WHAT’S SO BAD ABOUT FEELING GOOD? (1968)

According to the opening montage, Manhattan in the mid-1960s was a place festering with anger and ceaseless movement and filth. In the East Village a bunch of "educated artists," or more precisely, college dropouts, are living together in a dilapidated loft apartment. For the record, they're supposed to be hippies but they seem much more like old school beatniks, especially Liz (Mary Tyler Moore), whom we first see dressed in black, playing a guitar and singing a dirge about how miserable life is. She and her scuzzy bearded boyfriend Pete (George Peppard), who used to be an advertising man, lie listlessly around with their friends hating the world. Meanwhile, a Greek merchant ship pulls into dock and all the sailors are joyful and dancing, the opposite of how they usually are. It's determined that a colorful toucan on the ship is spreading a happiness virus, and before it can be caught, it flies off into the city where it lands in the hippie apartment window. Pete catches it first; he shaves his beard, gets his old job back, and deliberately tries to pass the virus on to Liz. Soon all the hippies have it; they get cleaned up and they clean up the apartment. As it begins spreading across the city, the mayor (John McMartin) is worried that the feelings of euphoria will lead people to stop drinking and smoking (cutting back on sales taxes) and even voting, so he leads an effort to stop the virus spreading by giving the public masks (very Covid-lockdown-era looking) and by trying to catch the bird. Government advisor Monroe (Dom DeLuise), who comes to town wearing a space helmet as protection, is sure it's a Commie plot. When the bird is caught, an antidote is formulated and pumped into the already polluted sky. Pete and Liz, knowing the bird will be killed for study, plot to help it escape, leading to a slapstick sequence in which she hides the bird under the wedding gown she's wearing, getting mistaken for a pregnant bride.

This is a cute fantasy comedy satire, though its satirical bite is practically non-existent. If it's trying to target hippies, these folks, as I noted, are not hippies, and despite what the filmmakers might have thought, beatniks were not the same as hippies. Still, their portrayal in the opening scenes is fun, and their number includes the unrecognizable Nathaniel Frey, Don Stroud and Susan St. James. The pokes at government bureaucrats are funnier; McMartin is nicely befuddled as the mayor, and the funniest performance comes from DeLuise who provides plenty of laughs in every scene he's in, sometimes abetted by George Furth as his kowtowing underling. Individually, I liked Peppard and Moore, but they have little chemistry. I didn't care a bit about their relationship story, and if there is blame to be placed, it's probably with Peppard who is working at half power, though his sex appeal makes up a bit for the flaccid performance—I found him quite appealing with and without the fuzzy scuzzy style. Moore is at least trying, and it's a shame her big screen comedy career never got very far. The ad men are mocked lightly in a scene in which they are working a campaign for a pill called Ultra that they want to claim can do practically everything but in reality, does nothing. Thelma Ritter, in her last screen role, has a cameo; it's not much, but Ritter is always welcome. The mask situation and its similarity to the Covid-era maskings is downright spooky. Despite its many problems, it's hard to dislike this movie; it'd be like disliking a puppy, or perhaps, the toucan. Pictured at top left are Moore and Peppard; at right is Peppard, scuzzy-style. [DVD]

SAPPHIRE (1959)

In London, two children find a dead body in the woods, a young woman with the letter "S" sewn on her clothes. The police identify her as Sapphire Robbins, an outgoing and well-liked music student. An autopsy shows she was pregnant. Her boyfriend David, who was out of town at the time of her murder on Saturday night, claims she had told him about her pregnancy, and that he was happy with the news and proposed marriage. But the investigating police officers, the older Hazard and the younger Learoyd, discover hidden family conflicts when they learn that Sapphire's older brother, a doctor, is Black. Both children of mixed race, Sapphire could pass for white and did. Even so, when people discovered her racial background, old prejudices came into play, especially from landlords who would find out about her secret when her brother visited. Sapphire was also leading a secret life, socializing at a Black jazz club and seeing Black men, though she made no secret of having "a yen to marry light." David's mother, father, and adult sister express racist sentiments but insist that they ultimately were OK with David's decision to marry her. In addition to the race issue, however, a wedding would likely have scotched David's plans to study abroad on a music scholarship. Then David's alibi for being out of town on Saturday night falls apart. Inspector Learoyd has to fight his own prejudices to work on the case; his discovery that Sapphire was part Black causes him to assume she was promiscuous. But Hazard brings Dr. Robbins to visit David's family and slowly the family members' racism is found to be more ingrained than they would admit.

I appear to be on a Michael Craig kick lately. I reviewed SEA OF SAND a few months ago and movies featuring Craig, a respected character actor in England, are cropping up in my YouTube algorithm, so more reviews will be following. Though third billed behind Nigel Patrick (Hazard) and Yvonne Mitchell (Mildred, David's sister), Craig (as Learoyd) is really the focus of the film as he deals with his racial assumptions while trying to solve the case. He's good looking and charismatic which makes us assume that he will eventually overcome his beliefs, and, to some degree, he does. The killer is caught (a particularly nasty piece of work whose hidden hatred explodes violently at the climax) so the ending is satisfying on the crime film level, but the race prejudices don't disappear at the end. Even a Black club owner says this about Sapphire, passing for white and dancing at the club: "No matter how fair the skin, they can’t hide that swing!" The film was critiqued by some at the time for failing to take on racism more directly, but it was popular and won the BAFTA award for Best British Film. Craig and the low-key Patrick have a realistic chemistry. There is strong support from Yvonne Buckingham, who plays Sapphire in flashbacks, Paul Massie as David, Bernard Miles as David's father, and Harry Baird as a would-be boyfriend of Sapphire's from the jazz club. Earl Cameron, who was still acting in the 2000s, is especially good in the relatively small role of Sapphire's brother. At the end, Hazard tells Learoyd that, though they've brought the killer to justice, they haven't really solved anything, a verdict on society that remains viable today. Pictured are Patrick and Craig. [TCM]

THE BAMBOO SAUCER (1968)

During the test flight of a new plane, pilot Fred Norwood believes he's being chased by a blue light which he assumes is a UFO and goes through some dangerous maneuvers to escape, though because radar on the ground picks up nothing, his bosses think he cracked up and take him off the tests. Fred theorizes that the UFO is able to block radar and his brother-in-law Joe has a similar encounter but winds up dead in a crash. Hank Peters of the National Intelligence Agency hears about his claims and gets in touch with him about an odd incident in which a UFO seems to have crashed in a mountainous area of China (or Red China as everyone insisted on calling it during the Cold War days) and dead humanoid aliens were retrieved. Hank and Fred lead a small team which parachutes into China to investigate, and Sam, an anti-Communist local, takes them to the downed craft, kept inside a ruined church. Trying to avoid Communist troops in the area, they run into a rival group of researchers from Soviet Russia, led by Zagorsky and Anna. After some tension, the groups decided to cooperate. Anna and Fred grow close, though the jealous Zagorsky insists on a non-fraternization policy. They figure out how to enter the craft (an electric razor just happens to generate just the right frequency to do it) and one of the Russians sneaks into it later to attempt a flight but dies in the ship. Just as tensions between the groups begin to escalate, the Red Chinese Army attacks. There are many casualties, but Fred, Anna, and the American Jack Garson get the craft off the ground. When they try to steer it, they realize it's on a preplanned course toward Saturn. Will our survivors manage to change the flight plan to head back to Earth?

