GRAND CENTRAL MURDER (1942)

An amiable little mystery with a bit too much comic relief and a few too many characters for its own good. Van Heflin is a private eye who becomes a suspect in the murder of Broadway starlet Mida King (Patricia Dane). Mida wasn't very nice and several people have motives for murder. Primarily, there's her mobster ex-boyfriend Stephen McNally, and her rich fiancee David (Mark Daniels) who found out she was planning to divorce him in six months to get his money. David's own jilted girl (Cecila Parker) and her big shot father (Samuel S. Hinds) are also suspects. The murder takes place in David's private train car, parked under Grand Central Station (hence the title of the movie) and a hidden elevator winds up playing a big part in the solution. There are two fairly interesting aspects to the film: 1) the whole story takes place over one night, and 2) all 10-12 folks (suspects, cops, and bystanders) go racing around Manhattan to recreate the events of the evening. Other actors include Connie Gilchrist (the Irish maid in AUNTIE MAME) in one of her biggest roles as an ex-vaudevillian in Mida's employ (she actually gets a brief song in a flashback scene), Betty Wells as Gilchrist's sexpot daughter, and Millard Mitchell (SINGIN' IN THE RAIN's studio boss) as a bumbling cop. Sam Levene is the chief inspector who is constantly and somewhat implausibly upstaged by Heflin all along the way. Things bog down a bit in the middle but the ending redeems it.

Two miscellaneous oddities:

DON'T BET ON BLONDES (1935)--A silly trifle. Warren William plays a bookie who goes legit running an business in which he charges lots of money to insure against improbable things (I assume this is based a little on the reputation of Lloyd's of London). He insures a male model's neckline (the model doesn't care about his belly, but his neck must be in good shape) and the bellowing voice of a woman who wins prizes in "husband calling" contests. One case involves a man who doesn't want his wife to have twins, which run in his family; she winds up delivering quintuplets, so William's company doesn't have to pay! The main plot involves Guy Kibbee as an eccentric man who lives off his daughter (Claire Dodd). He insures her against marriage so he can keep living off of her while he finishes writing a Civil War history book that will show that the South actually won. William steps in with his operatives and wrecks her romances (one with Errol Flynn in a small role), but William winds up falling for her himself. Complications ensue. Short but still a bit draggy, with tons of credibility problems. Mary Treen and William Gargan also appear. Not terribly notable except for a interesting use of split-screen during a horse race scene at the beginning.

UNDER SECRET ORDERS aka MADEMOISELLE DOCTEUR (1937)--I could find almost no references to this movie in my movie guides, and it ended up being more fun to track down info about this film than it was to watch it. Originally made as a French language film, it was remade with an English-speaking cast replacing everyone except leading lady Dita Parlo, as a Mata Hari-type spy in WWI (I think--the print I saw was very murky and choppy, and based on the running times I found for the movie, it must have been missing at least 10 minutes, so following the finer plot points was nearly impossible). Erich von Stroheim plays her boss, and he gives his usual somewhat wooden but sinister performance. Speaking of wooden, John Loder, a B-movie leading man, is the good guy here, who gets taken in by Parlo, but redeems himself at the end. The last shot, a stylized firing squad scene, is the best in the otherwise unimaginative and plothole-ridden movie.

TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1947)

MGM's oversized self-important musical biographies aren't usually my cup of tea--they're basically revues with a few big names here and there, and lots of starlets and up-and-comers, surrounded by an almost totally fictionalized account of a songwriter's life. This one, however, works better than most. Robert Walker plays Jerome Kern, who apparently was still alive when this movie was being shot but died before its release. We see Kern as a young man frustrated by his inability to break into the Broadway "follies" shows; producer Harry Hayden is only looking for British talent. Walker meets up with "serious" composer Van Heflin, a completely fictional character who winds up becoming mentor and best friend to Walker. Once Walker breaks through, he is happy to toil away writing popular tunes, even as Heflin remains mostly unfulfilled. The narrative line begins with the triumph of Kern's Show Boat, flashes back through his career, and ends with him watching the filming of the MGM tribute.

This is not the kind of movie usually noted for its acting, but both Walker and Heflin are good, with Walker giving a nice low-key performance. But as with all of these films, the narrative winds up being a series of articifial tableaux to take up time between songs. Some of the better production numbers: Lena Horne starts things off with a bang singing "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man of Mine," looking stunning in purple and white, and getting to play, for a few minutes, the role she should have had in MGM's 1951 SHOW BOAT remake; the always funny and deadpan Virginia O'Brien does "Life Upon the Wicked Stage"; Angela Lansbury sings in a swing; June Allyson does the comic patter number "Cleopatterer"; Van Johnson and Lucile Bremer sing and dance to "I Won't Dance"; the climax is Frank Sinatra doing a fine job with "Ol' Man River." Also appearing: Dinah Shore, Cyd Charisse, Ray McDonald, and in a small non-singing role, Mary Nash, who plays Mrs. Lord in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. Better than the average musical bio, even if it's almost certainly a total work of fiction.

PASSPORT TO DESTINY (1944)

This British oddity can be lumped in with BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS to show that Nazis and whimsy never quite go together. Set early in WWII (apparently before the Americans got involved) Elsa Lanchester plays a cleaning woman who is the widow of a former military man (Charles Laughton in one of the strangest cameos ever, seen only in a huge photograph that hangs in the widow's house). While cleaning up the attic, she discovers her husband's much talked about lucky charm, the Magic Eye, which supposedly once saved his life. She puts it in her pocket and doesn't give it much thought until an air raid when she miraculously survives a couple of almost direct hits. Egged on by friends, she believes the Magic Eye has made her invincible so she decides to travel to Berlin and assassinate Hitler! Posing as a deaf-mute cleaning lady, she manages to make it from London all the way to the German chancellory without passport or papers (the most unbelievable part of a movie with almost nothing believable in it!). Along the way, she makes friends with a German war hero (Gordon Oliver) who is actually a member of the Underground. She also meets up with Lord Haw-Haw (Gavin Muir), a real-life character who was sort of a British "Tokyo Rose," using radio broadcasts to hurt British morale.

I won't give away anything about the preposterous last 15 minutes of the movie except to say that by the end of this very short (barely an hour) film, I was ready to declare the "fighting Nazis with magic" genre totally dead. Lanchester is as good as she can be given the ridiculous circumstances, and there are a few nice moments. In one, when she gets to Berlin, she tries to look Hitler up in the phone book and is outraged that he's not listed. Another fun scene is when she pretends to be deaf while cleaning windows in a Nazi official's office, but instead she is carefully listening to a discussion of classified information. At one point, in a weird "fourth wall" moment, she talks directly to the camera. Quite an oddball movie; it manages to be both bizarre and banal at the same time.

OSSESSIONE (1943)

Luchino Visconti filmed this "bootleg" version of James Cain's THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE a couple of years before Hollywood got around to it. This version is too long in the middle, but it's much more interesting than the American version. Massimo Girotti plays a sexy homeless drifter who stumbles into a relationship with Clara Calamai, a young woman stuck in a dead-end (and deadening) marriage with a older man (the couple run a small inn/restaurant out in the middle of nowhere). Girotti stops by for a meal and, when he and Calamai strike sparks, connives to hang around as a hired hand. The two begin a lusty affair immediately; when she suggests getting rid of her husband, he freaks out and takes off for the city. On the train, a vagabond artist (Elio Marcuzzo) pays for his ticket and they strike up a friendship, which very definitely has homoerotic elements. They share a bed in a tense and unresolved scene and they wind up working together on the streets until Girotti runs into Calamai. He goes off with her and they actively plot to kill the husband. As in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, once the deed is done, their relationship sours, leading to betrayal, more death, and an ironic but fitting ending.

I think it's interesting that, although the cliche of woman as ball and chain is intact, the usual city/country pattern is reversed here: Girotti feels trapped out in the open spaces of the countryside helping Calamai run the inn, and feels more internal freedom in the bustling city with his male friend. Girotti is beautiful, whether stubbly or clean shaven, whether in a tank top, sweater, or bare chested. Calamai is less beautiful, but has an earthy appeal and the two have good chemistry. There is social commentary on the oppression of people in society--I'm sure it's a Marxist movie, although I wasn't paying attention to the political undercurrents. The constant use of music playing in the background of scenes is interesting. The DVD I saw didn't translate the lyrics of the songs, but I assume most of the music was being used as ironic counterpoint. At 135 minutes, it is too long, but it's worth catching, especially if you're a noir fan.

STRANGE CARGO (1940)

If this odd film were made today, it would probably be a scruffy indie film; the fact that it actually works as a mainstream and fairly glossy Hollywood movie with big stars in the leads is one of the strangest things about it. The first half is set on a brutal penal colony island in French Guyana. Clark Gable, a prisoner, has the hots for loose woman Joan Crawford. He sneaks away from work detail to visit her in her rooms and when he's caught, they both get in trouble. Meanwhile, a mysterious prisoner (Ian Hunter) appears seemingly out of nowhere. He's accepted by the men, although it's clear from early on that he's something of an otherworldly figure. He joins Gable and some other men on a break-out through a jungle (with Crawford tagging along). One by one, the men undergo spiritual conversions, seeing the error of their ways and being reconciled to their fates by Hunter before they die or disappear. Much of it plays out like a quasi-Christian "Twilight Zone" episode.

Some of the other men include Albert Dekker, Eduardo Cianelli, John Arledge, and Paul Lukas, who is quite good as the one man who won't accept Hunter and his message of redemption; his bleak speech just before he slips off into the darkness is a highlight, and helps make the movie more than just a 40's "Touched by an Angel." The jungle scenes are tense and well done, though ultimately the entire first half winds up being a bit beside the point. It doesn't take much looking between the lines to see a homoerotic relationship between and a young man and an older mentor that is handled subtly. Peter Lorre has a small role as a slimy informer. There is some rather forced Christ symbolism, but mostly the allegorical Christian elements work rather well, being mostly non-denominational, and a little creepy at times. After a slow start, a very interesting film indeed. Oh, yeah, Gable and Crawford are both fine, and Hunter is very good.

