THE ANNIVERSARY (1968)

Every year Mrs. Taggert insists that her three grown sons join her to celebrate her wedding anniversary to her late husband. And it seems that every year, she uses the event to reassert her dominance over her sons, insulting and humiliating them to keep them under her thumb—she owns the family construction business, and all three work for her, with varying degrees of competence. Henry, who is charge of the day-to-day business, is an unmarried milquetoast and transvestite who steals women's underwear from stores and clotheslines and seems happy with the status quo. The other two, however, have plans to escape: Terry, with a wife and kids, is planning to move to Canada; Tom, the youngest, has brought his pregnant fiancée to the celebration despite Mother's almost certain disapproval. And indeed, Mrs. Taggert spends the entire evening running everyone down, trying to get her way. Will this be the year when things backfire?

Bette Davis has a field day chewing the scenery as the horrid mother in this black comedy. She wears an eyepatch (due to a BB gun accident years ago, caused by one of her sons) and, though the film is set in England, Davis doesn't bother with an accent, and she doesn't need to—sounding like Bette Davis is scary enough. She cackles and spits out insults with relish. To Terry's wife, pregnant with her fourth child, she says, "Natural good manners told me when to put the plug in." Glaring at Tom's tarty girlfriend who plunked down next to her on the couch, she says, "Would you mind sitting somewhere else? Body odor offends me." Based on a play, most of the film takes place in Mom's house, though the camera set-ups are varied enough that it rarely feels stagy, and when it does venture out, to a dinner at a restaurant, it doesn't feel right. The rest of the cast is good, especially Jack Hedley as Terry, doing a nice job of not being as kowtowing as Henry (James Cossins) but not able to rebel as obviously as Tom (Christian Roberts), and Sheila Hancock as Terry's wife. Not all the plot twists work—a cruel prank that Mrs. Taggert plays on Terry's wife comes off as half-baked and childish—but this is a strong example of the strain of black comedy that blossomed in the 1960s. And this is a better movie overall than Davis' more famous campy dark comedy WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE. [DVD]

THE BELLE OF NEW YORK (1952)

In Gay Nineties New York, Vera-Ellen works for the Daughters of Right (as in, the Salvation Army); she attracts lots of men with her looks but few of them are really looking for salvation (as with Jean Simmons in GUYS AND DOLLS). Meanwhile, playboy Fred Astaire, about to finally get married, holds a bachelor party with all of his ex-girlfriends. Afterwards, he realizes he doesn't really love his intended, and, out in the city for a carriage ride, he spots Vera singing with the Daughters and is immediately smitten. She brushes him aside, telling him that true love should leave you walking on air; right after she leaves, Fred does, in fact, dance on air, winding up on top of the Washington Square arch. He keeps after her, and she insists he must begin to work for a living. When he gets a job as a streetcar driver, they perform a dance to the cute song "Oops!" and Vera starts to levitate as well. Fred's rich aunt (Marjorie Main), who is also a patron for the Daughters of Right, is happy about their relationship and pays off Fred's former fiancée (for breach of promise) and also offers to pay for Fred and Vera's wedding, but the night before, Fred and his friends get plastered at a bachelor party and he misses the wedding. How will these kids ever get back together?

Though I love movie musicals, the late 40s/early 50s was not their prime era (the big exception being SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN). With the MGM musicals of that time—like this one—it often feels like they're trying too hard in some areas (overdone production design) and not hard enough in others (underbaked plotting). I always enjoy seeing Fred Astaire dance, and the plot device of dancing on air is fun, but the rest of this is a little flat. Astaire was in his 50s and beginning to look a little creepy/pervy paired up with younger women. The peak of that nonsense came a few years later in FUNNY FACE in which, at 58 but looking 65, he was paired up with Audrey Hepburn, not quite 30 but looking barely 21. There’s not much chemistry between Astaire and Vera-Ellen; she seems rather cold throughout, even when she's supposed to be thawing out. The dance numbers are generally fine, even if the songs themselves are not memorable. I always enjoy Marjorie Main’s presence, and the supporting cast includes Keenan Wynn, Clinton Sundberg, and Alice Pearce (the first Mrs. Kravitz on Bewitched). The last "dancing on air" number is a nice closer. [TCM]

TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY (1951)

When he was 13, Steve Cochran shot and killed his drunken, abusive father; tried as an adult, he served 18 years in prison and is now being released with a chunk of money he earned through work, a cheap suit, and bus fare. He's hardened over the years, but he's not broken, and he sets out to start a new life. In a diner, Cochran is befriended by John Kellogg who helps him get a job as a welder, but Cochran soon discovers that Kellogg is a reporter who writes a sensationalistic front page story about him, so he leaves for New York City, hoping for anonymity in the big city. At a dime-a-dance joint, he meets up with tough blonde Ruth Roman; she shows him around town and he falls hard for her. It turns out she's being "kept" by a cop (Hugh Sanders), and when the three have words, the violent Sanders knocks out Cochran, then Roman (more or less accidentally) shoots Sanders. When Cochran comes to, Roman lets him think that he shot Sanders, and when they find out the cop has died, the two go on the run, winding up in a California farming camp where they get married, bond with another couple, and seem to be on the way to living a normal life. But soon Cochran is recognized when his picture is run in a true crime magazine—will they run again and stay and make a stand? And will Roman come clean with Cochran?

I am now an official Steve Cochran fan. With his dark, handsome, brooding look, he had a decent career in B-films, often noir or crime films, often as a conflicted hero (as here) or anti-hero (as in PRIVATE HELL 36). He may not have been an Oscar-caliber actor, but he brought a certain presence to his roles that generated the required heat or coolness as called for—he could come off as a dumb lug, a smart average guy, a slick seducer, or a naïve sucker. Here, he exhibits bits of all those personas: he's not dumb, exactly, but having grown up behind bars, he is unschooled socially, and part of the appeal of the first half of the movie is watching him negotiate his return to society. Roman is good as a tough gal who slowly softens up (and goes from brassy blonde to natural dark hair)—we keep hoping she doesn't quite have it in her to truly be a femme fatale. In the supporting cast, Lurene Tuttle stands out as a co-worker at the farm, and Lee Patrick (Effie in THE MALTESE FALCON) has a small but effective bit as Roman's sister. The latter half, set at the farm camp, feels at times like a serious version of IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Despite an ending that is a little too sunny and ties up loose ends a little too neatly, this is a standout film noir. [TCM; also on DVD]

THE RISING OF THE MOON (1957)

An anthology movie with three stories of Irish life directed by John Ford as a kind of labor of love, on a fairly low budget with no star power except for the presence of Tyrone Power as a host. In "The Majesty of the Law," a policeman travels from city to country to serve an arrest warrant on his old friend Dan who kicked a neighbor's ass and won’t pay the fine. In "A Minute's Wait," a train pulls into a station and the porter announces, "One minute’s wait only!"; the passengers pour off the train and entertain themselves at the bar or amongst themselves. At the end of the minute, they get back on the train only to have a delay that results another one-minute wait… and another, and another. The last, "1921," based on a famous short play, is about an Irish political prisoner who is about to be executed by the British, and how with help from some unlikely folks, he escapes his fate.