This will not be everyone's cup of tea, partly due to its odd mix of genres. It is presented as science fiction but for much of its running time, it's more like a spy film. Political reconciliation propaganda is also present. There is a spaceship but the dead aliens were cremated so we never see them. There are some special effects and sci-fi sets, but they are dirt cheap. Most critics mock them, but once I got used to them, I didn't mind. The physical production has been derided as being just one step up from Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it's better than that. The acting is also pretty good. Handsome John Ericson (top right) is not especially expressive as Fred, but if you read him as stoic, he's fine. Lois Nettleton is good as Anna. Dan Duryea, as Hank, is a bit low energy, but this was his last film; he died of cancer in June of 1968 around the time of the film's release—it seems to have had a scattering of bookings early in 1968 and a larger release later. I was pleased to see Vincent Beck as Zagorsky—he's infamous as the comically villainous Voldar in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. James Hong, who in his 90s is still with us and making movies (Everything Everywhere All at Once), is Sam. You'll also see a couple of familiar TV faces: Bob Hastings from McHale's Navy and Bernard Fox who was Dr. Bombay on Bewitched. The story echoes some plot points from the 1950 film THE FLYING SAUCER. With B-movie expectations and a somewhat quirky plot, I enjoyed this, and the vanilla good looks of Ericson don't hurt. At left are Ericson and Nettleton. [Blu-ray]

THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE (1960)

aka THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE

The powerful German crime lord Mabuse is supposed to have died years ago, but when police chief Kras gets a phone call from a mysterious blind psychic named Cornelius about crimes that fit Mabuse's methods, Kras wonders if Mabuse, or his otherworldly influence, is still around. Cornelius' vision of a man shot on the streets in broad daylight comes true when a journalist is killed with a steel needle shot from a gun into his head. The reporter was staying at the Hotel Luxor, as is American industrialist Henry Travers who is in Berlin to finalize a deal involving the construction of new atomic rockets. Several of the Mabuse-like crimes have involved the hotel, so the police stake the place out. Travers saves Marion Menil from a suicidal jump; she has an abusive club-footed husband and she and Travers (who, unknown to Marion, can see into her room via a secret two-way mirror) hit it off. We also meet Marion's psychiatrist, Dr. Jordan, and a jolly insurance agent, Hieronymous B. Mistelzweig. As these characters interact, we find that almost no one is what they present themselves to be. And though Mabuse is indeed dead, one of these characters has been carrying on in the evil doctor's place. He has rigged all the rooms in the hotel with surveillance cameras and is plotting to get ahold of Travers' rockets in order to lead a new world order. Spying, disguises, murder, and a possibly unsavory romance lead to an exciting climactic sequence which may or may not put an end to Mabuse’s crimes.

Dr. Mabuse was a character from two earlier Fritz Lang films (DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER  & THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE) and he came to be seen in pop culture as a mystical quasi-Hitler figure warning about Germany’s Nazi future. In this sequel (or reboot), several years after the war, vague Nazi ties remain—the hotel was built by the Nazis in 1944, and Mabuse's maniacal desire for power remains alive. Another link to the earlier films is the theme of watching and being watched (be suspicious of the man who claims to be blind). This is the last film that Fritz Lang made, and approaching this as a Mabuse film, I was a little disappointed. Its style is much closer to the krimi movies of the era (German crime movies that are often seen as kin to film noir) than to Lang's own expressionist style, and seen as a krimi, the movie works much better—though tribute is paid to the supernatural elements of the earlier films in a brief seance scene. The romance between Travers (Peter van Eyck) and Marion (Dawn Addams) never really takes off, and the two actors are overshadowed by the supporting cast. Gert Frobe, best known as the Bond villain Goldfinger a few years later, is appealing as the verging-on-bumbling police chief. Wolfgang Preiss is quite effective as the creepy psychic, Howard Vernon is a cold-blooded killer in service to the Mabuse figure, and Werner Peters is fun as Mistelzweig (what a great character name!). The movie drags a bit, sometimes feeling like a condensed serial (a Lang trait) but the last fifteen minutes pick up nicely. There were sequels to this in which Lang didn't participate, which I’ll be reviewing soon. If you want to avoid spoilers, don't look at the cast list on IMDb. I wasn't crazy about the English dub so see a subtitled German print if you can. Pictured top right is Preiss; at left, Frobe and Preiss. [Blu-ray]

ANGEL IN EXILE (1948)

Charlie Dakin is released from prison after serving five years for a gold dust heist he was part of. His buddy Ernie, who has hidden the gold, picks him up, and the two are followed by Giorgio and Spitz, two other heist men who want to claim their part of the treasure. In the Arizona mountains, near the village of San Gabriel, Charlie files a land claim for an abandoned gold mine where the stash is hidden. The plan is to pretend to find the gold dust and sell it to the government, but the land clerk, Higgins, figures out their plan, wants to be cut in, and advises them to slowly "mine" the gold over several months to make the mining seem legitimate, and offers to handle their claims so no one gets suspicious. Eventually, Giorgio and Spitz muscle in as well. Meanwhile, Charlie establishes relationships with the villagers, some of whom he hires as workers. The village is in bad shape and needs a new health clinic and a new water source. There are rumors of a 300-year-old ghostly angel named the Blue Lady who can work miracles, and when Charlie's mine starts producing gold, the villagers think it's the work of the angel. Charlie grows especially close to Dr. Chavez and his daughter Raquel, who begins to fall for Charlie. When a typhus outbreak threatens the village, Charlie accompanies the doctor on calls and tells stories of the Blue Lady performing miracles; these stories offer the patients hope and help them get better faster, leading to Charlie being seen as something of an angel himself. Soon Charlie wants to give the ill-gotten gold dust money to the village, but, of course, his cohorts don't agree.

In addition to the word "angel" in the title, we are told at the beginning that this is "the story of a miracle," so we're prepped for a supernatural agency that never materializes. Still, this B-movie does work up a nice gentle folktale feel despite its gunplay climax. Some viewers make a claim for this as a film noir, and I guess in the sense that the hero is actually something of an anti-hero—he's not evil but he is a criminal and at the end, he still, thanks to the Production Code, has to pay for his actions. Otherwise, the tone and look of the movie aren't particularly noirish. I've noticed that John Carroll (Charlie, pictured) is not an admired actor among many classic movie fans (at least the ones who write blogs), maybe because he was pushed early in his career as a Clark Gable type, maybe because he doesn't have a wide range, but he's one of my favorite B-leads and he's fine here, though he was aging out of the hearty young buck image he had earlier in the decade. Thomas Gomez (the doctor), Baton MacLane (Giorgio), and Adele Mara (Raquel) are all fine. Howland Chamberlain, a new name to me, does a nice job as the passive but slimy nerd Higgins. The finale, with good use of guns and fists, is satisfying. A must for John Carroll fans, if there are any others out there. [YouTube]

THE ALPHA INCIDENT (1978)

A strange substance has been brought to Earth from a Mars probe. Doctors Farrell and Rogers study it, noting in conversation that scientists already know a bit about its potentially dangerous properties and that it's akin to a virus. We see them inject hamsters and rats with the substance. The next day, the animals are found dead, their brains having exploded, leaving the scientists to assume that sleep is what triggers the virus to become active. Meanwhile, the rest of the substance is being shipped by train to an underground storage facility in Colorado, accompanied by government man Sorenson. On the train, Sorenson is pestered by Hank, a nosy bearded redneck employee who can't stop yakking and wants desperately to know what's so secret and important about the vials they're carrying. When Sorenson falls asleep, Hank steals his keys, unlocks the container and accidentally breaks one of the vials, cutting his hand on the glass and, as we know but he doesn't, probably getting infected. In the morning, the train stops at a small station in Moose Point, and when Sorenson realizes what's happened, and that Hank has possibly infected everyone in the station office, they are put under official quarantine, unable to leave until they get more information from the scientists. We spend the rest of the movie with the quarantined folks: Sorenson, secretive while trying to be the patriarchal voice of reason; Hank, who remains a gabby pain in the ass; Charlie, the slow-talking older boss of the station; Jenny, the chirpy young secretary; and Jack, a train mechanic who hates authority figures. The rest of the movie takes place in the office as tensions rise and fall. Jenny claims to have a date with a guy named Ted, but the slimy Jack senses she's lying and soon seduces her. Jack also tries to escape but Sorenson shoots him in the arm to stop him. Some National Guardsmen are called out with orders to shoot to kill if anyone gets away, and Hank, the only one of the group known to actually be infected, runs off into the woods, is wounded by Sorenson, and will presumably die from the infection or be shot down—we never find out his fate. Amphetamines are dropped off to help them stay awake, but eventually, poor shambling Charlie falls asleep; sure enough, his brain explodes and one of his eyes pops out (a good effect for a low-budget production). In the morning, antidote pills are dropped off, but … I’ll save spoilers for the next paragraph.