COLLEGE SWING (1938)

A silly, disjointed revue with a particularly weak plot: Alden College will be run by its faculty until such time as a female Alden can actually graduate and take over running the college. Gracie Allen is the Alden woman who manages the feat, albeit through cheating with the help of Bob Hope. I think Allen is supposed to be so dumb that she doesn't really know that she's cheating, but the ethics of the situation are never made clear. You can feel a desperate attempt being made to reproduce a Marx Brothers atmosphere here, and it doesn't work, remaining a parade of skits and unmemorable songs. What plot that does intrude is usually irritating.

However, there are a number of reasons why I would watch it again: a young and lovely John Payne in a clinging white T-shirt, boxers, and angel wings on his shoulders (serenading forgettable opera-style singer Florence George); Hope and Martha Raye doing a wild, slapstick number in which Hope appears to crack up a couple of times; Edward Everett Horton as a woman-hating professor who changes his ways; Jerry Colonna in a very short but very funny bit singing a song with wildly exaggerated vocal flourishes; Ben Blue doing some nice physical schtick as an inept phys ed teacher; the cute opening bit, set in a Pilgrim schoolhouse in 1738 where a choirboy suddenly breaks out in a jazz riff (he gives his name as Benny Goodman). George Burns isn't up to his best ability here, but he does get to do some of his flustered exchanges with Gracie. There's a cute number set in a campus soda fountain with lots of coeds dancing, and three Stooge-like waiters falling all over the place. Cecil Cunningham (sort of a B-movie Alice Brady/Edna May Oliver) is present, and you might glimpse Betty Grable, Jackie Coogan, and Robert Cummings. Very silly, but I had fun.

2 TORCHY BLANE MOVIES

In this B-movie series, Glenda Farrell plays Torchy Blane, a spunky blonde reporter who hounds cop Barton MacLane to get the dope on high profile crime stories, and who also manages to outwit the police and solve the crimes ahead of them. She did several films in the series, though Lola Lane and Jane Wyman also played the role.

SMART BLONDE (1937) is the first in the series, and it has a memorable fast-paced opening as Torchy, riding in a cab, races a train, then jumps out and hops on the caboose in order to get an interview with a big shot financier. He's headed to town to buy some sports and gambling assests from a local bigwig who is selling out to please his high-toned fiancee. As the two get off the train, he's shot dead and Torchy helps MacLane gather clues and suspects, and solve the crime. As often happens, about halfway through, I lost track of the mystery, but the movie remained watchable. Farrell lacks the spark that someone like Joan Blondell or Ann Sothern or even Una Merkel might have brought to the role. In "don't blink" moments, you can see Wayne Morris and Jane Wyman.

TORCHY BLANE IN CHINATOWN, from 1939, was the seventh in the series (they cranked out nine in just two years' time). Leonard Maltin doesn't like this one at all, but I enjoyed it even more than the first one, although (or maybe because) Torchy seems to be reduced to a supporting role in her own series. In this one, a group of men who were involved in the quasi-legal smuggling of Chinese jade are threatened with death by a local Tong-like family. One by one, despite police protection, each predicted death comes true. MacLane's character is constantly doing the wrong thing, but he seems to get more screen time than Farrell, who cracks the case. An interesting supporting cast, including James Stephenson, Henry O'Neill, and especially handsome Patric Knowles, helps this one rise above its own "averageness" for me. Also, I could keep track of the mystery, and I even figured it out ahead of either MacLane or Farrell (which must mean that a precocious 8-year-old could figure it out). I wouldn't call these must-see movies, but they were fun and, at around an hour each, they never bog down.

TOMORROW, THE WORLD (1944)

A Nazi version of THE BAD SEED! At the time, this movie might have seemed different or daring with its depiction of a child warped by indoctrination in the Nazi philosophy, but it dates rather badly, and it doesn't feel much more daring than if an Andy Hardy movie had tackled the same issue. Fredric March brings his young German nephew over to the USA to live with (and hopefully to assimilate with) his whitebread midwestern American family. The problem is that the kid (Skip Homeier) is a full-blooded Nazi at the age of twelve. Homeier struggles throughout with a trumped-up, phony sounding accent and a look that never feels very dangerous. Had the character been a little older, his bullying villainy might have been more effective. It takes a while for March to realize how Nazified the boy really is; he was brainwashed to believe that his heroic father was a traitor and a suicide when he really died in a concentration camp. Betty Field is the Jewish girlfriend of March, who tries to be understanding, and Joan Carroll is March's daughter. She's not bad; she has more to do here than she did as Margaret O'Brien's older sister in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS. Most of the household (even the German maid) wises up to the kid, and his only "ally" is Agnes Moorehead, playing another bitter spinster aunt, who resents March's upcoming marriage.

Despite pulling knives, stealing keys, and threatening some children, Homeier never really feels "evil." In fact, I kept thinking that, like the bizarre encore scene in THE BAD SEED, all he really needed was a good spanking. Even at the climax, when he attacks someone from behind and we're led to believe he might have committed murder, the resolution is way too pat and bloodless. The anti-climactic finale feels an awful lot like the heartwarming sitcom resolutions we're used to in the average family TV show. It was based on a play, and its stage origins are obvious--it could use a little more directorial style. There is a lot of propaganda about American tolerance for minorities, which rings a little hollow nowadays, and in the end, it's not a terribly compelling movie.

RED SALUTE (1935)

This movie is apparently historically important for its weird blend of screwball comedy and Red-baiting; I've read about it frequently, but it doesn't get shown very often. It's certainly no masterpiece, but I'm glad I was able to see it. The anti-Communist element would have made it more topical about 15 years later--and indeed it had a major theatrical re-release during the McCarthy era. Barbara Stanwyck plays the daughter of an Army general who plans to marry a campus radical (Hardie Albright), much to her father's dismay. When Stanwyck's aunt flies off to Mexico on vacation, the father arranges to have her shanghaied along to get her away from the commie boyfriend. While there, she gets involved with an American soldier (Robert Young) who ends up going AWOL to help her get back home. The middle of the movie becomes a kind of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT road trip (except Young is no Gable) with the amusing Cliff Edwards along for some laughs. Ruth Donnelly is wasted in a small part as Edwards' shrewish wife. The general realizes that Young might be the one to get Stanwyck away from Albright, and he hires Young to bust up the radical protest.

The movie is amusing in places, but could have been a bit more tightly plotted. For example, I'm glad that Cliff Edwards is brought back at the finale, but it makes no sense that he's there. One of the more notorious lines occurs when Young, who has seen Stanwyck on the dance floor, declares that she can't be a Red because thinkers are dodos on the dance floor. The anti-intellectualism that pairs up thinking with Communism (which implies, of course, that red-blooded Americans can't or shouldn't think), is astoundingly stupid. It's kind of a reverse SWEPT AWAY, with the female Marxist converted by the male capitalist--though Stanwyck never really seems to be especially political at any point in the movie. Funny in spots, but sluggishly paced. Still worth seeing just for its weirdness.

FLIGHT FROM GLORY (1937)

This is a nifty little B-film that anticipates ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, a better movie made a year or two later. Virtually the entire film takes place in one setting, an isolated airfield in the Andes Mountains (looking a lot like California--ANGELS, with its bigger budget, gets the look much better) where a group of rough and tumble pilots, mostly disgraced ones who couldn't get better jobs in the States, engage in the dangerous job of flying supplies to miners in the mountains. Onslow Stevens is the boss, a creepy and miserly man who keeps a scrapbook of high-profile pilots who have gotten in trouble so he can offer them jobs--there is high turnover due to the dangerous flying conditions and the poor quality of the planes they use. Chester Morris is the unoffical leader of the pilots.

One day, Van Heflin arrives with his wife (Whitney Bourne); we're supposed to realize it's a mistake to bring a woman into this setting, although the tough-guy pilots are really too nice to be threatening. Still, entanglements follow as Morris falls in love with her, and so does Douglas Walton (a sort of second-string Leslie Howard-type). Heflin, a reformed drunk, starts out fine but when he realizes the situation he's stuck in, he deterioriates rapidly. Injury, death, and revenge follow. Despite the low budget, some of the flying scenes aren't bad. Morris is his usual self--if you don't already like him, this movie won't make you a fan, but if you do like him, as I do, you should catch this one the next time TCM shows it. Comparisons with ANGELS are inevitable, and this one will always come in second, but it's not bad for its type.

STRICTLY DISHONORABLE (1931)

This was a Broadway hit for Preston Sturges (although otherwise he had nothing to do with this film version) and the version most people are familiar with is the 50's one with Ezio Pinza and Janet Leigh, which I've never seen. This one is stagy, too long, and hampered by a static directorial style, but it does have its moments. Its primary asset is the performance of Paul Lukas as Gus, an opera singing lothario whose heart is captured by a relatively innocent Southern belle (Sidney Fox) who has been transplanted to New York City by her totally obnoxious fiancé, George Meeker. The film takes place over one night and the next morning, beginning just after midnight in a boarding house/speakeasy as Fox and Meeker wander in and make the acquaintance of a couple of colorful characters who frequent the place: Lukas as the womanizing singer and Lewis Stone as a retired and heavy-drinking judge. Meeker is quick to display his true colors, bullying Fox around but full of empty bluff when confronted by anyone else. He winds up in jail overnight and Fox talks Lukas into letting her stay in his room. Apparently, he plans to add her to his list of conquests (he has an entire closet filled with women's clothes), but instead he discovers a soft spot for her, an honest "babe in the woods," and he gives her his bed while he shares the judge's room. Relationships get further tangled and straightened out the next morning.

Lukas is quite good; I mostly think of him as a rather dull presence in movies like WATCH ON THE RHINE and LITTLE WOMEN, but he shines here, giving the best comic performance that John Barrymore never gave. He and Fox generate an interesting moment of heat in a long kissing and caressing scene (played standing up). Even though they have chemistry and are both likeable, and Fox and Meeker clearly don't belong together, the movie doesn't make us particularly confident that she and Lukas will ultimately be a much better match. At a little over 90 minutes, the pacing is a bit too leisurely up until the somewhat rushed ending. The look and feel of the film remind me of the later THREE MEN ON A HORSE, also based on a play, and largely set in a similar boarding house/bar establishment. Sidney Toler, best known as Charlie Chan, plays an understanding Irish cop. A memorable line from Fox: "I read in a book on psychology that nothing is immoral except--well, I plumb forgot!"

