THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (1939)

This perfectly acceptable B-thriller has become something of a cult item among horror/sf fans for two reasons: 1) the title implies that it's a sequel to the earlier cult film DOCTOR X; 2) it has Humphrey Bogart in a supporting role before he became a superstar. The horror content is actually secondary to the science fiction elements, and even those are used in support of a more traditional crime story. Reporter Wayne Morris is on his way to interview a famous actress (Lya Lys), but when he arrives, she's dead, stabbed in the chest and drained of blood. His paper prints an extra with his sensational story, but when the cops get there, the body has vanished and soon she shows up very much alive, threatening the paper with a lawsuit. Morris's job is on the line so he gets Dennis Morgan, a doctor pal of his, to help investigate this mystery, and when a rare blood type-donor is found murdered and drained in a similar fashion, they ask for help from esteemed surgeon John Litel, who winds up knowing more about both cases than he first lets on. Litel has a rather fey but creepy assistant (Bogart) with deathly pale skin, a buzz cut with a "Bride of Frankenstein" white streak, little round glasses, and cold, cold hands, and he's often seen holding and stroking a white rabbit. Our heroes discover that Bogart is actually a disgraced doctor named Xavier who was executed for killing children during experiments and was brought back to life by Litel using artificial blood. The problem is that Litel then needs fresh blood to keep Bogart alive. (The "living dead" actress is in the same boat.) In a nifty "Re-Animator"-type scene, Litel brings a dead rabbit back to life. The climax involves Morris and Morgan chasing Bogart, who is holding nurse Rosemary Lane hostage. This is likely to disappoint classic horror fans for the same reason that the 1932 DOCTOR X is often disparaged: too much comic relief. I'm a fan of B-thrillers and of Wayne Morris, so I enjoyed the film and Morris's bouncy, light performance, but fans of Bogie and horror films probably will not, despite some nice shadowy sets, impressionistic cinematography, and mad-scientist touches. Morris and Morgan make a nice pair, and if you like this, check them out in FLIGHT ANGELS. Litel is rather bland, though it's nice that he's more civilized than the traditional deranged doctor. Lane has little to do, and though some don't like Bogart's performance, I like it because it verges on camp without losing a menacing edge. John Ridgely has a one-line role as the murdered blood donor. [DVD]

PHFFFT (1954)

The odd title of this film is really the only noteworthy thing about it. It's largely an updated version of THE AWFUL TRUTH (with little of that movie's zany wit and charm) with a dash of THE ODD COUPLE thrown in. A (very young) Jack Lemmon plays a lawyer and Judy Holliday is his wife, the creator of a successful radio and TV soap opera. One evening, while he's trying to read a mystery novel and she's pacing the floor restlessly, they simultaneously realize that they're bored with each other and decide to divorce. Lemmon moves in with his buddy Jack Carson, who thinks he should immediately get back in the dating game and tries to show him some of the ropes, including setting him up with the sexy Kim Novak (doing her best Marilyn Monroe imitation). Holliday is approached by an actor from her soap opera for what she thinks is a date but is instead a gripe session about his character. She and Lemmon wind up taking dancing lessons at the same Arthur Murray studio, and more or less accidentally end up doing a mambo together at a night club, but just when it looks like the spark has returned, they have a spat while he's doing her taxes. In the end, Carson, sure that Lemmon and Novak are hitting it off, puts the moves on Holliday, which ensures that Lemmon will show up to get rid of Carson and patch things up permanently with Holliday. Holliday is fine, but Lemmon and Novak are sexy and energetic and work up quite a bit of chemistry, and honestly I was sort of hoping that they would wind up together--though that would break all the rules of the screwball "comedy of remarriage" genre to which this film belongs. There is a cute bit involving a statue with glowing electric eyes that Carson puts in his apartment window as a "Don't come a-knockin'" signal. At only 90 minutes, this still feels a bit too long; individual scenes work well (the mambo scene, Lemmon's dates with Novak, a bit with a French teacher), but it just doesn't quite come together. [TCM]

CHARLIE CHAN IN LONDON (1934)
CHARLIE CHAN IN PARIS (1935)

The Charlie Chan movies have a sticky reputation today, largely based on the fact that the main character, a Chinese detective who works for the Honolulu police, was played by a non-Chinese actor, Swedish born Warner Oland (and after he died, by American Sidney Toler). This would almost certainly not happen today, though Asian roles were still being played by Anglo actors into the 70's (David Carradine as the half-Chinese Buddhist priest Caine in TV’s "Kung Fu"). I can understand the discomfort that some viewers today might feel watching a performance that could be described as "Asian blackface," but it was a Hollywood truism for many years that American audiences would not accept Asian actors in leading roles. If you can get past this problem, the Chan movies are generally quite fun, and even could be seen as "politically correct" in content if not performance, as Chan not only always remains dignified in the face of prejudice, but also always outdoes or outfoxes the Anglo good guys and bad guys. Though there were 8 previous movies in which Chan was either featured or starred, LONDON is apparently the earliest one that still exists intact. Drue Leyton's brother is about to be executed in three days for murder, but she's convinced he's innocent and goes to Chan for help. When the brother's attorney, Ray Milland, who is also Leyton's fiance, confides to Chan that he thinks the brother is guilty, Leyton breaks off their engagement. Chan agrees to help and attends a house party at which are present most of the principals of the case. There is a sinister butler, a drunkard, a horse's groom, and a bumbling country inspector (E.E. Clive) who keeps calling Chan, "Chang." There is also a reenactment of the original murder, an apparent suicide, a secret military invention, a near-fatal horse accident, and some gunplay before Chan cracks the case. The familiar supporting actors include Alan Mowbray, Douglas Walton, and Mona Barrie. (BTW, this is the movie that one of the producers in Robert Altman's GOSFORD PARK is supposedly researching). The next film has Chan arriving, umm.. IN PARIS to investigate bank fraud. He gets a stern warning delivered with a rock thrown through his taxi. He meets up with the son of the bank president (Thomas Beck, who appeared as a major character in several Chan and Mr. Moto films), then goes to see exotic dancer Nardi (Dorothy Appleby) who has some information for Chan but who is murdered at the end of an acrobatic dance number. There is a mysterious beggar, counterfeiters, blackmail, and a chase through the sewers of Paris, but most notably this film marked the first appearance of Chan's westernized son, played here by the handsome Keye Luke who would play the same role in not only six other Chan films, but even in a Mr. Moto film. Erik Rhodes, one of my favorite supporting comic actors, has a more serious role here. I find the plots of the Chan movies, like those of the Thin Man movies, to be interchangeable, but what they lack in narrative originality is made up for by Oland's excellent performances. [DVD]

BULLDOG DRUMMOND (1929)
BULLDOG DRUMMOND IN AFRICA (1938)

The Bulldog Drummond series was not one that was featured on TCM, but I recently got a chance see to the first Drummond talkie, a well-regarded film which is difficult to run across. The title character is Captain Hugh Drummond, retired from the British Army, who, in the novels by H.C. McNeile, drifts into becoming a brawny two-fisted adventurer, though in the movies, he wound up more like a typical movie sleuth. In the 1929 film, the dapper Ronald Colman plays Drummond, who is bored with his quiet post-war life; the first scene, featuring the comic shattering of the total silence of a men's club room, must have been the inspiration for the similar opening scene of the Fred Astaire classic TOP HAT. Colman advertises his services as someone looking for excitement, and he finds some when he gets involved in helping Joan Bennett, whose uncle is being held against his will in a mansion-like sanitarium. It's interesting seeing Colman as a thriller hero, playing against his usual laid-back persona; he even gets to strangle a bad guy to death with his bare hands! Another pleasure is the peculiarly fey but amusing acting style of Claud Allister as Drummond's buddy Algy. The shadowy mansion sets are wonderful, with a Caligarish look now and then (courtesy well known production designer William Cameron Menzies); sometimes the rooms look like they are right out of a Universal mad doctor castle. Lawrence Grant, Lilyan Tashman, and Montagu Love are suitably evil as the chief villains. The director, F. Richard Jones, has some nice "moving camera" touches. This is a solidly entertaining, mostly light-toned thriller, and a good one to see even if you think you don't like early talkies.

Between 1937 and 1939, Paramount made nine Bulldog Drummond B-movies, beginning with BULLDOG DRUMMOND ESCAPES with Ray Milland--and if memory serves me, I believe that one basically recycled the plot of the Colman film, though instead of an uncle, Milland rescues a young woman (Heather Angel) from a similar foreboding mansion filled with baddies. Most of the Paramount films, however, had John Howard in the title role, an actor I know mostly as Katharine Hepburn's loser fiance in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, with Angel continuing as the woman Howard is constantly on the verge of marrying before he is tempted away on the eve of the wedding by some mysterious case or matter of national import. IN AFRICA begins with Howard and his butler (E. E. Clive) stuck at home without guns or trousers so they can't go anywhere before the wedding. However, Scotland Yard inspector H. B. Warner is kidnapped by notorious spy J. Carroll Naish, who spirits him away to Morocco to get the secret of a new British invention, the radio wave disintegrator (sounds like a good enough McGuffin to me!). Angel sees Warner being abducted and frees Howard so they can chase after him, in Howard's own plane, along with Clive and sidekick Reginald Denny, taking over the part of Algy. There are thuggish henchmen (including Anthony Quinn), ferocious lions, and a hidden bomb for our gang to deal with before the predictable but still exciting finale. Except for its exotic setting, this film is typical of the series. Howard is not the most dashing hero, but I grew to like him as Drummond. As the series goes on, the wedding shenanigans become tiresome, but are thankfully kept to a relative minimum here. Film buffs will recognize Fortunio Bonanova as a Moroccan cop. Short (just under an hour), fast-paced, and enjoyable, like most of the Paramount Drummonds. The series was later picked up by other studios in the late 40's with a variety of actors, but those appear to be out of circulation. [DVD]

THE LONE WOLF SPY HUNT (1939)
THE LONE WOLF MEETS A LADY (1940)

The Lone Wolf, like the Saint and Boston Blackie, wasn't a traditional Sam Spade-type private eye with an office and a secretary. Like the others, he's a man of independent means who helps out folks who happen to cross his path, and though he'll work with the police when he has to, he seems to spend just as much time avoiding them. Michael Lanyard (played here by Warren William) is the Lone Wolf, a former jewel thief, and his character's situation underwent a major change between the first William entry in the Columbia series (SPY HUNT) and the third (LADY). The Lanyard we meet in SPY HUNT has a young daughter (Virginia Weidler) who lives with him, and is therefore always a potential "damsel in distress," and the tone of the film veers uneasily toward screwball comedy. The movie opens with William snatched off the street by thugs in order to crack a safe. He refuses, saying he's reformed, and he's let go but not before the gang boss (Ralph Morgan) has swiped a couple of William's cigarettes, a custom brand made for him. Morgan has a past score to settle with William and when his men break into a safe and steal some plans for a new anti-aircraft gun, they plant one of the cigarettes. The next day, William has to answer not only to the cops but also to his high-strung girlfriend (Ida Lupino) for why he stiffed her on a date. When Morgan discovers that his men only got half the plans, he sends sexy Rita Hayworth after William to coerce him to get the rest. He does, but manages to hide the gun plans and substitute pages of baby carriage plans. There are more chases, more alibis, and both young Weidler and William's droll butler (Leonard Carey) get involved before it all gets resolved. The best scene is at a surrealist party, with guests dressed as Dali clocks, alphabet blocks, and bunches of flowers. William is his usual debonair unruffled self, and I enjoyed watching him pull his little double-crosses against practically everyone, but Lupino is miscast, trying but failing to strike the right comic tone in her jealous rages. The familiar character actor Tom Dugan plays one of the cops.