This low-budget local Wisconsin production from cult director Bill Rebane has a reputation as being an Ed Wood-level movie, but though the production values are threadbare (there are basically two sets: the train station office and the scientists' lab) and the middle of the film is slow and too talky, I found some pleasures here. I like Ralph Meeker (Charlie), the only star name present, but he's stuck playing a passive old guy with no personality and is given almost nothing to do, until his brain explodes, by which time Charlie is not Meeker but a special effects dummy. George 'Buck' Flower, something of a minor cult figure, is scuzzily effective as the obnoxious Hank. I appreciate the actors who play the scientists (Paul Bentzen and John Alderman, pictured top left) for trying their best to sound puzzled and concerned. My discovery here is Stafford Morgan (at right), a handsome character actor whose face will be familiar from dozens of TV and movie roles. He almost succeeds at creating a character out of Sorenson. Morgan is very good at being the authority figure who may or may be trustworthy. He never loses his temper despite the asshole behavior of Hank and Jack. If I had been stuck in that office, I would have totally trusted him, and maybe even flirted a bit. [Spoiler:] The film is sometimes criticized for its downbeat ending, stolen from Night of the Living Dead, but it was the paranoid 70s and, though the movie doesn't prepare us well for the finale, it's effective, partly due to Morgan's acting. This is almost by accident a decent Z-grade sci-fi thriller. It would be even better if cut down by fifteen minutes or so. [YouTube]

LADIES’ PARADISE (1930)

This late-period French silent film begins with a rather didactic title card telling us that the economic battle of the small shop versus the giant store will always be problematic, and you can only blame progress. The orphan Denise arrives in Paris to stay with her uncle Baudu who runs a small textile shop which is in danger of being put out of business by the block-long department store across the street, Au Bonheur des Dames (Ladies' Paradise). In fact, the first thing that Denise sees in Paris is a plane dropping leaflets onto the streets advertising the store where you can get "everything you desire." Baudu takes her in but cannot give her a job as he can barely take care of his daughter Genevieve and her fiancé Colomban, so she heads across to the Bonheur where, thanks to a fortuitous meeting with Mouret, the store's owner (though she doesn't know that), she is hired as a fashion model. Mouret takes a liking to her, despite the fact that he is anxiously waiting for her uncle's shop to fail so he can demolish that entire side of the street to expand his store. With financial help from the wealthy Madame Desforges, he wants to build the biggest store in the world, a "temple of elegance, luxury and beauty." Mouret and Denise develop a casual friendship and he comes to her rescue when she is assaulted by a male worker in the enormous lunch room, and she eventually learns who he is at a company picnic. Meanwhile, she makes an enemy of Clara, a co-worker whose flirtatious glances across the street at Colomban turn into a real threat to his relationship with Genevieve, who has become quite sickly, basically living in her bedroom. Demolition begins with the sad sight of Baudu's mostly empty store still standing. In the end [Spoiler!] Baudu is driven out of business, goes on a shooting spree in the store, and dies when he is hit by a Bonheur truck (whether he is pushed, falls or deliberately jumps is unclear) and dies. The odd ending, which is taken directly from the Emile Zola novel the film is based on, has Mouret decide he went too far in his desire for progress until Denise tells him that progress itself is to blame, but that progress isn't all bad after all, and the expanded store opens as they make plans to become an official couple. Quite a whiplash ending.

Directed by Julien Duvivier, who went on to direct some seventy movies in France (Pepe Le Moko) and Hollywood (The Great Waltz, the Vivien Leigh Anna Karenina), this is a marvel of visual style, with a nearly constantly moving camera, some incredible crowd scenes—including the shooting spree—and impressive sets with the spectacular store interiors shot in a real department store where most of the crowd scenes take place. Getting lost in the style is a way to draw attention away from the weak central performance of Dita Parlo as Denise who overacts, largely with her eyes, especially in close-ups. In fact, the only strong performance comes from Pierre de Guingand as Mouret who is the only actor to really overcome the curse of silent movie overacting. Also good are Fabien Haziza as Colomban and Ginette Maddie as Clara, perhaps because their characters are well differentiated from the others, mostly store workers, who blend together. The modern score by Gabriel Thibaudeau is good, except for the occasional vocal aria worked in awkwardly. The Criterion Channel aired this as an example of a forerunner of the French movement of poetic realism, and while the visual style is indeed effective, I'm not sure the “poetic” is quite the right word for its impact. Pictured at top left are Parlo and de Guingand. At right is a shot of the impressive interior of the store. Original French title: Au bonheur des dames. [Criterion Channel]

THE FLAME BARRIER (1958)

A new satellite, the X-117, is launched with a chimp on board but is lost 200 miles up, somewhere around the "flame barrier" where the Earth's atmosphere ends. The satellite is presumed to have disintegrated but actually it falls to Earth in a Mexican jungle. Scientist Howard Dahlmann takes off to find the wreckage but isn't heard from for months and his wife Carol heads down to hire a search party led by the reliable Dave Hollister and his cocky ne'er-do-well brother Matt. It's the rainy season and Dave is reluctant to go, but Carol offers them $7000 if they find Howard alive or 10% of his estate if he's proven dead. Villagers warn them that animals in the area are dying. They find a skeleton that Carol thinks is Matt but it's actually a native who was mysteriously burned up. Soon some of the team members have left and tensions grow between the brothers, in part because Matt is putting the moves on Carol, though Carol seems more attracted to Dave. Another native is found with chest burns; he eventually dies and his flesh melts off leaving just his skeleton. Finally they find the satellite in a cave, with Howard's body engulfed in a glowing pulsing blob. An invisible forcefield extends from the satellite which sets fire to anything it comes in contact with, and it's doubling in size every two hours. If the search party leaves, that means they'll be leaving the nearby villagers, and eventually the entire world, at the mercy of the force. But can they quickly find a way to fight and destroy it?

The bulk of this B-movie is of the jungle adventure genre with sci-fi elements thrown in at the beginning and end. If you plan to watch this as a sci-fi film, you'll be disappointed. It's fairly short, 70 minutes, and the jungle melodrama, complete with dangerous animals and sweaty trekking, tends to drag in the middle. But the climactic scenes are tense and effective. Some critics assume that this was originally intended to be all jungle story but the Russian launch of Sputnik, which occurred just a couple of months before filming began, may have influenced its turn toward satellite sci-fi. It's no gem but I enjoyed the mash-up of genres. Kathleen Crowley holds her own as the strong lead female, though she does come off as a little whiny in her single-minded focus on her mission, ignoring the bad outcomes for everyone else that seem likely. Arthur Franz is serviceable as Dave, the good brother, though he's awfully bland compared to the handsome Robert Brown as Matt, the less-good brother—he's not really bad, just a problem drinker who tends to be full of himself and redeems himself in the end. Brown went on to minor fame as a regular on the late 60s TV show Here Come the Brides. If the unusual combo of genres sounds appealing to you, you'll like this one OK. Pictured are Franz, Crowley and Brown. [YouTube]

CASTLE IN THE DESERT (1942)

Reclusive millionaire Paul Manderley lives in a secluded castle in the middle of a California desert with his wife Lucy. He wears a scarf across half his face due to a facial scar and the couple lives off the grid, so to speak, with no electricity and no telephone. They are currently entertaining a small group consisting of Walter (Paul’s lawyer), his wife Brenda, a German doctor named Retling, and the visiting Professor Gleason. When Gleason dies after drinking a doctored cocktail, Lucy freaks out—she is a descendent of the notorious Borgia family and her late stepbrother was suspected of murder by poison. Gleason's body is taken to a nearby hotel to be found. In San Francisco, detective Charlie Chan gets a letter from Lucy asking for his help, so he heads out to the castle only to discover that Lucy denies sending the letter. Soon it's like Grand Central Station at the castle. Showing up eventually are Chan's son Jimmy, the mysterious local fortune teller Madame Saturnia, a sculptor friend of the family, a history professor of Chan's acquaintance, and a private investigator. There is another poisoning and Dr. Retling thinks that Lucy is responsible and should be committed to an asylum. Meanwhile, we discover that not everyone is who they seem and there are possibly two separate conspiracies going on. Never fear, however, as Chan soon gets to the bottom of the mysteries.

