THE SCARLET WEB (1954)

James Warren is released from six months in prison and is picked up by a Mrs. Dexter. She says he looks like the kind of man who is not afraid of a spot of danger and wants to hire him to get a letter of her husband's away from a blackmailer. She sets up a rendezvous that evening with her and her husband Charles to discuss the matter. What she doesn’t know is that he’s actually Jake Winter, an insurance investigator who was in prison working undercover to discover the location of some stolen jewels. He reports to his main office only to find that his boss, a gruff guy with whiskers, has been replaced by Susan Honeywell, a lovely young woman. He’s a bit patronizing to her, but then he starts trying to charm her and she shows signs of responding. But that night at his rendezvous, Mrs. Dexter drugs his drink and he passes out. When he wakes up, he has a knife in his hand, Mrs. Dexter is gone, and a dead woman is present in the apartment. He goes to get help from Susan. His fingerprints were found on the knife so she agrees to hide him and help him clear his name. It turns out that the dead woman is the real Mrs. Dexter, and the woman who drugged him is Charles Dexter's mistress. Dexter's secretary is protective of her boss, but Simpson, Dexter's clerk, is more forthcoming and Jake learns that the mistress's name is Laura Vane. More interestingly, Susan finds out that Dexter had taken out a big life insurance policy on his wife just a few months ago. They figure out that Laura killed Mrs. Dexter and is planning on heading to Buenos Aires with Dexter when the insurance money comes through. Then Susan discovers that Dexter is planning on making the trip alone. Can Jake and Susan clear Jake's name before Dexter gets away?

This hour-long British B-film has two good performances to anchor it. Griffith Jones is fairly dashing and charismatic as Jake, and Hazel Court is sexy and sly as Susan. Their relationship, a little adversarial at the beginning, becomes one of trust and respect and, eventually, romance. Neither actor was a big box-office name but both are usually standouts as supporting players. Here they're the leads and they're quite good. Zena Marshall is fine as the attractive and dangerous Laura; Molly Raynor is the cranky secretary, and Ronald Stevens has a couple nice scenes as Simpson. It's a talky movie with lots of information passed along as expository dialogue. But there is a little effective action, and one fun scene in a salon where Jake finds that Susan is sprucing up her looks to impress him. Her gay comic relief hairdresser (David Stoll) promises not to make her "too fluffy," which amuses Jake. I always like Jones and he and Court have a good chemistry, and the film's tone remains light—it's too bad this didn't become a series. Pictured are Court and Jones. [YouTube]

STRANGE INTERLUDE (1932)

In a small university town in New England after World War I, Nina Leeds (Norma Shearer) is still grieving the death of her boyfriend Gordon in the war, with particular distress over the fact that her father discouraged them from marrying before he went overseas out of misplaced jealousy, wanting to keep Nina for himself. She became a nurse for convalescing soldiers in Boston, but gained a reputation for sleeping with them, so she has returned home. Also back in town is Charlie Marsden (Ralph Morgan), a mama's boy who has nursed an unrequited love for Nina for years. Dr. Ned Darrell (Clark Gable), a colleague who also has an unspoken crush on Nina, thinks that she needs to get married and suggests Gordon's boyhood pal Sam (Alexander Kirkland) as the groom. They marry and afterwards, Sam's mother tells Nina the family secret of which Sam is not aware: inherited insanity runs in the family, and she suggests that Nina should, behind Sam's back, find a man to impregnate her instead of Sam. She enlists Ned who fulfills his duty, though the two then realize they're in love. She names her son Gordon (if you didn't know by now, Freud would have a field day with this narrative) who grows up sensing Ned's love for his mother and resenting it. Charlie figures it all out and, somewhat masochistically, remains in Nina's social orbit, suffering silently. Years later, as a college student, Gordon (Robert Young) wins a sailing competition and Sam, proud and excited, drops dead of a stroke. Gordon announces his plan to marry his girlfriend which Nina thinks is too conventional a life plan. By the end, Nina comes to the realization that she and Ned gave up happiness for Sam, Ned leaves so Gordon's resentment of him won't fester, and Nina is left with the sad, passive Charlie as her only companion, someone she assumes has "passed all desire," not knowing that he will pine for her forever.

