PROJECT MOON BASE (1953)

In 1970, a trip directly from the earth to the moon is considered too dangerous for humans, but a three-person crew is about to take off from an orbiting space station on an exploratory lunar trip, taking close up photographs of the lunar surface to study the feasibility of setting up a moon base. The space agency is on guard for sabotage that might be carried out by, as a title card puts it, "the enemies of Freedom" (i.e., Russians). As it turns out, such enemies are planning such sabotage by kidnapping one of the crew members, a Dr. Wernher, and replacing him with an exact lookalike whose mission is to take control of the lunar ship and ram the space station, destroying it. Meanwhile, there is tension brewing as Gen. 'Pappy' Greene is pressured to replace the chief pilot, Major Moore, with Col. Briteis, a female. This decision doesn't sit well with either Pappy or Moore, who is bumped down to co-pilot. They may be chauvinists, but as it happens, Briteis (pronounced "bright eyes" by everyone) acts a bit like Gidget, full of teenage spunk, constantly pouting and whining. At one point, Pappy scolds her, telling her she's too big for her britches, and that she's a spoiled brat who needs a spanking. The ship takes off and Wernher tries to wrest control from Briteis but is overpowered by Moore. But the saboteur's actions cause them to waste fuel and they have to make an emergency landing on the moon. When communications with the space station fail, Moore and the chastened Wernher leave the ship to set up a radio relay on the moon's surface. Wernher falls from a moon cliff and dies, and Pappy lets Briteis and Moore know that emergency supplies will be dropped off soon and they are now the first official lunar residents. Of course, for the sake of PR, they really should be married, so the President (also a woman) performs a ceremony from Earth, and Moore and Briteis become a happy couple, ready to anchor the coming moon base.

In a happy coincidence, the Artemis II was heading for lunar orbit as I watched this so this seems like a timely review. One makes allowances for early 50s sci-fi space movies as the genre was relatively new, but even so, this has not aged well. Apparently shot in ten days, it was originally intended as a pilot for a TV series (the teleplay was by sci-fi pro Robert Heinlein) but those plans were canceled and some new footage was shot to pad it out to a bit over an hour. The sets generally look cheap though some effects are nicely done; there are shots of people on the space station walking on the ceiling and sitting on chairs on the walls, which of course brings to mind Kubrick's 2001 (pictured at right). Scenes on the moon look fairly realistic. Even the space station, the first one shown in a movie, looks good. Aside from the blatant sexism in the portrayal of Briteis and the reactions of the men to her, the most bizarre thing here is the wardrobe. The crew wear snug t-shirts, little skullcaps, and the unsexiest shortie shorts you've ever seen—though interestingly, they do get the spacesuits right for the external action. The acting is strictly TV level; in fact, one of the better performances comes from Hayden Rorke, best known as Dr. Bellows in I Dream of Jeannie. Donna Martell (Briteis) is saddled with a terribly written character and she becomes the potential feminist icon you love to hate. Ross Ford (Moore) has little to do and, sadly, doesn't look all that appealing in his tight tees (though Martell does). The only humor here is used to poke fun at the female colonel, though one of the last lines, when Moore, seeing  that needed supplies have finally landed, says, "Briteis, it’s Christmas!" But the worst thing in the movie is the short appearance of a character named Polly Prattles, an obnoxious reporter who comes off more like a gossip columnist. Only recommended for sci-fi buffs interested in the genre's history. Posters for the film call it Project Moonbase, but the film itself uses Moon Base as two words. At top left are Ross and Martell. [YouTube]

ORPHEUS (1950)