This was the last Chan movie that Twentieth Century Fox made, the last one that had a decent budget and the resources of a major studio. It is quite enjoyable, and one reason is the fabulous castle interior, apparently left over from Fox's filming of The Hound of the Baskervilles. It looks good and is shot well with some inventive camera angles here and there, and the matte painting of the castle's exterior is effective. Sidney Toler (Chan) was still in good shape and Victor Sen Yung is in his element as the modern American son who winds up comically trapped in a suit of armor. The strong supporting cast, several of whom appeared in other Chan movies, includes Douglass Dumbrille as Paul, Edmund MacDonald as Walter, Ethel Griffes as Madame Saturnia who provides some mild comic relief (and is referred to as a “queer number” by a townsperson), Steven Geray as the doctor, and Richard Derr as the history professor. It's a particularly tricky mystery with fun twists, and it's paced quickly enough to be over in an hour. I liked Chan's quip about his son: "Glamour boy who jump to conclusion sometimes gets hair mussed." Though not based directly on any Chan novel, the setting seems inspired by Earl Derr Biggers’ second Chan book The Chinese Parrot. I don't know that I can name one Charlie Chan movie as my favorite, but this is certainly near the top. [DVD]

OLD SHATTERHAND (1964)

In the American Old West, a frontier couple is killed by bow and arrow and two Comanche Indians are left dead at the scene, making it look like Apaches were responsible. But the attackers are white men on a mission: to undercut the ranchers' trust in the Apaches and to stop a treaty with the Apaches from being signed in Washington. They don't realize yet that the couple's young son escaped and can serve as a witness against them. The bad guys are led by Bradley and Dixon; the good guys are a German man named Old Shatterhand (though he's not that old), his Apache blood brother Winnetou, Winnetou's adopted son Tujunga, and an actual old guy named Sam Hawkens. There are casualties (surprisingly, the boy is killed during a shooting match by one of the villains) and the two hour running time is too much, but there is an effective climax at a fort, and the promise of more adventures with Old Shatterhand and Winnetou. The two main characters are creations of the German author Karl May (1842-1912), with Winnetou actually being the primary character in his books. The stories were very popular in Europe but weren't translated into English until the 1970s. Based on the evidence of this movie, these are fairly traditional western stories of ranchers and land grabbers, with an emphasis on friendly relations between the white men and the Indian tribes. Over a dozen movies based on May characters were made in Germany in the 1960s and were very popular. The American actor Lex Barker played Old Shatterhand in seven movies (this was the third one released), and another popular May creation, Kara Ben Nemsi, in other films. Some viewers call this a Eurowestern, akin to a spaghetti Western but filmed in Germany rather than Italy, though in style, it's much closer to the traditional Hollywood Western epics of the late 50s and 60s—and the theme song practically plagiarizes the theme of The Magnificent Seven. Barker is fine, but he's certainly no Clint Eastwood, though he is a bit of a loner. French actor Pierre Brice played Winnetou and he's acceptably stoic and respectable. Israeli actress Daliah Lavi is Paloma (aka White Dove), a part-white part-Apache woman who lives near some impressive waterfalls; she's nice eye candy but doesn't play a large role in the plot, and no real romantic tension is generated between her and Barker. Two handsome actors, Guy Madison and Rik Battaglia, are the chief bad guys. Old Sam Hawkens is played by Ralf Wolter whom I know as the porn writer in the movie Cabaret. The Yugoslavia backgrounds fill in nicely for Arizona or California. I bought a Blu-ray set of seven Karl May movies so I'll probably write a few more up in the future. Western fans should like this, but don't expect anything very different or exotic. [Blu-ray]

THE STRANGLER (1964)

The opening shot is a close-up of an eye in which is reflected a woman in her underwear. The eye we're looking at is that of Leo Kroll, a sweaty overweight young man who has snuck into the woman's apartment and proceeds to strangle her with her own stockings. He closes her eyes and pulls a small doll out of his coat which he leaves. In the next shot, he's at home where he fondles and undresses another doll, and puts it in a drawer with seven other dolls. Indeed, this is the eighth in a series of murders that have baffled the police. Kroll, a medical lab technician, has mother issues: his mom, crippled and confined to the hospital where he works, is an oppressive terror, berating Leo mercilessly especially about his friendless and celibate state: "Even as a little boy, nobody liked you!"; "You're fat!"; "You don't make enough money to keep a good-looking hussy in stockings!" His latest victim worked as a nurse at his hospital, and he scopes out his next victim, Clara, working as his mother's nurse; the two had grown close which Leo seems to resent, and Leo kills her. On the one hand, this has an unexpected benefit: the new nurse warns Leo not to mention Clara's death to his mom on the chance that the shocking news might give her a fatal heart attack. Leo immediately goes into his mom's room, tells her about Clara, and indeed mom drops dead. On the other hand, the death of two nurses from the same hospital causes Leo to come under suspicion. Leo gets his dolls at a ring toss game at a nearby arcade where he chats with the two female workers and gets a crush on one of them, Tally. He makes the mistake of killing the other arcade worker not long after an undercover cop noticed him there (figuring that the dolls left at the scenes of the crimes came from that game), and the net tightens on Leo. The clueless Leo asks Tally to run away with him, and her rejection sends him off the deep end.

This creepy little psychological thriller was based loosely on the real-life Boston Strangler who, at the time of the film's release, was still at large. Victor Buono, who plays Leo, is the main reason to see this. He gives an uncomfortably real performance, assisted by many close-ups of his rotund, sweaty face. He frequently blinks and smirks and makes halting movements. Both Buono and Ellen Corby, who plays his mother, dare to evoke almost no sympathy for their characters. We see how Corby has fucked up her son and we despise her for it—I was almost cheering for her to die in her heart attack scene—but I felt no real sympathy for Buono, just a grudging sadness for how he turned out. The murder scenes are relatively graphic though not gratuitously so, and the whole thing has a grimy, unpleasant feel to it, helped by the black & white and low budget look of the film, undercut occasionally by odd bits of humor among the cops, mainly David McLean as the boss and Michael Ryan as his assistant. Davey Davison as Tally is the standout among the women, giving a fairly subtle performance. Diane Sayer is also good as her ill-fated co-worker. Some may feel this verges on sheer exploitation, but I think it's a bit better than that, though not a must-see except for fans of Buono. Pictured is Victor Buono at top right and Michael Ryan at left. [TCM]

SINS OF ROME (1953)

aka SPARTACO

Thrace in 74 B.C. has been conquered by Rome. A councilman tries to stop Roman soldiers from desecrating the Acropolis and is killed. His daughter Amitys argues with Marcus Rufo and fellow Thracian Spartacus steps in and slaps Rufo. Both Amitys and Spartacus are arrested and made slaves, though seeing his potential during a street fight, Crassus sends Spartacus to gladiator school. Amitys is assigned to Crassus' daughter Sabina. As Amitys engages in what looks like an interpretive dance in the arena, lions are let loose and Spartacus saves Amitys from them. Crassus offers Spartacus freedom but he won't take it unless all the Thracian slaves are freed. Soon Spartacus has helped Octavius lead a rebellion of the gladiators who win a battle with the Roman army, though Crassus downplays their victory by calling it an "incident." Spartacus is given refuge by Sabina who finds him attractive. This leads to a scene in which Spartacus is ready to sex it up with Sabina, but is reminded that there are bigger things at stake. Crassus offers Spartacus a position as a Roman soldier but he turns it down and instead leads a larger battle which ends with a Roman victory and Amitys present for Spartacus to hand her his sword as he dies, as she says, "The flame you lit is still burning." This is an early Italian peplum version of the same story that Stanley Kubrick brought to the screen a few years later with Kirk Douglas as Spartacus. Though it seems to have had a decent budget, with good sets and a well done climactic battle, it can't help but feel a bit puny next to the 1960 movie, as it's not in widescreen or color, and gets fairly talky. Despite the presence of gladiators and an arena, we are shortchanged in terms of action scenes. In fact, it conforms more to the formula of the later Hercules and Maciste movies than to the historical epic genre. And up against the Hollywood epics of the same era (Quo Vadis, The Robe), it didn't stand a chance in the States and was roundly panned by critics. Massimo Girotti (Spartacus) is handsome and commanding; he played a wide range of roles over his long career, though he did get typecast a bit as an action hero in the peplum era. For me, Gianna Maria Canale (Sabina) outshines Ludmilla Tcherina (Amitys) in the sex appeal department. Interesting for me more as a novelty, not quite swords-and-sandals, not quite an epic. Pictured are Girotti and Canale. [Streaming]

SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS (1971)

In a park in Prague, the body of reporter Gregory Moore is found. A doctor says, "Call the morgue," but in fact Moore is still barely alive, in a catatonic state. The doctors can detect no life but his body remains unusually warm so he is left on the slab for a time before an autopsy is performed and he narrates his story to us through an interior monologue. Gregory is dating young and sexy Mira and is trying to get her smuggled out of the Communist country to join him in Berlin. At a party, we meet Jessica, another reporter and former lover of Gregory's who is clearly jealous of Mira. A report of a death nearby draws Gregory from the party, but it turns out to be false. When he returns, he finds Mira is missing. Along with Jessica and another reporter, Jacques, Gregory investigates and discovers that young women have been disappearing from the streets of Prague for some time. Clues lead to a private social group of older people that meets at the Klub 99, ostensibly to listen to chamber music concerts. Elements of youth worship and black magic (including a not very sexy orgy) crop up before the surprisingly unsettling climax on the autopsy table. This Italian film directed by Aldo Lado has been accepted into the giallo canon even though it's short on gore and sex and elaborate setpieces; it's basically a mystery—Gregory acts like a detective more effectively than the real cops—with a horror overlay and excursions into not-so-subtle political commentary on authoritarian governments. The setup is reminiscent of the classic noir D.O.A. in which a man who has been fatally poisoned has only a few days left before he dies to find out who his killer is. The narrative meanders a bit and the long flashback is broken up by brief scenes on the autopsy table as a doctor keeps trying to figure out what's going on with this seemingly dead body. Visually, the movie is not particularly distinguished, but handsome French actor Jean Sorel (pictured) delivers a good if somewhat lightweight performance as Gregory. The lovely Barbara Bach has limited screen time as Mira, and Ingrid Thulin, a regular in Ingmar Bergman movies—and top billed above Sorel—is effective as Jessica, keeping us guessing for a time whose side she's on. The climax is a shocker. The title means nothing that I could figure out; its original title, Short Night of the Butterflies, makes a bit more sense due to a reference by Mira about collecting butterflies that can't fly. [YouTube]

BONANZA TOWN (1951)

A guy in a black hat and face mask, whom we later discover is the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett), chases down and stops an out-of-control stagecoach, and its sole occupant, a tinker named Smiley (Smiley Burnette), is knocked unconscious. The Kid rides away to a cave and returns in a white hat as Steve Ramsay, an old friend of Smiley's. Steve, working in secret as a treasury agent, is headed to nearby Bonanza Town, hunting down an old nemesis, Henry Hardison, who has $30,000 in marked cash. The town is run by the corrupt Krag Boseman who controls Judge Dillon, and has Reed, the town marshal, killed just as Reed is about to arrest him. But Krag takes his orders from Hardison. The judge's son Bob, ashamed of his dad's behavior, has put out a call for help from the Durango Kid to lead a group of vigilantes trying to get rid of corruption. As Steve and Smiley head to town, we get a lengthy flashback (consisting of scenes from a previous Durango Kid movie, West of Dodge City) concerning Hardison's past deeds. Hardison was assumed drowned but he survived and Steve vows to get him and Krag Boseman as well. This is the first Durango Kid western I've seen, and I just discovered there are 64 more of them if I'm inclined to keep going. All of them feature Starrett as the Kid, whose real name was always Steve though for some reason his last name changed in every movie (Duncan, Carson, Wood, Mason, Reynolds, etc.). There was also a comic sidekick (often but not always Smiley Burnette) who did some slapstick bits and usually sang a couple of tunes. Bizarrely, this movie is part of a DVD set of classic-era Columbia musicals; despite two drawled ditties by Smiley, this is by no stretch of the imagination a musical, but a B-western. But it is a painless way to spend an hour in the old West watching the Durango Kid get his men—and surprisingly, not only is there no romance, but there are no women in the cast, except in the flashback. Starrett, getting a bit long in the tooth for a Western hero, made nine more Durango Kid films in the next year, retiring from the role and the screen in 1952. Burnette's highlight is wearing a fright wig to cover his shaved head (pictured). [DVD]

GO WEST YOUNG MAN (1936)

The sex symbol actress Mavis Arden (Mae West) makes a personal appearance at the premiere of her new movie "Drifting Lady," claiming to be a totally different person than her onscreen self (which is pretty much just like Mae West's). But we see that is not necessarily so. Her much publicized studio contract bars her from getting married, though she has been seeing politician Francis Harrigan (Lyle Talbot) on the sly. She's not happy with Morgan (Warren William), her publicist, who is accompanying her on her PR tour and trying to keep an eye on her amorous activities. He tells her that her private life has to be an open book, and she replies, "It is, I’m just lookin' for someone to read it." Her car breaks down near a small rural town and, stranded while the car is being fixed, she and her entourage stay at a boarding house run partly by spinster lady Aunt Kate (Elizabeth Patterson). When hunky young mechanic Bud Norton (Randolph Scott) shows up to work on the car, Mavis makes a point of flirting, mentioning his "sinewy muscles" while casually checking out his ass. She promises to take Bud to Hollywood where he can try to sell the studios a movie sound invention he's come up with. Plot points pile up. While the sweet but naive Bud is quite taken with Mavis, his girl Joyce, Aunt Kate's niece, is upset. When Harrigan tries to track Mavis down, he mistakenly believes that she's been kidnapped and the press goes crazy. Starstruck housemaid Gladys (Isabel Jewell) hears the news and leads the cops to Morgan, who is not unhappy about all the fuss. In the end, as complications get cleared up, Morgan admits his love for Mavis, and she reciprocates with a kiss.

Mae West, who also wrote the screenplay, was past her prime here, at least commercially, as the restrictions of the 1934 Production Code hurt her career, and in the first ten minutes, West seems frozen in her old-fashioned persona, but once the movie gets on the road, she loosens up and delivers a likable performance, making mild fun of herself. Critics have claimed that West's leading men often came off as weak up against West, but both Randolph Scott (exuding a healthy and charming cornfed sexiness) and old pro Warren William hold their own. Alice Brady is fine as the manager of the boarding house, but Elizabeth Patterson as the aunt steals most of the scenes she's in; her fuddy-duddy surface is belied by her sharp tongue. When Gladys asks her about the concept of "It" (as in Clara Bow, the It Girl), Aunt Kate replies that her generation had It, "but we didn't photograph it and put it to music." She also says to a complaining boarder, "Oh, go stuff yourself a duck, you old fussbudget!" Other good lines: Mavis calls herself "susceptible" to love and Morgan says his job is "to make sure that she doesn’t suscept too easily"; Gladys does a Marlene Dietrich impression and when Morgan asks her to do the Marx Brothers, she says, "All at once?" and he replies, "Gradually if it's any easier for you." There are silly subplots about the government encouraging marriage and about a fake pregnancy, but in the end, it's harmless fun and goes down easy. Pictured are Scott and West. [TCM]

DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER (1922)

In Part One of this German silent film directed by Fritz Lang, we meet Dr. Mabuse, a well-known psychoanalyst who is, in secret, a major underworld figure, as he shuffles a number of photo cards and picks one to be the disguise he's going to wear. With the help of his assistant Spoerri, whom Mabuse accuses of being “hopped up on cocaine,” he applies a white wig and beard to carry out his latest scheme: he steals a secret trade pact between Holland and Switzerland and when news of the robbery gets out, the stock market goes nuts and Mabuse is able to buy up stock cheap. He then arranges for the document to be found and sells the stock at inflated prices. Next we see Mabuse give a lecture on the success he’s had with patients by eliminating as much as possible “third-party influences” by, I assume, the use of hypnosis. We see this in action when Mabuse, in a new disguise as Hugo Balling, gains control of the rich Edgar Hull at a casino and causes him to lose a fortune to Balling. When Hull goes the next day to pay off Balling, he instead meets Cara Carozza, a chorus girl and Mabuse’s lover, who seduces Hull under Mabuse’s order. Prosecutor von Wenk suspects that Hull is the latest victim of the crime lord he calls the Great Unknown and tries to work with Hull to snare the villain. At a casino, the disguised Mabuse plays cards with the disguised Wenk, but Wenk is able to resist Mabuse's mind control, so Mabuse has Wenk gassed in a taxi, tied up, and set in the river. 