THE WAR AGAINST MRS. HADLEY (1942)

This is sort of an American anti-Mrs. Miniver, or the process by which an anti-Mrs. Miniver person becomes a Mrs. Miniver. Fay Bainter plays Mrs. Hadley, a rich Washington widow; the first scene is set at her birthday party on Dec. 7, 1941. She has a cozy little circle of friends and relatives with her, but the news of Pearl Harbor disrupts the party. Soon, everyone else gets caught up in the war effort, but Mrs. Hadley tries to ignore every aspect of it, not to mention ignoring the dysfunctional aspects of her own family life. Gradually she alienates all of her circle, so when she throws a birthday party for her son, who is off in the Army, no one shows up.

The movie is predictable, but it's still fun to see all the friends, one by one, get on Mrs. Hadley's shit list, and of course, see her eventual transformation to patriotic and caring citizen. The only question is, will it be too late for her son and daughter to appreciate her again? Edward Arnold is her confidant and ex-beau, and Spring Byington is her rich and scatterbrained friend who has a funny scene when an air raid warden comes into her bedroom to enforce a blackout--startled, she cries, "It's just like the French Revolution!" Jean Rogers (who I'm not familiar with) and Richard Ney (the son in MRS. MINIVER and real-life husband to Greer Garson, at least briefly) are the kids, and Van Johnson has one of his earliest roles as a soldier who falls for Rogers. Bainter underplays the role nicely; she could have been a scene-stealing harridan, but she's much more subtle than that. The wartime propaganda, as usual, is *not* subtle, but the 90-minute movie moves along nicely to a satisfying climax.

MY FAVORITE HORROR FILMS--After 1950

Horror films always go in cycles, but they seemed to completely vanish in the 50's; I suppose that sci-fi films became the atom-age version of horror films, but in my mind, the two are really separate genres, at least until ALIEN in 1979. So here are the rest of my favorite horror movies, mostly from the 60's and 70's.

BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960)--Reviewed earlier this month; the best Hammer horror ever, even if David Peel is not the best Hammer vampire (that would have to be Christoper Lee in HORROR OF DRACULA). Colorful, creepy, with a fairly interesting twist on the usual vampire story.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)--A B-movie for sure, but a masterful mood piece. A car full of girls goes off a bridge and sinks in a river; Candace Hilligoss is the only survivor, but she finds herself unalterably changed by the experience. She seems to go in and out of fugue states, and ghostly figures haunt her. The dialogue and acting leave something to be desired (though Hilligoss is good), but the creepy atmosphere is built up nicely and sustained to a great climax.

ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)--Mia Farrow as a young woman who slowly begins to suspect that she has been impregnated by Satan. The movie is most effective as a study in urban paranoia; for most of its length, we're kept in the dark as to whether or not Farrow is really being plotted against by devil worshippers, or is going mad. Ruth Gordon is wonderful as the little old lady next door who may be a ruthless Satanist.

THE OMEN (1976)--Gregory Peck and Lee Remick discover they are raising the anti-Christ. At heart, this has a lot in common with movies like FRIDAY THE 13TH where the main goal is to kill off a bunch of people in freaky ways, but the big budget, big stars, and original (at the time) plotting make it stand out. The first sequel is almost as good, but I've avoided the third one on sound advice of others.

CARRIE (1976)--A socially inept teenage girl with a religious nut case for a mother discovers she has telekinetic powers and, when some mean students plot to ruin her prom night, she strikes back for keeps. This was very early in Brian DePalma's career and I don't think he has topped himself. Scary, funny, sexy, and with one of the truly great horror movie performances, by Piper Laurie as Carrie's crazy mother. She was nominated for an Oscar and should have won. The last 15 minutes or so, from when the bucket of blood falls on Carrie's head to the credits may be the best horror movie sequence ever.

HALLOWEEN (1978)--Since no Ray Bradbury film has yet done justice to his works, this is the quintessential Halloween movie. Jamie Lee Curtis is a babysitter who is stalked on Halloween night by a seemingly invulnerable killer wearing a mask and slaughtering horny teenagers. This was the beginning of a long and tedious trend in horror movies that, unfortunately, shows no sign of letting up; still, it holds up to repeated viewings: great music, great atmosphere, good acting by Curtis and Donald Pleasance, and spectacular murder scenes.

ANGEL HEART (1987)--The convoluted plot is difficult to describe; I remember it took me three viewings to figure things out. Still, even when you're not sure what's happening, the movie is never less than compelling. Mickey Rourke is hired to find a missing war vet and winds up tangled up in voodoo, murder, and a little hot sex with Lisa Bonet that almost got the film an X rating. Another wonderful mood piece that is sustained strongly throughout, with a nicely underplayed performance by Robert DeNiro as a mysterious stranger who may be behind all the death.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)--Do I really need to say anything? Yes, there is too much use of the F-word and the camera is too jiggly and it's hard to care about any of the characters. Still, this fake documentary about three young people who trek out into supposedly haunted woods to find the secret behind some local folklore about a dead witch is absolutely tense and scary. Like CARRIE, it has a killler finale that makes all the ambiguity and tedium that came before worthwhile (even though the ending itself is famous for being ambigious).

There are lots of others I love as well: PSYCHO, THE HAUNTING (the original, not the ludicrous remake), DEAD OF NIGHT, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, THE TINGLER, BURNT OFFERINGS, THE OTHER (the 70's is the only era to rival the 30's for horror film greatness), but I don't have the time to comment on all of them. Tomorrow, I'll be going back to the usual mix of classic movie reviews, but it's been fun to focus on horror, and I may include more of them into the mix in the future.

MY FAVORITE HORROR FILMS--The 30's & 40's

As much as I love John Carpenter's original HALLOWEEN, that movie was the death knell for my interest in horror films. After that, the average horror movie basically became an exercise in killing off as many people as possible in increasingly original and outrageous ways. That got old real fast and by the mid-80's, I had quit following the genre. But I still love to watch the older films that relied on atmosphere and understatement, leaving much to the imagination of the viewer. What follows is a list of some of my favorites from the 30's and 40's; I'll do the 60's and 70's later.

DRACULA (1931)--Yes, for most of its running time, this is a stagy, stodgy, awkwardly acted film, and not all that scary. But Lugosi's embodiment of the character of Count Dracula remains indelible. The first 15 minutes or so still work quite well, largely due to great sets, fluid camerawork, lack of music, and Lugosi's eyes. I think this was the first horror movie I ever saw, when I was 7 or 8, and it's still one I revisit at least once a year.

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)--Funny, campy, moving, and great looking. Although the original has its moments, this one is better made and better acted, and gives Ernest Thesiger the role of his lifetime. It's amazing to me how recognizable the Bride's face has become in popular culture, considering she only appears on screen for a few minutes.

WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)--One of the best looking and most atmospheric horror movies of all time, reviewed below. Avoid the older public domain tapes and stick with the restored tape and DVD.

THE BLACK CAT (1934)--Despite the title, this has nothing to do with Poe or cats (although there is a black cat getting underfoot occasionally). Karloff and Lugosi square off against each other in a fabulous art deco mansion, with a convoluted plot about war crimes, lust, revenge, and Satanism.

THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943)--Satanism would seem to be colorful material for horror movies, but there have been few memorable films made about it. This one is memorable, even though the Satanists themselves are deliberately bland and resolutely not colorful. It's an effective mood piece about a woman searching for her sister, who has vanished and who may be involved in a devil cult. I don't recall a single "scary" scene here, but the atmosphere of dread hangs heavy throughout.

THE MUMMY (1932) and its 40's sequels--The first Mummy movie, like DRACULA, works best in its first section; the opening remains a classic in letting the unseen scare us more than anything visible could. The acting and dialogue are better here than in DRACULA, and the pace is kept up nicely. As with Elsa Lanchester's BRIDE, we don't really see much of Karloff in his Mummy costume, but he is just as effective with his ancient skin and intense gaze. The sequels are B-movies with shabby sets and silly plots, but they all have their creepy moments.

SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM (1933) and NIGHT MONSTER (1942)--My favorite examples of the "old dark house" genre. I saw BLUE ROOM on Halloween night in the mid-60's and haven't seen it since, but it has stuck in my memory as a good, compact thriller about people accepting a dare to spend a night in a haunted room. NIGHT MONSTER involves a series of murders in a house where a crippled man is being cared for by a group of doctors.

CAT PEOPLE (1942)--The best Val Lewton film, notable for its use of the power of suggestion rather than explicit violence or gore. A woman falls in love, but falls victim to the idea that she turns into a panther when strong emotions like lust or jealousy overtake her. It took me years to figure out that it's really about female "frigidity."

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)--The end of the Universal horror cycle, and it works surprisingly well because a nice balance is acheived between the humor and the horror. I loved A&C when I was a kid, and I don't have much tolerance for them now, but this one still holds up, plus it's by far the best of the movies that incorporate the Big Three Universal Monsters (Frankenstein monster, Dracula, and the Wolf Man).

WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)

The first time I saw this was back in the mid-80's on the Nostalgia Channel, a cable network that showed mostly bad prints of public domain movies. It was indeed in bad shape, but the reason for its cult reputation was clear. The current DVD from the Roan Group is, visually, in spectacular shape. Aside from a couple of splices and jumps, it's been restored wonderfully. The print is so clear, you can see the actors' breath in several scenes. The sound is rather dicey, with volume rising and dropping occasionally, and some lines of dialogue are not quite clear. Still, this film has transcended its quickie (made in 11 days) B-movie nature to become a horror classic and in any shape, it makes for great October viewing. Neal (John Harron) and Madeline (Madge Bellamy) are a couple who arrive in Haiti to be married at the home of Mr. Beaumont (Robert Frazer, who does the best acting in the movie), a seemingly kind-hearted man who befriended the two in New York, but who actually has his own designs on Madeline. Beaumont enlists the aid of Murder Legrande (Bela Lugosi), master of a band of zombies who are employed at a sugar mill. At the wedding dinner, Legrande turns Madeline into a zombie. Everyone but Beaumont thinks she's dead, but after her burial, Legrande, Beaumont, and the zombies take her coffin and revive her in a zombified state. Beaumont changes his mind and wants her life given back to her, but Legrande has other plans.