The poet Orpheus is at a poet's café in Paris, feeling ignored by the newer, hipper poets (I'm tempted to call them "beatniks" though that concept didn't exist in 1950) because he's too commercial. The hot young poet Cégeste shows up drunk and stumbling on the arms of a woman known only as the Princess. He gets into a brawl and is hit by two motorcyclists in black leather. Her chauffeur Heurtebise puts him in the back seat of her car to take him to the hospital and she asks Orpheus to come along as a witness. During the trip, the view of the landscape turns to a photographic negative and we hear odd radio transmissions ("Silence goes backward faster"; "The bird sings with its fingers") that Orpheus comes to think are beautiful if very obscure poems. Orpheus discovers that Cégeste is dead and they head to the Princess' isolated home where Cégeste is laid out on a bed. The Princess waves her hand in the air and he comes back to life. With Orpheus watching, the Princess, Cégeste, and the two motorcyclists walk through a full-length mirror into what we find out is the underworld. The Princess is death personified. Orpheus cannot follow and the next time we see him, he wakes up in a quarry with Heurtebise standing near the car. The chauffeur has been instructed to take Orpheus back to his wife Eurydice and stay with him. Though Eurydice has been worried by his absence, she also seems disturbed by his return as her friends in the League for Women don't approve of Orpheus, and he refuses to explain his absence. She is also, we discover, pregnant. Soon, Eurydice is struck and killed by the black leather motorcyclists. Heurtebise offers to take Orpheus through the mirror underworld, but he must decide who he is in love with: Eurydice or Death.

This beautiful but often obscure film is a recasting of the Orpheus myth, in which Orpheus is allowed to go to the Underworld to bring back his dead wife Eurydice under the condition that, on their trip back, he doesn’t turn around and look at her. He does. She goes back to the land of death and he is literally torn apart by female followers of Dionysus during an orgy. This version dispenses with the finale, and indeed gives Orpheus and Eurydice a happy ending, with a less happy one for the Princess of Death. I've seen this film a few times over the years, and it's best not to read it as an exact replica of the myth, but as a dreamy fantasy that pulls elements from the myth to create a whole new narrative. It remains a movie full of ambiguity and mystery, and those elements will stymie some viewers. Roger Ebert called it that rare film that is made for "purely artistic reasons," and if you can leave yourself open to letting the visuals and the moods wash over you and let yourself think about it rather than interpret it, you might enjoy the experience. Jean Cocteau wrote and directed, and used some amazing special effects that, while perhaps seeming primitive today, are still effective: reverse motion, slow motion, film cuts, obvious rear projection. The utterly bizarre trips to and from the underworld are indeed quite otherworldly, and all of today's CGI probably could not achieve such an effective evocation of mood. The nonsense radio messages, Cocteau said, were inspired by resistance messages sent over the radio in WWII, an explanation that does not erase the effectiveness of the strange transmissions. In what is truly an art film, the acting is not the most important element, but the actors are mostly fine. I find Jean Marais as Orpheus (above left), the weak link in the cast, giving a surface performance as though he was just following the director's instructions. But Maria Caseres (Death) and Francois Périer (Heurtebise) bring some emotional depth to their mostly symbolic roles; Maria Dea is fine as Eurydice—not an especially sympathetic character—and Edouard Dermithe makes an impression in his limited role as Cégeste. I rarely felt emotionally engaged with the characters, but the visuals and the atmosphere and the odd stylistic touches (on screen and in script) make this worth watching as perhaps the archetypal art film of the 1950. Pictured at right are Périer and Marais. [TCM]

CHARLIE CHAN AT THE WAX MUSEUM (1940)

Based on the testimony of detective Charlie Chan, Steve McBirney is sentenced to death for murder, but he manages to shoot his way out of the courthouse and vows to get revenge against Chan. He heads for Dr. Cream's Museum of Crime, a wax museum with statues of infamous criminals, because Dr. Cream has a secret career: performing plastic surgery to give new faces to fugitive criminals. Meanwhile, for a radio show broadcast from the museum, Chan meets with Dr. Von Brom to debate the Rocke case. Rocke was put to death for a poison dart murder based on testimony from Von Brom, but Chan maintains that Rocke was innocent and the real killer was his partner Butcher Dagan, who was supposedly killed but might still be around. As the time of the late night broadcast nears, folks gather at the museum joining Chan, Von Brom and Dr. Cream, including Lily Latimer, Cream's assistant; Tom Agnew, the radio host and director; Edwards, an engineer; Mary Bolton, a reporter who is also dating Agnew; Carter Lane, a lawyer for Rocke's widow; and a simpleminded old watchman. We see a mysterious woman sneak in whom we suspect is Mrs. Rocke, perhaps come to see justice done for her husband. Finally, Chan's snooping #2 son Jimmy shows up to help his dad, though he mostly just gets in trouble. We see that Chan is being set up to be electrocuted at the debate table but Von Born gets it instead—except that on investigation, it's discovered that his death was actually caused by a poison dart. Could Butcher Dagen be among them?