Though the last story is somewhat more serious in tone than the rest, these are all basically comedies of character and circumstance. The first is akin to a shaggy-dog story as the policeman (Cyril Cusack) and his buddy Dan (Noel Purcell) do a long dance around each other, both knowing that the upshot will be that Dan will go to jail. Cusack doesn’t relish his job, and Purcell is too proud not to eventually face up to his just deserts—he even spurns an offer from the offended party to pay the fine himself so Purcell won't have to leave. Both actors are fine, especially Purcell. "A Minute's Wait" is the most fun as we are briefly immersed in the comic stories of a handful of characters including a man about to enter an arranged marriage, a woman with a niece of marriageable age, an engineer who tells a ghost story at the bar which keeps being interrupted by calls to get back on the train, a rather dour couple who cling to their first-class car, and a team of champion hurlers. There's even a goat who winds up riding first-class (pictured). The whole bit is predictable but quite fun. Best line: the porter proposing to the shopgirl by saying, "How’d you like to be buried with my people?" The last story has more dramatic heft but is still kept light and has a nice surprise ending. Among the standout performers in the latter two stories (many of them members of Dublin's Abbey Theatre) are Jimmy O'Dea as the porter, Paul Farrell as the engineer, and well-known stage actor Donal Donnelly as the prisoner. This is not typical John Ford fare, and the Irish accents are occasionally a bit thick, but as an anthology film, this is one of the better ones. [TCM]

TRAPPED BY TELEVISION (1936)

Nat Pendleton is a nice-guy bill collector and science buff; he's sent to collect money from independent inventor Lyle Talbot but winds up getting interested in Talbot's latest device: the "television machine," which can broadcast and receive television signals. Pendleton gets his boss to hire Talbot as a bill collector, but he's just as much of a nice guy as Pendleton, and doesn't do very well at his job. When he goes to collect from Mary Astor, she ends up agreeing to help him raise money for his invention. They try to make a presentation of their invention for Paragon Broadcasting Company, but bad guys Mark Lawrence and Robert Strange sabotage it. Can the nice guys (and girl) overcome? This B-movie is a little creaky, and anyone expecting a science-fiction thriller from the title will be disappointed, but it moves quickly. The first half feels a little like a Gold Diggers movie, except instead of trying to put on a show, our heroes are trying to transmit a television image. I always like Talbot, and Pendleton and Astor provide strong support. Keep your expectations low and you’ll have a nice time. [Netflix streaming]

OVERLAND STAGE RAIDERS (1938)

The El Dorado Mining Company has had gold shipments stolen off the Oro Grande bus line. Stony Brooke, Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin, buddies known as The Three Mesquiteers, talk the boss of the mine into using an airplane service to ship their gold. Stony approaches Ned Hoyt and his sister Beth, who run a small air service, about expanding, and talks the local cattlemen into selling their cattle and investing in the plane company. Ned has a mysterious past—we discover he served time for something, but got his pilot's license back—but he's a hard worker, and Stony is a little sweet on Beth, so when executives from the bus line plot to ruin the Hoyt's business, Stony and the Mesquiteers come to the rescue. This is an average B-western of the era which is of general interest for two reasons: 1) John Wayne is Stony, a role in played in a handful of Three Mesquiteers movies before the success of STAGECOACH sent his career upwards; 2) renowned silent film actress Louise Brooks (PANDORA’S BOX, pictured at right with Wayne) appears here as Beth, in her last screen credit. Fans of Brooks may feel like they need to see this, but she basically sleepwalks through the role with little energy and no enthusiasm, coming off as no better or worse than any nameless B-actress who might have played a similar role in any other B-western. Ray Corrigan (Tucson) and Max Terhune (Lullaby) are also fairly colorless, though Terhune has a couple of silly bits with a puppet named Elmer. Slightly better are Anthony Marsh as Ned and Gordon Hart as the evil bus company owner. An average B-western, though the DVD from Olive Films presents it in great shape, probably better than it looked on its initial release. I've previously reviewed a non-John Wayne Mesquiteers film, VALLEY OF HUNTED MEN. [DVD]

PORTRAIT IN BLACK (1960)

Lloyd Nolan is an old, cranky bedridden shipping magnate; the considerably younger Lana Turner (pictured) is his second wife, Sandra Dee is his daughter, Anthony Quinn is his doctor and Richard Basehart is his assistant. Basehart believes that Turner and Quinn are lovers—and they are. When Turner expresses a desire to learn to drive even though she has a chauffeur (Ray Walston), Nolan becomes suspicious. Meanwhile, Dee is dating John Saxon, whose family's business was ruined because of Nolan. Quinn gets an offer for a job in Zurich and tells Turner that he's going to take it since Nolan remains an impediment to their happiness; Turner becomes upset and talks him into helping her kill Nolan by injecting an air bubble into his hypodermic needle. At first, they think they've gotten away with it, but soon Turner gets a letter saying, "Congratulations on your successful murder." Who knows what they’ve done? They assume it’s Basehart, but could it be Dee? Or even Walston? Or someone else? Unfortunately, when they kill off one of the suspects, another letter arrives. This glossy thriller is quite fun, caught somewhere between soap opera and film noir—though the fact that it was shot in widescreen and bright color works against the noir atmosphere. It's set in San Francisco, so occasionally a scene feels like it came out of Hitchcock's VERTIGO. All the actors are good; though I’m not a fan of Quinn's, he does a nice job here playing against type as a relatively quiet and passive man. Anna May Wong has a small role as a housekeeper. Yes, the overall tone is to-the-hilt melodrama (though it's not over-the-top enough to be campy), but that’s half the fun. The other half is figuring who’s doing what to whom; there aren’t many likable characters which is a bit of a weakness since we're not really invested in anyone being proved innocent, but still, this is 60s era fluff-thriller fun done by pros. [DVD]

MODEL SHOP (1969)

Gary Lockwood is a mid-20s guy living near a beach in Los Angeles, a year out of grad school and looking for a job as an architect; not designing run-of-the-mill stuff like diners or grocery stores, mind you, but making something really cool like a new Eiffel Tower. He's spent the last year living off of his pretty blond girlfriend (Alexandra Hay), a model hoping for a shot as an actress, but she's getting tired of his layabout mooching. And as this is the late 60s, he also has the threat of the draft hanging over him since he no longer gets a college deferment. The film follows Lockwood through one 24-hour period, beginning as he wakes up to the sound of two guys at his front door ready to repossess his garish green MG unless he can come up with $100 in back payments. They agree to give him to the end of the business day to find the money. After Hay berates him (justifiably) for his general passivity and lack of commitment—to her or to a career—Lockwood visits some old college friends in order to borrow the hundred bucks. Along the way, he becomes obsessed with a beautiful French woman (Amouk Aimée) who is stranded in California after a messy divorce; she is working as a model in a sleazy studio where men can buy a model's time, not for sex but to take sexy photographs. After he finds out from his parents in San Francisco that he must report to the draft board on Monday morning, he goes home and gets high while looking at his pics of Aimée. When night falls, Lockwood goes to the studio and hooks up with her for a one-night stand. The next morning, he calls her only to find out from her roommate that she's gone, having gotten just enough money to go back to Paris. The film ends with Lockwood repeating the phrase, "Always try" into the phone.