This movie has been rightfully criticized for wooden acting (Bellamy is so bad, it's difficult to see much difference between her living state and her zombie state) and bad dialogue, but visually, it's an early talkie masterpiece of atmosphere. Virtually the entire film takes place at night and the night scenes are done very well, especially shots set in a crowded, jagged graveyard. The sets, some of the same ones that Universal used in its early 30's horror films, are good, particularly Legrande's mansion by the sea, which has a wonderful dark fairy tale feel. Dialogue scenes are fairly static, but at other times, the fluid camerawork is quite effective, with some nice shots done through doorways and staircase railings, and a well-used split-screen shot showing Neal and Madeline making a sort of psychic connection. The staring zombies and the screaming of vultures add to the creepy atmosphere. Lugosi is like a hammy Shakespearean actor when he delivers lines, but is effective in his Dracula-like close-ups. A movie to be seen at night, with the lights turned down.

DOCTOR X (1932)

I saw a black and white print of this on Chiller Theater way back in the 70's, I think, but the print I watched yesterday was in color. It looked a little faded, which is to be expected since it was shot in two-strip Technicolor in the early days of color technology; I guess the fact that it's still available in color at all is a good thing. Reds and greens predominate and add to the fairly creepy feel of the film. The Full Moon Killer has foiled the police several times, and cocky reporter Lee Tracy is determined to track him down. Evidence points to a doctor (because the killer uses a particular kind of scalpel) and possibly a cannibal (teeth marks on the victims). Suspicion surrounds Dr. Xavier's Medical Academy; no, its not a haven for mutant teenagers, just eccentric research scientists. A number of doctors who have interests in either cannibalism or the effects of the moon are under suspicion, even one (Preston Foster) who it seems could certainly not be the killer because he only has one arm and the killer strangles his victims with both arms. Xavier himself (Lionel Atwill) has a touch of the eccentric in him and is also considered a suspect, but he agrees to run some experiments designed to smoke out the real killer. Fay Wray, as Atwill's daughter, gets involved with the experiments and with reporter Tracy. Much of the film is nicely atmospheric, though there are plot lulls, and Tracy, who is mostly around for mild comic relief, grows irritating quickly--I was hoping he'd be the next victim. The opening scene is set partly in a brothel run by Mae Busch, a startling pre-Code moment. The unmasking climax is well handled. If you can tolerate Tracy, the movie is worth watching.

HORROR EXPRESS (1972)

I finally saw this film whose reputation has grown over the years. Unfortunately, the DVD was not letterboxed or restored; in fact, it looked like a dub from a TV print. Still, it was an interesting hybrid of a movie, like a cross between THE THING and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, with a religious element that is not fully explored. Christopher Lee is Professor Saxton, an archeologist who is carting the fossils of a supposed "missing link" creature along with him on the Trans-Siberian Express. Peter Cushing is a curious doctor who butts into Lee's business and inadvertantly has a hand in allowing the fossil (which has returned to life) to escape and wreck havoc on the train. There are some interesting characters introduced, including Telly Savalas as a brutal Cossack who boards the train along the way to wreck some havoc of his own, and a sexy & mysterious woman whose sole purpose seems to be sexy & mysterious. There is also a Rasputin-ish mad monk (Angel del Pozo) who seems to shift his alliances from God to Satan, but does he? The plotting here is handled rather ineptly so I honestly don't know whether the monk is supposed to be bad or not. But these characters aren't developed very well because mostly they're around to serve as creature bait.

The missing link winds up being an extraterrestrial life force that can hop from body to body when its host dies (as in John Carpenter's version of THE THING). In a particularly outrageous plot development, Lee and Cushing discover that images of what the creature saw in prehistoric days are available for viewing through the blood of its eyes (!!). It moves the plot along nicely, but it's hard to get past the silliness of the gimmick. The abovementioned religious element involves the idea that the creature really is Satanic; even though that would not seem to be true, there is no explanation for a scene early on when the monk tries to draw a protecting cross on the fossil box, but the cross image fails to materialize. There are some effective shocks along the way, but the climax is truly worth sticking around for--it turns out that the creature can bring the dead (or at least the dead that it has killed) back to life, and in a truly creepy scene, dozens of dead bodies rise up and head for the train car where the last survivors are trapped. This movie has everything but the kitchen sink, and that's why it's fun to watch.

HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959)

With this movie, it seems like American International was trying to beat Hammer at their own game by producing a distinctly British horror film with a William Castle twist. It is in fact a notch above several Hammer (and AIP) productions of the time, but the parts are greater than the whole. Michael Gough (Alfred in the recent Batman movies) plays a crime reporter who is following the exploits of a killer who specializes in particularly bizarre methods of murder, including, in the classic opening scene, a pair of binoculars with needles that shoot through the victim's eyes to her brain. It's clear from early on that Gough himself is the killer, assisted by a young male assistant (Graham Curnow) who helps him with the upkeep of his "Black Museum," a place for the display of horrific murder and torture weapons. Gough uses a serum and hypnosis to turn Curnow into a Jekyll/Hyde monster who kills at Gough's bidding. The young man's face also becomes puffy and scarred, though it's never explained why. Other shock killings include electrocution, a guillotining in a bed, and a person dumped in a vat of acid, reduced quickly to just a skeleton. Shirley Ann Field, who played the unnerved actress in PEEPING TOM, is Curnow's girlfriend. The Castle touch is in the prologue, with a man supposedly trying to hypnotize the audience--it's sort of cheap fun, but has virtually nothing to do with the narrative. Overall, above average October fare.

BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960)

This is probably the best Hammer movie ever; though HORROR OF DRACULA comes close, this one has more interesting characters, better acting, and a colorful and stylish look. A voiceover at the beginning tells us that Dracula is dead (making mincemeat of the title), but vampires are still afoot in Transylvania. In a set-up a bit like that of Katharine Hepburn & Elizabeth Taylor's in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, the Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) trolls the village at night looking for lovely young women to take back to the castle to satisfy the lust of her vampire son, David Peel. The "seduction" scene that plays out between Hunt and a young French schoolteacher passing through the village (Yvonne Monlaur) is well-staged; though we don't know the specifics yet, it's clear from the looks and actions of the villagers that they fear for the safety of Monlaur. However, this naive woman winds up being Hunt's downfall. The mother tells her that Peel is insane and must be kept locked up, but Monlaur meets him, finds him charming, and unlocks him (a poorly motivated scene--why on earth would she unshackle him after a minute and a half of trivial conversation?). Now the vampire is free to start collecting "brides" from the nearby girls' school.

Peter Cushing plays Van Helsing, as he did in HORROR OF DRACULA, and he's good, but taking the acting honors here are Hunt as the mother and Freda Jackson as Peel's caretaker, not a vampire herself, but a zealous assistant. The creepiest scene in the movie doesn't involve Peel, but Jackson, stretched out on the fresh grave of one of the women Peel has killed, talking through the dirt to coax the newly-created vampire to arise. Some critics have panned Peel's performance, saying he was just a too-pretty face, but I think he's fine, although the women do upstage him. The real problem with Peel (and with most of the vampires) is the artificiality of the fangs they wear. They look like wax fangs bought in a drug store at Halloween. But that's really all that's wrong here. The colors, lots of rich reds and blues and purples, are striking, and the sumptious sets are the best Hammer sets ever. Mona Washbourne, who played the beloved nanny in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, has a small role as the mistress of the girls' school. Highly recommended for midnight viewing.

CHAMBER OF HORRORS (1940) aka THE DOOR WITH SEVEN LOCKS

Edgar Wallace was a British author of crime and thriller novels; he had over 150 works published and many of them have been made into movies, mostly in England or Germany and mostly B-thrillers (IMDb shows 170 films based on his works, including KING KONG, the screenplay for which he co-wrote just before his death). This modest thriller is really more an "old dark house" police mystery rather than a horror movie, but its atmosphere is spookier and more effective than many a "legitimate" horror movie. As he's dying, Lord Selford explains his plans to be buried with the family jewels in the family crypt, in a tomb with seven locks, apparently to ensure that the treasure gets passed down properly when his son marries. After this creepy little deathbed scene, complete with a threat of afterlife revenge reminiscent of the opening of THE GHOUL, the action jumps ahead several years when Lilli Palmer gets involved with the Selford family and assorted hangers-on. She is given one of the seven keys by an old man in a nursing home who is killed before he can explain what's going on. Palmer and her friend (Gina Molo, here mostly for comic relief) get the police in on the situation. Leslie Banks, known mostly for his creepy turn as Count Zaroff in THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, is almost as creepy here as Dr. Manetta, who is clearly the mastermind behind whatever larceny is being planned. The plotlines are not always clearly delineated, but it's easy enough to keep track of the basics: damsels and cops in distress, strange servents and henchmen not to be trusted, keys to be carefully looked after. And, to help keep things light, a romance between Palmer and a Scotland Yard inspector (Romilly Lunge).

The "old dark house" elements included a cobwebbed crypt, a mysteriously missing heir who just as mysteriously turns back up, an occasional dead body, and the chamber of the title, a place where Banks has collected a variety of historical torture instruments; once you see the iron maiden demonstrated, you just know it will play a key role in the climax. There are some Hitchcockian touches, especially early on when an attempt is made to make Palmer think she's imagined the existence of the dead man in the nursing home. Banks has a pet monkey to whom he speaks Spanish and who inadvertantly helps some of the good guys out of a jam in the crypt. Cathleen Nesbitt (AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER, SEPARATE TABLES) has a small role as one of the sinister skulkers. I hadn't heard much about this film before I saw it, but I enjoyed it a great deal.

SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) & GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942)

The first two Frankenstein movies, both stylishly directed by James Whale, are much-praised and have probably been written about more than any other classic horror films (except maybe KING KONG). I watched the third and fourth in the series yesterday, for the first time since I was a teenager in the 70's when they showed up regularly on "Chiller Theater." Though SON has the bigger budget and a better critical reputation, I found GHOST to be more exciting and more fun.