This dysfunctional family melodrama is based on a somewhat experimental play by Eugene O’Neill—it's famous for its gimmick of having characters stop while delivering dialogue, turn to the audience, and speak asides, baring their real thoughts which are often very different from what they are expressing verbally. For the film, the actors stop speaking and the asides are delivered as voiceovers—the gimmick is explained at the beginning of the film, and Charlie delivers a line about spoken words being "just a mask" for our true selves. It's rather awkward especially when the asides have to be delivered quickly so as not to interrupt the flow of the action. The actors' faces sometimes go into contortions of varying emotions as the aside rambles on, causing some unwanted comical moments. I guess I got used to it but it remains disruptive all through the two-hour film (the play ran almost five hours, sometimes performed with a dinner break). The actors seem a bit at sea, especially Ralph Morgan (Charlie) who has the burden of a larger share of these asides, at least in the beginning. The best acting comes from Gable, and Shearer is good in scenes with Gable, though largely due to the writing we never really see what is so appealing about Nina that she has such a hold on all these men. The characters come off as a seething knot of neurotics and my sympathy for them was worn to a nub by the end. A scene near the end with Nina and Ned bidding farewell to Gordon is just plain laughable. As might be expected with an adaptation of a highly theatrical play (O'Neill wrote the screenplay), quite a bit is told rather than shown which blunts some of the emotional effectiveness of the situations. Still, I recommend this to fans of the era and the stars, which also include May Robson and Maureen O'Sullivan.  And to anyone looking for a novelty. Pictured are Gable and Shearer. [TCM]

THE GHOST THAT WALKS ALONE (1944)

A radio soap opera called The Tender Hour is being performed live with lead actors Sue and Whitney as the romantic couple, and Enid and Cedric as supporting players. But sound effects man Eddie has his mind on his wedding later that day and messes up a couple of sound cues. Macy Turner, the producer and Enid’s husband, fires Eddie but Enid insists on him being re-hired. Macy thinks that Cedric has designs on his wife, leading to some tension. Eddie and Sue leave to be married, then go to a lodge in the woods run by his sister Milly. When Macy discovers that the Tenderfoot Shoe Company has threatened to pull their sponsorship of the show, he insists that the cast and crew, along with Beppo, a writer, head out to the lodge to rehearse all week, horning in on Eddie and Sue’s honeymoon. Milly allows them to stay, even though the lodge is officially closing for the season. Also in the lodge: Tom, a sinister looking handyman, and Cornelia Coates, a nutty old lady with a propensity for sleepwalking reveries in which she thinks she's Lady Guinevere. In the night, Eddie leaves his room to make sure his sound effects trunks are safe; when he returns, someone has switched the room numbers on the doors and Eddie enters Whitney’s room thinking it's his. Instead of Sue, Eddie finds the dead body of Macy in the bed. Roomies Cedric and Beppo help him put the body in a trunk and take it to the basement. Eddie runs into Cornelia walking in her sleep and accompanies her on her reverie; Sue sees them and thinks that Eddie is already being unfaithful to her. The next morning, Eddie discovers that Macy's body is missing. The sheriff is called by Whitney, who never came back to his room the night before, and soon everyone is a suspect in a murder that no one can prove actually happened.

A couple of online writers have compared this B-movie comic mystery to a Scooby-Doo episode with Eddie as Shaggy. I've actually never seen an entire episode of that show, but that seems right. The story is fun but the script is weak and full of plotholes, and it's the acting that carries one through. Arthur Lake (Dagwood in the Blondie movies) has a sweet but scatterbrained thing going on here as Eddie and it works well, though one does wonder how he wound up with a smart and attractive woman like Lynne Roberts (Sue). Because Janis Carter (Enid) is top billed over Roberts, I assumed that Sue was going to be a villain but both she and Carter remain what they seem in the opening. Carter is fine but is not any more important to the plot than Roberts, so I guess the billing was a contractual thing. I was not familiar with the rest of the cast, but they’re mostly fine. Arthur Space (Cedric) and Frank Sully (Beppo) as the roomies are good comic sidekicks and, frankly, have more chemistry together than Lake and Roberts. Matt Willis is creepily thuggish as Tom. I was less impressed with Ida Moore as the nutty Cornelia but that may just be a reaction to her character who seems superfluous and only needed for a final punch line. Among the plotholes: the idea that the entire crew would intrude on a honeymoon to rehearse a 15 minute soap opera episode is silly; it’s never explained why Cornelia is still staying in the lodge; the absence of a couple of the characters for a while is not explained. As most online viewers note, the title is nonsense. Though one character mentions ghosts in passing, there is no ghost, walking or otherwise, and no character suspects one. I got mild enjoyment out of Lake, Space and Sully but otherwise it’s a minor effort from the Columbia B-movie unit. Pictured are Jack Lee (as Macy) and Lake. [YouTube]

THE HOUSE ON GREENAPPLE ROAD (1970 TV-movie)

A 12-year-old girl comes home from school to find the house deserted and a kitchen wrecked from a fight with pints of blood splattered all over. She bravely takes it all in stride and her aunt, who lives next door, takes her in and calls the police. Lt. Dan August and his sidekick Sgt. Wilentz show up and despite all the blood, no sign of the girl's mom, Marian, is found. Marian's traveling salesman husband George says he'd been on the road but that alibi starts to fray as August investigates. Entering middle age but still attractive, Marian turns out to have been sleeping around with, among others, Billy, an aging golden boy lifeguard at a sports club; Paul, the club's president who fired Billy then took his place in the sack; Sal, a high-toned thug; and Ryan, the preacher at an unconventional church. The mayor, under pressure from the press, wants the husband arrested but August isn't convinced until George tries to make a high-speed getaway. Even after this, August keeps investigating. A body washes up in a nearby bay, but it's that of a man. Where is Marian? This movie proved so popular that a TV series, Dan August, was spun off from it, starring Burt Reynolds. But the star of this film, Christopher George, pictured, is very good as August. He's not much different from the average tough-guy TV cop of the era but he's handsome and commanding, tough or sensitive as he needs to be, and shows a rebellious spirit when he's in conflict with the arrogant mayor (Walter Pidgeon). 