At this point, we’re roughly two hours into this 4-½ hour film. Characterization has been shallow but incidents and plot points have been coming at us fast and furious. I realized here that perhaps this movie was best experienced as if it were a serial—indeed, each half is presented in chapters just like a serial would be. In fact, it works much better as a serial, and some of the more outlandish aspects of the plot, such as Mabuse's mind control powers, are easier to accept as occurrences in a traditional serial. In other developments in Part One, we see Mabuse run a successful counterfeiting ring, employing mostly blind men; Count Told, an effete doofus, is tricked by Mabuse into cheating at cards and then exposed by Mabuse to his friends; the alluring Countess Told, who has been helping Wenk with his investigation, is captured by Mabuse. Thus ends Part One. The two-hour second part moves even more quickly, wrapping up all the plotlines, concluding with Mabuse having a breakdown into full-fledged madness and being carted away.

The character of Mabuse is well known to film buffs, mostly from Lang's sound sequel, THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE, made eleven years later, which features the raving lunatic Mabuse running a major crime ring from his cell through supernatural mind control. In popular culture, this is the more famous Mabuse incarnation, partly because he was taken to be a symbolic stand-in for Hitler who was rising to power in Germany at the time. In 1960, Lang made his third and last Mabuse film, THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE, and German studio CCC produced several more or less official Mabuse sequels, some of which I'll be reviewing soon. Given that I saw TESTAMENT first, I was surprised to find in this origin film a rather different Mabuse persona. Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who plays Mabuse in both movies (pictured at top right), has a tendency to go a bit melodramatic at the drop of a hat. Instead of grimly powerful, the character comes off as something of a neurotic wannabe. We have to take it for granted that Mabuse has a successful crime ring, because in most of what we see, he acts frustrated and depressed, and his mania is shown with much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair (figuratively at least). Klein-Rogge doesn't let it slip into camp and he has an expressive and threatening face. Bernhard Goetzke is both handsome and effective as the determined von Wenk, Aud Egede-Nissen is quite good as Cora who leaves the story rather sooner than I expected. The cinematography and visuals are spectacular and are always worth looking at even when the story goes a bit slack at times. The last chapter is a good playoff, with Klein-Rogge tossing off all restraint as Mabuse goes crazy. I think Mabuse's importance is in the development of the supervillain, begun perhaps with the French pulp character Fantomas and carried on through Fu Manchu, Lex Luthor, Thanos and Elon Musk. Pictured above is the dealer at the casino. [Blu-ray]

THE IRON CROWN (1941)

There is, we are told, a legend forgotten even by time, of an iron crown made between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades, forged from the swords of Roman emperors, embedded with great jewels and containing a nail from the Holy Cross. It was taken on a pilgrimage to Rome, and a holy voice from above proclaimed that peace, mercy and justice would follow in its journey. In the town of Kindor, the legitimate king, Licinio, wants to make peace with rival city Barbagon, but he is killed by his less noble brother Sedemondo. Barbagon is captured and much of its populace driven into slavery, though a band of rebels escape into the nearby hills. When the Iron Crown comes through his land, Sedemondo throws it down where it magically grows heavy and sinks into the ground. Licino's queen bears a daughter and the former queen of Barbagon bears a son, but because Sedemondo has made it known he wants a son, the two are switched, and eventually raised as siblings. As children, both are whipped on the arm for bad behavior, leaving each with a scar (Chekhov's scars?). Sedemondo eventually learns about the switch, and because of a prophecy from an old woman about a child of Barbagon usurping him someday, the king has the boy taken to the Valley of the Lions where it is assumed he will be killed. But in Jungle Book fashion, the lions take to him and make sure he lives to manhood. Years later, the walls of the Valley of Lions collapse in an earthquake, and the boy Arminio, now a man, meets the king's daughter, Elsa, and they start to fall in love. But for Arminio, the stronger pull is toward Tundra, the leader of the Barbagon rebels. When Sedemondo holds a tournament whose prize is Elsa's hand in marriage, Arminio enters. Meanwhile, an old prophesying woman says that Elsa will never marry and that the king will lose his throne. The rest of the movie shows how these predictions come to pass. (Meanwhile, are we ever getting back to the Iron Crown?)

I saw this on a YouTube channel called Peplum TV, but it's actually an adventure fantasy, sort of a forerunner to peplum. For a movie just under 90 minutes, there's a lot of plot packed in and I'm not sure my summary above is completely accurate, but it's close. I rather doubt that the supposed legend of the Iron Crown is real, as it sounds like an amalgam of folklore bits and pieces, but it has potential as a legend—except that the Iron Crown literally vanishes for most of film, re-entering at the very end when we've forgotten it (just as we're told time forgot it). But the rest of the narrative is engrossing enough, if fairly predictable. The handsome Massimo Girotti, impressive a couple of years later in OSSESSIONE is good here, not as muscled as later legit peplum heroes but nicely heroic anyway. Of the two leading ladies, Elisa Cegani, as Elsa, is a more traditional damsel in distress, and Luisa Ferida, as Tundra, is fairly butch and resourceful, usually the type that doesn't get (or even want) the hero. Based on movie tradition, the way the three get sorted out is a bit surprising. I liked that Arminio sometimes looked like Tarzan, Tundra looked like Robin Hood, and the rebels looked like her Merrie Men. Nice for something a bit off the beaten path. Pictured are Cegani and Girotti. [YouTube]

THE YOUNG CAPTIVES (1959)

One night at a California oil rig, a young employee named Jamie is found passed out drunk next to a blaring transistor radio. His boss kicks the radio apart and fires him so the angry Jamie impulsively beats the man to death, to the rhythm of the piston oil pump above. Cops Dave and Norm and reporter Tony find the body the next day and investigate. Meanwhile horny teenagers Benji and Ann let their hormones get the best of them while swimming in a river, and the next day they decide to head to Tijuana to get married against her parents' wishes. Figuring Ann's folks have called the police, the two avoid main roads. When they run out of gas, they meet Jamie whose motorcycle has broken down nearby. Jamie, tough-guy handsome, sweet talks the two into helping him—he'll get some gas from a nearby station if they will take him to a small town to connect with an old buddy to get the bike fixed. Jamie can cover up his psychopathic tendencies for a while—Benji and Ann are actually amused by his weird little antics—but soon at a gas station, he kills a sexy blonde who pisses him off and stuffs her body in the trunk of her car. (It's not totally clear if he was more interested in the woman or her car.) Benji gets fed up with Jamie's increasingly bizarre behavior and orders him out of the car, but Jamie pulls out a knife and threatens to cut Ann's throat. They wind up in Mexico with the cops in hot pursuit, and when Jamie suggests that he might want to marry Ann, we know we're in for a meltdown of some sort.