This entry in the Chan series from 20th Century Fox is a notch above the norm. One reason is the effective setting of the shadowy wax museum at night. After the courtroom opening, the rest of the film is set solely in the museum and plays out mostly in real time. As in most wax museum movies, the statues provide a nicely creepy atmosphere and can also be mistaken for real people, and vice versa. A storm outside and flickering lights inside add to the eerie ambience. The dark single setting also helps hide the B-movie budget. This was the first Chan film with a running time of about one hour, and most of the rest would follow suit, indicating lower budgets and lower exhibition expectations. Sidney Toler and Victor Sen Yung are old hands by now as Chan and Jimmy, though Jimmy is an exceptional doofus here, and the supporting cast is so-so, the standouts being C. Henry Gordon as Dr. Cream and busy character actor Marc Lawrence (who kept acting into the 21st century) as McBirney. Marguerite Chapman and Ted Osborn are adequate as the romantic couple, as is Michael Visaroff as Von Bron. Hilda Vaughn doesn't have a lot of dialogue but has the right look for the mysterious lady trespasser. The exposure of the ultimate villain was a surprise to me, but the Chan films were not known for truly playing fair with clues or background information. As you might predict, there is a wax statue of Chan which, of course, gets mistaken for the real person at least twice, including in a fun final shot in which Jimmy gives his dad a good swift kick in the rear, thinking he's kicking the statue. Pictured are Gordon and Toler. [DVD]

YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE (1964)

We first see young Arthur Hawke in late December, working as a coal truck driver for his family's Kentucky business. He has just gotten word that Prince House, a Manhattan publishing company, wants his novel Alms for Oblivion, which he's worked on for years. Arthur arrives in New York on Christmas Eve to sign contracts. With his thick accent and boyish face, he is viewed as naive and innocent, but he holds out for more money than publisher Jason Prince first offers. Jeanne Green, the editor who first read the book and who has been assigned to work with him, takes him to her boarding house and gets him a small attic room where he can live and work on the book. That night, he goes to Prince's annual holiday party where he catches the eye of several people: Fannie, Prince's wife; Quentin Judd, a powerful book critic; Ferdie Lax, an agent; and rich socialite Frieda Winter. Though married with three kids, Frieda takes a liking to Arthur, whose nom de plume is Youngblood Hawke (she takes to calling him Bloody on occasion). Though we've seen Arthur and Jeanne strike some mild sparks, it's Frieda who winds up bedding him. His first book is a mild success, but when it stalls on the charts, Prince is reluctant to keep pushing it. With some help from Jeanne, rival publisher Ross Hodge buys out his contract and agrees to publish the second book, Chain of Command. Not only is it a big hit, but famous actress Irene Perry agrees to produce and star in a play version of Alms. Yes, we can see where this is going: eventually, success will take its toll at about the same time as his third book, which he is using to launch his own indie publishing company, is a bomb. Will the ambitious Arthur be able to pick up the pieces while still keeping the respect of his friends and associates?