SON definitely looks better than any of the other Frankenstein movies, with its vast expressionistic sets and creepy jagged shadows. Basil Rathbone plays Wolf, the, duh, son of Frankenstein who, after the death of his father (it's not clear how much time has passed since BRIDE), comes to town to clear up his father's estate. The townspeople, never having quite gotten over his father's terrifying antics with artifical life, are not happy to see the son, even though he claims to have no interest in his father's ideas. Eventually, however, he meets up with broken-necked Igor (Bela Lugosi), discovers the creature (Boris Karloff) still exists, and gets sucked into tampering in God's domain. Rathbone is a bit hammy; the best performance is by Lionel Atwill as the inspector with the wooden arm--the monster tore off his real one years ago. But above and beyond the performances, I had two problems with the movie: 1) It's hard to take much of it seriously after Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, which actually draws more inspiration from SON than from the original. In the opening scene on the train, I kept expecting Rathbone to look out the window and ask, "Pardon me, boy, is this the Transylvania station?" 2) The movie, at around 100 minutes, is too long and lacks momentum. It's not like it's hard for anyone who's seen any other monster movie to figure out exactly every twist the plot takes. Rathbone is the only person with any energy here. His son (Donnie Dunagan) is whiny and irriatating, and his wife (Josephine Hutchinson) is a zero. Lugosi gives a good performance, but he can't compensate for the long, dull patches. However, the sets are always interesting. Lugosi's plot to use the monster to kill off the men who hanged him may have inspired the writers of the Dr. Phibes movies.

GHOST is short and, while still awfully predictable and not nearly as impressive visually as SON, moves along at a good clip and is finished in a little over an hour. The plot seems to pick up right after SON; even though Rathbone has left and the monster is supposedly dead for sure, the villagers still feel under a curse (almost literally, as even the barren fields are blamed on the Frankensteins). The townspeople destroy the castle, but Igor escapes with the creature, alive but weak. Conveniently, there's another brother, Ludwig (Cedric Hardwicke), a "doctor of the mind," as we're told two or three times, living in another city. Igor's plan is to get Ludwig to nurse the monster (Lon Chaney Jr.) back to health. Hardwicke gets the Frankenstein bug in his system and decides to transplant a "healthy" brain into the monster's skull, but his treacherous assistant (Lionel Atwill, playing a different character than in SON) helps Igor to subvert the plan. Evelyn Ankers is Hardwicke's daughter and she's good in her limited role; Ralph Bellamy, as her boyfriend, has even less to do and barely registers at all. Chaney isn't bad as the monster; he's not as expressive as Karloff, but at least he looks the part. Ultimately, I would judge GHOST to be the better movie simply because it's easier to sit through. The title, BTW, is justified by a scene in which Hardwicke's father (played by Hardwicke) "haunts" him, causing him to tackle his father's project.

THE BAT WHISPERS (1930)

Very early talkie in the "old dark house" genre. It's based on a famous play and novel, "The Bat" by Mary Roberts Rinehart, and its stage origins show for most of the running time, but in the opening (and in a few key sequences later) the camera is let loose to do some wild things. There is some nice subjective camera work with long swoops over miniature sets, especially in a shot over a long row of trees outside of a secluded mansion. As far as the plot, a bank robbery occurs and a number of folks think that the loot might be hidden in a large old house that has been rented for the season by Cornelia, perhaps the first in a long line of Hollywood "feisty old ladies" (played by Grayce Hampton). The bulk of the movie takes place in the house with Hampton, her niece (Una Merkel, good as always), an easily spooked maid, and assorted visitors. The plot doesn't stand up to much analysis. Merkel's boyfriend (William Bakewell) is a suspect and sneaks his way into the household by posing as a gardener, but nothing much comes of that plotline. The very Prussian Gustav von Seyffertitz plays a potential villain, and Chester Morris (looking very different then he does in his later movies) plays a detective who is hiding some secrets of his own. The first few scenes, with the Bat stealing jewels from a locked safe in a high-rise apartment, and the setting-up of the old house mystery, are promising. But as the characters start piling up, the possible motivations of the suspects become vague, and I eventually lost interest in figuring out who was who. Interesting at times, but not terribly compelling, and Morris, considering his top billing, doesn't really wind up with much to do. A later version, THE BAT, from 1959, with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead, isn't much better. Even the combination of those two scenery-chewers doesn't generate much excitement. [A later review of this film and the 1959 remake is here.]

Two INNER SANCTUM Movies: CALLING DR. DEATH & STRANGE CONFESSION

In the mid-40's, Universal took the name of a popular radio show, INNER SANCTUM, and used it as a series title for a handful of B films in the horror-suspense line, each about an hour long, and seemingly made on Poverty Row budgets. Seen now, they seem like episodes from a long-forgotten Twilight Zone spin-off, but instead of Rod Serling as host, these have Lon Chaney Jr. as the star. Most of them, despite the way that Universal has marketed the video tapes, are not horror, but moody psychological mysteries. Nevertheless, if you don't have high expectations, they are acceptable time-passers, especially around Halloween.

In CALLING DR. DEATH (1943), the first in the series, Chaney is a doctor who winds up the chief suspect when his wife is murdered. He knew that she was cheating on him and he cannot account for his whereabouts the night of the murder. Hounded by cop J. Carroll Naish, he tries, with the aid of his faithful nurse, to find the killer and winds up breaking the case using hypnotism. Though it's not especially well written, the hypnosis gimmick gives the movie a creepy scene or two. It's a nice twist for Chaney to play a good guy. STRANGE CONFESSION (1945), though a little too heavily plotted for its own good, is even more like a Rod Serling tale. Chaney is a chemist who discovers what might be a cure for influenza. Before he gets a chance to thoroughly test it, his boss (Naish) sends him out of the country and greedily puts the over-the-counter medicine on the market, with predictably disastrous results. Chaney's own son gets sick, is given the medicine and dies, and Chaney returns to get revenge. The opening takes place at Christmas, with the rest of the story told in flashback. Lloyd Bridges and Milburn Stone, long before their TV fame, have small parts. The story and climax are both meatier than in DR. DEATH, but I kept thinking someone besides Chaney would have given the slow-moving films a little more life.

THE WOLF MAN (1941)

Usually, I avoid writing about the better-known classic movies here on my blog, but for my October horror movie project, I'll break that rule and go back and re-watch a few famous films. The Universal horror films of the 30's and 40's were among the very first movies I remember seeing on TV and they have remained favorites of mine. Of all the Universal greats, my favorite is DRACULA, but I think THE WOLF MAN had the most potential. Unfortunately, it doesn't come as close as it should to being a really good movie, for two reasons: a sloppy screenplay and the sad miscasting of the lead part. Lon Chaney Jr. is Larry Talbot, the son of the British Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains). Larry returns to his stately home after many years in the States (which apparently explains Chaney's total lack of any accent but does not explain the total dunderheadness of his line readings), following the tragic death of his brother. There has been tension between the son and father for some time, but it's quickly glossed over, the first problem with the screenplay. While attending a gypsy fair with a young lady he oafishly flirted with earlier in the day (Evelyn Ankers), he is attacked and bitten by a wolf, which turns out be a werewolf (the gypsy fortune teller Bela Lugosi, wasted in a very short scene). The curse of the werewolf is passed along to Chaney, who begins leaving his house at night, in two-legged wolf form, to attack wandering innocents in the dark.

I suspect this was intended to be close to an A-project, what with the strong supporting cast of Rains, Ralph Bellamy, and Patric Knowles, and much of the movie does look good, in that studio-bound way that the Universal films (and later the Hammer films) had about them. But Chaney is inept throughout. To be fair, some of the problem has to do with his looks; it's just laughable to think that he and Rains could be related--Patric Knowles would have been more believable. And he does garner some sympathy because he comes off as basically a nice guy stuck in a tragic situation not of his own making. He also snarls OK in his wolf make-up. But every line he delivers sounds wooden and awkward, and I don't for a minute believe that Ankers would be charmed by him. He first discovers her when he's looking through her window with his father's telescope, and I thought the theme of watching or spying might continue through the movie, but the screenplay drops or ignores any plot point that threatens to become interesting (like the father-son relationship, like why Lugosi changes into a four-legged wolf but Chaney does not, like why Maria Ouspenskaya [Lugosi's mother] seems to have the power to stop Chaney's transformation). I guess I'm being awfully hard on the movie. After all, it is fun to watch, it's atmospheric, and the little rhyme about how even a man who is pure of heart can become a wolf sounds so authentic, it's hard to believe that it was original to this movie. But with a stronger story and a better actor in the lead role, it could have been so much better.

THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK (1945)

A forgotten B-horror film (from Republic) that has inexplicably turned up on DVD when so many greats are still missing from that format. Fairly good acting and a solid idea for a plot help make up for a low budget and bland directing style. Set in the Salem-ish town of Eben Rock, the story begins with Nancy Kelly returning to her hometown after years away (and after leaving her fiancee, John Loder, at the altar). She is the descendant of a witch-hunting judge who sent several accused witches to their fiery deaths. On a bus headed for town, an old lady meets up with Kelly and claims to be a reincarnation of a witch named Jezebel that her ancestor killed exactly 300 years ago. The bus runs off the road and Kelly is the only survivor (shades of CARNIVAL OF SOULS). Eventually, Kelly settles in town and rekindles her relationship with Loder (which Loder's sister, Ruth Ford, is not happy about), but soon Kelly gets the idea that Jezebel's spirit has inhabited her body, and the townspeople start freaking out.

Good ideas for scenes are undercut by too-harsh lighting and some of the worst day-for-night shooting I've ever seen--even nighttime interior scenes are too bright. The most successful scene is of Kelly, alone in her house at night during a storm, reading a book on superstitions which, when she puts it down, seems to leap of its own accord into the fireplace. A scene in a (very spare) church where the townspeople almost turn on Kelly until the preacher stops them, is also nicely done. There winds up being a rational explantation for most of the weird occurances, but a few things (like flowers dying at Kelly's touch) are left dangling. Elspeth Dudgeon, who, in drag, played the dying patriarch in THE OLD DARK HOUSE, has a small but creepy role as the witch on the bus.

THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932)

Yes, I suppose this is a rather reprehensible film with its racist and colonial streaks running a mile wide throughout. But one can do a little deconstructive work on it to turn it into an almost guilt-free guilty pleasure. Ostensibly, the good guys are the bland Nayland Smith (Lewis Stone) and Prof. Van Berg (Jean Hersholt) who have unearthed the mask and sword of Genghis Kahn in the Gobi Desert. They defy a curse to bring the relics to the British Museum, but the wicked and powerful warlord Fu Manchu (Boris Karloff) has nefarious plans. He kidnaps one of the good guys, tortures him to death, and gets the rest of the good guys to play right into his hands. Fu's daughter, played by Myrna Loy (at the peak of her sexy and exotic otherness before she was softened to play safe and domestic Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies), lusts sadistically after the hunky white guy (Charles Starrett); my very favorite scene is where he is stripped to the waist and whipped (with Loy drooling over him nearby), then strapped down to a table wearing a diaperish loincloth and given a serum to render him Fu's slave. There are other torture scenes that apparently inspired some scenes in GUNGA DIN, STAR WARS, and the Indiana Jones movies. Ultimately, I found myself rooting for Loy and Karloff, especially against the shrill bitchery of the blond "damsel in distress" (Karen Morely). The atmosphere of the scenes in Fu's lair is sometimes quite creepy, and this would not be out of place as Halloween night viewing, but overall, this is a horror movie best appreciated as camp.

SECRETS OF THE FRENCH POLICE (1932)

With that title, this movie doesn't sound like it has much potential for Halloween-month viewing, but in the last ten minutes, some very effective scary-movie elements come into play. It's hard to believe that this fast-paced, hour-long thriller was produced by David O. Selznick, known later more for much bigger films like GONE WITH THE WIND and REBECCA. It starts off like a fairly average cop story (albeit with French cops) and turns into a nifty little mystery with a horror movie atmosphere. Frank Morgan is an inspector involved in three cases that wind up connected: tracking down a cop killer, looking for a missing flower girl (Gwili Andre), and keeping an eye on a shady character (Gregory Ratoff) who claims to have the missing Russian princess Anastasia in his custody. It turns out Ratoff has kidnapped the flower girl and hypnotized her into thinking she really is Anastasia to pull a scam on Russian royalty. A gentleman thief (John Warburton) who is sweet on the girl helps break the case.

The first half is a little slow getting going; several characters and plot points are brought up and then are dropped completely or become irrelevant (including the effective opening scene at the secret funeral of the dead policeman). Ratoff (Max the producer in ALL ABOUT EVE) is a fairly good villain, sounding a lot like Bela Lugosi. Morgan underacts for a change, except in a comic relief scene where he pretends to be drunk. Horror and action serial elements include a startling car accident, a big old house with secret passages, women who are killed and turned into statues (allowing a rare explicit bare breast shot), and a climax in a "mad doctor"-type lab. An actor named Arnold Korff, playing a Russian duke who comes to examine Ratoff's supposed Anastasia, resembles the older John Gielgud. Andre herself, who didn't wind up having much of a career, looks a lot like Myrna Loy once she's done up like a Russian princess. Some of the scenes in Ratoff's house were shot on sets from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Considering I had never heard of this movie, it was surprisingly brisk and fun (and even scary) and should hold up well to second and third viewings.

NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957)

It's October, the time of year when a young man's (or even a middle-aged man's) fancy turns toward ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night. Every October, I re-read my favorite stories by H. P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury, so I thought this year, I would try to review some lesser-known classic horror movies (and maybe re-visit a few old favorites) and devote most of my October blog entries to them.

First up is this British classic, directed by Jacques Tourneur, director of several of Val Lewton's low-key horror classics of the 40's. The film may be best known in this day and age as the inspiration for some key lines in ROCKY HORROR'S opening number: "Dana Andrews said prunes/ Gave him the runes/ And passing them used lots of skill." Andrews is an American psychologist who comes to England to participate in a conference at which his colleague (Maurice Denham) plans to debunk a witchcraft cult led by the charismatic Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). However, just before Andrews' arrival, Denham is found dead, electrocuted and mangled, apparently dispatched by a demon conjured up by MacGinnis. Andrews and Denham's niece (Peggy Cummins) continue with Denham's work, and MacGinnis threatens Andrews with the same fate. The abovementioned song lyric was inspired by the method of conjuring: MacGinnis plants a piece of parchment inscribed with mysterious runic symbols on his intended victim, sets a time for the death, and waits for the demon to do its thing. Andrews moves from total rationalism and skepticism to eventually being convinced that there is indeed something to MacGinnis's witchcraft as he tries to break the curse of the runes.

Perhaps because of Tourneur's use of subtle suggestion over explicit horror in movies like CAT PEOPLE, there has always been controversy over the appearance of the demon here. We see the demon, once at the beginning and again at the climax (an exciting one aboard a train racing through the night), and some fans are sure that Tourneur never really intended us to see the demon at all, that he wanted to keep it just a suggestion. But I think we are meant to believe in MacGinnis's powers; a scene where MacGinnis conjures up a fierce windstorm out of a clear blue sky can't really be explained away without resorting to belief in his witchcraft. My only problem with the demon is that the close-ups are disappointing, just like King Kong's close-ups. When the demon is materializing far off in the sky, the effect is actually quite creepy and effective, perhaps the best Satanic special effect in movies (except for THE EXORCIST). Andrews gives his usual clunky performance, and Cummins is bland, but MacGinnis gives full life to his character, seemingly based at least a little on real-life witch Aleister Crowley. He's not some indestructible comic book villain, but fully human, even a tad likeable at times, although he also seems to be something of a mama's boy. The lovely black and white photography is quite striking, and sometimes reminded me of some of the effective widescreen compositions in the original THE HAUNTING. This is the uncut British version which runs about 12 minutes longer than the American one (CURSE OF THE DEMON), but either version is actually worth seeing. This would make a good Halloween week pick!

HELL'S HOUSE (1932)

This early Poverty Row talkie would probably not even exist today if it weren't for Bette Davis's appearance in a supporting part. Pat O'Brien is a bootlegger who hires an orphan (Junior Durkin), newly arrived in the big city, to keep an eye on his office while he's out. On his very first day, Durkin is busted in a raid and O'Brien chooses not to help him. The rest of the movie is a fairly hundrum reform school expose--technically, I guess it's a reform school, but all they do is stack bricks and eat and sleep, so it's more like a juvenile prison. Actually, things don't seem all that bad there, but an asthmatic buddy of Durkin's (Frank Coghlan Jr.) dies in solitary, and that triggers the finale, where O'Brien has a change of heart and gets a newspaper reporter to help expose conditions at the school. The actors are OK, but the primitive filming style and the low budget hurt the film. The one effective scene takes place when O'Brien, as he drives away from his office after setting Durkin up in charge, watches in his rear view mirror as the cops raid his place. Clearly he feels bad about it, but he also doesn't have the guts to turn around and help the poor kid. Bette Davis, who appears in the beginning and end, is quite energetic and definitely stands out, even though she has llittle to work with. Even diehard Davis fans don't have to worry about missing this one.

THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME (1947)

A solid noirish melodrama; it might have come off a little better with a stronger leading actor, but it's certainly worth seeing. The film begins with Robert Young on trial for murder; the rest of the story is his flashback testimony of how he wound up in this jam. Stuck in an unhappy marriage with a rich woman (Rita Johnson), Young engages in a flirtation with Jane Greer that's about to get pretty serious until the wife butts in and buys him a partnership in a brokerage firm. He breaks things off with Greer and moves out to the West Coast, and eventually starts another fling, this time with sexy golddigger Susan Hayward. The wife again takes action, buys him *out* of his job and isolates the two of them in a mountain home where he's kept on a tight leash. Soon, he gets up the gumption to run off with Hayward, but in that film noir way, fate intervenes with ironic and deadly twists and turns until Young winds up acccused of murder, which he didn't commit, even though he does bear some "cosmic" moral responsibility for the situation; he did have murder in his heart, he lied, he betrayed his wife, and maybe worst of all in the film noir universe, was too weak to take control of his own life. The way that Greer comes back into the movie is perhaps its most interesting twist, except for its nicely ironic ending.

Though the setting is mostly out in nature rather than on dark, rainy streets, it still has a strong noir feeling in the same way that OUT OF THE PAST, also set out in nature (and also with Jane Greer) did. The plot and the characterization of the leading male brought to mind DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Both Young and Fred MacMurray play rather weak men dealing with conflicting impulses of good and evil, and both went on to greater stardom playing passive father figures on 50's & 60's TV. Young leaves a little bit to be desired in the lead role, but the rest of the acting is good. I don't always like Susan Hayward, but she's very good here. I hadn't heard much about this movie, but I recommend catching it if it crops up on TCM again.

THE HITCH-HIKER (1953)

This lean little noir thriller has a strong critical reputaton, but the years have not been kind to it. It's only 70 minutes, but it still felt a bit long--it would have worked better as an hour-long TV episode (which means roughly 45 minutes of plot, with credits and ads added). Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy are on a road trip when they pick up hitchhiker William Talman, who it turns out is a psychopathic murderer who has been hitching rides and killing drivers for days. Except for a little exposition at the beginning (with the first murder taking place during the credits), the whole movie is mostly the three of them in the car and, after it breaks down, in the desert, as Talman tries to reach a Mexican coast town to escape by ferry boat. The tension is broken towards the end with a few cutaway scenes of the police as they begin to zero in on the group, but these are kept to a minumum. Talman is very good, edgy and creepy, with a paralyzed eye that stays open even when he's asleep (I wonder if Talman actually had that injury? IMDb doesn't say). O'Brien's never been a favorite of mine, but he's very good here, as is Lovejoy. The trusting and caring relationship between the two is developed nicely and is part of what saves them. I couldn't help but wonder why the two didn't just try to attack him, since he flat out tells them that, eventually, he's going to kill them, so they would seem to have little to lose. Nice photography and some nice directorial touches here and there. Worth seeing, but not as thrilling as it probably once seemed.

THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT (1937)

Though not as good as THREE GODFATHERS or OX-BOW INCIDENT, this is a decent entry in the "bleak western" genre. Preston Foster is a gambler who owns a saloon which doubles as a gambling house (and a brothel, I assume). Despite the success of his business ventures, he is generally considered a bad influence in town. He reluctantly adopts a little orphan girl (who grows up to be Virginia Weidler) and, when a schoolmarm (Jean Muir) arrives to bring education to the rough frontier town, he turns the girl over to her, assuming Muir will be a better caretaker--and Muir gets some help from Van Heflin, as a young preacher who arrives with her to build a church. In the course of the story, Foster is revealed to be a softie and a good guy at heart. The rather rambling plot suddenly takes a weird turn in the last 10 minutes when Foster and some of his cronies are tossed out of town, and Muir, in love with Foster, follows. They wind up stranded in a cabin in a snowstorm with no food and no way to keep warm. Heroism and death follow. Like THREE GODFATHERS, the bleak ending leaves us with a somewhat muddled message. Most of the acting is good (Foster, Weidler, Heflin, and Margaret Irving as the good-hearted "madam" who basically lives with Foster and helps raise Weidler), but Jean Muir as the schoolmarm is wooden and irritating. I found it hard to believe that she'd fall for Foster, and especially that he'd fall for her. Overall, pretty good for a short B-western.