In MEETS A LADY, William has lost the daughter and gotten a different butler, the priceless Eric Blore, who is much more amusing than his predecessor. Jean Muir, about to marry into the rich Penyon family via the son, Warren Hull, has to wear the family's valuable heirloom diamond necklace at a high society party. We see family member Marla Shelton telephone Victor Jory to tell him the necklace's whereabouts. Later that night, Muir's ex-husband (Roger Pryor), thought dead, shows up at her apartment and demands the necklace, but before he can get it, he is shot and killed by an unseen person. On the streets, the William and Blore almost hit Muir with their car and they're all taken downtown by a traffic cop. When William hears her story, he gives her an alibi, but she gets nervous and bolts anyway. William poses as a cop, gathers all the partygoers, and begins to get the bottom of the case, which involves an imitation copy of the necklace being passed off as the real thing. This film, though definitely not aiming at a screwball tone, manages to be breezier and more fun than the first one, largely due to the interplay between William and Blore. Other Lone Wolf entries might be worth watching just for these two actors. Otherwise, the series doesn't seem all that different from the Falcon or the Saint. Still, fans of the short, light detective thriller will probably enjoy these. [TCM]

CRIME DOCTOR (1943)
CRIME DOCTOR'S STRANGEST CASE (1943)
CRIME DOCTOR'S WARNING (1945)

A B-movie detective series, with a bit of a twist on the gentleman/ex-con sleuth formula. Based on a radio serial, the first film is an "origin" story, telling how Warner Baxter becomes the Crime Doctor. We first see Baxter being dumped unconscious from a speeding car. When he comes to in a hospital, he has amnesia, though otherwise he makes a good recovery, and he's taken in by a kindly doctor (Ray Collins) who inspires Baxter to turn from the temptation of a self-pitying life spent in drunken dissolution to making something of himself by going to medical school. He has a successful career as a psychiatrist, taking the name Ordway, but he occasionally finds himself shadowed by John Litel, a figure from his past whom Baxter does not recognize. We find out that Baxter was a mastermind thief named Morgan who crossed up his own gang, leading to the beating and dumping of the first scene. Baxter hid some money from the gang, and Litel wants it back, though he also realizes that the amnesia is real and not an act, so he bides his time. Because Baxter has a good influence on prisoners (we see him work his wonders on convict Leon Ames), he becomes a member of the local parole board. Eventually, of course, Baxter does confront his past, is put on trial, and makes a speech to the jury saying that if they convict the guilty Morgan, they'll imprison the innocent Ordway. In typical B-film fashion, the ending is rushed but satisfactory. Margaret Lindsay is Baxter's romantic interest.

The second film, STRANGEST CASE, is a straightforward mystery involving a murder in a houseful of suspects. Lloyd Bridges plays an ex-con who was charged with poisoning his employer until Baxter's testimony got him released. Bridges' new job is very much like his previous one, secretary to a rich man, and soon that rich man is found dead from poison. Bridges goes on the run but there are plenty of other suspects for Baxter to hound: Virginia Brissac is an odd, almost otherworldly housekeeper whose surreal dream, which we see depicted on screen, may or may not hold a key to the mystery; Gloria Dickson is a cook who is most assuredly not who she seems to be (and she gets a wonderful unmasking scene); Rose Hobart is the dead man's young wife; Reginald Denny is the dead man's nephew; Jerome Cowan is an eccentric songwriter who is also a firebug (to both serious and comic effect). Baxter, with some help from cop Barton MacLane, discovers an abandoned nightclub which plays a crucial role in bringing up buried secrets from the past. The movie, with its long roster of colorful suspects and intertwined relationships, is a little underwritten, with a rush of information just told rather than developed. But it's still a lot of fun, less like a Boston Blackie cops & thugs crime thriller than an old-fashioned Philo Vance mystery, and the sometimes wooden Baxter is perfectly adequate here, especially with the colorful supporting cast around him.

By the time of WARNING, the fifth in the series, things have gone decidedly downhill in writing and production values. Here, Baxter is trying to help sensitive struggling (and handsome) artist Coulter Irwin with his bouts of memory lapses, especially when Irwin becomes the chief suspect in the murder of two lovely models he had worked with, one of whom he wanted to marry. John Litel, the chief baddie from the first movie, is Baxter's cop buddy in this one, and the suspects, all from the lower echelons of the New York art world, include John Abbott as a silhouette artist, Eduardo Ciannelli as a gruff male model angry that women are getting all the good jobs, Miles Mander as a museum curator, and Alma Kruger as Irwin's smothering mother. There is promise in the set-up but so much information is delivered as tedious exposition that practically nothing actually happens on screen (except for one creepy moment when the second model is killed). The sets look cheap, though William Castle, in an early directorial effort, tries to conjure some mysterious atmosphere to hide that fact. It's fun to see a Hollywood version of a 40's Greenwich Village milieu, with a roomful of artists almost looking like before-their-time beatniks. Most of the acting is fine, but Baxter, though only in his mid-50s, seems old and tired, and a couple of his flubbed lines are left in. Much as I enjoyed the first two, this one left me not anxious to see any others. [TCM]

DICK TRACY'S DILEMMA (1947)

Of all the 40's crime fighter movie series I've been watching recently, the Dick Tracy films (based on the long-running comic series created by Chester Gould) are the cheapest looking and the least exciting ones, but if this film is typical of the short-lived series, then there are some simple pleasures for film buffs to enjoy. In two earlier films, Tracy was played by Morgan Conway, but apparently there was popular demand to replace him with Ralph Byrd, who played Tracy in a couple of serials in the 30's (and who also was Tracy in a 50's TV show). I haven't seen Conway and I'm not all that familiar with the comic strip (though I do remember watching the animated series when I was very young) but Byrd seems well cast as the no-nonsense cop. What doesn't translate as well is the colorful milieu of the comic strip, with its fairly graphic violence, exaggerated characters out of Damon Runyon, and bizarrely named villains. One night, a hulking, limping man named the Claw (Jack Lambert) who has a hook for a hand, breaks into a warehouse where he and his cronies steal some furs and kill a night watchman in the process. Tracy and his sidekick Pat Patton (Lyle Latell) are on the case with some help from an old man named Sightless Silas (Jimmy Conlin) who hangs out in front of the Blinking Skull bar pretending to be blind, picking up bits of info to sell to Tracy. Silas overhears the Claw and, in the movie's best scene, is eventually tracked down and disposed of. Tracy suspects that the fur company's recent change of insurance companies may be tied to the theft, and he's right, but is the bad guy Peter Premium, the insurance agent (William B. Davidson) or the fur company boss (Charles Marsh)? Retired (and very hammy) Shakespearean actor Vitamin Flintheart (Ian Keith) gets pressed into service by Tracy, as does Longshot Lilly (Bernadene Hayes). The low budget is obvious in the threadbare sets and costumes, and the film doesn't do justice to the strange world of the comic strip, although a solid noir mood is established in some scenes. I was surprised that Tracy's longtime girlfriend Tess Trueheart (Kay Christopher) had so little to do. The brutish Lambert is quite scary and the pompous Keith is fun. Bryd anchors all in a steadfast fashion. With a one hour running time, the film goes by quickly, which is a plus. [TCM]

MEET BOSTON BLACKIE (1941)
ALIAS BOSTON BLACKIE (1942)
ONE MYSTERIOUS NIGHT (1944)

Last year, I reviewed two movies in the Boston Blackie series. These mysteries were done on the cheap and it shows, but I generally enjoy actor Chester Morris and the light touch he brings to the character, so I was pleased to see a batch of Blackies show up on TCM recently. MEET is the first in the series (not counting a handful of silents which seem to be lost). Morris, on a passenger ship returning to the U.S., saves Constance Worth from molestation by Nestor Paiva. When the ship docks and Paiva is found dead, Morris, already under suspicion by inspector Richard Lane for selling stolen jewels overseas, is now under suspicion for murder. Morris and his sidekick The Runt (Charles Wagenheim) follow Worth to Coney Island where she's killed in the Tunnel of Love by a supposed mechanical man. Morris gets away from the scene when he hops a ride with innocent bystander Rochelle Hudson, and she helps him clear his name (despite Lane's insistence to Morris that he's "gonna sizzle like a squab in a pan!") and expose a spy ring at the park. The proceedings remain lively, though the climax is too short--I guess when they got close to an hour, the bosses at Columbia just said, "Cut!" There are a couple of fun running gags, one of which has Morris leaving messages for Lane written in soap on mirrors (nicely counterpointed at the end when Lane leaves one for Morris on his windshield). I like that it's implied that Morris is indeed guilty of the jewel robbery but that Lane lets it slide. Schlitze (real name, Simon Metz), one of the "pinheads" from FREAKS, can be seen here in a freak show scene. One problem with the low budget is that Morris lives in the most under-designed and under-decorated penthouse ever.