The narrative falls into a pattern: August talks to a suspect and doesn't quite get the full truth, but we get a flashback showing how that person was involved with Marian. The cast is full of familiar faces who all give good performances. Janet Leigh is excellent as Marian, an aging and insecure woman who loses herself in meaningless affairs (though it must be said that Leigh still looks great). William Windom is the club boss whose wife knows about his dalliances. Peter Mark Richman is the gangster who has a juicy locker room scene with the cops. Laurence Dane is the sad and confused preacher. Burr DeBenning has the least amount of screen time but delivers in his scenes as the lifeguard who seems to be suffering from the same kind of insecurity over aging that Marian is. Tim O'Connor keeps us guessing as the husband; is he a passive sad sack or a cold-blooded killer? Julie Harris has the thankless role of George's sister. She has so little to do that I was sure she would be involved somehow in the murder but she's a red herring. Little Eve Plumb is fine as the daughter—she was already appearing as Jan in The Brady Bunch when this film aired. Keenan Wynn makes a good sidekick, and Geoffrey Deuel (brother of Pete Duel of Alias Smith and Jones) is cute in a 2-line role as a parking attendant at the sports club. This was enjoyable and I'm sorry that Christopher George never got a shot at a cop show of his own. I've read that George was offered the title role in the series but had to turn it down due to other commitments. Though I've never seen an episode of Dan August, I imagine Burt Reynolds was more laid back and snarky in the part. Lynda Day, whom George would marry a few months after making this movie, has a short bit as a stoned receptionist. [YouTube]

TARZAN’S SECRET TREASURE (1941)

The fifth entry in the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series begins up in Tarzan's secret African escarpment as Tarzan, Jane, and Boy have a family swim with some baby elephants. Boy finds some gold nuggets in the river which leads to a discussion about wealth and civilization, and that night Boy takes a nugget and decides to find civilization. He meets a native boy named Tumbo whose village is currently beset by an epidemic of sickness. When Tumbo's mother dies of fever, the tribe plans to sacrifice Boy hoping to appease the gods and save the village, but an expedition of scientists looking for a lost tribe arrive and are able to save Boy, and when the natives attack the scientists, Tarzan swings in to save them all. Among the scientists: Elliot, the leader; O'Doul, the jolly hard-drinking Irish photographer; Vandermeer, the guide; and Medford, a sneaky, greedy sort of fellow. Tarzan takes them to his escarpment and Medford, who has seen Boy's gold and been told that there is a mountain of gold nearby, plans to grab himself a fortune. As tensions build, Tarzan tells the men to leave, but with O'Doul down with the fever, Elliot asks if they can stay until he's better. Tarzan relents, and when Elliot, who has sided with Tarzan about leaving the gold, also gets the sickness, Medford deliberately breaks the vial with his medicine. Elliot dies, Medford kidnaps Jane and Boy, and manages to strand Tarzan in a mountain chasm. However, Tumbo has secretly followed Tarzan and goes back to get the recovering O'Doul to save him. But now, everyone else is in the hands of the vicious Jaconi tribe. Can Tarzan save the worthy and allow rough justice to take the undeserving?

Though I am a fan of the Tarzan franchise and its offshoots, this is the last one of the Weissmuller films that I can work up any enthusiasm for. He made seven more, leaving the role behind in 1948, but after this one, he became too bored and out of shape to be an effectual Tarzan. Some, like DESERT MYSTERY and NEW YORK ADVENTURE, remained interesting for their unusual settings, but I would counsel new viewers to skip from here to 1949’s TARZAN’S MAGIC FOUNTAIN where the younger, hunkier Lex Barker dons the loincloth. Weissmuller is still a decent Tarzan, and Maureen O’Sullivan, despite her dislike for the role, puts on a brave face and is fine as Jane. The focus of the first fifteen minutes is on the antics and adventures of Boy, nicely played by 10-year-old Johnny Sheffield. The orphaned Tumbo, seemingly introduced as a playmate for Boy, is portrayed by 9-year-old Cordell Hickman. The last shot of the movie includes Tumbo as an adopted member of Tarzan's family (see above right), but he never shows up again in the series. Tom Conway is a bit too obviously villainous as Medford, but I liked Reginald Owen as Elliot and Philip Dorn as Vandermeer, and Barry Fitzgerald is fun as the (stereotyped) Irish drinker O'Doul who calls Weissmuller "Mr. Tarzan" and accuses him of being a temperance worker when he stops O'Doul from drinking. (Cheeta the monkey, who gets a drunk scene, has too much to do for my taste.) There is a fair amount of recycled jungle footage, but the climax, involving crocodile wrestling and an elephant stampede, is exciting. [TCM]