Though shot in black & white, this fits right in with the many other glossy and colorful soap opera melodramas of the era, from A SUMMER PLACE to IMITATION OF LIFE to PARRISH to THE CARPETBAGGERS. The arc of rise, fall and redemption is predictable, though here the rise happens so quickly that we get little sense of his hard scrabble past. There's a subplot involving his mother's legal wrangle with relatives over land rights, but it's only there so she (Mildred Dunnock) can be present for a couple of emotional incidents midway through, including a laughable scene where she walks in on Arthur and Frieda, fully clothed, kissing—Frieda's reaction is so extreme, you'd think that Ma walked in on the two of them naked in the middle of a drug-fueled orgy. The production values are solid, and the acting, while not Oscar-caliber, is effective. James Franciscus (above) is charming enough and ridiculously handsome (if you like vanilla blonds, which I do) as Arthur, though one online critic notes rightfully that he lacks that undefinable thing called star power. Warren Beatty, who was originally sought for the role, might have made a bigger splash, but Franciscus is fine. As good and maybe better is Suzanne Pleshette (pictured at left with Franciscus) as Jeanne who is believable as the wholesomely sexy heroine. French actress Genevieve Page (Frieda) is not terribly charismatic, and her character never seems to be either having fun or suffering much, even when her adolescent son, who has a bit of a hero-worship crush on Arthur, dies tragically. Among the many familiar players to get some face time: Mary Astor as the actress, Lee Bowman as Prince, Edward Andrews as the critic, Eva Gabor as Prince's wife, Don Porter as the agent, and Kent Smith as Frieda's husband. There isn't a lot of humor, but I liked Pleshette's line when Franciscus scolds her for smoking too much: "I like to cough." Based on a novel by Herman Wouk which was based in part on the life of author Thomas Wolfe. I enjoyed this, but largely because I was enjoying so many close-ups of the shiny dirty blond hair and ultra white teeth of the leading man. [TCM]

EL aka THIS STRANGE PASSION (1953)

During a symbolic foot-washing ceremony at a church in Mexico City (probably for Maundy Thursday during Easter week), the wealthy Francisco catches the eye of the lovely Gloria. Actually, it's her feet in high heels that we first see as the camera pans across the feet being washed by the priest. A spark is ignited and the two encounter each other again later at church. She's engaged to Raul, a friend of Francisco's, but is won over by Francisco's attentions, even though he compares love at first sight to being hit by a poisoned arrow, and marries him. He is charming but inflexible; two things we learn about him early on are that he is engaged in a years-long legal struggle to get back some family land, and when his butler assaults a maid, Francisco fires the maid. After the marriage, we briefly jump forward in time a few years. Gloria sees Raul and tells him how miserable her life is, and starts a flashback to the last few years. Though Francisco is still well-regarded by his friends and by the parish priest, he is neurotically jealous and paranoid—even on their wedding night, he accuses Gloria of thinking of Raul when they kiss—keeping Gloria mostly locked up in the large, bizarrely styled and well-appointed house. His idea of taking her out for a good time is not to go to the movies or a racetrack, but to a cathedral where he takes her to the bell tower and, in an unmotivated fit, tries to throw her to the ground. When he thinks she's flirting with a new young lawyer, he viciously beats her. A pattern of violent paranoia followed by abject apology goes on for years. Raul is horrified and befriends her. When Francisco thinks he sees Gloria and Raul meeting for a romantic assignation at a church, he has a breakdown which finally ends Gloria's torment.

This film by director Luis Bunuel is a festival of psychological and sexual peccadilloes. As well-adjusted as Francisco appears on the surface and to the people around him, he is clearly a sick man. He's a puritanical virgin when he meets Gloria, and some critics imply that he may be impotent. In a most bizarre scene, he enters Gloria's room at night, apparently intending to sew her vagina shut though he doesn't. The penultimate scene is equally strange. When he enters the church and finds out that the couple he has followed is not Gloria and Raul, he hallucinates that the congregation and the priest are laughing at him. Gloria does not escape some judgment. Though Francisco spends some time gaslighting her, even turning her mother against her, it is odd that she doesn't try to leave him sooner. Even Raul notes that but also that she may actually enjoy suffering. The movie has a great Gothic feel and the acting is top notch, with Arturo de Cordova (pictured) both hateful and charismatic as Francisco, Delia Garces both sniveling and strong as Gloria, and Luis Beristain as the long-suffering Raul. The ending is a bit strange but satisfying. [Criterion Channel]