By ALIAS, the third in the series, underrated character actor George E. Stone had taken over as The Runt, a happy occurrence, and he appears in most of the rest of the films. Looking back on my earlier reviews, I see that I wasn't all that crazy about Stone, but now I have come to appreciate him more and I think he does fine work here. With my weakness for all things Christmas, I was pleased that this film opens with Morris and Stone decorating a Christmas tree. That's about it for any real holiday spirit, however, as the two head off to take part in a volunteer vaudeville show at the local prison where Morris does a magic act (magic was a real-life interest of the actor). Afterwards, one prisoner (Larry Parks), who claims to have been framed, dresses up as a clown and escapes with the troupe, and to show the Inspector (Lane again) that he wasn't in on it, Morris has to track him down. Of course, Parks has a sister (Adele Mara) who gets Morris to help prove Parks' innocence. Lloyd Corrigan as Morris' rich, eccentric friend Arthur is carried over from CONFESSIONS, and Cy Kendall begins the recurring role of Jumbo Madigan, an underworld contact. There's a fairly exciting climax and a Christmas toast at the end.

A couple of years later, Columbia made a stab at expanding the audience for these films by giving them titles without the Boston Blackie name. ONE MYSTERIOUS NIGHT doesn't come anywhere near living up to its title; "Inspector Boston Blackie" would. The famous Blue Star of the Nile diamond disappears in broad daylight from a charity exhibition and the Inspector calls on Morris for help, even deputizing him and giving him a badge, then spreading a cover story in the press that Morris is wanted for the theft. Brassy, nosy reporter Janis Carter becomes a pain in the ass for Morris (and oddly, never becomes a romantic interest until the very last minute of the film). William Wright makes a fine thuggish bad guy. Morris and Stone get to don a few disguises (and Morris wears them very well, especially his "old man" outfit). Mark Roberts plays a hotel manager who is implicated in the crimes and Dorothy Malone (at this point in her career still uncredited) is his sister who tries to get him out of trouble. It's about average for a Boston Blackie entry, but there isn't much "mysterious" about it. Generally, I find these films not quite on a par with the George Sanders Saint films but they're a bit more memorable than some of the other B-thriller series of the era. [TCM]

THE SAINT STRIKES BACK (1939)
THE SAINT IN LONDON (1939)

Recently, Turner Classic Movies devoted an entire month to detective movie series of the 30's and 40's, so I took this opportunity to catch up on some of the series I've missed or haven't seen in a while. I like mystery novels, but I'm not a big follower of series characters; when I've read a couple by any given author (like Martha Grimes or P.D. James, for example), I've usually had my fill, no matter how good they are. Generally I feel the same about these movie series, and the closer they are to formula programmers, the stronger I feel. I admit to getting the Saint and Falcon movies of the 40's mixed up, mostly because George Sanders played both for a time, and the character types are similar: suave, quiet, upper-class gentlemen with a bit of the rogue about them who help folks in distress, sometimes with and sometimes against the police. Sanders is always fun to watch, and STRIKES BACK was his first movie as the Saint, real name Simon Templar, who is explicitly referred to in the film as a Robin Hood type, not above a little larceny for the right reason. This one begins with a bang in a San Francisco nightclub at a New Year's Eve celebration. Wendy Barrie, who has made headlines on a crusade to clear her dead father's reputation as a corrupt cop, is seated with a couple of men. When the lights dim at midnight, one of the men gets up, pulls out a revolver, and takes aim at another man, but Sanders, hidden behind a plant, aims at the gunman first and kills him. In the ensuing uproar, Barrie sneaks out, followed closely by Sanders. The two don't exactly hit it off, but he does find out that Barrie and her boyfriend (Neil Hamilton) have become mixed up with a gang of shady characters who they hope can help them in her crusade. Sanders himself is on a mission to bring down mysterious underworld boss Waldman, and since it was Waldman who framed Barrie's dad, Sanders and Barrie eventually overcome their adversarial relationship to work together. The supporting cast includes Barry Fitzgerald as a safecracker, Jerome Cowan as a criminologist, and Jonathan Hale as the police inspector who gets a goofy hallucination scene when he gets sick from eating lobster. As often happens, the plot strands got a bit difficult to follow, but Sanders' dry delivery makes it worth sitting through. No real romance develops in this one, though my favorite line has Sanders saying to Barrie that he loves her, but that he also loves "fireflies and mockingbirds and pink sunsets."

LONDON also has a memorable opening, with Sanders getting his pocket picked by David Burns, then Sanders returning the favor, and then hiring Burns has his valet. Sanders is on the trail of crook Henry Oscar who is behind a counterfeiting ring. Young socialite Sally Grey, wanting some action, tags along with Sanders as they break into a safe and find a beaten-up man along the road, a foreign count (John Abbot) who was forced to cooperate with Oscar's gang. Sanders hides him at a boarding house, passing him off as police inspector Teal (Gordon McLeod), but the bad guys get him anyway, and the real Teal gets involved. Again, there are some confusing plot strands, and the cast of British supporting players were mostly unknown to me and they all started looking alike, so I had a harder time than usual keeping characters clear in my mind, but with kidnapping, espionage and murder (at least one at the hand of Sanders), and the sometimes bungling attempts of Burns and Grey to help, things stay lively to the predictable end. More sleuth series reviews coming up. [TCM]

SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING (1960)

I have not seen many films from the "Angry Young Man" era of British cinema, realistic stories of the working-class generation of the late 50's and early 60's. I picture these movies as grimy documents of drab, desperate lives lived in smoky bars and oppressive factories, with characters who are unhappy with their present situations, and rather incoherently angry at their parents, their bosses, and society in general. Well, based on the evidence of this film, the one that brought the young Albert Finney to stardom, I wasn't far wrong. Finney works at a soulless (and occasionally dangerous) factory job in Nottingham and lives with his parents in a crowded little house. His father, also a factory worker, is content to come home and veg in front of the TV, not really paying attention to anything around him. In these domestic scenes, Finney comes off as a more sociable Alex (from CLOCKWORK ORANGE), frustrated but not knowing exactly why or what he wants. He seems to live for his partying Saturday nights, which usually end in fistfights and hangovers--we see one example early on in which he gets into a drinking contest with a sullen sailor (Colin Blakely). Finney is sleeping with a slightly older woman (Rachel Roberts) who is married to a pal of his (Bryan Pringle) at the factory, and flirting with a girl (Shirley Ann Field) he meets in a pub. Soon, Roberts is pregnant and Finney casts about randomly for a solution, notably miscarriage recipes from an aunt (Hylda Baker). Roberts considers an abortion but ultimately decides against it, and in the movie's most memorable sequence, Pringle gets some soldier friends to come after Finney at a street fair and beat him up. In the end, he chooses to marry Field and think about buying a house in a suburban project, though he claims not to want to end up like his folks, who have the basic necessities but are "dead from the neck up." A scene in the middle of the film in which Finney watches a frustrated old man throw a rock through a storefront window is echoed in the movie's last shot in which Finney impotently throws a rock at the newly built projects, suggesting that the amorphous frustrations he feels are not gone, just being displaced. Norman Rossington, best known as the Beatles' manager in A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, plays Finney's best friend, in generally the same boat as Finney but a little less hot-headed. Roberts, a fine actress (PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, FOUL PLAY) whose career highlights have been obscured since her untimely death in 1980, is excellent here, completely matching Finney, who with swagger and charisma to spare, turns what could have been an unlikable character into someone with which the audience can empathize, if not take to its heart. He also has some memorable dialogue: early on, he proclaims, "What I'm out for is a good time--all the rest is propaganda," and later in a similar tone, "Whatever people say about me, that's what I'm not!" (recently appropriated as an album title by British indie band Arctic Monkeys). A sidenote: Roberts' journals, published as "No Bells on Sunday," make for fascinating reading. [DVD]

TOWER OF LONDON (1939)

This nicely mounted historical piece is often classed as a horror film, mostly because it comes from Universal and stars Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone, and Vincent Price. It does have some Gothic-type trappings (a torture chamber, beheadings, a particularly creative murder) but is otherwise squarely in the costume melodrama mold. I have to admit I don't know a Plantagenet from a pomegranate, but I was able to follow the film of royal intrigues with little trouble. Based on the same events that Shakespeare dramatized in "Richard III," the story is set in England during the late 15th century; Edward (Ian Hunter) has just deposed the senile King Henry (Miles Mander) who wanders the castle in a fog, wearing a paper crown. Rathbone is Edward's devious brother Richard, frequently referred to as "Crookback," though Rathbone doesn't overdo the deformity of the hunchback. Price is the sniveling brother, the duke of Clarence, who winds up, in one of the best scenes in the movie, drowned in a vat of wine. The main narrative thread follows Rathbone on his quest for the throne. He has a little doll's house set up with figures standing in for all those in his path, and each time one is put out of the way, the figure is tossed away, moving Richard's figure closer to the throne. It takes years but he soon gets his wish, after having killed off several folks, including the two rightful child heirs, with the help of Karloff as Mord, his faithful torturer and executioner. Karloff cuts a very creepy figure here with his bald head, club foot, and swinging axe; in some ways, he's almost scarier here than he is as the Frankenstein monster, because the monster has some sympathetic moments but Mord does not. There is a romantic subplot that bubbles up from time to time involving young lord John Sutton and lady Nan Grey, and the exiled Prince of Wales spends most of the movie waiting in France for the right time to lead a revolt, which does indeed come at the end. Other cast members include Barbara O'Neil (as Queen Elizabeth), Leo G. Carroll, Ralph Forbes, and Rathbone's son John Rodion as Lord Devere who gets the axe early on. [TCM]

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING (1959)

[Spoilers follow!] Glossy 50's soap operas aren't usually my cup of tea, but I enjoyed watching this one and I'm not sure why. It's like a mild VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, or a more serious (and non-musical) HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS. The attitudes about women, business, and morals are dated but not so foreign to us that we can't identify with the situations. The set-up reminded me of THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN, as we follow the stories of three roommates in New York City, all of whom work in the secretarial pool at a large publishing company where virtually everyone is having an adulterous affair or two. Hope Lange, fresh out of college with a boyfriend (Brett Halsey) forging a career overseas, is new to the city and has aspirations to work as an editor; Diane Baker is a young secretary, a little ditzy, more in the market for a husband than a career; would-be actress Suzy Parker is temping until she can land a role in a play. Their stories: 1) Ambitious Lange works under and has the occasional run-in with Joan Crawford, a tough-as-nails senior editor. At one point, Lange dares to take home a manuscript that Crawford has rejected as "trash"; she thinks it has potential and bypasses Crawford by giving her notes on the book to big boss Brian Aherne, who apparently likes her spunk and gives her a job upgrade to reader and eventually to editor. When Halsey calls her long distance to tell her he's married someone else, she gets involved with handsome but brooding editor Stephen Boyd, but later, when Halsey comes to town and announces his marriage is falling apart, Lange has to make a choice. 2) Baker falls in with rich but slimy playboy Robert Evans who goes to work right away on, in his words, "storming the citadel"; when she gets pregnant, she assumes he's going to marry her so she gets all decked out in a nice civil wedding outfit, but instead he's decided to take her to get an "underground" abortion, so she leaps out of his moving car in Central Park and winds up having a miscarriage.