Essentially this is a B-movie cross between a juvenile delinquent film and a psycho killer film. It's suggested that Jamie isn't that much older than the two kids, and a fair chunk of cop conversation is devoted to the issue of the possible cause of Jamie's behavior and the promise of using rehab rather than prison to help wayward youth. The writing isn't as strong as it might be, but in other ways, this stands a notch or two taller than the average American International teen crime flick of the era. Things start a little shakily and I admit that at first, I stuck with it because the male leads were attractive. Stephen Marlo, as Jamie, wears a snug black t-shirt, has a convincing urban thug look and does a nice job of flipping back and forth between being boyishly goofy and scarily dangerous. Tom Selden (Benji) did not continue with screen acting, but he's good at being an innocent foil to Marlo's scary energy; the character seems like someone who might be in a bubblegum pop group, and he strikes a good balance between passivity and heroism. Luana Patten is wholesomely sexy and strong minded as Ann. Both of the male leads are near 30 and Patten is 20, but they're all believable as being in the same age cohort. Imagine Archie and Betty running into a psycho Reggie. The cops wind up with not much to do, but Ed Nelson and Dan Sheridan are fine, and Bonanza's Dan Blocker has a one-line role. Except for the scenes set in a police station, almost all of the movie was shot on exteriors (back roads, deserts, gas stations) that are just right. The climax is violent and effective as Jamie, wielding a knife, and Benji, with a broken bottle, get into it. Jamie looks truly crazed as he whips Benji with a car antenna, but he doesn't keep the upper hand for long. This may not be a gem, but as a second-feature teen crime film, it’s near the top of its class. Pictured are Marlo, Patten and Selden. [YouTube]

ROSES ARE RED (1947)

Peggy Ford is found dead in her apartment, a red rose clutched in her hand. In her purse is found a picture of the new district attorney, Robert Thorne, who has come into the office on a platform of cleaning up corruption. Mob boss Jim Locke isn't happy about this declaration and neither is police officer Rocky Wall who is on Locke's payroll. The picture turns out to be of a crook named Don Carney; Carney and Thorne look exactly alike, even to both having pencil-thin mustaches (it seemed to me that one mustache was a bit scruffier than the other, but it was hard to tell). As Thorne takes the oath of office in the presence of his girlfriend Martha, Carney gets out of prison on parole and stops in to see his wife Jill. As the cops put the finger on one of Locke’s men for the murder of Peggy, Locke gets a bright idea: kidnap Thorne and have Carney study him and replace him so Locke can save his criminal enterprise, which will eventually entail having Thorne killed. This B-crime film is interesting but lacks the talent and imagination to make it special. What the movie does best is the dual role business. Don Castle plays both Thorne and Carney; there's not much differentiation between the two in Castle's performances, but we manage to tell them apart. The scenes in which they meet up are effective, done not with split screen but with one character seated or standing in front of rear screen projection of the other character as they interact (as pictured). Castle is a bit lightweight but I usually like him so I cut him some slack here. Also good is Joe Sawyer as the crooked cop Rocky. Everyone else is no more than serviceable. The two female leads, Peggy Knudson as Martha and Patricia Knight as Jill, don't actually look alike but they feel interchangeable. Familiar faces in supporting parts include Paul Guilfoyle and Douglas Fowley as thugs, James Arness as a (very tall) cop, and Charles Lane as a lawyer. Jeff Chandler has one of his earliest credited roles as a killer, but all the bad guys blend together. Edward Keane, as Locke, confined to a wheelchair, is disappointingly low energy. There's not a lot of tension, though a scene in which Thorne, pretending to be Carney pretending to be Thorne, meets up with Carney's wife, is good. The ending feels a bit rushed but the final shootout is handled well. The opening murder is never really explained, and the rose (in Peggy's hand and in the title) means nothing. [YouTube]

THE PASSOVER PLOT (1976)

This fiction film is based on a controversial work of nonfiction by Hugh J. Schonfield. His theory is that the man history knows as Jesus Christ was not divine, but a mortal man who, in order to empower the Jews, planned to pose as the promised messiah, start a political movement, get in trouble with Roman authorities, fake his death when he was crucified, and reappear in public as the risen messiah. This movie, which uses Hebrew names, begins with Yeshua convincing himself that he has been called to be a messiah (men claiming to be messiahs were fairly common back then). He fasts in the desert, is baptized by Yohanan (John) the Baptist, and, with advice solicited from Yohanan, collects a group of followers who will help him usher in a new age for the Jews. (When Yeshua warns them that being a follower might be dangerous, Shimon replies, “We’ve been dying for a long time.”) His reputation for performing miracles is established when a man pretending to be blind approaches him asking to be cured. Yeshua spits in the man's face to call his bluff and the man says he's been cured to save face. Yeshua's brother Yakov and his band of revolutionaries get involved, though his group pushes the use of violence to achieve freedom while Yeshua backs peaceful methods. Yeshua carefully plots to attract enough attention from the authorities by proclaiming himself a king. He has Judah (Judas) deliberately betray him and has Yakov prepare an herbal solution that, when he's crucified, will slow his heartbeat on the cross enough to appear dead. Yakov warns him that the rusty nails in his hands and the blood loss may complicate his plan, and indeed, just as it looks like the plan is working, a soldier stabs Yeshua with a spear. When Yakov takes Yeshua to his tomb, he is still alive, but the stab wound kills him before he can make a public appearance as a resurrected messiah.

The book and movie created a lot of fuss back in the day, and I understand that the claim that Jesus was not actually the son of God would bother believers, though the idea of Jesus as a political figure was not new—in movies, it goes back as far as the 1927 KING OF KINGS. But the bulk of the action of the movie is a fairly reverent and traditional depiction of Jesus' last days. Zalman King's portrayal of Yeshua is also fairly traditional. He's alternately mild and intense; his more intense scenes tend to involve a lot of screaming which doesn't come off well. But on the whole, King sustains viewer interest as he is in almost every scene. British supporting actors Harry Andrews (Yohanan) and Hugh Griffith (Caiaphas) add acting clout. Other standouts include Scott Wilson as Judah, William Burns as Shimon, and Robert Walker Jr. as Bartholomew. Dan Hedaya, in his first movie role, is unrecognizable as Yakov. I find two problems with the movie. Firstly, it doesn’t examine the political conspiracy plot nearly as much as it should, opting instead to emphasize the canonical story of Jesus, featuring scenes of the Baptist's capture, the marketplace disturbance, and the Last Supper (or seder). Secondly, direction by Michael Campus is weak, with way too much of it shot in close-up to the point of too much claustrophobic visual framing. I got tired of seeing faces so close, so often. It's an interesting movie, though if you're hoping for blasphemous controversy, I think you'll be disappointed. [YouTube]

SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE (1960)

At Collins College, Prof. Zorch has programmed his robotic computer Sam Thinko (SAM standing for Sequential Auxiliary Modulator) to pick a new science department head, and that choice, Dr. Mathilda West, arrives by train. The dean, Dr. Myrtle Carter, greets a chunky straitlaced woman who turns out to be Miss Cadwallader, a bra saleswoman. Dr. West (Mamie Van Doren) is a sexy blonde (measurements 40-20-32 according to Thinko) who, it is noted, looks like Mamie Van Doren. Woo Woo, the beefy lunkheaded football star, promptly faints, and Carter worries that the college will lose a forthcoming grant from wealthy alumnus Wildcat MacPherson because no one will take West seriously, but Zorch and the college's PR man George Barton (Martin Milner) take West's side, especially after they learn she has an IQ of 268 and holds thirteen advanced degrees. Also on the train are two low-level gangsters, Legs and Boomie, who are hunting down a guy named Sam Thinko whom they think is a horse race gambler who wins his bets 100% of the time. (We discover later that Woo Woo had been making bets in his sleep based on Thinko's predictions, but this plotline is completely unimportant.) Complications keep piling up. Woo Woo's girlfriend Jody (Tuesday Weld) thinks that West is out to steal Woo Woo from her and doubles her efforts to get Woo Woo's fraternity pin. Suzanne, a French exchange student, is working on a research paper on the sex lives of American men, and falls head over heels for Legs. Three science professors take West to the Passion Pit, a local nightclub and hangout, where Wildcat arrives, parachuting in by helicopter (his reputation is such that every woman who sees him runs away screaming), and West shows her skill at hypnotism by getting all the men to do a mock strip tease dance. Eventually, West admits that before she got her degrees, she was a stripper from Florida known as the Tallahassee Tassel Tosser. Barton falls for her, Wildcat falls for Myrtle, Jody gets Woo-Woo, and when Thinko has a nervous breakdown, West fixes him, then leaves town with Barton. I'm not sure what happens to Suzanne and Legs in the confusing climax, a large-scale fire extinguisher fight, but generally, there are happy endings all around.