The description probably makes this sound like a late European New-Wave entry examining rootlessness and alienation; the director, Jacques Demy, is French, though known best for the lush romantic musical THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBROUG, and certainly the film is not strong on narrative or acting (most of the cast except Lockwood and Aimée seem to be amateurs), but still it keeps you watching, and it's not alienation as much as middle-class apathy that seems to be the main theme. It helped, for me, that the camera is almost always focused on the handsome Lockwood, who, for good measure, wears a snug t-shirt and jeans throughout—except when he's shirtless in the first scene. His character is fleshed out a bit more than you might expect, though because he seems so aimless, it is difficult to feel much empathy for him. Aimée's character is rather far-fetched; it seems unlikely given her looks and manner that she'd have to humble herself in a skid-row skin parlor to make ends meet. The rock group Spirit appear as themselves, an up-and-coming band with a debut album just out, but as actors, they're terrible—even a line like "Hey, man, how ya doing?" sounds stiff. I suppose the "Always try" mantra at the end is supposed to be positive, but Lockwood doesn't sound like he believes it, and the last moments reek of sweaty desperation. An interesting movie. And again, Gary Lockwood in tight clothes. [DVD]

AIR HAWKS (1935)

Ralph Bellamy is the head of Independent Transcontinental Lines (ITL), a small and scrappy cargo and mail airlines. He's trying to get a lucrative government contract so he can get a bank loan to expand the company, but banker Wyrley Birch considers him a risk and wants him to sell out to the larger Continental Lines, something neither Bellamy nor his pilots want to do. But a group of men, including the head of Continental (Robert Middlemass), a casino owner (Douglas Dumbrille), and a mysterious "Chief," have hired a German scientist (Edward Van Sloan, pictured) to use his experimental laser-type ray to cause fires on ITL planes, making it look like the planes went down due to faulty equipment and care, which would pressure ITL to sell. A snoopy journalist (Victor Killian) gets on the case and discovers that Van Sloan is headquartered at an abandoned inn, but can he get this news out in time to save lives, and save ITL?

As with many B-films of the era, this is plot-heavy—the above doesn’t even touch on the romantic interest/femme fatale (Tala Birell) angle, or the sad story of the pilot who dies in one of the ray attacks and the wife and daughter he leaves behind. There's even a subplot involving real-life aviator Wiley Post who agrees to fly an ITL plane across the country to revive faith in the company. But considering the movie is under 70 minutes, the busy narrative keeps interest from flagging, and this winds up being a fun, fast-paced thriller. Bellamy is fine as the hero, Dumbrille good as the most visible villain, and Van Sloan (Van Helsing in the original DRACULA) makes a fine, almost archetypal mad doctor, though he doesn't get as much screen time as he deserves. The early scene in which Dumbrille and Middlemass meet the mad doctor at the inn is nicely creepy, right out of an "old dark house" movie, and the ending, with Bellamy attacking the death-ray machine, is exciting. The only thing that would really improve this movie is a better title, like DEATH-RAY IN THE SKY. [TCM]

THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE (1965)

War buffs find this movie problematic because of how fictionalized the account of the battle, a turning point in WWII, is. I won't quibble with that; their concerns are real, and given that the movie was made only 20 years after the war, it's odd that the filmmakers weren't more careful with easily-checked details. But as entertainment, this works better than other war epics of the era (THE LONGEST DAY, A BRIDGE TOO FAR)—there is more attention to character, the battlefield tactics are clear, and even though it's nearly three hours, it doesn't feel as bloated as the others, being well paced, dragging a bit only right after intermission. In December 1944, the Allies seem to have the Germans on the run and many American soldiers are lulled into thinking that the war is nearly over. But during a reconnaissance flight, Kiley (Henry Fonda), a former cop turned intelligence officer, snaps a picture of a highly esteemed German officer, Colonel Hessler (Robert Shaw, pictured at left); to Kiley, his presence means that the Germans are planning a major offensive in Belgium, but his superiors don’t believe him. In fact, Hessler is planning a major push near the Ardennes Forest. In the meantime, the Germans parachute a small troop of English-speaking soldiers, led by Schumacher (Ty Hardin) who spent time in Texas and knows enough American pop culture to pass, in order to disrupt communication; they switch road signs and pretend to be Allied soldiers about to explode the Ruhr bridge, delaying the real Allies from destroying it until the Germans can cross. Eventually, Kiley is proven correct and his bosses (represented by Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews) change their strategy and drive the Germans back.

Though the facts are not always correct and clichés abound, one of the strong pluses of this film is character development. We get to know a handful of men who become our guides to the twists and turns in the narrative. Fonda is good as the man in whom his superiors can't quite put their faith, until it's almost too late. As those superiors, Ryan and Andrews aren't given much to do except to voice the official Army line. George Montgomery is an experienced sergeant who is the driver for a newbie lieutenant (James MacArthur); Montgomery resents the callow youth, but when the two are captured and witness the German slaughter of American prisoners as Malmedy, MacArthur has his own personal turning point and plays an important part in the climax, in which the Germans make a last stab at taking over an American oil depot to get desperately-needed fuel. Hardin (seen at right) is good, even a bit fun, as the fake Texan. Telly Savalas is mostly comic relief as a sergeant who runs a lucrative business in "merchandise" (mostly cigarettes and booze) with the help of a French girl who has fallen in love with him. But the best performance is by Robert Shaw who does a great job of bringing Hessler, the admittedly stereotyped ultra-Nazi, to life—we don't exactly get to know him, but we do find him the most compelling figure in the movie. Hans Christian Blech plays his assistant who eventually finds Hessler's fervor too much in the face of certain defeat. The battles play out well, and it is to the credit of director Ken Annakin that we are never confused about what is happening where—a problem I have with many of the later bloated war films. Some critics complain about obvious use of rear projection and miniatures, but I didn't really notice such problems. In my eyes, this is one of the better war films of the 60s. [TCM]

SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1936)

This is the first talkie version of the story of the killer barber, a character first brought to life in a Victorian pulp novel called A String of Pearls. Thanks to the Stephen Sondheim musical and the recent Tim Burton film adaptation, his story is familiar, but this telling has a few differing details. The narrative is set up as the intertwining of three plotlines: 1) Sweeney Todd (Tod Slaughter) is a barber who specializes in shaving sailors and murdering the ones who have money or jewels on them. He puts them in a special barber chair, pulls a lever, and they are dumped down into his basement; the fall generally kills them, but if not, Todd goes downstairs with his razor and, in his words, polishes them off. Mrs. Lovatt (Stella Rho, pictured at left with Slaughter), who owns a bakery next door, chops the bodies up and makes meat pies of them, and also splits the ill-gotten booty with Todd; 2) The handsome Mark (Bruce Seton, pictured below) is in love with the lovely Joanna (Eve Lister), but her father, a shipowner, doesn’t approve because Mark is just a poor sailor. Todd sets his leering eyes for Joanna, and attempts to blackmail the father into essentially selling Joanna to him; 3) Mark's comic relief sidekick Stanley flirts with Joanna's sidekick Nan. 