BAIT (1954)

An urbane older man (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) tells us he's famous then ushers us into a projection room. He's the devil, though he admits he rarely takes physical form and instead plants himself as a voice or suggestion in the minds of men. He proceeds to show us the following story which illustrates his point. In a small town in the California mountains, young studly John Agar has agreed to work with an older misfit Serbian (Hugo Haas) to locate a gold mine. Years ago, Haas and his partner Waltzer found a mine but on the way into town to make a claim, they got stranded in a snowstorm. Waltzer died while Haas, who was suspected by townspeople of letting him die, survived but couldn't find the mine again. While buying supplies at the general store, Agar hits it off with attractive blond single mother Cleo Moore. Haas tells Agar that she's no good, but Haas, who spends his free time praying and reading the Bible, seems to have similar feelings about her. The two men, along with Agar's dog Mike, move into an abandoned cabin in the mountains and start their search. After a few weeks (and much praying by Haas), they find the gold mine. Agar wants to make a claim but Haas, worried about claimjumpers, wants to stay over during the winter and mine the gold. During a visit to town, Haas and Agar discover that Moore, who has been delivering groceries to the mine, has been fighting off physical advances from skeevy men. Haas hatches a plan. He asks Moore to marry him so she can live with them. She agrees and moves into the cabin, though he and Moore have no intimate contact. But we soon discover that his real plan is to get Agar all hot and bothered so he'll put the moves on Moore and Haas can kill him, claiming to be an aggrieved husband, and get all the gold for himself. With winter coming, they know they'll be snowed in and tensions begin to mount, but despite a kiss or two, Agar and Moore manage to avoid temptation. Haas moves forward with his plans: he poisons Mike the dog, then during a snowstorm, offers to go to town to get supplies. What he really does is stick around and spy on Moore and Agar, waiting for the moment when he can legitimately shoot Agar.

This is another B-melodrama from director Hugo Haas featuring himself and blonde bombshell Cleo Moore (see HIT AND RUN and STRANGE FASCINATION). Usually Haas is a middle-aged loser who gets the hots for bad girl Moore; she’s usually not as bad as her reputation would have it, but she does get tangled up with a younger hotter man. That formula is in full play here and it proceeds just as you would expect. Everything about this is B-level. The script could have used another draft, as the story and characters seem more sketched in than fully developed. The sets are sparse, though with a general store and a raggedy old cabin as the only settings, not much is really called for. I like Cleo Moore and she's fine here as the mostly good girl who is mistakenly believed to be a bad girl. Haas is serviceable, nothing more, as the scheming bad guy. I can never decide if I like Agar. He's usually reliably hunky (and a bit wooden with an occasional over-the-top outburst), but his looks are odd—he plays handsome characters but his looks are actually a little quirky, like the two halves of his face don't quite match up. He also has a smirk that can come off as either sarcastic or psycho and it's not always clear which he's intending. Here, like Haas, he's adequate. We occasionally get snatches of interior monologue from Haas, like the writers couldn't figure out how else to convey the information he provides. The devil opening has nothing to do with anything; it's like Hardwicke owed the producers a day's work so they fit him in here. I liked this OK but can't get enthusiastic about it. Pictured are Agar and Moore. [YouTube]

CHARLIE CHAN SHORT TAKES 1935

CHARLIE CHAN IN SHANGHAI (1935)