POSSESSED (1947)

This movie, which many think has Joan Crawford's best performance ever, is an interesting mix of noir atmosphere and old-fashioned "women's" melodrama, with a little Hollywood psychoanalysis thrown into the mix. I'm sure there's a good book out there somewhere about how and why Hollywood embraced themes of psychological distress and mental illness in the 40's. This, THE SNAKE PIT, and THE LOST WEEKEND all share certain elements, including visual style and an ambiguous attitude toward the power of medicine to explain and cure mental illness. Crawford is a nurse to the ill (physically and mentally, I assume) wife of Raymond Massey, a character whom we never actually see. Crawford's also carrying on an affair with engineer Van Heflin, who winds up working for Massey. Heflin wants to break things off with Crawford; to him, they're just having a casual fling, but he thinks she's become clingy with her talk of marriage and his rejection begins to unbalance Crawford. When Massey's wife kills herself, Massey asks Crawford to marry him, even though he knows she doesn't love him. He agrees to essentially a sexless union and they marry, though Crawford keeps one eye on Heflin. Massey's daughter, Geraldine Brooks, is slow to trust Crawford, but soon comes around. Unfortunately, she also begins dating Heflin, whose motives for the relationship may not be entirely pure (Daddy's rich). This sets the stage for Crawford's eventual full-blown fall into psychosis.

Crawford carefully walks an acting tightrope here; her character is high-strung from the start and goes certifiably mad by the end, but Crawford never goes over-the-top, tempting as that must have been, especially since she spent much of the 50's doing exactly that in her films. I'm not a big Heflin fan but he is fine here, doing a good job of keeping his character's motivations tantalizingly ambigious. In fact, none of the main characters are exactly "black or white" in terms of their actions or judgments. The relationship of Crawford and Brooks was reminiscent to me of the relationships of both Stanwyck and MacMurray to the daughter in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. The noir lighting and expressionist-style look really add to the film's atmosphere, especially in its opening and closing sequences (like INDEMNITY, it's told in a long flashback). Though this isn't quite as good as INDEMNITY or as compelling as THE SNAKE PIT, it is still very much worth seeing, and it contains maybe Crawford's last great role (?).

Two Comic Trifles with Nat Pendleton

Pendleton was a wrestler who sustained a decent career in the movies as a comic sidekick. I just happened to watch these two fiilms right in a row recently; other than having Pendleton and being comedies, they have little else in common.

BABY FACE HARRINGTON (1935)--This was probably one of supporting actor Charles Butterworth's few leading roles, albeit in a fairly short, second-feature movie. It's essentially the story of one eventful day in the life of a mild-mannered husband (married to Una Merkel): first, he gets fired when he asks for a raise; then, he loses the money he withdrew from the bank to pay off his mortgage, and he wrongly accuses a relative (Donald Meek) of stealing it. Thrown in jail overnight for stealing money from Meek, he gets involved in a breakout masterminded by a real thief, Nat Pendleton. Of course, you see it coming a mile away that he'll wind up a hero. I liked Butterworth in a Roland Young-type part in FORSAKING ALL OTHERS, but he doesn't quite have what it takes to do a strong comic lead. But there is a wonderfully dry and somewhat dark bit near the end where he decides to kill himself by hanging, and winds up in a long, humorous conversation with Pendleton over kinds of knots. Merkel, of course, is good as usual.

IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD (1939)--I saw this way back in the late 80's, before TCM, when TNT was showing old movies,with ads. I didn't like it then, but I decided, what with Jimmy Stewart and Claudette Colbert and TCM's adless presentation, to give it another chance. No dice. It's a screwball mystery--Stewart is a man who's on his way to jail as an accessory in a murder case; he escapes in order to try and catch the real killer and save not just himself but his boss, who is about to be executed. Colbert is a whacky poet he meets along the way--he carjacks her, then can't get rid of her as she vows to help him. I like Colbert here, but Stewart is not up to his usual high standard. The supporting cast is solid, including Pendleton, Guy Kibbee, and Cecil Cunningham, but I couldn't recommend this except to diehard fans of screwball.

CAIRO (1942)

I am most assuredly not a fan of Jeanette MacDonald, so I don't know why I watched CAIRO in the first place. She has a couple of moments here, but like Ruby Keeler in COLLEEN (which I reviewed a few days ago), she is mostly a big energy drain at the center of the movie. Overall, it's a rather cute spy movie spoof, with Robert Young as an American reporter who gets in over his head with a spy ring in Cairo. He thinks MacDonald is a German spy, and gets suckered in by the real spies (including Reginald Owen and Mona Barrie, an actress I'd never heard of, who is pretty good here). There is a very funny bit where Barrie complains about the constant use of secret passages ("Why can't we use doors like normal people?"). There are sneaky references to WIZARD OF OZ and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, and a very fun reference to MacDonald's role in the movie SAN FRANCISCO: Young says to her, "Have you ever been in San Francisco," and she replies, "Once, with Gable and Tracy, and the joint fell apart." Ethel Waters gets to sing but otherwise is underused, as is Dooley Wilson, who gets about three minutes of screen time as Waters' love interest. Despite MacDonald, it is a fun movie, although it drags a bit in the middle.

DESK SET (1957)

I'm pleased to report that I finally found a pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy that I like. I pretty much hate WOMAN OF THE YEAR, don't much care for ADAM'S RIB or GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER, and feel neutral about KEEPER OF THE FLAME. But I saw DESK SET the other night on AMC and enjoyed it (except for the terrible pan & scan print).

Tracy is an efficieny expert brought in to do some work in the reference library of a TV network. The reference librarians assume that whatever he's doing, it's a threat to their jobs; it turns out he's paving the way for a huge room-sized computer to be brought into the department and the women fear it's intended to replace them. Hepburn is the head librarian and she and the other librarians (including Joan Blondell) have a nice casual chemistry. Hepburn has been dating network exec Gig Young for years but the relationship's not going anywhere and she and Tracy begin to hit it off. They have a number of cute scenes together, including a causal lunch on a rooftop and a drunken Christmas party. Tracy does a good job at playing a 50's version of a computer geek, a little oblivious to what's going on around him. Neva Patterson is good as the "techie" who is brought in to run the computer; her demeanor reminded me of Bebe Neuwirth as Lilith in FRASIER. Given that it was made in 1957, I was surprised at the casual assumption that Hepburn & Young's relationship was an intimate one, despite they're not being married. The "surprise" ending involving the computer was nice. I think Tracy and Hepburn were perhaps just a bit too old for their parts, but this was still pretty much a delight all the way around.

Two Early 30's MGM Movies (how's that for an interesting theme?)

TUGBOAT ANNIE (1933)--Marie Dressler in the part she's probably most remembered for (aside perhaps from her relatively small part in DINNER AT EIGHT). She and Wallace Beery have good chemistry as an earthy, long-married couple who run a tugboat. Beery's an irresponsible drunk but he remains mostly likeable; Dressler is the backbone of both the family and the movie. Robert Young is their son who makes good and then essentially cuts all ties to his family on account of Beery's drinking. If this movie were remade today, they would be the very model of a dysfunctional, codependent family. Of course, Beery gets the chance to make good in a melodramatic finale involving bad weather. I usually go into Beery movies not wanting to like him, but he usually wins me over (except perhaps in GRAND HOTEL). Frankie Darro, one of my favorite kid actors, plays the Robert Young character as a child. Overall, a bit sappy and predictable, but an interesting cultural artifact--it was apparently an incredibly popular movie in its day.

THIS MODERN AGE (1931)--Interesting mostly as a somewhat bizarre pre-Code relic. At heart, it's a bland melodrama whose main point of interest is Crawford's shiny blonde hair. She plays a young woman who finds her long-lost mother (Pauline Frederick) in Paris and tries to catch up on lost time with her. The mother is being kept by a married man, but she hides this from Crawford, who herself is beginning to fall in with a fast crowd, led by a young, rich drunkard played by Monroe Owsley (who looks a little like a cross between Pee-Wee Herman and Ayre Gross). Thanks to the boy's drinking, they get in a car crash (oddly played for laughs) and Neil Hamilton saves them. Crawford falls for Hamilton, and vice versa, until he finds out the truth about Crawford's mother. Predictable plot twists ensue on the way to a forced happy ending. No need to worry about catching this one unless you're a Crawford fanatic.

COLLEEN (1936)

The Warner Brothers musical was definitely on its way down with this one, a rather drab affair all around. The trappings are OK, but the Busby Berkeley touch is missed and the multi-undertalented Ruby Keeler provides a vacuum at the center of the movie. There is a rather convoluted plot reminiscent of the Gold Diggers movies, except it doesn't revolve around the staging of a Broadway show. Keeler is a bookkeeper for a dress design company. She falls for Dick Powell, a businessman who is ordered by his rich but very eccentric boss (and uncle) Hugh Herbert to shut the company down. Jack Oakie (also undertalented and occasionally irritating, but serviceable here) is Keeler's con-man boyfriend, who gets sweet on golddigging Joan Blondell, who is plucked out of a chocolate factory by Herbert, who wants her to be his mistress, against the wishes of his wife, Louise Fazenda. Got it? There are rather bland songs scattered throughout, and a couple of creative dance numbers, including the finale "You Gotta Know How to Dance." Blondell and Fazenda give the movie its only real zip. If you like Herbert's befuddled and giggly schtick, you'll love him here--he does a lot of it. Marie Wilson has a small part and Ward Bond has an even smaller part as a cop. The most interesting thing about the movie is that during the credits, the actors introduce their characters through song.