It is made clear in the beginning, as the film cuts back and forth between the three stories, that money is the root of all the problems here. Mark doesn't have enough money to marry Joanna, Todd wants more and more money, Joanna's father is about to go bankrupt, Mrs. Lovatt is worried that Todd is holding out on her, and even Stanley complains that Nan is asking for too much when she wants him to bring back a long list of specialty items from his next trip abroad. Fans of the Sondheim work will be surprised to find a subplot involving an African native uprising, the upshot of which is that Mark soon returns to England with plenty of money, only to wind up in Sweeney Todd's basement. Mrs. Lovatt, both jealous of Todd's attentions to Joanna and upset that he might be keeping some of the victim's valuables from her, helps Mark escape, leading to a moderately thrilling climax with all the characters gathered at the barber shop. 

This is a low-budget affair, but Tod Slaughter, famous British blood-and-thunder actor, does a nice job as Todd, putting some real relish into his "polish them off" threats, and the rest of the cast is solid, with Seton and Lister especially good. 13-year-old John Singer is fine as Tobias, the abused apprentice who plays an important role in the climax. The ending is more predictable and traditional than that of the musical, which has a more downbeat conclusion. The man-into-meat-pies plotline is never explicitly stated. Since the print on the Alpha DVD (which is in terrible shape) is roughly five minutes shorter than the length of record, and there is a rather jagged edit during a scene in which Lovatt is preparing to dispose of a body, I assume that such an explanatory scene has simply been cut out somewhere along the line, so you have to have knowledge of the play to get the black-humored scene near the end when a man is speculating about the disappearance of so many sailors from the neighborhood, while eating one of Mrs. Lovatt's pies. [DVD]

R.P.M (1970)

Two radical student groups occupy the administration building at a large university; Gary Lockwood is the socialist/student rights leader and Paul Winfield is the head of the black student group. They demand that the current president resign and be replaced by hip, much-published sociology professor Anthony Quinn, who is so very 60s with-it that he sleeps with his students (currently with sexy grad student Ann-Margret). The board of trustees asks Quinn to accept, and though he figures he'll get caught in the middle, he accepts. The radicals let him into the building and give him a list of twelve demands to take back to the board. After some negotiating, the board gives in to some of them (a black trustee, a review of college investments) but the final three, including having a student voice in hiring and firing, become sticking points. Quinn advises the students to compromise, having gotten most of what they wanted, but instead Lockwood and Winfield threaten to destroy the administration computers. Meanwhile, Ann-Margret attacks Quinn, saying he's never been in love and just sleeps with a string of groupies; the best line in the movie has Ann-Margret tell him that his sexual activity increases in proportion to the length of his bibliography. Eventually, Quinn calls in the cops who use tear gas to get rid of the students. Although the resolution is relatively peaceful, the student body turns against Quinn whom we assume in the last scene of the film, as he walks slowly through a crowd of hecklers, has become a broken man.

This is one of the few Hollywood films of the era to attempt to deal seriously with the issue of campus unrest--the only other one that comes to mind is THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT, which was released a couple of months earlier. Though this film is not nearly as bad its critical reputation would have it, there are a couple of big problems. First, it had the misfortune to be made before but released after the Kent State shootings, which would largely call a halt to major campus unrest. Here, the issue doesn't appear to be so much a concern with police violence but more with the campus bureaucracy. The other problem is that the students aren't given a consistent attitude or philosophy. Their demands aren't discussed at any length and they wind up mostly seeming just stubborn. The relationship between Quinn and Ann-Margret is interesting but not explored in much depth. Lockwood (pictured at right, and above with Winfield, looking scruffily cute but rather blank) and Winfield aren't rounded characters at all. Quinn is OK but seems a bit uncomfortable. Best viewed as a period piece. [TCM]

HOMICIDE FOR THREE (1948)

Navy officer Peter Duluth, on a 36-hour leave, meets his wife Iris in Los Angeles; they got married a year ago but there was no time for a honeymoon, so now on their first anniversary, they're looking for a hotel room where they can catch up on lost time, so to speak. All the hotels are booked solid, but a young woman named Miss Rose, who is leaving town to elope, takes pity on the couple and lets them use her room while she's gone. Unfortunately, a weekend of casual canoodling is not in the cards: first, people who see Iris keep thinking she looks like a puppeteer named Mona who, it turns out, is a cousin of Iris's; later, a drunk comes up to Iris and warns her that she's in danger because "the white rose and the red rose are out." Then when Peter goes to a steambath to ward off a cold, his uniform is stolen. He meets up with a detective named Hatch who agrees to help them figure out what's going on, but they soon discover that Mona is dead, and red and white roses are found in her apartment. By the time Peter and Iris get tangled up with a strange drunken man they nickname The Beard and two more women who seem targeted by the roses killer, they realize they're up to their necks in trouble. 

This pleasant B-mystery is based on a novel by Patrick Quentin (a pen name for two writers, one of whom, Hugh Wheeler, went on to co-write the musical Sweeney Todd) who wrote a series of Peter Duluth books. (A later book was turned into a movie with Ginger Rogers called BLACK WIDOW but the characters' last names were changed to Denver.) I'm sorry there were no more in this series because for a low-budget film, this is fast-moving and fun, like an episode of Remington Steele. Warren Douglas and Audrey Long work together well as Peter and Iris, with Douglas in particular doing a nice job of looking like he just wants to get Long alone in a hotel room and screw—at heart this is a comedy of delayed sexual consummation, like MY FAVORITE WIFE. The colorful supporting cast includes Lloyd Corrigan as The Beard—who turns out to be a criminologist—and Grant Withers as Hatch. There's also a helpful cab driver who calls himself an "amateur psychoanalyzer." The identity of the killer was a total surprise to me.  A short, sweet, light thriller.  [Netflix streaming]

YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER (1942)