3) Parker, who clearly hates her day job, auditions for director Louis Jourdan and doesn't make the cut, but when she's introduced to him socially, they hit it off. She moves in with him and he gives her a part in his play but it soon becomes apparent that she's not very talented and she loses her role as actress and as mistress, which drives her to obsessively hiding outside of his apartment, spying on him and going through his trash. As in most "three on a match"-type stories, there has to be at least one tragic figure and Parker is it here. The acting helps make most of this palatable; Crawford in particular is quite good and is given enough of a separate subplot to be more than just a cardboard bitch. Evans, later a producer at Paramount (best known for CHINATOWN) is the exception, seeming to sleepwalk through a role that could have used more charm and/or grit. The sexual politics are laughable but entertaining, and sometimes not as antique as we might like to think, as early on when Boyd suggests that Lange should "prove what you have to prove" then leave the business world to get married. [FMC]

DEVOTION (1931)

The plot of this early talkie romantic comedy reminds me of Mrs. Doubtfire crossed with Cinderella. Ann Harding, the wallflower daughter of O. P Heggie and Louise Closser Hale, has a crush on a friend of the family, famous barrister Leslie Howard, but of course he never notices her, so to be close to him she disguises herself as a lower-class nanny (complete with a Cockney accent) and applies for a job as governess to Howard's little boy (we're told his wife killed herself years ago). Howard lives in a spacious apartment in an old building called the Temple, in which all comings and goings are strictly observed by landlords Dudley Digges and Alison Skipworth. Skipworth in particular is a stickler for upright behavior and, since Howard's governess will be living in the apartment, Harding makes herself look as dowdy as she can to ensure getting the job. She's a good governess and she manages to keep up her double life, occasionally making appearances at her family's house, until an artist friend of Howard's (Robert Williams) recognizes her while she's sitting for a portrait. Of course, Howard soon wises up as well and falls for her, but then we find out that Howard's wife isn't dead, just a wicked woman who ran off, and she returns to put a kink in their romantic plans. Up to this point, the film is fun, but once Harding decides to accept a marriage proposal from Williams, the writers don't seem to know how to get things back in order, and the denoument is handled in a rushed, inept fashion. The leads are fine, though it's difficult to buy the vivacious Harding as an "ugly duckling" daughter in the beginning. Skipworth and Digges are also very good, and the large, well appointed sets are impressive. [TCM]

THE BIG SHAKEDOWN (1934)

Fairly routine Warners crime melodrama which wastes the talents of Bette Davis. She plays a drugstore clerk, engaged to store owner Charles Farrell. When some mobsters try to force Farrell to carry their beer (back in the good old days when, I guess, you could belly up to the drugstore fountain for a beer), he rebels and refuses to do it, but he does make up an effective headache powder in the backroom for mob boss Ricardo Cortez. Cortez, who wants out of the beer racket anyway, gets the idea to have Farrell make up bootleg versions of real drugstore items and sell them to local businesses under the names of the legitimate products. In order to get the money to marry Davis, Farrell agrees and for a while things work out for everyone until Cortez's girl (Glenda Farrell) gets pissed at Cortez's infidelity and snitches to Henry O'Neill, the head of an company that makes an antiseptic that Farrell is copying. O'Neill takes Cortez to court, though he offers not to go after Farrell if he quits. He tries to, but Cortez blackmails him into staying around to work on some fake digitalis, a heart medicine. Unfortunately, a doctor winds up using the bad medicine on the pregnant Davis and she has a miscarriage and almost dies. Farrell goes gunning for Cortez, but O'Neill, angry that Cortez's bootlegging is hurting the product that he invented, is also on the loose with a gun. The climax occurs in a big lab with a huge vat of acid, and course one of the strictest Hollywood conventions is that whenever there's a vat of acid in sight, sooner or later, someone's gonna fall into it. Farrell is wooden as hell, leaving Davis a bit at sea; Richard Barthelmess was similarly bad in CABIN IN THE COTTON, but Davis had more to work with in that film and she could overcome the liability of a weak leading man. Other cast members include Samuel S. Hinds and Allen Jenkins, and there's a nice catfight scene between the always reliable Glenda Farrell and Renee Whitney, playing Cortez's floozy on the side. [TCM]

WATERLOO BRIDGE (1931)

James Whale directed this first film version of Robert Sherwood's play, a WWI romantic melodrama about a soldier and a prostitute. The more famous 1940 version with Vivien Leigh (in which her livelihood, due to the Production Code, is presented rather obscurely) has been in constant circulation, but this one has been difficult to find until Warners released it on DVD as part of its first Forbidden Hollywood set. Given how long I've waited to see this, it was a bit of a disappointment. We first see Mae Clarke, a chorus girl, on stage in the closing night of a play. She turns down the chance to do another show, as she has just received a fox stole from an admirer and isn't worried about her immediate future. Two years later, however, she has fallen on hard times and makes a living as a prostitute, as does her buddy Doris Lloyd. One night as she's making her usual nighttime visit to Waterloo Bridge, an air raid occurs and she and a young American soldier (Douglass Montgomery, billed as Kent Douglass) help an older woman find shelter. The two hit it off and go back to her shabby apartment for conversation; Montgomery doesn't pick up on her profession and when he finds out that she is behind on her rent, he offers to pay it for her. She refuses and sends him away to go back into the night, but the next morning, the smitten soldier returns with flowers and, because he's about to be sent back to the front, a marriage proposal. Lloyd tries to talk her into taking it, but Clarke knows he's a naive kid and doesn't want to ruin his life. Nevertheless, she agrees to take a motor trip to the country with him and he sweeps her off to meet his well-to-do family at their country estate. His mother realizes what she is and has a brutally honest heart-to-heart talk with her in which she asks Clarke not to marry him. When she sneaks back to London, he follows and finds out about her occupation from the landlady (Ethel Griffes). Undeterred, he pays her rent, and just before he has to ship out, he finds her back on Waterloo Bridge. The sad ending is different in its specifics from the ending of the 1940 remake, but the effect is similar. Clarke is fine in the lead; she is best known in movie lore as the woman who gets a grapefruit in her face from James Cagney in THE PUBLIC ENEMY, but most film fans probably know her better as Dr. Frankenstein's wife in Whale's 1932 FRANKENSTEIN. Montgomery is fresh-faced and well-scrubbed, and at first seems too lightweight, but he grows into the part (or I got used to him). Bette Davis has a very small part as Clarke's sister, and Fredrick Kerr is amusing as Montgomery's aged and mostly deaf stepfather. I'm quite happy to have seen this version, but I admit it makes me want to revisit the Vivien Leigh version, which is less honest but glossier and sudsier. [DVD]

HOUSE BY THE RIVER (1950)

Impressive Gothic thriller directed by Fritz Lang for B-studio Republic Pictures. The low budget means limited and rather stagy-looking sets, but this adds to the gloomy atmosphere. The opening scene of foreshadowing is obvious but effective: a chatty housekeeper is repelled by the carcass of a dead animal that keeps floating back and forth along the river, in which all manner of debris is constantly returning to the surface. Her boss, Louis Hayward, a struggling writer with one unsuccessful novel to his credit, tells her not to worry about it, but we know that the river which cannot keep its secrets will play an important role in the narrative. Hayward is married to Jane Wyatt, pleasant but unexciting, and is able to keep writing because his crippled brother, Lee Bowman, gave up much of his share of the family inheritance to Hayward--partly because he's secretly in love with Wyatt. At dusk one day, while his wife is out, Hayward puts the moves on their young maid (Dorothy Patrick), and when she resists and starts to scream, he strangles her to death. Bowman arrives and agrees to help Hayward deposit the body in the river (has he already forgotten the first scene?). When the maid's family reports her disappearance, Hayward implies that she was a thief and a hussy; the resulting publicity kick-starts sales of his book and gives him inspiration for a new novel. However, Hayward's psychological state suffers; as he was dumping the maid's body, Hayward saw a glinting fish leap into the air, and so the sight of any light flashing off of an object sets him off. He manages to keep things together for a while, but when the maid's body is found, both Hayward and Bowman fall under suspicion leading to the slow unraveling of their cover story, and to the unraveling of Hayward's mind. The acting is as good as it needs to be--Wyatt is a bit of a weak link, but she doesn't really have much to do. Carl Switzer (Alfalfa from Our Gang) and Kathleen Freeman have small bits, and Jody Gilbert and Anne Shoemaker steal a brief scene in court as two gossipy maids, but it's the visuals here that truly steal the show. The dark, gloomy sets and the beautifully composed shots of the rooms filled with shadows and curtains billowing in the wind are exquisite, and help to make the climax very effective. This film was once thought lost, and the print on Kino's DVD isn't as sharp and clean as it could be, but it's not bad, and it's definitely worth seeing. [DVD]

THE SOLDIER AND THE LADY (1937)

A Hollywood version of Jules Verne's adventure tale "Michael Strogoff" which uses of lots of footage from a German movie based on the same book, made the year before with the same leading man. Anton Walbrook, best known as the ballet impresario in THE RED SHOES, plays Strogoff, the soldier of the title, who is employed by Tsar Alexander II as a courier to relay important military plans to troops in Omsk who are under siege by the Tartars. He travels undercover by train where he gets tangled up with two women, one a spy (Margot Grahame) and the other a more traditional love interest (Elizabeth Allan). Also present are two bumbling reporters (Eric Blore and Edward Brophy) who wander in and out of the narrative. The particularly nasty villain is Tartar chieftain Akim Tamiroff, who gets to chew lots of scenery, especially in a scene in which he tortures Walbrook. Fay Bainter is Walbrook's mother, who lives in a village en route to Omsk. He hasn't seen her in years, but he is instructed to ignore her for the sake of his mission. At one point, she recognizes him and almost gives the game away. Bainter and Grahame are quite fine; Allan has little to do, but looks nice; despite the presence of Blore, the comic relief is tiresome. Most of the battle scenes are from the German film, known in English as THE CZAR'S COURIER, and the disconnect between those impressive, interestingly photographed scenes and the more mundane RKO shots is jarring at times. If I'm not mistaken, the Borodin melody used as the basis for the Kismet song "Stranger in Paradise" provides the backdrop for a brief dance number. The movie drags at times, but the plot twists of the last half hour are worth sticking around for. [TCM]