THE RED CIRCLE (1960)

In a prologue, we see the execution of condemned murderer Henry Lightman by guillotine go awry when the drunken executioner leaves a nail in place that stops the blade just short of Lightman's head (he has a black cloth over his face so we can't see what he looks like). He manages to escape and eight years later, he returns as a sinister figure known as the Red Circle who blackmails rich people who are then killed if they don't pay up. He gets his name from the cryptic notes he leaves behind with a red circle as a signature—and in one case, a red burn mark left on a victim's arm from a car cigarette lighter. The caped and masked figure demands that Lady Doringham give him a valuable necklace belonging to her husband; he gives her an imitation one to replace it so the loss won't be detected. When she fails to follow through, he kills her in her car. A famous sculptor contacts Scotland Yard about a threat, but when they arrive at his studio, he is dead, hanging from the ceiling. Yard inspector Parr and his team, Lord Archibald and Sgt. Haggett, are roundly criticized in the press so Parr reluctantly hires famous private detective Derrick Yale to assist. Yale immediately picks up on the fact that the noose around the sculptor's neck was tied with a seaman's knot, which leads them to arrest an itinerant sailor named Selby. He admits the murder but says he was paid to do it by the Red Circle. Later, in his jail cell, he is poisoned while eating soup. Beardmore, a wealthy businessman, is the next target of the Red Circle, and the investigation of his case introduces us to his handsome nephew Jack, a businessman named Froyant who works in the Beardmore building, and his lovely secretary Thalia. At various times, both Jack and Thalia seem suspicious, as does the otherwise bumbling Sgt. Haggett. Thalia winds up getting fired and finds work with a banker named Barbazon; soon, he is pressured by the Red Circle into putting counterfeit bills into circulation. Lots of other characters and situations (including a kidnapped child) clutter up the narrative before the Red Circle is unmasked with the ultimate clue that he, Lightman under a different name, has a permanent red scar around his neck from the guillotine's pillory.

Based on an Edgar Wallace novel titled The Crimson Circle, this is the second 'official' krimi, a German crime film based on the work of Wallace. As I note in my review of the first one, FACE OF THE FROG, this shares with other krimi films an overstuffed plot, a large cast of characters (so lots of people can get killed off), and several red herrings. FROG was good but this one is almost deliriously fun with its huge cast and constant string of murders. At a little over 90 minutes, it starts to feel a bit long, but the end is worth it, as the identity of the killer is a satisfying surprise. There is no shortage of good looking actors here. Renate Ewart is sexy and seductive as Thalia, Klausjurgen Wussow is youthful and appealing as Yale, and even more handsome is Thomas Alder as Jack. Krimi regular Eddi Arent, pictured, is Haggett, doing double duty as mild comic relief and as a suspect. There's no use arguing about plotholes and inconsistencies, though I admit the idea that Yale, a private eye, might be seen as a serious contender for Parr's job, was just ridiculous. My first krimi kick was in 2023, but this might get me started on another one. Sadly, two young cast members died of suicide a few years later: Ewart and Alder. [YouTube, where it’s called The Crimson Circle]

SPACEWAYS (1953) / THE NET (1953)

In 1953, two British B-films were released with very similar plots, both fitting into a very specific genre: spy melodrama disguised as science fiction thriller. SPACEWAYS is set at the Deanfield Experimental Station in England where a group of scientists is working on getting a satellite into permanent orbit around the Earth that could be used as an observatory, though some worry it might also be used to store nuclear weapons. The scientists include Prof. Keppler, the head of the program; American engineer Steve Mitchell, fuel expert Toby Andrews; animal expert Philip Crenshaw who works with the mice they send up in experiments; and mathematician Lisa Frank. At a cocktail party celebrating getting the OK from General Hayes to keep working, Steve's wife Vanessa, tired of living under government restrictions, glowers at her husband and sneaks off to have a kissing session with Philip. Meanwhile, Steve is consoled by Lisa. The next test launch goes badly; the rocket goes into orbit but fails to deploy a satellite, perhaps because of too much weight in the fuel tanks. It's soon discovered that Philip (who may be a spy) and Vanessa have vanished from the heavily guarded compound, and an investigator named Smith comes up with the far-fetched theory that the jealous Steve killed the two and put their bodies in the rocket's fuel tanks. Eventually, Steve, who has taken to canoodling with Lisa, decides to go up into space himself and bring back the orbiting rocket to prove the bodies aren't there. Eva Bartok (Lisa), pictured at left with Duff (Lisa) and Cecle Chevreau (Vanessa) outshine the male lead, the rather drab and stolid Howard Duff (Steve). Other standouts are Alan Wheatley as Smith and Michael Medwin as Toby.