Back in 2004, I saw the first teaming of Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth, YOU’LL NEVER BE RICH; I thought it had some wonderful dancing but otherwise found it wanting in comparison to the Astaire/Rogers musicals of the 30s. This one has dancing that is just as fabulous and a romantic comedy storyline that breaks no new ground, essentially rehashing the Astaire/Rogers mixed-up, on-again, off-again romances. Here, Astaire is a dancer stranded in Buenos Aires due to too much gambling. Bandleader Xavier Cugat (playing himself) agrees to help him get a job at a hotel run by the cantankerous Adolphe Menjou. Meanwhile, Menjou's two youngest daughters are pissed because, even though they have boyfriends ready and willing to marry them, family tradition holds that the older child must marry first, and that means some complicated plotting by everyone to get beautiful but cold-as-ice Rita Hayworth thawed out and married off to someone. Menjou starts sending orchids and writing anonymous "secret admirer" letters to Hayworth, hoping to loosen her up—yes, both a creepy and nonsensical plot device—and Hayworth mistakenly thinks that Astaire is the admirer. Menjou asks Astaire to play along in exchange for a dancing gig at the hotel, but to be obnoxious so that Hayworth will dismiss him but perhaps be in the mood to find romance with one of several handsome and eligible men who will be present at a big party at Menjou's. What could possibly go wrong?

Yeah, Daddy writing the notes is creepy—and gets creepier right up to the climax—and Hayworth plays the cold fish almost too well, so that she and Astaire don't really mesh as personalities, but they sure dance together well; I'd say she’s second only to Rogers as a romantic dance partner to Astaire (Cyd Charisse was sexy though not necessarily romantic). Their best number is their first one, the lushly romantic "I'm Old Fashioned." The other highlight is the jivey little jazz song, "The Shorty George." I miss the grand supporting casts of the 30s films; here, only Gus Schilling as a (possibly gay) nephew and employee of Menjou's provides any real sideline fun. Favorite line: when Fred first meets Rita and tries flirting, to no avail, he is reduced to cooing, "The air is nice…”; when she fails to respond, he says, with exaggerated exasperation, "…and there seems to be an abundance of it!" Not a great film, but it does make me sorry that these two didn't make a few more together. [TCM]

THE CAMP ON BLOOD ISLAND (1958)

During World War II, on an island off the coast of Malaysia, the Japanese have established two prison camps, one for men and one for women. Commander Yamamitsu and his assistant Sakamura run the men's camp in a brutal fashion, torturing and killing men for trying to escape, and taking hostages whom they threaten to kill when they want information. If the Japanese win the war, Yamamitsu says he will let the prisoners establish new lives in Japan, but if they lose, he will burn down both camps and slaughter all the inmates. As it happens, the Japanese have already surrendered, but because the camp radio is out of commission, Yamamitsu doesn’t know this yet. However, the prisoners, led by Col. Lambert, do know, thanks to a secret radio in possession of a Dutch prisoner (nicknamed, of course, "Dutch"). They're trying to keep the Japanese from finding out, hoping they'll get liberated by the Allies first, but eventually a diplomat named Beattie, who rarely agrees with Lambert's leadership, cracks and tries to spill the beans.

This film has a reputation for a couple of reasons. When it came out, it was seen as a much-needed antidote to the general whitewashing of the behavior of the Japanese army during the war. It opens with a claim that it's based on a true story, but even with all the powers of the Internet, I could not verify that—though a novelization of the movie became a bestseller. The other big selling point of the movie was its graphic depictions of gore and torture. In terms of explicitness, from today's vantage point, it would barely garner a PG rating, but at least two scenes are fairly brutal in tone: the opening in which Peters, a captured escapee, is forced to dig his own grave before he is shot and falls dead into it; and a later scene involving a beheading. An effective non-graphic scene has Sakamura answer the doctor's plea for fresh bandages by throwing the bloody bandages that had been wrapped around Peters' torso on the ground and saying, "He doesn’t need these anymore." Andre Morell is a little too low-key as Lambert; theoretically, there's a plot-point reason for this—he is keeping news of the surrender from the men—but the performance could have used a bit more fire. Hammer horror icon Barbara Shelley plays a female prisoner who makes a daring escape near the end with an American (Phil Brown) who arrives on the island. All of the three major Japanese roles are played by Anglo actors; the best is Marne Maitland as the martinet Sakamura, the villain you love to hate. [TCM]

THE LOWER DEPTHS (1936)

The Baron (Louis Jouvet) gets a dressing down from a government minister; he has borrowed some "secret funds" for gambling and has lost the money. Seeming unconcerned, he makes one more effort to win big, but loses. That night, a thief named Pépel (Jean Gabin) breaks into the Baron's house, but when the Baron tells him that everything of value has been repossessed, the two bond over their dire straits in life, and the Baron comes to stay at the squalid boarding house where Pépel stays. Pépel has his hands full staying out of the hands of the law and dallying with Vassilissa, the young wife of the elderly landlord Kostylev, and Natasha, Vassilissa's sister. Other characters we get to know include a down-on-his-luck actor (Robert Le Vigan) who keeps telling people that he is an "organism poisoned by alcohol," a young, whimsical and frequently drunken accordion player (Maurice Baquet), a cobbler and his dying wife, and a fat police inspector who has set his cap for Natasha. Pépel's love triangle takes center stage until the end when one character commits suicide and another is killed in a brawl—the police are told that it was his life in "the lower depths" that killed him.

Based on a Maxim Gorky play, Jean Renoir's film version retains most of the Russian names (and at least in the subtitles, the Russian currency of rubles) but is set in Paris. For a good chunk of its running time, this almost comes off as a French version of YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU, though one in which Kostylev (the Lionel Barrymore equivalent) is a rotten bastard instead of a sweet fairy-godfather figure. The flophouse, through grungy, is large and open and filled with colorful people, and generally seems like a pleasant place to stay. Gabin and Jouvet (pictured above), who were two of France's most esteemed actors of the time, have a wonderful chemistry together—better than Gabin has with either of his lovers, though Suzy Prim as Vassilissa is fine as a woman you love to hate who is occasionally likeable. Renoir's style feels very modern, with a moving camera that occasionally passes behind objects which obscure the action briefly, as if we were spying unseen on the characters. Another dramatic piece this movie conjures up is Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, in which the down-and-out denizens of a bar are stripped of their illusions by a truth-teller. Here, Gabin is a kind of truth-teller, but he allows most of them to keep their illusions, and even gets a relatively happy ending himself—a weak but not fatal plot point. Some may find the light tone of the movie to clash too much with the underlying narrative—and Akira Kurasawa's version of the same material, made in 1957, is apparently darker and more faithful to Gorky, though I have not seen it—but this is still worth seeing, for Renoir's style and the two lead actors. [DVD]

THINGS HAPPEN AT NIGHT (1947)

The Prescott family, despite still living in the ancestral mansion, has fallen on hard times and is hoping that daughter Joyce's marriage into the millionaire Ebury family will allow them to continue living in the manner to which they are accustomed. The only problem is that the Prescott house seems to be haunted. Unexplained events over the past few weeks include pieces of coal scattered about the drawing room floor, a hat ripped down the middle, pictures on the wall tuned upside down, attic lights going on and off at strange hours, and rugs and curtains catching fire (and see the levitating apples pictured at left). The cook is constantly threatening to leave, and now news about the supernatural shenanigans is spreading in the village, possibly putting Joyce's marriage in jeopardy. One day, three people descend upon the house: Harris, an insurance man looking into possible claims involving a burned rug; Spencer, an investigator from the Institute of Psychical Research; and Ebury, hoping to snuff out the outrageous rumors about a ghost. Spencer decides that a poltergeist is to blame, and that the mischievous spirit has possessed Audrey, the younger sister. Everyone agrees to stay in the house that night while Spencer attempts an exorcism, but soon even stranger things are happening.