KING OF BURLESQUE (1936)

I'm not sure if this is actually the first of the Fox backstage musicals which flowered in the late 30's and early 40's, but it's certainly an early entry in the series, and the plotline is one that was followed closely in many later Fox films. Warner Baxter, bringing over some of his cachet from playing a similar part in 42ND STREET, is a successful burlesque producer who wants to head uptown and produce "legitimate" Broadway revues. He, his lead attraction (Alice Faye, done up to look a bit like Jean Harlow), and his partner (Jack Oakie) do just that and a few years later, Baxter owns his own music hall. At an auction, Baxter meets socialite Mona Barrie, and takes her as a trophy wife, leaving faithful Faye in the lurch. She leaves to make a go of it in Europe and becomes successful, while back in New York, Baxter, under the influence of Barrie, decides he needs to do something artier than his usual fare. Barrie becomes a screaming bitch, the shows flop, and soon Baxter has lost his wife and his theatre. Faye finds out and returns home, secretly financing Baxter's comeback (using cleaned-up street bum Gregory Ratoff as a front). Baxter can't afford top talent, so he uses a bunch of nobodies (a telephone operator, an office boy, etc.) who, over the course of the film, have been begging him for auditions. Of course, the show's a hit and Baxter and Faye wind up together. The plot isn't much, though I did like the twist involving the "nobodies" we see attempting to do mini-auditions throughout the film, among whom are juvenile singer Kenny Baker and the famous jazz pianist Fats Waller. Arline Judge plays Oakie's lady friend. There are some fine musical numbers, fairly close to Busby Berkeley quality, including "Lovely Lady" and "Too Good to be True" (which both got choreographer Sammy Lee an Oscar nomination). [FMC]

THE 300 SPARTANS (1962)

By sheer coincidence, I watched this movie about the battle at Thermopylae between a small group of Spartan warriors and the much larger Persian army of King Xerxes only a week before a brand new movie about the same battle ("300," based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller) was released--and set a box office record for biggest March opening. I'm not a big fan of the current trend of "video game" movies, and the reviews of "300" have been terrible, but this early 60's epic is a largely empty affair full of blah writing and acting, and only average battle scenes, with some nice location scenery about the only bright spot. In 480 B.C., Xerxes (David Farrar, giving by far the best performance in the film), ruler of the Persian Empire, is out to crush the resistance of the independent Greek states, whose rulers can't agree on a war plan; should they unite or fight as separate forces? Themistocles of Athens (Ralph Richardson) pushes for unity but others, such as Xenathon, are trying to undermine him. Spartan King Leonidas (Richard Egan) takes his personal bodyguard troop of 300 to the pass at Thermopylae to hold off the Persian army, composed primarily of slaves, believing he'll get back-up troops after the current religious festival ends, but when the Delphic Oracle predicts disaster, the Greeks decide to stay put to defend Athens. The Spartans, having been taught to value the love of freedom even above their own lives, are fierce fighters (something that is probably more graphically illustrated in the recent film) and are able not only to hold off the Persians (with some help from a few other Greek volunteers) but to burn down the king's camp. Even Xerxes' personal army, known as the Immortals, is defeated, spreading fear among the slave army. Queen Artemisa (Anne Wakefield) advises Xerxes to back off and save face by claiming that he's had a vision from the gods to retreat, but Ephialtes (Keiron Moore), a local who has been spurned by Greek lovely Ellas (Diane Baker), goes to Xerxes with information about a secret goat herder's path, and Xerxes uses this information to launch a sneak attack, leading to the climactic battle in which the vastly outnumbered Spartans die valiantly. The sets, backgrounds, and costumes all look good, but the actors are strictly second string except Richardson (who hasn't much to do) and Farrar (who film buffs will remember as the man who turns the nuns' heads in BLACK NARCISSUS), and Farrar's screen time as the hissable villlian is the only time the non-action scenes come alive. There is a moderately interesting subplot involving the young Spartan Phylon (Barry Coe, who is nice to look at but seems to be barely hiding a "good-ol'-boy" accent), his father, who is assumed to be a spy but isn't, and the aforementioned looker Ellas, but that all ultimately feels like it's part of a different movie. The last battle is nicely handled. The film winds up feeling like a particularly slow episode of HBO's (much more interesting) series ROME. [FMC]

THE DECAMERON (1970)

Boccaccio wrote The Decameron, a collection of 100 short and mostly bawdy tales, in the 14th century; they are very much like the stories told by Chaucer's pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. In the 1970's Pier Paolo Pasolini adapted both works as movies, clearly relishing the earthiness and vulgarity of the stories of both men. Here, he adapts only a handful of Boccaccio's hundred (I counted nine or ten, depending on whether the incidents befalling the first character (Ninetto Davoli) count as one or two stories) and a continuing tale involving Pasolini playing the artist Giotto working on a fresco. He also does away with the original frame narrative of a group of men and women telling each other the stories as they spend ten days in a country house escaping the plague which is spreading in Florence. As a result, the movie feels a bit like a vaudeville show of unrelated skits. In the first (and second?) bit, a woman tells a young man (Davoli) visiting from another town that she recognizes him as a long-lost relative and offers him a place to stay, but she has him robbed and dumped down a shithole; he climbs out, covered in filth, and is taken in by a group of scammers who are stealing riches from an archbishop's sarcophagus. He climbs in and hands out most of the booty, but they slam the stone lid on him, trapping him with the corpse (and at least one valuable ring). Understandably, Davoli freaks out, but soon another group of crooks happen by and pry the lid open. As they are daring each other to get in, Davoli hears one of them taunt another by saying, "Dead men don't bite," so that's just what Davoli does to the poor guy who climbs in looking for loot. The next tale, with its emphasis on sex and social customs, is more indicative of the rest: a young man posing as a deaf-mute goes to a convent and gets a job as a groundskeeper; two of the celibate nuns decide to take a walk on the wild side and force him to have sex with them (as though it were just another chore). They like it and wind up passing him around among the rest of the sisters, and the sex does indeed become a chore, and one he grows unhappy with until he finally speaks and the Mother Superior proclaims that a miracle has occurred. Other bawdy plotlines: a young woman sleeps out on the balcony of her family's house supposedly in order to see if she can catch a nightingale, but actually she's having a tryst with her boyfriend; a band of brothers plot to kill a man who has been sneaking in at night to have sex with their sister, but they don't realize the extent to which she wants to keep him around the house; a traveling priest takes advantage of a naive couple in order to seduce the wife. Most of the stories are amusing, and often have almost Twilight Zone-like ironic twists, though some feel unfinished. There is sex galore (though not terribly explicit) and quite a bit of male nudity, enough to get the movie an X rating upon initial release. There is also a fairly strong anti-organized religion tone, especially evident in a tale involving a man who dies--from having too much sex--and returns from beyond to tell his buddy that the church is wrong and sex doesn't count as a sin in the afterlife. Though not much happens in the Giotto story (he starts painting a religious fresco, gets frustrated, gets inspired, and finally allows the public in to see it, though it's still unfinished), the fact that director and writer Pasolini plays the artist gives these scenes some resonance, and his final line is almost haunting: "Why create a work of art when dreaming about it is so much sweeter?" [DVD]

THE FOOTLOOSE HEIRESS (1937)

A cute B-screwball comedy which gets around one my main problems with the genre: most of them are just too darn long to fully sustain all the romantic craziness. This one is just under an hour and never wears out its welcome. The title character (Ann Sheridan) is about to marry a casual acquaintance (William Hopper) on a bet after a night of partying--and this isn't her first attempt at a madcap elopement. Her father, advertising executive Hugh O'Connell, is out to stop her, and handsome hobo Craig Reynolds, who has been riding the rails, helps him out by telling the justice of the peace that he is already her husband. Dad spooks Sheridan by inviting Reynolds to stay the night, which sends her into a hysterical fit. By this point anyone who's seen MY MAN GODFREY, or just been paying attention, will know that Reynolds will wind up being something other than a hobo (he's the son of a big ad exec in Boston who has been out to see the country "through the eyes of the forgotten man," a theme that would be addressed more directly a few years later in SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS), and that he will tame the footloose heiress into a dutiful wife. Along the way, he also writes an ad campaign for Dad and winds up in jail before he and Sheridan take off into the sunset, catching a ride on a train bound for Boston. The supporting cast isn't much to speak of, but Sheridan and Reynolds are fine and have good comic chemistry. [TCM]

CONEY ISLAND (1943)

Colorful Fox musical whose main selling points are nostalgia and Betty Grable. Set at the turn of the century, the film begins with George Montgomery, as a Coney Island barker, looking to make a move to the big time as his old pal Cesar Romero, owner of a high-class saloon, has done. Carny Phil Silvers takes Montgomery on and soon Silvers' "Turkish Harem" girlie show is doing gangbusters, and putting a bit of a dent in Romero's business, but what Montgomery really wants is a piece of Romero's operation, so through an elaborate prank which involves faking the death of old friend Charles Winninger, a saloon regular, Montgomery becomes Romero's partner. His next step is to get saloon singer Grable to refine her act--he thinks she's too hammy and in order to give her a classier style, he handcuffs her while she's onstage, forcing her to rely less on movement and more on a creamy vocal style. The trick works and soon Grable moves on to bigger and better things, leaving behind both Romero and Montgomery. The rest of the film finds the two men as rivals getting into and out of Grable's good graces. Of course, as leading man, there's never any doubt that Montgomery will win in the end. Grable is fine, singing "Cuddle Up a Little Closer" and "Pretty Baby," along with a slew of new songs written for the movie. Montgomery is handsome and charming, as is Romero--the nice thing here is that, even though we know that Romero will lose the girl, he's not portrayed as a villain, but just as the guy who came in second. Winninger is good as always, and Silvers is relatively inoffensive, unlike in his horrific turn in SUMMER STOCK. [FMC]

NONE SHALL ESCAPE (1944)