Critics really hate this movie but I kinda liked it. I feel like this might have been the template for the American International teen beach movies of the 1960s, with horny but innocent teenagers, B-list guest stars, and outlandish plot developments. I don't much like those films, but maybe because this feels fresher, I wound up with a sneaky affection for it. The presence of Mamie Van Doren helps. She was never going to win an Oscar, but she throws herself into her performances full throttle and she's almost always the best thing about her movies. Her bosomy blonde persona is the central joke of the first half of the movie but she doesn't play dumb because the character isn't dumb. Martin Milner is the epitome of cute cornfed innocence, tempered with common sense (or at least as close as anyone in the movie comes to common sense), though he always looks bewildered. Tuesday Weld looks great as Jody but winds up with not much to do. Woo Woo is played by Norman Grabowski, who in addition to acting was a famous hot rod designer. Louis Nye mostly just glowers behind a fake mustache as Zorch. Brigitte Bardot’s sister Mijanou is Suzanne, Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester in The Addams Family) does a W.C. Fields impersonation as Wildcat. John Carradine has a small role as one of the teachers (yes, he's in the strip dance scene) and Harold Lloyd Jr. (at left) has a two-line cameo as a cop. Conway Twitty does a rockabilly number called "Miss Mamie," and Vampira (unrecognizable out of her usual getup) has a small role. The movie's working title was Sexpot Goes to College and that's the name of the theme song, sung by Van Doren. The weirdest thing about the movie is the "extra" reel of strip tease footage near the end. Thinko has a dream that four women do strip dances in front of him, complete with bare breasts, and then grind against him dressed only in tiny panties. It's a little bit sexy. Apparently it was shot for the European release and not included in the States, though it has been added to the Warner DVD (which is the print that TCM shows). The movie is frantically paced and not everything works, but I enjoyed it—though I not sure I'd want to sit through it a second time soon. Pictured at top are Milner, Nye and Van Doren. [TCM]

THE HAND (1960)

The opening shot of a Japanese POW camp in World War II says "Burma 1946" but that seems clearly a mistake because the war ended in 1945. Three captured British soldiers are being interrogated about the strength and whereabouts of their regiment, but refuse to give any information except name and rank. Captain Roberts thinks they should get a fictitious story straight and stick to it, but before they can, enlisted men Adams and Brodie are called in to talk, and when they refuse, their right hands are cut off. When Roberts is questioned, he apparently talks and is spared the amputation. Fifteen years later, a drunk named Taplow is found passed out on a London street, his right hand recently amputated and with 500 pounds in his coat. Taken to a hospital, he says he sold the hand to a man named Roberts who had it cut off at a small rural nursing home. During the night, Taplow is abducted by two men and found dead in the Thames the next morning. The police question Dr. Simon Crawshaw, the man who performed the amputation. Taplow had been brought in under the name Roberts by someone else who then took him after the operation. When the police continue to delve into the matter, Simon kills himself in his office. His cousin Roger shows up and, though the police don’t know this, we know that Roger is Captain Roberts, the soldier who kept his hand in Burma. The police trace a phone call that Simon got just before his suicide to a boarding house where Brodie (from the opening scene), who has a hook on his right arm, lives. 

From here on in, the story absolutely falls apart and despite the many notes I took while watching, I can't give a coherent summary of the rest of the plot. Suffice to say that Roberts is a bad guy who winds up paying for his crimes in an ironic fashion. This movie gets labeled horror quite a bit, but except for the implied grisliness of the amputations (none are shown graphically though we do see at least one disembodied hand) it's not horror as much as a B-crime movie. Ultimately the whys and wherefores of the plot are never detailed so we just have to take it on faith that the Burma segment at the beginning (and reprised at the end) is the reason for all the mayhem. It's also never made clear why it took fifteen years after Burma for all this to happen. The acting is all on a par with that of Hammer supporting players without the star power of a Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, meaning everyone is competent but bland. For the record, Derek Bond as Roberts and Ronald Leigh-Hunt as the chief inspector are OK. I did enjoy a running gag in which the policeman named Dave (Ray Cooney, who also co-wrote the script with another cast member) complains to his boss about his girlfriend complaining that he keeps having to work nights on this case. Not an awful movie but difficult to recommend. Pictured are Leigh-Hunt and Cooney. [YouTube]

A SEPARATE PEACE (1972)

In 1942, with World War II under way, Gene and Finny are roommates at Devon, a prep school in New England. Gene is a serious student who studies hard and gets A’s; Finney, a handsome and outgoing golden boy, is a jock who barely studies and is happy getting by with C’s. The boys have a loose knit circle of friends who include the snooty Brinker, amusing but irritating, and the awkward outcast Leper whom Finny stands up for. They jokingly refer to themselves as a secret society, though their main activities seem to be playing lacrosse and swimming in a nearby river. One day, Finny climbs up a tall tree and challenges others to climb up with him and dive into the river. Only Gene joins him, an act which cements their friendship. Later, Finney admits that Gene is his best pal, though for his part, Gene seems to both worship Finney and resent his influence. Even when he needs to study, Gene always ends up acceding to Finny's wishes to goof off. The next time the two are at the tree, Finny dares him to climb the tree to do a double jump. Just as they're about to go, Finny falls out of the tree, breaking his leg. It's unclear what happened: did Finny just stumble or did Gene shake the tree branch, causing his fall? Recovering from the break keeps Finny out of school for several weeks, and when Gene visits him, he haltingly admits that he shook the branch, though good-natured Finny doesn't accept the confession. When Finny returns to Devon, the two reconcile and, though his jock days are behind him, Finny coaches Gene for the 1944 Olympics (which Gene suspects and we know will be called off due to the war). But Brinker, suspecting that Gene caused Finny's accident, convenes a midnight kangaroo court to get at the truth. Refusing to accept Gene's guilt, Finny goes stumbling out of the room, falls down some stairs, and breaks his leg again. Though the doctor is sure a routine operation will fix his leg, something goes wrong and Finny dies under the knife. Decades later, Gene visits the school and goes to the tree, the memory of Finny having never left him.

In the 1970s and 80s, the novel by John Knowles that this is based on was a canonical high school reading assignment. This gay boy read it at the age of 16 (not for a class) and found it to be a story, in large part, of homoerotic attraction: Gene can't face up to his feelings, and finds them in conflict with his resentment over how easy life seems for Finny with his looks and charm; Finny is blissfully unaware of any feelings that run deeper than friendship. But the book is more often approached as a coming-of-age story about accepting responsibility, building an identity, and preparing to become part of the wider world outside of school. The war is brought up frequently. The boys know that the draft waits for them after graduation, though for a time Finny clings to a belief that it's a fake war blown out of proportion by the government. After his accident, he becomes upset that he will not be eligible to fight. Leper leaves Devon before graduation to join the Army, but returns AWOL, plagued by mental problems that he thinks will lead to a discharge. Knowles has denied that he intended any queer reading of the story, and the book is usually taught with a focus on Gene's envy rather than any sexual attraction, conscious or otherwise. With all due respect to Knowles, I say, trust the tale, not the teller. Inchoate sexual feelings certainly play a part in the development of Gene and Finny's relationship, and the movie, filled with scenes of energetic shirtless boys and long lingering glances between Gene and Finny, seems to endorse such an interpretation. 

The movie is quite faithful to the book, but it's not an especially good movie. The director, Larry Peerce, wanted and got a mostly non-professional cast. This is the first movie role for Parker Stevenson (Gene) who went on to a long acting career. For my taste, his performance is awfully one-note, his face usually looking either confused or thoughtful, and I fail to see what about Gene caused Finny to gravitate toward him as a close friend. John Heyl (at right), who had been an actual student at the prep school where the movie was filmed, is quite good as Finny, partly because the character is more about surface charm than buried emotions. He's also got preppy good looks to burn, though in real life he turned away from acting and became a teacher. The biggest problem with the acting is that everyone except Stevenson says their lines too quickly with little variation in tone, a problem that should have been addressed by the director. Visually, it's lovely: the tree, the river, the school grounds, and the snow scenes in the last half of the movie all add atmosphere that the acting and script sometimes lack. Period detail is not especially strong. I would say that reading the book then seeing the movie is the best way to experience the story. This is not available on a region 1 DVD and the print I watched on Prime is squished a bit to fit a square screen which was really disappointing. Pictured at top left are Stevenson and Heyl. [Amazon Prime]