I pieced the above summary together, hoping to make sense of what was a cut and disjointed print of the movie; IMDb gives the film's length as 79 minutes, but the print I saw was just under an hour, so clearly there is stuff missing—one obvious omission is a song, "First of Forever" which is listed in the opening credits but didn’t appear in the film I saw. In the first half, the movie reminded me of THE UNINVITED, a serious ghost story told in a light tone, but eventually this becomes more like a slapstick comedy, even though the poltergeist and the possession are presented as real. No explanation is given for who the naughty spirit is or why it has descended on the house, and Joyce, the bride-to-be, is barely in the movie. The last 20 minutes, in which the poltergeist causes much humorous havoc, are fun though things never really get scary. Gordon Harker, who plays Harris, was a famous B-actor in British films in the 30s and 40s. The only other actor to stand out is Joan Young, who does a nice job as the cook.  [YouTube]

THE BEASTS OF MARSEILLES (1957)
aka SEVEN THUNDERS

In 1943, Dave and Jim, two British POWs, have escaped and are hiding out in a rather unsavory quarter of Marseilles. While waiting to be smuggled out in a fishing boat, they are given a room in a shabby apartment building next to a whorehouse which is frequented by German officers. The handsome, dashing Dave (Stephen Boyd) flirts with a blonde beauty named Lise (Anna Gaylor); the slightly less handsome Jim (Tony Wright) forms a bond with an older British woman (Kathleen Harrison) who lets him share her bed and pose as her husband when the Nazis come parading through the building. In a separate plotline, the Germans are trying to find out why almost a hundred people have vanished without a trace. They suspect a serial killer and they're right; the kindly Dr. Martout (James Robertson Justice) has a nice evil business going. He gets a man named Blanchard to send him desperate refugees trying to escape; Martout promises to help them, gets them to bring all their cash or gold, gives them a glass of poisoned cognac, and kills them, throwing their bodies in a lime pit in his cellar. When the Germans decide to evacuate the neighborhood and blow it up to get rid of two problems (the refugees and the killer), Dave and Jim's paths cross with Martout's.

For a while, this is a different and intriguing take on the traditional WWII resistance movie—with a dash of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. The narrative takes its time developing and we meet several interesting side characters: Blanchard (Eugene Deckers), the man who sends refugees to Martout, thinking he's being helpful, unaware of their fates; the colorful madam of the whorehouse (Katherine Kath) who has good survival instincts; Schlip (Martin Miller) and Bourdin (George Coulouris), two refugees who wind up drinking Martout's cognac; and a German soldier named Eric (James Kenney), a skittish 20-year-old virgin who is out of his comfort zone at the whorehouse and who later accidentally shoots and kills a child, an act which has more reverberations then you'd guess. All the actors do fine jobs. Boyd (pictured with Gaylor), though hunky, is a bit on the bland side, but Wright and Gaylor take up the slack nicely, and Harrison is fun as always. Justice is excellent as the seemingly civilized but cold-blooded doctor who tells Schlip that he's doing him a favor, poisoning him rather than sending him to Auschwitz. Kath stands out in her few scenes as the madam—most fun in a scene in which Harrison discovers that there's a secret passage between her spartan bedroom and Kath's ornately decorated bedroom next door. The movie feels a bit long getting to its climax, and the some of the destruction effects are lame—obvious rear projection or matting of exploding buildings. This doesn't crop up much, so it's worth catching it the next time it does.  The best explanation I've seen for the original British title is that it might be a reference to a verse in the Book of Revelation about seven thunders being heard at the time of the apocalypse. [TCM]

THE GREAT MR. NOBODY (1941)

"Dreamy" Smith is a young, sweet-natured guy who works in a newspaper's classified ad department; his buddy "Skipper" Martin is an older guy who works on a salvage barge. Together, they're ready to leave their jobs, buy a boat, and sail the world, leaving behind their city woes and troublesome women. The problems are: 1) every time Dreamy gets enough money put aside, he loses it somehow, usually by giving it away to someone in need; 2) Dreamy isn't as ready as Skipper is to leave women behind—in fact, he's got a girlfriend named Mary at the newspaper who doesn't want to see him go. When the paper gets a new publisher who gives cash bonus prizes for good ideas to boost circulation, Dreamy's boss, Mr. Wade, starts stealing Dreamy's ideas and passes them off as his own. Skipper and Mary want him to stand up for himself, but for different reasons: Skipper hoping he'll earn the prize money to buy the boat, and Mary hoping he'll earn enough money so they can get married. Or is there a third option?

This is a very cute little comedy that works mostly due to a plot that's a little out of the ordinary, though there is a Capraesque tone to the proceedings, albeit more comic and with less pomp and sentiment. I must admit that, though I liked the characters, I got a little tired of Dreamy's constant self-sacrificing, especially when his charitable acts wound up screwing over his buddy and girlfriend. Eddie Albert (pictured) is perfect as Dreamy, with a sweet and "dreamy" but not dumb persona; Alan Hale is just as good as Skipper (a character name that his son, Alan Hale Jr. would inherit on Gilligan's Island), and Joan Leslie is fine as Mary. The strong supporting cast includes John Litel as mean Mr. Wade, William Lundigan as the handsome new publisher who has his eye on Mary, Dickie Moore as Limpy, a crippled newsboy, and John Ridgeley as a reporter. [TCM]

SPRING IS HERE (1930)

This very cute romantic musical is set at the Braley estate on Long Island and begins on a fine June morning. On the patio, Mary Jane, the youngest Braley girl, is arguing with her on-and-off boyfriend Stacy; they sing "Spring Is Here," a "carpe diem" song in which he lets her know that, at 16 going on 17, she's in danger of getting "old and crusty." In the dining room, Betty gets yelled at by Mom and Dad about coming home too late ("Are you in training to be a night watchman?")  They're anxious to marry her off to her long-time boyfriend Terry, but at the party last night, she got bored with him and went off for a moonlight drive with dashing Steve. Terry tries to get her back by singing her a love letter ("Sincerely Yours") and she sings back that she'll use the song the next time she sees Steve. Mary Jane suggests that Terry act "bad" to get Betty's attention, so at a party that night, he flirts outrageously with several women, including Betty's mom, but his behavior winds up sending Betty back into Steve's arms. However, Mr. Braley throws Terry out of the house, and that gets Betty's juices flowing, and when Steve arrives to elope, she winds up back with Terry.