THE NET (American title PROJECT M7) has a very similar plot as a team of scientists work at an experimental station in England, trying to perfect a new (and very futuristic looking) supersonic plane that will fly three times faster than current planes. Michael Heathley, the inventor of the M7, is gung ho on giving it a manned test, but his boss, Prof. Carrington, vetoes him and insists on ground-controlled tests only. At a cocktail party, we meet Lydia, Michael's wife who is getting a little tired of her husband’s single-mindedness; Alex, a doctor and ground control worker who starts a mild flirtation with Lydia; Dr. Dennis Bord, a somewhat suspicious Scotsman; Sam, who handles security; and Brian, Michael's young protege. That night, Carrington dies from a fall off of a dock walkway (which reads as suspicious to us) and Michael pressures the group into okaying a manned flight. He also pressures Brian to be his reluctant but loyal co-pilot. If they get into trouble, they can flip a switch and the ground control station can take over, but during the flight they both lose consciousness due to lack of air pressure, and Brian comes to just in time to flip the switch. The new boss decides to go back to unmanned flights and appoints Brian to become Michael’s superior, a move which doesn't sit well with either of them. In the end, Michael decides to sneak the plane out for a pre-dawn test with Dennis (who may be a spy) as his co-pilot. He regrets his decision. The leads here are all fine, especially James Donald as Michael, Herbert Lom as Alex, Robert Beatty as Sam, and Patric Doonan as Brian. Pictured are Doonan and Muriel Pavlow

These movies were released within a few months of each other; THE NET was first but I saw SPACEWAYS first, and a review of SPACEWAYS at the Scifist site led me to THE NET. It doesn't seem likely that deliberate copying occurred as both were based on preexisting works (THE NET based on a novel, SPACEWAYS on a radio play). But it is odd how the films mirror each other: science research projects, a small group of researchers confined to one base with the possibility of a spy in their midst, an adulterous relationship, a climax which puts our hero in high flying peril. Approached for their sci-fi elements, both would be disappointing—they're basically melodrama thrillers with futuristic aircraft thrown in. But luckily I enjoy these B-movie thrillers on their own so I found both of them interesting and watchable. Both directors do solid if unexceptional work—SPACEWAYS from Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher, THE NET from Anthony Asquith who the year before did the very stagy adaptation of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. I'd give a slight edge to THE NET with its more developed characterizations. slightly better cast (Lom and Doonan are particularly good), cool looking plane, and more thrilling climax. The odd title comes from a reference in the first scene when one character compares confinement to the base to being stuck in a net. [YouTube]

SMART GIRLS DON'T TALK (1948)

One night at the Club Bermuda, a group of men led by Johnny Warjack barge in and rob the casino tables and the patrons. Club boss Marty (Bruce Bennett) lets them escape because getting the cops involved would threaten his illegal gambling endeavor. Instead, he offers to make good all the patron losses, then sends his goons after Warjack who is found dead hours later. A guy named Clark tries to claim a loss of $10,000 but Marty calls his bluff and demands that he pay off his gambling debts within a week. A woman named Linda (Virginia Mayo) tries to make a claim for thousands of dollars of stolen jewelry, but Marty also sees through her, knowing that her gems were paste, and when the club’s valet parkers claim her car is blocks away, Marty drives her home and spends the night. The next morning, it turns out that Linda’s car was used in the hit on Warjack, and Lt. McReady questions her but believes her alibi. Linda's brother Doc (yes, he's actually a doctor) shows up and warns her away from Marty, but he winds up getting equally involved when he falls for Toni, singer at the Club Bermuda. When Marty carries out a hit on Clark, he's wounded and Doc treats him, but when Marty's underlings worry that Doc will rat them out to the police, they kill him. Doc's death convinces Linda to help the cops get Marty. This B-melodrama doesn't quite have the feel of a film noir, though noir themes are present, including the mix of goodness and villainy in Marty, and to some degree, Linda. Bennett makes for a weak leading man; I think he was going for taciturn and a little mysterious but he mostly comes off as wooden. Richard Roeber as the cop who also serves as a mild romantic interest for Mayo is bland and has no chemistry with Mayo. The best performance comes from Virginia Mayo who serves as the conflicted noir central figure. A strong supporting cast includes Robert Hutton as Doc, and Richard Benedict and Tom D'Andrea as two of Marty's thugs. A standard, "The Very Thought of You" is usedThe movie does an interesting turn of mood, with the first half feeling rather light and things getting heavy near the end, but I'd only recommend this for B-movie fans. Pictured are Bennett, Mayo, and Richard Benedict. [TCM]

THE LOST MISSILE (1958)