This little WWII gem seems to have been hidden away for years in the Columbia vaults; after reading about it recently in two different books on wartime cinema, I thought it sounded interesting and I was excited to see it in rotation on Turner Classic Movies. Released in early 1944, long before the end of the war, the film is set after the war at a war crimes trial (and the set looks remarkably like the one for the later JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, which was based on the trials that actually did occur). Alexander Knox is a former Reich Commissioner charged with murder and "degenerate atrocities" and the film focuses not on the trial but, through flashbacks given by witnesses, on how Knox became such a willing Nazi. In 1919, just after the First World War, Knox, a German schoolteacher, returns to the Polish village in which he had been teaching, having lost a leg in the war. Though the locals seem to accept him, he feels a lingering prejudice which puts him on his guard; his fiancee, Marsha Hunt, senses his coldness and postpones their wedding. After he overhears his students mocking him for not being good enough for Polish women, he rapes a local girl who then kills herself. Knox is attacked by a group of locals and leaves town; the kindly local priest (Henry Travers) and rabbi (Richard Hale) give him money to get a new start. In 1923, Knox has joined the Nazi party, telling his socialist brother (Erik Rolf) about Hitler's "new religion of blood and race." After the notorious Beer Hall Putsch, Knox is jailed, as is Hitler, who Knox says is writing "a masterpiece" in his cell. By 1933, the Nazis have come to power; when Rolf plans to move his family to Vienna to escape the coming madness, Knox betrays him and sends him to an "indoctrination" camp, while taking Rolf's young son under his wing and entering him in a Hitler youth group. After Germany conquers Poland in 1939, Knox is installed as commissioner of the Polish village and he oversees the deportation of the poor and weak to labor camps. The local synagogue is turned into a barn ("Horses are more important than Jews," says Knox) and the town's Jews are rounded up in train cars. When the rabbi makes an impassioned speech for resistance, Knox orders a massacre. The local women are forced into prostitution, though Knox excuses Hunt's daughter, on whom his nephew (Richard Crane) develops a crush. The inevitable climax involves an incident much like the one that started the film, with rape (symbolic, if not actual), suicide and murder. Back in the courtroom, Knox, unbowed, gives a final snarling rant against the court. The film should have ended here, but a rather anti-climatic speech by the judge, aimed directly at the film audience, weakens the conclusion.

Even though this film was made before the full horror of the Holocaust was exposed, it remains a grim and powerful film. Knox's character is a three-dimensional villain (even sympathetic in the beginning), even as I suspect he is also intended to function as a symbol for Germany, especially given his physical handicaps: he loses a leg in WWI and loses an eye in a confrontation with a Polish villager (who later joins the resistance). Knox himself is excellent, making his character repellent but not melodramatically so. Though most of the acting would be seen as lightweight today for a war horrors film, the supporting cast is uniformly fine, with the standouts the dignified Travers and the baby-faced Crane who moves realistically (and tragically) from casual acceptance of the Nazi philosophy to rejection. Even Hunt, who I've not been terribly impressed with, eventually displays the requisite gravitas for her role. The film, in a truly prescient way, makes the point, more than once, that the Nazis' claims that they were just following orders and could not choose to rebel doesn't hold water--Knox is shown to be a person who finds in the Nazi movement a way of life which satisfied his gnawing feelings (nationalistic and personal) of resentment and revenge. At one point, when Hunt tries to appeal to his humanity, he replies, "Human feeling is the last resort of decadence." One scene seems to provide just a hint of pederasty in Knox's attentions to his nephew. The resolution of the otherwise hard-hitting Jewish slaughter scene is odd: the rabbi collapses and dies in the shadow of a road sign in the shape of a cross. The imagery is obvious and not accidental, though I am at a bit of a loss to explain what it means. Now that this film is in circulation again, I hope it gets the attention it deserves. [TCM]

RIDERS TO THE STARS (1954)

Even though today's viewers will chuckle at the science promulgated here, and despite some pretty bad FX, this is generally a rather charming relic from fairly early in Hollywood's Space Age era when movies were being made that tried to take a realistic look at space travel, rather than recycle the Flash Gordon antics of the 30's and 40's. American scientists (led by Herbert Marshall) are trying to figure out why meteorites resist the gamma rays that would destroy their spacecraft. A computerized nationwide hunt is conducted (seemingly only among white men) for possible astronauts and most of the first half of the film shows how a group of twelve gets winnowed down, through a series of physical and psychological tests, to three, including electronics researcher William Lundigan (who happens to be Marshall's son) and science professor Richard Carlson. The point is made that the men chosen can't be married, though Carlson is dating a model (Dawn Addams) and Lundigan flirts with one of the space scientists (Martha Hyer). All three men are launched in separate rockets and each one is supposed to snare a meteorite to be studied back on earth. Robert Karnes is the first to die, in a particularly gruesome scene--fried by cosmic rays into a skeleton inside his space suit. Of the other two, one freaks out and one returns to earth with a meteorite, to the arms of his loving woman. The film's middle section is a little slow moving, but it builds to a tense climax that is quite good, given the era and the low budget (though the shots of the meteorites flying at the rockets seem painfully amateurish now). The two leading men are fine, though I think they should have switched roles; Lundigan is a little too laid back and the more dynamic Carlson feels restrained here (though since Carlson also directed, I'm guessing he got the effect he wanted). James Best, known primarily as Sheriff Roscoe in "The Dukes of Hazzard," makes a handsome would-be astronaut. The print shown on Turner Classic had a few ragged spots but strong color. I've save the best for last: though the film's serious tone still holds up, the title song is a fabulous camp moment (and I wish I could find it on iTunes). The lush cocktail-lounge theme music recurs here and there and always took me out of the action for a giggly moment. Sample lyric: "Riders to the stars / That is what we are / Every time we kiss in the night / Jupiter and Mars / Aren't very far / Any time you're holding me tight / Your embrace / Changed time and place / Hurled in space are we..." Once again, I love you, Turner Classic Movies!! [TCM]

GEORGE WHITE'S 1935 SCANDALS (1935)

George White was, like Florenz Ziegfeld, a well-known producer of vaudeville shows and Broadway revues. He produced and appeared in three movies, all titled George White's Scandals, all apparently run-of-the-mill backstage musicals with several production numbers. In this one, White wraps up the successful 1934 show and takes a train to Florida for a vacation, but during a stop in Georgia, he sees a poster for a local show called Elmer White's Scandals and, for kicks, decides to stay and check it out. Ned Sparks does a nice turn as Elmer, dour, deadpan jack of all trades--not only is he the producer, he's also the ticket seller, ticket taker, usher, stage door keeper, and MC. White is impressed with the lead singer, Alice Faye, and offers her a job on Broadway. She goes, bringing along James Dunn, her boyfriend and songwriter, ukulele player Cliff Edwards, and even Sparks. They all find success in the next edition of the Scandals, but romantic problems intrude; Faye steps out with rival producer Walter Johnson, and Dunn retaliates by flirting with star dancer Eleanor Powell. Their personal conflicts begin to take a toll on their performances and White fires Faye and Dunn who are forced to scrounge for any showbiz jobs they can get. When Faye's dear old Aunt Jane (Emma Dunn) visits the Big Apple to see them on stage, White shows he has a heart of gold as big as a hooker's when he tries to find the couple and get them back in the Scandals just for Aunt Jane. Despite a wildly implausible ending, the show is fun thanks to the numbers and to Sparks and Edwards strong support. Songs include "The Hunkadola," "It's an Old Southern Custom," and "According to the Moonlight," which was so catchy I found myself humming it for a few days (probably because it's performed several times in the course of the film). Also featured are Lyda Roberti, Arline Judge, and Benny Rubin. Fun to see once, but I probably don't need to search out the other two "Scandals" movies. [FMC]

MURDER AT MIDNIGHT (1931)

The set-up of this early sound Poverty Row thriller seemed very familiar to me, and I realized later it's because the same story was adapted several years later for another Poverty Row film featuring Boris Karloff as Chinese sleuth Mr. Wong (THE MYSTERY OF MR. WONG). In the atmospheric opening, we see a butler enter a darkened room and turn a clock's hands ahead to midnight. Next, we see a man arrive to have a rendezvous with a married woman (Aileen Pringle), but the wronged husband (Kenneth Thompson) discovers them and shoots the intruder dead. Then the camera pans back and we see that the entire thing has been an elaborate charade performed at a party. However, it turns out that the gun had real bullets, and the "intruder" is dead. A noted criminologist (Hale Hamilton, who looks a bit like Robert Benchley) is present, which helps sooth nervous Aunt Julia (Clara Blandick) and when police inspector Robert Elliott arrives, there's quite a large suspect pool, not to mention a second murder victim, the husband. Among the characters: a lawyer who reveals that Thompson had written a new will in which he disinherited his wife, a snoopy maid (Alice White) who surely knows more than she lets on, the widow, her brother (Leslie Fenton) who lives off an allowance from her, and of course, the omnipresent butler. The rewritten will and an important letter go missing and several more people wind up dead, some by way of a rigged telephone which jabs the caller in the base of the neck with a poisoned needle. The identity of the killer came as a surprise to me, and the conclusion, in which the police inspector allows the killer to commit suicide, is effective (and, I think, right out of a Philo Vance novel, "The Bishop Murder Case"). As is par for the course at the time, most of the shots are long static ones, but there are some nice creative set-ups, including one shot looking up from the floor near a body and another showing a murder from the killer's point of view. Not bad B-movie entertainment for a stormy (or snowy) night. [DVD]

PETULIA (1968)

Although on the surface this seems like a 60's period piece, with hippies and violence and mod clothes and critiques of materialism and alienation, not to mention a fractured narrative style with flashbacks and flash-forwards, it's really barely dated at all. The psychedelic trappings of the era which might might most obviously date the film remain in the background; the main characters here mostly look and act like people living in the 21st century. This was my second viewing of the film, and it's a movie I appreciate more than like. It begins like a surreal screwball comedy with oddly mannered dialogue, as if someone like Edward Albee had re-written BRINGING UP BABY or BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. At a high society charity function (with Janis Joplin performing), respected surgeon George C. Scott, attending stag due to his impending divorce, is set upon by desperately whimsical beauty Julie Christie, the title character, who is unhappily married to ship architect Richard Chamberlain. Christie goes after Scott rather like Hepburn goes after Grant in BABY, but Scott is a little more able to keep his equilibrium. After the ball, he does wind up going off into the night with her but despite going to a hotel, they don't quite finish their one-night stand--she, as he puts her in a cab: "I'm going to marry you, Archie"; he, resignedly, "It's the Pepsi generation." After this bumpy start, they do begin an affair in which, we assume, she will loosen him up a bit and he will perhaps normalize her a bit (at one point, he says he's tired of her "I Love Lucy" antics), but things take a turn for the near-tragic as we learn more about their backgrounds. His ex-wife (Shirley Knight) has custody of their two sons and she's about to remarry a dorky post-grad student majoring in hydraulics; Chamberlain, Christie's husband, apparently impotent, beats her on occasion and has a rich father (Joseph Cotton) who enables the son's behavior. When Chamberlain discovers Christie's affair, he beats her savagely while she's alone in Scott's apartment. She survives and Scott tries to pry her out of the family's grasp, but she ends up staying. In the last scene, set a year later, she has gotten pregnant and comes to Scott's hospital to have the baby. They meet and contemplate running off together, but don't.