An early screen musical by Rodgers and Hart, this seems to be a little-seen rarity, and it's worth seeking out. As moviemaking, it's nothing special, with stagy, static camera takes, but there is some clever dialogue, the songs are appealing—"With a Song in My Heart" went on to become a standard—and the actors are all energetic and seem to be having fun, especially Frank Albertson as Stacy and Inez Courtney as Mary Jane (pictured above right). In most romance films, we know who's going to wind up with the girl, but here neither character seems coded as the obvious winner. Top billing goes to the handsome and hearty Lawrence Gray as Steve, which would normally make him the hero, but even though he doesn't really have any major flaws of character, he loses out in the end. Alexander Gray (no relation) is Terry and, as he's not as attractive or chipper as Steve and comes off as a bit stodgy, we would expect him to lose out, but he doesn't. Bernice Claire (pictured with Alexander Gray) is fine as Betty, and Louise Fazenda and Ford Sterling are excellent as the parents. Among the standout scenes: Mr. Braley dragging a marriage proposal for his daughter out of the oblivious Terry; the first song in which Stacy sings that "Spring is the time for love in Vitaphone plays"—a reference to the Vitaphone Company, the talkies division of Warner Bros. which made the movie; Terry kissing everyone at the party; and the next-to-last song, "What’s the Big Idea" in which Stacy expresses his randiness to Mary Jane, and she replies, "The way you use your hands/You're a traveling man." Overall, a delight for fans of early musicals. [TCM]

MUSIC IS MAGIC (1935)

Bebe Daniels is an aging movie star appearing in a new stage show. She's not a big draw anymore but seems completely oblivious to that fact—maybe because her young boyfriend (Thomas Beck) always sits in the front row and applauds wildly—and still makes big-star demands on everyone. Also in the show is a musical comedy trio (Alice Faye, Frank Mitchell, Joe Durant) looking to hit the big time. When the show's tour is canceled, the trio goes to Hollywood where Faye works at a laundry and the two guys work on a streetcar. Faye thinks their manager has arranged for an audition for her with a big producer, but he sneaks her into a Mexican restaurant to sing while the producer is eating dinner. Eventually, she gets a movie role—in a movie with Daniels, who has brought her kid sister to Hollywood. Daniels has big ideas for the movie; her vision for one production number calls for "Rabbits… symbolic… about 150." The sister gets the hots for Beck, Faye gets her big break, and Daniels is finally able to face up to reality, admits the girl she's passing off as her sister is really her daughter, and agrees to take a smaller role in the movie. This short musical isn't bad considering Alice Faye is the star—I've never really warmed up to Faye, and she's no better here, early in her career, than she was later, but there is the novelty that in this film she's done up as a dead ringer for Jean Harlow (as in the picture above). Mitchell and Durant, who were a real-life comedy team, do a lot of physical comedy; some of it works, some doesn't.  Daniels is quite good as an egotistical movie star, playing mostly for good-natured laughs instead of mean jabs. The title song got stuck in my head for a few days, but now I can't recall it at all. It's fun that Thomas Beck's character’s name is Tony Bennett.  [FMC]

LORD LOVE A DUCK (1966)

This is one of those darkly comic satires of the 1960s that probably felt wild and crazy at the time but now feels forced and weird. High school senior Roddy MacDowell (who was in his mid-30s at the time of filming) is a loner and a misfit who calls himself "Mollymauk," after an extinct bird, and who, when excited, starts squawking like a bird. On the day before classes begin, he befriends fellow senior Tuesday Weld (22 at the time) and commits himself to helping her make her dreams of stardom come true. (Is he straight and in love with her, or gay and fascinated by her? I was never sure.) He helps her get the twelve cashmere sweaters she needs to own to join an exclusive girls' club, pushes her into marriage to a young and handsome marriage counselor (Martin West) who works with a minister at a drive-in church, and arranges for her to meet a beach movie producer who has never actually been on a beach (his latest movie: "I Married a Teenage Vampire") so she can get a part in his next flick. When West proves to be an obstacle to her plans, McDowell goes after him, eventually with a bulldozer, and the movie falls apart.

This is all over the map, satirizing everything it can, but never striking very deeply—or coherently. Everyone—kids, adults, free spirits, squares, parents, educators, the church—is made to look silly, leaving no real moral center. For a while, it seems like MacDowell might be a "holy innocent" or perhaps a devil, but I could find no evidence that he's anything more than just an unhinged guy who is good at hypnotism which he uses on a few people. MacDowell and Weld (pictured above) are too old to be playing high school students. I could buy them as college students, which is a compliment to MacDowell who didn't look 18 but also didn’t look over 30, and there seems to be no good reason why they're supposed to be teenagers rather than 20-somethings. Having said that, the actors give themselves whole-heartedly to this mess, with Weld in particular doing a nice job—and looking quite beautiful. Martin West, apparently best known for playing a popular doc on General Hospital, is wholesomely handsome and does a nice job as Weld's clueless husband; Lola Albright is good as Weld's mom; Harvey Korman plays the principal. Good old Ruth Gordon (pictured at right) steals her scenes as West's feisty mother. The craziest (and most uncomfortable) scene has Weld picking out 16 colorful sweaters with her father (Max Showalter), both in states of nearly orgasmic bliss. My favorite line: Weld's major is "adolescent ethics and commercial relationships." Very strange indeed; a must-see only for hardcore fans of 60s movies, or fans of Weld. [TCM]

REVOLT OF THE SLAVES (1960)

Around the year 300, the emperor Maximium, in the midst of a crackdown on Christians, surrounds himself with African protectors rather than the traditional Praetorian guards, who might be too sympathetic to the Christians to trust completely.  The slave Vibio attacks one of the Africans in the streets after witnessing an escaped slave get his hands cut off as punishment. Before Vibio can be harmed, he is bought by Claudius, a Roman patrician. He has a daughter, the saucy Fabiola, and a niece, the more demure Agnes. Agnes is "dating" Valerio but seems to be sweet on Sebastian, so the jealous Valerio has Corvino, head of the Emperor's secret police, spy on her. One night, posing as a cripple, Corvino follows her to a mass meeting at a villa and finds out that she and Sebastian are secret Christians, as is Vibio. Against her better judgment, Fabiola helps Agnes and the others hide, and begins to fall for Vibio. Soon, however, most of the Christians are exposed and rounded up to be slaughtered in the arena, forced to provide practice for gladiators with spears. Vibio leads some men in an attempt to break into the arena from the catacombs beneath, but will they make it in time?