A narrator tells us that "the world is one minute away from the start of a hydrogen war" because a missile of unknown origin is sighted speeding across the skies of “North Europe.” Despite an attempt by the Russians to bring it down, it continues its flight, five miles up in the air, at 4,000 miles an hour, incinerating everything beneath it. The Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) estimates it will soon fly across northern Canada and wind up over New York City in an hour. At the Havenbrook Atomic Laboratory outside of New York, scientist David Loring heads a group working on Project Job (pronounced like the Biblical name), a rocket that can carry a hydrogen warhead. David is supposed to be getting married to his assistant Joan, with fellow researcher Joe as best man, but Joe's wife is about to have her baby and he has to go be with her. At the same time, Joan calls off the wedding because she thinks David is paying too much attention to his project and not enough to her. But the threat of the missile causes the center to be locked down as they search for a way to neutralize the threat. As New York City is evacuated, Joe manages to get out to make his way to the hospital. David wants the Air Force to use the Job missile to launch a hydrogen warhead at the threat Meanwhile, Canadian jets sent to intercept the missile are destroyed, as is much of Ottawa when the missile flies over the city. In the end, David delivers the warhead to the missile launch site by jeep. A gang of teenage thugs hijack the jeep and one of them opens the container holding the bomb; they all die rather quickly of radiation poisoning, leaving David to risk his life by getting back in the jeep and getting to the missile.

This is not a bad idea for a science fiction B-thriller, but it's executed cheaply and, until the last few minutes, boringly. It plays out much more like a TV show, with limited sets, lots of stock footage (nearly half the movie, it seems), and many scenes of people in rooms, at desks, in hallways, and on phones. Two effective scenes show the missile burning up a dog sled driver in Canada, and a Canadian family who are incinerated while building a snowman. Two interesting themes are touched on but not dealt with, both brought up by Joe: 1) we shouldn’t try to destroy the missile as it may have extraterrestrials on board; 2) it might have been kinder not to warn New York City about its possible fate. Against all odds, the hour-long evacuation of the city seems to go smoothly, something which is sheer fantasy. A young and unrecognizable Robert Loggia (later a busy character actor in Big, Scarface, S.O.B. and The Sopranos) is fine as David, as is Philip Pine as Joe, a character who could have used a bit more fleshing out. Ellen Parker as Joan barely registers beyond her role as the whiny but ultimately supportive love interest. Science fiction fans will wind up disappointed as no explanation is given for the missile's origin—the film feels more like propaganda for government early-warning systems. I chuckled at a short scene in which a bland folk singer has to interrupt a live TV broadcast to deliver the news of the coming apocalypse. The climax with the delinquents stealing the jeep is surprisingly effective but also feels like it came from another movie. Pictured are Pine and Loggia. [YouTube]

THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY (1933)

At the police station, a visitor for Captain Riley is told he's in conference, but we see that he is actually in his office playing cribbage with Lt. Martin and crime beat reporter Dan McKee. But when the highly agitated Dr. Brandt arrives, wanting to be locked up so he won't, he says, commit the perfect murder, Riley pays attention. Brandt, a psychiatrist who uses hypnosis in his practice, says that he has hypnotized a bank official to bring him $100,000 after which Brandt will kill him and chop his body up. He blames his greedy wife for making him desperate for money, and now he has come to his senses, but the banker is to visit tonight with the money, so Riley and Martin agree to come to Brandt's house to stop him. They do but after they leave, the lights go out, someone enters the room, chloroforms Brandt, murders the banker, and steals the money. McKee, the reporter, is first on the scene and discovers a number of suspects: Freda, the wife; Gilbert, her lover who was spying through the windows just before the lights went out; a mysterious young man who was skulking about on the street; and even a maid and butler. Brandt's daughter Doris gets involved even though she was apparently at her sorority house all evening. When the cops return and try to stage a reenactment of the murder, the lights go out again and this time it's Freda who is killed, with a pair of scissors. With all the possible suspects together, the film stops dead while a man announces a one-minute intermission so the audience can try to play detective as the faces of characters and pictures of evidence flash across the screen. The police think that Brandt is the mastermind, but McKee has another idea.

Though the film begins with a couple of stunning one-take tracking shots of people entering the police station, this pre-Code B-mystery becomes fairly stagy, with the bulk of it taking place in Brandt's living room, with an unmotivated detour to the sorority house, but I don't find that a problem as that is fairly traditional for a drawing room mystery. The intermission is fun, though I don't think it's really possible to figure out the killer from the clues given, and the killer's identity is a bit surprising but satisfying. The premise involving hypnosis and Brandt's sudden change of heart is far-fetched but within the realm of suspension of disbelief. The B-level acting is satisfactory. Stuart Erwin (McKee), who typically played comic supporting parts, doesn't exactly shine here—he's a bit low energy and never seems as sharp as the character should be—but he's tolerable. A bit better is the top-billed Jean Hersholt as Brandt. Frances Dee (the daughter) is brought in only as a possible romance for McKee, which is about as far-fetched as the opening premise. The better supporting players include David Landau as Martin, Wynne Gibson as Freda, and Gordon Westcott as Gilbert. The servants (Torben Meyer and Bodil Rosing) have a very amusing bit of comic relief involving sauerbraten and heartburn. Not a must-see but light and amusing. Pictured are Erwin and Landau. [YouTube]