On a ship to Shanghai, detective Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) plays leapfrog with a group of children and sings them a song about Emperor Fu Manchu—likely an inside joke referring to Oland's portrayal of Fu a few years earlier. As he disembarks he finds a note stuffed in his coat pocket warning him away from the city. His secret mission in Shanghai is to assist Sir Stanley Woodland and his investigation into an opium smuggling ring. But at a dinner honoring Chan that evening, Woodland is killed by a hidden gun in a box intended to be opened by Chan. According to Woodland's secretary, Philip Nash, the gun wasn't in the box the last time he checked. That evening, a shadowy figure sneaks into Chan's hotel room and shoots him as he sleeps, but Chan has anticipated such an attack and the bullets just hit a bunch of pillows under a sheet. Charlie, his son Lee (who just happens to be in town on business) and American agent James Andrews work together to solve Woodland's murder and break the opium ring, but the evidence begins pointing toward friendly, clean-cut Philip, much to the distress of his girlfriend Diana who is Woodland's daughter. This is slightly above average for the Chan films of the era. Warner Oland displays a fun side in his opening scene with the children, and Keye Luke (Lee) gets to engage briefly in some fisticuffs. Chan admits to being 60 though Oland was actually 55 and would not live to see 60. Jon Hall (still using his birth name of Charles Locher, pictured at right) is handsome and stoic as Philip, and manages to keep us wondering for a while if he's a good guy or a bad guy; Irene Hervey is fine as Diana as is Russell Hicks as Andrews. Production values are still fairly high at this point in the series, helping to make this worth watching. [DVD]

CHARLIE CHAN'S SECRET (1935)

Allen Colby, heir to the Colby fortune, was returning to San Francisco from Hawaii but is presumed dead after a shipwreck. His body is not found, but Charlie Chan, helping with the investigation, finds his briefcase and a note indicating his life had been threatened. Chan heads to San Francisco to report to the family. Matriarch Aunt Henrietta is a financial backer for a spiritualist group and if Allen is indeed dead, the group will inherit his sizable share. Hanging around the house: daughter Alice and her reporter boyfriend Dick; daughter Janice and her husband Fred; the family attorney; a scaredy cat butler; and a cranky handyman. Allen returns home but is killed by a thrown knife before anyone sees him. That night Carlotta of the spiritualists holds a seance to contact Allen; his eerily glowing face is seen in the room, but when the lights are turned on, his dead body is found. As Chan works to get to the bottom of the murder, an attempt is made on his life, and later another family member is killed. But per the title, Chan does have a secret that might help him break the case. Warner Oland is nicely energetic as Chan, and though it's not quite an old dark house movie, it might count as an “old dark room” movie as much of the action takes place in an atmospheric study where two seances take place. There are no Chan sons present but the butler (Herbert Mundin) is sort of a sidekick fixture who assists Chan a couple of times and provides comic relief. Decent support comes from Charles Quigley as Dick, suspiciously chipper; Edward Trevor as Fred, suspiciously glowering; and Henrietta Crosman as Henrietta. Pictured are Oland and Trevor. [DVD] 

EASY TO LOVE (1934)

Married couple Adolphe Menjou and Genevieve Tobin enjoy evenings out with friends Edward Everett Horton and Mary Astor, who seem to have a casual flirting arrangement that never gets too serious. In fact, Horton admits that he only sees Astor so he can be near Tobin. Menjou, however, is carrying on a secret affair with Astor; they meet every day for an hour at 2:30 for what Menjou says are polo practice sessions. Tobin, though still in love with her husband, is unhappy that the two have separate bedrooms, saying, "We’re married, we're just not married." When Tobin discovers that Menjou is not showing up for his polo practice, she gets suspicious and hires a detective who reports that Menjou spends his time at Astor's apartment, so Tobin gets Horton to accompany her to Astor's place on a seemingly innocent visit. Menjou hides in a closet while Tobin, knowing he's there, goes on to Astor about looking for a love nest for her and Horton. Menjou, of course, is pissed, saying that though he loves Astor "as a woman," he still loves Tobin as a wife, and when a divorce seems inevitable, their daughter (Patricia Ellis) hatches a plan: she announces that, since her parents' marriage didn't work, she might as well go off and live with her boyfriend (Paul Kaye) without the benefit of clergy. In a final scene, Menjou and Tobin confront Ellis and Kaye, snuggled up together in bed in a hotel room, and a happy ending is in store for all—though I'm not 100% convinced that Menjou has really learned his lesson.

