Whitney grows rich in the oil business (because of a vision of Triton's) and raises his daughter who is Jean Cortland from the opening scene. Triton has kept an eye on them from afar, but recently predicted Whitney's death in a plane crash. When the crash occurs and seems to have been the result of sabotage, Triton is under suspicion by the police. In the present, he predicts Jean's death, at night under the stars, at 11 p.m. Triton tries to protect her, but we've seen that it's difficult to stop fate.

Based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, this is an interesting if not always successful blend of film noir and fantasy. Noir often deals with death and destiny and with protagonists who try against great odds to change the course of the future. Unlike most noirs, and unlike most Hollywood movies of the era, the supernatural is real here—there is no other explanation for Triton's power, and we never learn how he got it. The two elements don't always fit together well, especially in the last third when we lose some atmosphere and it turns into a cops and crime film. But the movie does sustain a nice element of dread, if not exactly horror (the film is sometimes labeled as horror which I think will be misleading to horror fans) and the noir look is handled nicely, with most scenes taking place at night. Edward G. Robinson carries the movie even through its bumpiest spots as Triton, a sympathetic figure who lives in fear of his weird gift. Gail Russell (Jean) is fairly bland, leading me to not care all that much about what happened to her; John Lund (Elliott) is a bit better, but both are overshadowed by Virginia Bruce (Jenny) and Jerome Cowan (Whitney) from the flashback story. William Demarest is fine as a cop. Favorite line: Robinson, explaining what it's like to foretell deaths: "I had become a reverse zombie—the world was dead and I was living." Pictured are Lund and Robinson. [TCM]

SOLE SURVIVOR (1970 TV-movie)

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

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

IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH (1970)

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

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

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

CHARLIE CHAN AT THE OLYMPICS (1937)

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

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

YOU AND ME (1938)

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

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

THE BLACK PARACHUTE (1944)

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

FIRE MONSTERS AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES (1962)

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

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

GIRL WITH HYACINTHS (1950)

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

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

THE SHANGHAI STORY (1954)

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

BLIND SPOT (1947)

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

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

THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1969)

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

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

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

WALK THE PROUD LAND (1956)

In 1874, John Clum (Audie Murphy) arrives in Tucson in Arizona Territory, sent by the Department of the Interior to take steps to make the local Apache population "useful citizens." The Army, embodied by General Wade, is not happy to be overridden in their mission to suppress (or, essentially, exterminate if possible) the "savage" Apache people. Clum immediately takes measures to stop Apache workers from being manacled and is thanked by the Apache widow Tianay (Anne Bancroft), who moves herself and her young son into Clum's dwelling to be his woman. He tells her he's already engaged and that his fiancée is arriving soon to be married, but she begs to be kept on as a housekeeper. Clum has soon set up an Apache police force to take care of tribal matters, replacing the Army. He also allows the arming of the police and of a handful of hunters. Former Army officer Tom Sweeny (Charles Drake), in danger of becoming a drunkard, becomes Clum's trusted associate, as does Taglito (Tommy Rall), a young Apache. General Wade and the Governor of the Territory remain unconvinced by Clum's approach, and forces within the tribe, primarily embodied by the angry young Disalin, stir up tensions as they want to join up with the exiled Geronimo and his men, who are hiding in the hills. More tension is stirred up by Mary (Pat Crowley) who arrives to marry Clum and, understandably, resents the presence of Tianay in their home. The ending, in which Clum gets Geronimo to surrender without firing a shot, leaves things in uncertainty as the Army regains control of the tribe, but Clum agrees to stay on when he is asked by the Apache chief to become a go-between.

John Clum was a real person who did, according to Wikipedia, implement self-government on reservation lands, and did have a hand in capturing Geronimo. He had a wife named Mary, though they were married back in Ohio. When he got tired of Army interference, he left for good, replaced by a string of Indian agents who were less effective. This movie has the feel of a "print the legend" story and as such, it's effective enough. I like Audie Murphy and his stoic good-guy persona works well here. The memory of watching TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON was still fresh and Murphy reminded me of a less antic version of the role that Glenn Ford plays in that tale of the American Army's attempts to bring capitalism to a post-war Japanese village. It was strange to see Anne Bancroft in "duskyface" (pictured with Murphy) and speaking stilted English as the Indian widow but she's fine. Pat Crowley has little to do in the totally predictable role of the wife who overcomes her resentment in the end. Charles Drake is likable as Murphy's sidekick, though he rather overdoes a drunk scene early in the film. Tommy Rall is better known as a dancer (Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) and is not an easy fit for the role of Taglito, but he grew on me. As was par for the course, there are no Native American actors in major roles except for Jay Silverheels in the small role of Geronimo, and the men in the bad guy roles (Morris Ankrum, Anthony Caruso) don't have much to do except glower and skulk. Writer Jeff Arnold, an expert on the Old West and Western movies, concludes that even if the "facts are distorted [...] they got the overall tone right," and that feels right to me. [TCM]