ELEVEN P.M. (1928)

This silent low-budget race film is difficult to review for several reasons. Information about its release and reception is impossible to find. Even reviews of it are few and far between. The film is often called surreal, and because the bulk of the action is a dream, that label feels right, but "surreal" is a label sometimes applied to movies which are results of Poverty Row sloppiness, so any problems with visual or narrative disjunctions can be attributed to deliberate intention. For me, this hour-long movie managed to earn its surreal label until about halfway through when it totally fell apart. I basically stopped taking notes and just sat on my couch with a bewildered look on my face. The frame story makes sense, sort of. A writer named Louis Perry sits at his typewriter one evening, trying to finish a story that his publisher wants by 11:00 p.m. It has something to do with Perry's belief that life, in addition to progressing, can also decline, and that a human soul can take refuge in a lower form of life, like a cat or dog. (At first, I thought Perry was a newspaper reporter, but this seems to be a short story that the editor is waiting for.) Perry is also a part-time boxer and Roy, a promoter, is coming by at 11 to collect him for a midnight fight. Also at 11, his girlfriend June and her mother are stopping by. Perry falls asleep, his dog at his feet, and dreams a story that culminates in animal reincarnation.

Here's as much of that story as I could piece together. In the dream, Roy (the fight promoter) is shot on the street. He goes to Sundaisy, described as a "half-breed street fiddler," gives him a wad of money and asks him to use it to take care of Roy's young son Clyde. The money is stolen from Roy's coat the moment he dies, but somehow Sundaisy manages to raise the boy. Twelve years later, Clyde has become a member of a street gang and Sundaisy marries a woman named June in order to save her from a life of poverty. More years pass. June finds out that her marriage to Sundaisy isn't legal because the minister was a fraud. June runs off with someone but is deserted and lives a "remorseful life in the slums." More years pass. Sundaisy and his daughter Hope are street buskers. She is dating the writer, Louis Perry, but the grown-up Clyde, who owns a nightclub, steals her away to be a dancer. Sundaisy tries to kill Clyde but has a heart attack and dies. Later, Sundaisy returns in the form of a dog and attacks and kills Clyde. Then, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Perry wakes up in his office at 11 p.m. surrounded by all the folks who have come to meet him and were in his dream. He types up his story. The end.

There are many confusing circumstances of narrative. The same woman (Orine Johnson) plays June, her mother, and Hope. Yes, this means that June and her mother, in the frame story, look exactly alike. Over the twenty-some years of the dream story, no one ages a bit except Clyde. Many of the supporting characters look and dress alike, and if they were supposed to be differentiated, they weren't. At one point, I realized that Perry was appearing in his own dream and had no idea how he got there or how long he had been there. I'm not sure all the plot details above are accurate, but as a rough outline, it's accurate enough. This is the only surviving movie from its director and writer, Richard Maurice, who also plays Perry. Shot partly on the streets of Detroit, it's a rough and ready production, with the acting ranging from OK (Maurice as Sundaisy, Sammie Fields as Perry) to abysmal (Orine Johnson whose only expression is a hangdog look, as though she's waiting for someone to direct her). The special effect at the end of Sundaisy as the dog is primitive but it works. Despite all this, the movie, if you accept it as intentional surrealism, does exert a weird hold. The print I saw had an interesting electric guitar score by Rob Gal. It took me a few minutes to warm to it, but generally it's effective, especially in its discordant moments. For adventurous tastes. Pictured top right, Richard Maurice, the film's director, as Sundaisy; at left, Sammie Fields. [Criterion Channel]

ACT OF MURDER (1964)

Actress Anne Longman has left the stage to live a placid life in the country tending to her garden and her husband Ralph. Their actor friend Tim, who dated Anne in the past and seems like he might be interested in an adulterous affair, is trying to talk Anne into making a comeback. She's mildly interested (perhaps in both getting back into acting and back into Tim's bed) but she and Ralph are about to indulge in what must be a singularly British pastime: vacationing by swapping homes for a week with another couple. As Anne and Ralph leave, the Petersons, the pleasant older couple they're swapping with, arrive and Anne reminds them that they'll have to attend to their dog, which is fine with them. When Anne and Ralph get to London, they find the couple's address doesn't exist. Sure enough, that evening, the Petersons, working with two other men, are ransacking the Longman house, boxing up valuable antiques to cart off in a van. In the middle of this, Tim stops by to pick up a valise he left at the house. One of the thieves punches him, but they leave in a hurry without the boxed-up valuables. Next morning when the Longmans come home, they're happy not to have been burgled, but then Anne notices that much of the furniture and knick-knacks are in the wrong place. Then they discover that Anne's beloved garden has been trampled and their chickens, canary and dog are dead. Tim visits without telling them what happened, but puts it in Anne's mind that all their food has been poisoned. We soon realize that Tim has a plan: scare Anne into coming back to the big city as an actress, and maybe even moving in with him. But you know what they say about the best laid plans…