In addition to exploring the mysteries of love and lust and intimate violence, the film also has running riffs on both the bourgeois culture and the counterculture of the time. For the middle and upper classes, artifice trumps reality: a worker installing a miniature greenhouse in Scott's apartment tells him that it's important that the flowers get no sunlight at all, just artificial light; in a very funny scene, Austin Pendleton plays a doctor who has to explain to a hospital patient that the TV set in her room is just a "dummy" one, there to encourage her to pay to rent a real one. On the other hand, the counterculture doesn't come off all that well: when the battered and bloody Christie is taken out of Scott's apartment, the hippies (among them Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead) make disparaging remarks like, "Call if you get work." There's an odd subplot about a Mexican boy who hops a ride to California with Christie and Chamberlain which becomes an important plot point, but its telling is the most fractured narrative strand of the whole movie, frustratingly so, and to no specific purpose that I could see. The time jumps and editing jolts seem to be devices to distance the viewers, and they do take some getting used to. Christie is very good, as is Scott, though it is a little disorienting at first to see him playing a tender, understanding man, the opposite of his usual loud, brusque, sometimes brutish roles. Beautifully photographed on location in San Francisco. Worth seeing, but be prepared to pay attention. [DVD]

WAY OUT WEST (1930)

This early talkie has an amusing plotline which is derailed a bit by an artificial, over-the-top performance from William Haines, getting just a bit too old at 30 to still be effective playing his youthful wisecracker roles. In this one, he plays a cocky carnival barker for a dancing girls act; one night after the show in Deep Gulch, he cheats a bunch of ranch hands with a rigged roulette wheel and plans to abscond to Chicago with the chunk of ill-gotten cash. His plans go awry when 1) one of the girls steals his money, and 2) the angry cowboys realize they've been cheated and try to lynch him when he can't give back their dough. However, the ranch owner (Charles Middleton) talks the boys into making him stay on the ranch and work off his debt. They give him a hard time but he manages to stay mostly one step ahead of them until he falls for the owner's sister (Leila Hyams) and she for him, much against Middleton's wishes. The funniest single line may be when Hyams, expecting the maid Pansy (Polly Moran), tells him to come in, sees him, and says, "You're not Pansy"; his reply, in full camp mode: "I'm the wildest pansy you ever picked!" In the end, Haines redeems himself by braving a sandstorm to get Hyams medical help for a dangerous snakebite. Haines is rather grating, and he has very little chemistry with Hyams. Cliff Edwards is fun, as usual, as one of the less ornery cowpokes, and Francis X. Bushman Jr. (son of the famous silent star) plays a more obnoxious but hunky cowboy whose plans for marrying Hyams wind up dashed. Moderately interesting, but mostly as a museum piece or for fans of Haines. [TCM]

SO ENDS OUR NIGHT (1941)

A gray-area WWII movie, made while America was still technically neutral. An opening title card tells us this is the story of "people without passports," specifically refugees from Germany and Nazi occupation in the late 30's. The narrative begins in Vienna in 1937; several refugees are sharing a flophouse hotel room, among them Fredric March, a German Aryan who despises Nazi ideology and is an escapee from a concentration camp, but is trying to get back to Germany to see his sick wife, and Glenn Ford, a young half-Jewish man new to the game of staying one step ahead of the police. March and Ford get some jail time and become friends before being released at the Czech border. Ford, in Prague, falls in love with Margaret Sullavan, a Jewish chemistry student who has to resort to subterfuge to continue her studies. Thinking she is hurting Ford's chances at a free life, she leaves him to go to Zurich, but he follows her. March, back in Vienna as a carnival mind reader, becomes a hunted man when the Nazis invade Austria, and the trio wind up together in France. Sullavan's professor suggests that she marry a Frenchman to get legitimate ID papers, but she's fallen in love with Ford. There are more journeys, entrapments, and escapes before March, held by Nazi officer Erich von Stroheim, agrees to betray resistance leaders if he is allowed to visit his dying wife (Frances Dee). Of course, he's Fredric March so instead of betrayal, he performs a heroic act of self-sacrifice which allows Ford and Sullavan to have a better shot at a happy life together. All three leads are fine, with Ford taking acting honors here (Sullavan seems a bit at sea, perhaps because of her underwritten character). Leonid Kinskey and Anna Sten are standouts in the supporting cast. The movie is directed by John Cromwell, but owes its effective, moody atmosphere to production designer William Cameron Menzies. Though not the first Hollywood movie to depict the plight of Nazi victims in Europe, it was apparently the first one to show that Jews were being singled out. This interesting film is only available on DVD from VCI in a print which leaves much to be desired, especially in its soundtrack which has a tinny, electronic echo from time to time. [DVD]

BOOM (1968)

Like THE DAY THE FISH CAME OUT, this is one of my Holy Grails from the '60s, a notoriously bad movie I'd heard a lot about but thought I might never get to see; it's not on DVD but the Sundance Channel, bless its independent little heart, showed it in January. It has the reputation of being a camp classic, helped no doubt by the fact that it's John Waters' favorite movie, but while I did find some of it laughable, it never really rose to camp levels. I can't say it's a very good movie, but it's not as bad as its reputation would have it. Based on a Tennessee Williams play ("The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore") from the beginning of his declining years, the story concerns Sissy Goforth (Elizabeth Taylor), a monumentally rich woman, much married (and divorced), who is aging quite gracefully but also dying (of an unspecified illness, probably a kin to that infamous Fatal Cinematic Disease that allowed Ali McGraw to die so beautifully in LOVE STORY). She is spending what is likely to be her last summer on earth on an island that she owns, in a fabulous bone-white villa overlooking the Mediterranean. Her days (and sometimes the middle of her nights) are spent dictating her memoirs into any one of a vast network of tape recorders, to be transcribed by her long-suffering assistant (Joanna Shimkus), and bossing around her small army of servants, including security man Michael Dunn (Dr. Loveless from Wild Wild West) who has his own small army of slathering hounds at his beck and call. One day, dissolute poet Chris Flanders (Richard Burton) hitches a boat ride to the island, rising up out the surf and climbing a cliff to be attacked by Dunn's dogs. Taylor allows him to stay in a guest room to recover from his mostly superficial wounds, but otherwise pays little attention to him until her gossip buddy, nicknamed the Witch of Capri (Noel Coward), tells her that Burton is known in high society circles as the Angel of Death for his knack of being a sponging houseguest whose aging hosts often wind up dead just after he leaves. Taylor invites Burton to dine with her and most of the rest of the film consists of conversations between the two which play out like a less intimate, dumbed-down version of their classic rants in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?

At first, the whole thing feels heavily symbolic, like a Twilight Zone episode without either horror or whimsy (and thanks to a Yahoo Groups friend who pointed out the film's similarity to a specific Zone show with Gladys Cooper as a dying old lady and Robert Redford as the handsome death figure). But we find out near the end that it's all too literal: Burton's character really is just a dissolute poet who believes he has a gift for helping dying people accept their death. The real problem here is the casting. Taylor is too young and healthy to be effective as an aging, dying woman--her way of showing pain is to moan a bit and shriek, "Pain!! Injections!!" into the house intercom. Burton, though by no means old or unattractive, is also not nearly beautiful or ethereal enough to be an angelic stud--Tab Hunter played the role on stage opposite Tallulah Bankhead, and while the staging was not a success, certainly the two were more appropriate for the roles than Taylor and Burton. While overall the movie doesn't work, there are pleasures to be had: Taylor's force-of-nature delivery is fun to watch, as is Coward's serious feyness. Almost every frame of the film looks gorgeous, thanks to director Joseph Losey and cinematographer Douglas Slocombe (credited oddly as "lighting cameraman"), the lovely seaside locations in Sardinia, and the stunning house, which is probably a combination of a real house and built sets. The music, which alternates between sitar music and a more conventional score, is very nice as well. The title refers to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, as explained by Burton, sounding like "the shock of each moment, of still being alive," a thought I rather like, and which is complemented by Taylor's complaint that "life is all memory except for each present moment which goes by so quickly you can hardly catch it." My favorite scene is the dinner between Coward and Taylor, with the grande dame dressed outrageously in a fabulous white Kabuki outfit with a huge, shiny Aztecy headdress. It is almost worth catching this film just to see Taylor in the outfit; she's probably the only actress ever who could get away with it, except maybe Divine. (Everything comes back to John Waters eventually...) [TCM]

GENTLE ANNIE (1944)

An odd little western, based on a novel by Pulitzer Prize winner MacKinlay Kantor; the plot shows potential, but full development of characterization is lacking, and I'm guessing that the Production Code may have hampered things a bit. Set in 1901, the story follows a U.S. Marshal (James Craig) who is sent to Oklahoma in disguise as a hobo to investigate a train robbery in which a load of federal money was stolen. Rumors and clues point to the Goss boys (Henry Morgan and Paul Langton), seemingly friendly guys who live with their loving mother (Marjorie Main). Craig is befriended by the family when he gets in trouble with the local sherrif (Barton MacLane), a nasty and corrupt man whom the boys believe is responsible for their father's death. Donna Reed, a new girl in town working as a waitress until she can raise money to head home for Missouri, also winds up staying with the Gosses; it turns out that Main herself is trying to raise money to move back there after her Confederate husband's death left her with no resources. We know from the beginning that the boys were indeed responsible for the robbery, which they pulled to get money to give Main, and they don't feel they did anything wrong because their Pa's philosophy was, "Anything anyone can get from a Northerner is fair and square." We eventually find out that Main knows what they did, though it's not completely clear how she feels about it--some critics refer to her character as an outlaw, and she certainly agrees with her husband's thoughts about Northerners, but she also does not seem to actively encourage her boys' banditry. Craig finds solid evidence against the boys, but when they invite him to join them in another robbery, he's conflicted about what to do. His duty wins out and he arrests the boys, but they get the upper hand on him until they all discover that MacLane has shot Main. Craig and the boys work out a deal to take care of MacLane and then give themselves up. Things don't quite work out so smoothly, although ultimately Production Code justice is served, and Craig and Reed go off in the sunset together. In a somewhat modern touch, the movie's tone changes from warmhearted and comic at the beginning (scenes of Main talking to herself while she makes breakfast, and she and the boys greeting a portrait of the father as though they were saying hello to a person) to serious and grim by the end (deaths of major characters and a climactic shoot-'em-up). I would have liked more fleshing out of the characters, especially Main and Reed. Some of the names in the movie are a little strange: one of the boys (Langton) is named Violet because Main wanted a girl so badly, and the boys call Main "Mud" and "Muddie." [TCM]