THAT'S RIGHT, YOU'RE WRONG (1939)

This is a cute little comedy (not quite a musical, although there are several songs performed) with 30's bandleader Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge band. I'd seen one previous Kyser movie, YOU'LL FIND OUT, which as I recall was about spies and seances, but that was quite a while ago. This one, from 1939, was his first movie, and it has a premise full of self-referential fun: a studio head hears Kyser's popular radio show and has the idea to bring Kyser and his band to Hollywood to appear in a movie. When he sees Kyser's plain appearance, he realizes that he's not cut out to be a romantic leading man, as the role calls for, and he tries to get Kyser to bow out. However, Kyser catches on and instead plays along until he gets the producer to agree to buy him out of his contract.

The first half is quite funny and moves along at a good speed. As the plot thickens in the middle, it bogs down a bit, but there are pleasures to be had all along the way. May Robson is delightful as Kyser's earthy grandmother; Edward Everett Horton is one of the screenwriters; Adolphe Menjou is a studio boss; Lucille Ball is an ambitious starlet. The funniest scene involves a screen test with Kyser, playing a gondolier, romancing Ball. He has ridiculous makeup, including huge hoop earrings, a loose toupee that flaps around, and a patently fake mustache that winds up on Ball's face during a kiss. The plot actually ends at around the 80 minute mark and the last ten minutes is a recreation of a real Kyser radio show. His famous sideman, Ish Kabibble, is deadpan fun. The musical highlight is a weird number where they all dress up like animals and sing a song about a fox and a dog, and there's even an early OZ reference courtesy a singing scarecrow!

THE SWIMMER (1968)

According to the calendar, fall should soon be upon us, but with our Internet "Weather Bug" telling me that it's 97 degrees out right now, summer seems to be in no hurry to leave. So watching this film, set on a hot summer afternoon in a wealthy Connecticut suburb, seemed in order. I'd seen this movie in bits and pieces over the years but never all of it until now. I was quite impressed and am still thinking it through. Burt Lancaster is a suburban advertising man, with wife and kids, who frivolously decides to swim home one summer afternoon through the pools of his neighbors. (Where he's been that morning and why he's wearing only swimming trunks in the first place is never brought up.) In doing so, he meets up with people he hasn't socialized with in a while and has to face up to unpleasant elements of his past (an abandoned mistress) and present (an unsavory crush on college girl who used to babysit for his kids). For a while, I thought this wasn't working; the narrative thread is rather weak, and many of the characters, especially Lancaster, talk at times in overblown dialogue that doesn't always quite come off. But eventually it begins to gel: it's really more a personal allegory than a totally realistic narrative. It turns out that Lancaster has a secret, from us if not from his neighbors, and the revelation at the end, though not totally out of the blue, is stunningly presented. Too much of the dialogue was obviously post-dubbed which gives the whole thing a weird distancing effect, like a dubbed foreign movie. But even when things got slow, Burt Lancaster in the prime of his life, in tight swim trunks, was enough eye candy to get me to stick with it. The cast is mostly unknowns and TV actors, with a brief but showy part by Janice Rule, apparently filmed several months after principal photography was completed. The production history of the movie was a rocky one, but unlike many troubled films, the off-screen problems don't affect the movie. Highly recommended if you have a high tolerance for allegory.

SPOILER PARAGRAPH!!!:
In the end, we discover that Lancaster has apparently lost his cushy job and house, and possibly his wife and kids as well. The neighbors he meets as he swims through the pools all seem to be aware that something bad happened to him in the past, and they're surprised to see him, but none act like there's anything wrong with his references to his house and his family, and the specifics of his loss or trauma are never made clear. All we know is that when he finally comes to his pool, the house is locked up and the grounds look like they haven't been cared for in quite a while. Stickler for narrative that I am, I am left wondering: Where was he just before the beginning of the movie? Did he lose his house and none of the neighbors knew? Or do they know and are humoring him? Why is he in swimming trunks? Or, does none of it work on a literal level? Has he lost both his lifestyle *and* his mind? Was he in an institution? Was this all in his imagination? Is the whole thing a "rich white guy male menopause" episode? In some ways, all that stuff doesn't matter; the effect of the ending is strong and leaves an impact no matter how you choose to interpret the film.

FOUR JILLS IN A JEEP (1944)

This is a wartime variety-show musical loosely based on the real-life USO experiences of the main actresses: Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, and a dancer named Mitzi Mayfair who I had never heard of before I saw this film. The four, who all play themselves, go from doing a USO radio show in the States to traveling to England to play for the soldiers, then volunteering to head out to North Africa in the middle of some real action (where it threatens to become a bland variation on CRY HAVOC). I understand that the plot is basically an excuse for the musical numbers, but the numbers are nothing to write home about, except for Martha Raye singing a swing novelty called "Mr. Paganini" (a song I know from Ella Fitzgerald, my favorite singer of all time).

Kay Francis comes off the best, even though, as she admits, she doesn't sing, dance, or recite, but she is the backbone of the group, organizing events and keeping up morale. The bland Dick Haymes plays a soldier who falls for Mayfair. The infinitely irritating Phil Silvers is an infinitely irritating soldier who is assigned to accompany the girls. Some celebs who appear as themselves include Carmen Miranda, Alice Faye (who does a nice rendition of "You'll Never Know"), and George Jessel. The North Africa section, with the Jills playing nurse under fire, rings totally false, but dramatically is the most satisfying part of the movie. I must admit I could barely stay awake through this one, and if it weren't for Kay Francis, I probably wouldn't have bothered finishing it.

BROTHER ORCHID (1940)

When this was shown recently on TCM, Robert Osborne described it as a gangster spoof, which is, I think, misusing the word "spoof." It is, however, very light in tone, with some funny moments. Edward G. Robinson plays a gangster who thinks things are getting too hot so he decides to retire and live the classy life (a plot thread straight out of an earlier Robinson movie, THE LITTLE GIANT). He leaves his mob in the hands of Humphrey Bogart--Robinson should have learned, after KID GALAHAD and THE AMAZING DR. CLITTERHOUSE, not to trust Bogart!). Things don't work out, so Robinson comes back to the old business, only to be double-crossed by Bogie and the mob (except for faithful sidekick Allen Jenkins). On the run from assassins, Robinson winds up wounded on the grounds of a monastery. The brothers give him medical treatment and he decides to lay low and stay with the flower-growing monks for a while (hence the title of the movie), but eventually he gets dragged back into his old life, at least for one more shot at revenge against Bogie.

Robinson is good, especially in the earlier scenes; his final transformation to gentle monk could be handled better. Donald Crisp and Cecil Kellaway are fine as monks; Allen Jenkins is also good, but rather inexplicably vanishes from the movie about halfway through. The surprise for me was Ann Sothern, who steals most of her scenes as Robinson's long-time gal who keeps hoping against hope that he'll marry her (rather like Adelaide in GUYS AND DOLLS). The last few minutes are wrapped up a little too quickly, but otherwise, quite worth watching.

THE CROSS OF LORRAINE (1943)

In WWII, during the occupation of France, a group of French soldiers are talked into surrendering to the Germans with the promise of being sent home, but are tricked and sent to a concentration camp. The movie follows their attempts to stay sane and healthy, and to escape to join the Resistance. Gene Kelly is the cockiest one of the bunch who is eventually beaten down through torture. Jean-Pierre Aumont becomes the de facto leader of the men, remaining level-headed but optimistic, and eventually leading an escape. Cedric Hardwicke, Hume Cronyn and Wallace Ford are other prisoners. Peter Lorre is appropriately slimy as a Nazi bureaucrat. The post-escape section of the movie, in which some of the men manage to hide out in a small village and lead the entire village populace in an uprising, feels a little too Hollywood, but it certainly helps the film's propaganda quotient; the main point of the story seems to be to show American audiences that not all the French gave up or became collaborators--the title cross is a symbol of the Free French. For a 40's movie, there is a rather startling scene of violence where a Nazi gets a knife in the neck. Aumont's genuine French accent thows things off for a while, since none of the other actors is even really trying to sound French; until you get used to it, it feels like Aumont is the only French soldier among an international group. Overall, it isn't very realistic, but it is occasionally exciting and manages to rouse the right inspirational feelings.

SMARTY (1934)

This is an infuriating little comedy, an early screwball, with a lead female character who manages to be more irritating than the Hepburn character in BRINGING UP BABY--and for me to say that, you know she had to be a truly unlikable bitch. Despite my intense dislike of the character, Joan Blondell, who plays her in one of her few leads, is very good, a little different in tone than I've ever seen her. She's not quite tough, but she's not a whimpering wallflower. She's not dumb, but she's not all that smart, either (I have no idea where the title comes from; the British title, HIT ME AGAIN, makes much more sense). I laughed out loud several times, even while I was grinding my teeth at both the Blondell character and the way she was treated. Plotwise, Blondell has a fight with her husband (Warren William, also cast a smidge against type, where he seems NOT to be a ruthless and callous bastard businessman) and he slaps her in the face at a dinner party. She doesn't actually seem to be all that hurt, physically or emotionally, but she nevertheless decides to get a divorce, egged on by lawyer friend Edward Everett Horton, who is himself in love with Blondell. After the divorce, Horton marries Blondell and is eventually driven to slap her as well, which sends her back to William, who not only slaps her again, but also rips her dress off before carting her to the bedroom for what looks to be consensual sex.

The message, honest to God, is that some women just need to be slapped around every so often, and when they (and their husbands) realize that, happiness will reign supreme. Yes, the Blondell character was incredibly obnoxious, always choosing to do the stupidest, most irritating thing in any given situation, but how even mild physical abuse is the answer to that is beyond me. What these men see in her (aside from her physical charms, which are nicely displayed) is also beyond me. I thought William and Horton should both have dumped Blondell and gone off together at the end. The acting all around is quite good. Claire Dodd and Frank McHugh provide nice comic relief (relief, that is, from the "comic" arguing and violence that occurs among the three leads). I've rarely enjoyed a movie and been so exasperated by it at the same time. The fact that it's only an hour long helps; if it were made a few years later, it would have been stretched out to at least 90 minutes and probably would have been unbearable. Even though this would seem to be an early example of screwball comedy (it came out the same year as IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, which many claim to be the first screwball), I have yet to find a reference to this film in any critical histories or even in the standard reference books, like Halliwell or Maltin. Perhaps it deserves to be mostly lost.