Though this hour-long British film was apparently released in theaters, it was also shown on British TV as part of the Edgar Wallace Mystery Theater series, even though it is not based on a Wallace story. Visually, this is caught between a TV episode and a second feature B-movie. It's not terribly interesting in terms of sets or camerawork, and there is almost no background score, but it does have the occasional nice shot or camera move. It doesn't look like a film noir, but the story has that feel, and there are enough plot twists to keep a thriller fan guessing. The performances are fine, if perhaps more aimed at a TV episode. John Carson, a very busy actor (CAPTAIN KRONOS VAMPIRE HUNTER, PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES, lots of British television well into the 2000s) is nicely slimy as the conniving Tim, though I think that it's a mistake that we don't see Tim doing any of the house rearranging or animal killing, we just have to figure out what he's done. Even better is Anthony Bate (pictured) as Ralph—I couldn't decide if I was supposed to like him and therefore feel sorry for him being used, or not, especially since it's unclear how far things get between Anne and Tim in the city (another weak plot point). Justine Lord as Anne is the weakest of the three but she's acceptable. Busy character actor Dandy Nichols is wasted in the small role of Mrs. Peterson. The ending is particularly good, and probably not one that would have been done on American TV of the era. [Streaming]

MEET SEXTON BLAKE (1945)

During a nighttime air raid in London, a man named Russell is killed by falling debris and someone cuts off the dead man's hand. Later, that person man gets in a fight on a bridge and is thrown into the river with his body landing on a barge that is passing under. Russell's hand is found in the man's coat pocket. (The scorecard so far: 2 dead men, 1 murder, 1 amputated hand.) Detective Sexton Blake examines the body and, in Sherlock Holmes style, deduces that Russell was a foreigner and a professional photographer. At his Baker Street address, Blake and his young sidekick Tinker talk to Raoul Sudd who is engaged to Russell's sister, and is also brother to Johann Sudd, a notorious arms dealer—the dead man on the barge was an employee of Johann's. Russell had photographs of film stars which have gone missing, along with a ring that was on his amputated hand, and Blake eventually learns that the photos have, invisibly superimposed on them, a secret formula for a new super-strong alloy which could be useful as war material, and the ring contains instructions for reading the invisible formula. Blake brings the police, Inspector Vetter and his stoic sidekick Belford, into the matter; Johann shows up accusing his brother of theft; and Raoul goes missing. We meet Noddy, a waitress who is sweet on Tinker (though Tinker seems more interested in his boss than in her) and who helps sniff out a mysterious woman by her pungent perfume. The primary villain seems to be a bearded man who they all nickname ‘Slant Eyes’ but who actually goes by Dzed (or perhaps DZ, I was unsure); when Blake and Tinker are trapped in a basement by the bad guys, Dzed shoots them point blank and escapes, but it turns out that Dzed missed completely, which raises suspicions in Blake's mind. Later, Dzed knocks out a female Free French agent, then kisses her. How many people here are not what they seem?

Sexton Blake was a British pulp fiction detective much like Sherlock Holmes: he lives in Baker Street, has a sidekick (though unlike Holmes and Watson, Blake is very solicitous of Tinker, always calling the younger man Old Son), and a friendly landlady, Mrs. Bardell, whose main character trait is making malapropisms; at one point, she worries that Blake will wind up dead and she will have to "idemnify" him in a "mortararium." As a British B-movie, it's a bit cheaper than the Holmes B-movies being produced in Hollywood at the time, but it's generally good detective fun: well-paced, nicely acted, and fairly easy to follow. The print I saw got very murky during scenes in darkness but was otherwise quite watchable. Blake is well played by David Farrar (pictured at right) who would hit a career peak a couple of years later in BLACK NARCISSUS. John Varley is handsome and nicely low-key as Tinker (anyone who calls him Mr. Tinker is told right away that it's just Tinker). Katherine Harrison is good as Mrs. Bardell, with Gordon McLeod and Cyril Smith fine as Vetter and Belford. Betty Huntley-Wright is energetic as Nobby. There's not a lot of action, but a couple of short fisticuffs scenes are pulled off well. At the end, Blake lifts his drink and says, "Here’s to the next crime!" Farrar did one more Blake film, THE ECHO MURDERS, though sadly without Tinker, though the character also appeared in TV shows and comic strips, and new stories appeared through the 1960s. [YouTube]

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]