THE HONEYMOON KILLERS (1970)

Cult movie which, while interesting, seems a little overrated to me, worth watching mostly for its historical significance as a bridge between films like IN COLD BLOOD and HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, and for excellent performances by its leads, Tony Lo Bianco and Shirley Stoler. The narrative is based on a true story and apparently sticks pretty close to the facts. Stoler plays a mean, lonely, overweight nurse who lives with her senile mother. When her friend (a very young Doris Roberts) enters Stoler in a lonely hearts correspondence club, she's pissed off until she hits it off with Lo Bianco, a sexy but clearly low-rent guy who flirts with her and charms her mother. When he wheedles a little cash out of Stoler and leaves, she calls him and threatens suicide (though we know that she's faking it). It turns out that he makes his living by glomming onto lonely single women who have some cash saved up and romancing them just enough to get his hands on the money before he splits. Far from being shocked, Stoler falls right into the scam with him, posing as his sister as he continues making contact with lonely women ripe for the picking. Things work for a while so long as Stoler believes that Lo Bianco isn't falling for or having sex with any of the women. Eventually, he marries a woman who is already pregnant and the three, cramped together in a tiny hotel room, get on each other's nerves; Stoler's solution is to feed the woman an overdose of pills and dump her on a bus, where she is found later dead. It's not clear to me if Stoler actually intended to kill her, but murder soon becomes the default solution to any problem. They bilk an older woman (Mary Jane Higby) when they claim to be investing her money by opening a hat shop for her; Higby gets suspicious of Stoler and his "sister" spending too much time alone in the cellar, so in a startling scene, the couple kill her with a hammer, and with the body still warm, Lo Biano strips off his clothes to have sex with Stoler. The last murders, also disturbing, occur when the woman being conned, the mother of a young daughter, tells Stoler she's become pregnant by Lo Bianco--they wind up shooting her and drowning the little girl. Finally feeling resigned to the fact that she'll never be able to keep Lo Bianco for herself, she calls the police and turns them both in. Stoler is fearless playing an unattractive character, in both looks and personality. Similarly, Lo Bianco is great as a guy with just enough looks and surface charm to get away with the scams he does. Because the focus of the film is on Stoler (she is in almost every scene), Lo Bianco remains a bit of a cipher; I was never sure if he really was in love with Stoler, or had just come to rely on her as a helpmate and confidante. Nevertheless, the two both give fine performances, even if, in retrospect, it seems as if Stoler may have served as a template for the persona of Divine in the movies of John Waters. The stark black and white semi-documentary look of the film gives it an unsettling matter-of-fact tone. Written and directed by Leonard Kastle, who sadly never did another film. [TCM]

THE REAL GLORY (1939)

This adventure film feels like a recycling of ideas, characters, and elements from lots of other films in the Gunga Din/Beau Geste genre: stories of a gallant group of men fighting against the odds (and rebellious natives) in an exotic setting. GUNGA DIN is more "romplike" than this one, with some of the stars not surviving to the final fadeout. Based very loosely, I presume, on historical events, this is set in the Phillipines in 1906, as U.S. Army troops, left in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, are set to go home. A handful of men are being left behind to make sure that the native troops can handle the Moro terrorists living in the jungles just outside the village. The head of the Moros, Alipang, is an almost legendary figure who strikes fear in the hearts of the natives; his men are fanatic suicidal assassins who wield their machetes with the promise of heaven waiting (shades of present day terrorists). Getting the troops to get beyond their fear and to realize that Alipang and his men are only human and can be fought like any other enemy is the main chore of our ragtag band of heroes: soldiers David Niven and Broderick Crawford, who train the troops under the supervision of Reginald Owen, and doctor Gary Cooper. As in all these "boy's adventure" movies, there is a half-hearted romance (involving Andrea Leeds, Owen's headstrong daughter) and a non-military crisis (a cholera epidemic) that allows people to show their mettle. Alipang (Tetsu Komai) keeps trying to get the troops to come to him in the jungle where he has the advantage, and tension grows between Owen, slowly going blind, who wants to wait out the Moros, and Cooper, who is instrumental in inspiring the troops and is certain that they are ready to fight. Eventually, the Moros dam up a river crucial to the village and the ailing Owen has no choice but to essentially let Cooper take over on his terms. The final battle is a doozy, with machetes swinging, guns firing, and Moros catapulting themselves over the walls of the village. Supporting players include Henry Kolker as the general who is behind the initial troop withdrawal, Russell Hicks as a doomed captain, Kay Johnson as Hicks' wife, and Vladimir Sokoloff as a "good" Moro who may not be so good after all. Overall, the movie is fine, though I wish that Niven had more to do; I don't think it's a spoiler to note that when we hear Niven pining away for an island of his own to retire on, it's a sure sign that he's a goner. The doldrums of the middle of the movie (as all such movies are prey to) are overcome by the action of the last twenty minutes. A must for Cooper fans, though he comes off better in the same year's BEAU GESTE. [TCM]

The first two MR. MOTO movies

It's probably not politically correct to say so, but I do enjoy the Asian detective movies that came out of Hollywood in the '30s and '40s (to wit, the Messrs. Chan, Moto, and Wong) even if the actors who played these main roles were not Asian. The Japanese Mr. Moto was originally featured in a series of novels by John P. Marquand, and was not exactly an unambiguous "good guy"; usually, he was a secondary character looking our for Japanese interests who wound up helping the American hero out of a tough spot. Though I have reviewed Moto movies before, most of them were very hard to find until Fox released a boxed set of four of the films last year (with the remaining four coming out this month). These first two of the series (both from 1937), like the rest, star Peter Lorre as Kentaro Moto, who is not a detective but a kind of independent adventurer who gets involved in cases of espionage and winds up working with police or government agents. He is much more down and dirty than the more cerebral Chan, quicker with his fists than with his quips. The poster art of Lorre on the cover of the first DVD verges on the offensive, with horribly exaggerated buck teeth, but his actual appearance in the films is not quite so stereotyped.

THINK FAST, MR. MOTO opens quickly but confusingly with Moto, in disguise in a San Francisco curio shop, getting into fisticuffs and witnessing a murder. He books passage to Singapore on an ocean liner owned by the Hitchings company, and becomes friendly with the son of the line's owner (Thomas Beck) who has been a wastrel but is being given another chance at the business by his dad; we soon learn that Moto is on the trail of diamond smugglers who have been using the Hitchings line for their dastardly doings. Virginia Field is Beck's love interest, who may actually be one of the bad guys. Reliable villain Sig Ruman is present, as are J. Carroll Naish and Philip Ahn. The plotline takes a while to develop, but the film is paced well and Lorre makes a solid hero figure, involved in a fair amount of physical action. One scene in which he almost casually tosses a man out of ship porthole to his death is quite startling. THANK YOU, MR. MOTO begins in the Gobi desert as a group of travelers set up camp during a sandstorm and a man is killed trying to steal a scroll painting. Then, as in THINK FAST, we see Lorre in disguise, being held for suspicion of art smuggling, but actually he is, once again, on the trail of people trying to get their hands on a set of scrolls which, when put together, shows the location of the tomb of Genghis Kahn (shades of Fu Manchu!). Ruman is again the chief baddie, Beck is again the handsome Anglo lead (who romances the forgettable Jayne Regan), and John Carradine is a lesser baddie. The most interesting characters here are Prince Chung (Philip Ahn) and his mother (Pauline Frederick) who hold most of the Kahn scrolls. There is much skullduggery over the scrolls, ending in tragedy for some. These are both quite fun, and though B-films, never look cheap. [I've previously reviewed MR. MOTO'S LAST WARNING and a longer review of THINK FAST appears here. [DVD]

BY WHOSE HAND? (1932)

Briskly paced and very enjoyable murder-on-a-train thriller which was considered lost for many years. The opening sequence, startling for an early 30's movie, shows a killer's-eye view of a murder in a train's sleeping compartment, then we flashback to the beginning of the train's journey in Los Angeles (to San Francisco) as we get a glimpse of each of the passengers as they arrive at the station. Jeweler Kenneth Thompson (the man who is murdered) says goodbye to his wife as he flirts with sexy Ethel Kenyon, who is clearly out to pull some kind of con on him. Ben Lyon, a wisecracking crime reporter who has just written a story about the escape of wanted killer Nat Pendleton, shows up because of reports that the killer is near the station; when the cops can't find him, Lyon decides on impulse to ride the train so he can follow Barbara Weeks, a total stranger from whom he accidentally gets a kiss. Also on the train: a crotchety old man (William V. Mong), a blonde widow (Helene Millard) traveling with her dead husband's body, a honeymooning couple who just want to get to some canoodling, and a drunk (Tom Dugan) who latches onto Lyon (and even at one point calls him his boyfriend). Finally, there's Dwight Frye, a crook who turned state's evidence against Pendleton and is now traveling in handcuffs under federal protection. Not to give anything away, but suffice to say that, after Thompson is found dead that night, we discover that not everyone is who he or she seems. The cops get involved (as does Pendleton, who springs out of a most unexpected place--I should have seen it coming, but I didn't), but it's Lyon who is most instrumental in wrapping things up. For a pre-Code film, it's not terribly racy (except for smirking references to the honeymooners), though a marijuana cigarette plays a crucial role in the proceedings. There's one scene that implies that Dugan isn't as drunk as he appears, but nothing is done with that--it's as if the writers couldn't decide what do with that character; if it's a deliberate red herring, it should have been developed a bit more. Lyon and Weeks are fine as the romantic leads; Frye is surprisingly laid back, playing yet another slimy type, but at least not a neurotic mess like he usually got stuck with. This is one of those movies from the Columbia vaults that's been rescued by Sony and Turner Classic Movies; the print was in great shape, and I highly recommend it for mystery fans. [TCM]