This pre-Code film feels like a forerunner of the screwball comedy genre with its fast pace, witty dialogue, and overtones of adultery and reconciliation. At just an hour, it certainly doesn't overstay its welcome. Menjou and Horton hit all their predictable marks with professionalism, and Astor, though good, feels a bit underused. I have seen Tobin in several movies and, while I generally think she gives good performances, I never find her particularly memorable, lacking in star charisma. Here, she sounds a bit like Billie Burke at times, and though she's fine, I once again find my memories of her in this film fading already after just a few days. Hugh Herbert, Guy Kibbee and Robert Greig give their usual strong supporting performances. In fact, Greig gets a standout moment: early on, when Menjou blames his recent fatigue on polo, Grieg says, knowingly, "Polo can be a little strenuous, particularly if you do it every afternoon." Another good line: Menjou, on finding Ellis and Kaye in the hotel room, "They're in bed together and they’re not married!"; Astor: "How enterprising of them." That's a line that they probably could not have gotten away with after the implementation of the Production Code. Same with the entire Menjou/Astor affair plotline. Fun movie with a meaningless and generic title. Pictured are Horton and Astor. [TCM]

MY SISTER EILEEN (1942)

This property has a long history. Ruth McKenney wrote a series of stories which appeared in The New Yorker in the 1930s about herself and her sister, two young women living in Cleveland, Ohio who moved to New York City, with Ruth trying to become a published writer and her younger sister Eileen trying to break into acting. They were presented as fiction but were based on their real lives. (Autofiction, anybody?) A collection of those stories was published in 1937 as My Sister Eileen. In 1940, material from the last two chapters which focused on their time in New York was turned into a hit Broadway play. While it was still running, Columbia turned it into a movie with Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair as the sisters. A stage musical adaptation, Wonderful Town, with music by Leonard Bernstein, was a hit in 1953. A completely different musical movie, titled My Sister Eileen, was released in 1955. Later it became a one-season TV show with Elaine Stritch. Under review here is the 1942 movie. Though I've not seen or read the original play, this is probably fairly faithful to it as almost all the action is set in the girls' one-room apartment. The film begins in Columbus, Ohio as Ruth, working for the Columbus Courier, writes a rave review in advance of her sister's stage debut in A Doll's House. Eileen is replaced at the last minute and when the false review runs, Ruth is fired. The two head to New York (perhaps because, if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere), and rent a basement apartment in Greenwich Village with lots of problems. The feet of people walking along the sidewalk are constantly visible, as are pestering kids and drunks, and a streetlight shines in at night. The beds are hard. There is rumbling and noise from subway repair blasting from under the floor. 

They have to deal with occasional visits from a psychic (a hooker in Production Code disguise) who used to live there. They become friendly with a dim but hunky football player who calls himself The Wreck (and is constantly singing, "I'm a ramblin' wreck from Georgia Tech"); he's married but asks to live in the girls' kitchen for a couple of days while his in-laws visit—they don't approve of the Wreck and don't know that they're married (in the play, the two are in fact not married; the movie marriage is another sop to the Code). Ruth gets involved with the editor of The Manhatter (read: The New Yorker) who works to get her published, while any number of men become enchanted by the blonde and curvy Eileen. The climax features Ruth and a conga line of Portuguese sailors who have docked at the piers. All is more or less resolved at the end. This has a screwball pace which gets tiring after a while, but the performances anchor the film. Rosalind Russell couldn't be better as Ruth as she balances finding a job with protecting her sister and falling in love with the editor. Janet Blair is fine as Eileen, playing her in a not-quite scatterbrained fashion. With my propensity for handsome supporting men, I quite liked Gordon Jones, running around in a sweaty tank top (at right), as the Wreck. Brian Aherne, as the level headed editor, sometimes disappears into the background with all the crazy antics that take center stage. George Tobias is the Greek landlord, and others making an impression include Grant Mitchell, Elizabeth Patterson, Allyn Joslyn, and June Havoc. I’ll try to track down the 50s musical one of these days. Pictured top left are Aherne and Russell. [TCM]

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]