Though marketed as a sword-and-sandal beefcake epic, this Italian film is actually an unofficial remake of DeMille's SIGN OF THE CROSS—officially it's a version of a novel called Fabiola—and not a bad one at that. It's well filmed and has spectacular sets, good use of color, and a compelling (if familiar) narrative. The only name star here is Rhonda Fleming (as Fabiola) and, though she's a smidge too old for the part, she still shows some star power. Though the film is definitely not in the Hercules mold of Italian action movies of the era, there is still a fair amount of male pulchritude on display, especially from the handsome Lang Jeffries (pictured at right, at the time married to Fleming) as Vibio and Burt Nelson as the muscled Christian Catulo. There is also whipping and torturing and some bloody spearing. Serge Gainsbourg, better known in Europe as a singer, songwriter, and father of Charlotte Gainsbourg, is fine as Corvino. The events of the movie are based loosely on actual events during the reign of Diocletian—the African guards, the martyrdoms of Sebastian (with arrows) and Agnes—and I'm not sure why they used a fictitious name for the Emperor. Overall, I quite liked this, despite 1) the fact that everyone's dialogue is post-dubbed; and 2) the occasional bizarre line, as when Fleming, upon seeing her father's new mechanical clock, says, "This is the limit!" See it in widescreen. [Netflix streaming]

THE GREEN HORNET (1940 serial)

This 13-part serial was the first visual representation of the radio crimefighter whose place in the superhero pantheon would be solidified by the short-lived 1960s TV series. Britt Reid (Gordon Jones) has just inherited his late father’s newspaper, the Sentinel. The police miss his father’s habit of running hard-hitting editorials which took on the local rackets, and his secretary Casey (Anne Nagel) doesn’t think much of Britt's playboy-type hours. But soon ace reporter Jasper Jenks (Phillip Trent) is on to a story about a dam being built with inferior materials, and sure enough, the dam fails and kills several people, and Reid does an about-face, deciding to expose shady dealings. The police commissioner tells Reid that the city needs a Robin Hood, not knowing that they're about to get one in the figure of the Green Hornet, a shadowy vigilante who wears a mask and drives around in a car called the Black Beauty that makes a hornet-buzz noise.

Yes, Britt is the Hornet, helped by his Korean manservant Kato (Keye Luke), and for the next 12 chapters, the two of them try to find out who is the chief mastermind behind various city rackets, most of which involve forcing companies (trucking companies, airlines, dry cleaners, zoos) to pay protection money or risk becoming the victims of sabotage. Crime boss Monroe (Cy Kendall) orchestrates the threats and mayhem, guided by a mysterious voice that calls in to Monroe’s office every so often and gives instructions to the gang members. The Hornet and Kato track down the bad guys, using a gas gun that emits a puff of smoke that knocks people out, allowing the Hornet to tie them up and leave them for the cops. But the police (along with the newspapers and the public) aren't sure if the Hornet is a good guy or a bad guy, so Britt and Kato usually wind up being chased by police and crooks alike. In a couple of scenes, even Axford, Britt's tough Irish bodyguard (Wade Boteler), tries to give the Green Hornet an ass-whupping, not realizing it's his boss beneath the mask.

The narrative structure gets a bit monotonous: a company is hit by the bad guys, life-threatening sabotage happens, Green Hornet and Kato come to the rescue, the Sentinel exposes the racket, and the crooks try another angle. But that comes with the territory of the serial genre. Production values here are fairly cheap, with some occasionally effective use of stock footage. Perhaps the most surprising moment comes at the very end when the bad guys wind up shooting each other to death. Gordon Jones (pictured) makes for a good hero, though apparently his voice when he has the Hornet mask on is dubbed in by the actor who played the Hornet on the radio. Luke, in the role that helped make a star of Bruce Lee, doesn't have much to do except drive the Black Beauty and save Reid's neck once in a while (though he does get at least one karate chop in). Poor Anne Nagel has even less to do, just sitting at a typewriter or passing along phone messages. Worth seeing for serials fans. [TCM]

THE SCAR (1948)
aka HOLLOW TRIUMPH or THE MAN WHO MURDERED HIMSELF

John Muller spent a couple of years in medical school before becoming a con man—his tricks included selling stock in non-existent oil wells and scamming people by posing as a psychiatrist. He was caught, sent to prison, and upon his release, he goes right back to his cronies. Upset that they haven’t been more ambitious, Muller gets them to join him in robbing a gambling joint run by a thug named Rocky. Things don't go well; two of them are killed and two escape, including Muller.  On the run from Rocky's men, Muller leaves town and gets a 9-5 job as a clerk, but when he's mistaken on the street for a psychiatrist named Bartok, he investigates and discovers that he is a dead ringer for the doctor, except for a scar the doc has on one side of his face. Evelyn, Bartok's long-time secretary and lover, gives him a passionate kiss before realizing he's not Bartok. Muller gets news that the third thug is dead, and soon finds himself hunted by two gunmen, so he takes drastic action: using a photograph of the doctor as a model, he gives himself a deep cut on his face to match Bartok's scar, then kills Bartok and takes his identity.  But a couple of dark ironies set in. First, he scars the wrong side of his face—the photo had been accidentally flipped when printed. To his amazement, most people don't notice, only the lowly cleaning lady; it even takes Evelyn a while to figure it out. Next, as he's settled into Bartok's life, he discovers that the doctor is also being hunted down for having big gambling debts. Evelyn decides to leave the whole situation behind and go to Hawaii, and Muller asks to come along, but with two parties wanting him dead, what are the odds that he'll make it to the steamship?

This is a low-budget but beautifully shot (by Oscar-winner John Alton) film noir that perhaps tries to cram a little too much story into its 80-minute running time. But that is one of its few faults. Paul Henreid, not one of my favorite actors, does a nice job in the lead, playing two fairly unlikeable people. Joan Bennett (pictured with Henreid) is very good as Evelyn, enough so that I'm sorry she doesn’t get more screen time. Henry Brandon is uncredited but memorable as one of Muller's crooks. Eduard Franz has a small role as Muller's brother, and old reliables John Qualen and George Chandler also pop up. The noir aspect is present in the look (lots of darkness, skewed angles, and occasional distortions in close-ups) and in the ironic plot twists. This was originally released as HOLLOW TRIUMPH, but is currently available on DVD as THE SCAR on a film noir double feature set from VCI.  A little-known film, but worth finding for noir fans.  [Netflix streaming]

LES BICHES (1968)

Sexy upper-class blonde Frederique (Stephane Audran) sees a waifish sidewalk painter named Why (Jacqueline Sassard) at work and tosses a 500 franc note down in front of her. They stroll and chat a bit, then Frederique takes Why home, gives a her bath, and one thing leads to another. The two head off to Frederique's summer place at St. Tropez where they share a house with two gay guys (it took me a while to figure this out; they seemed like just fun-loving whimsical friends at first) who alternate between being charming and being irritating. One night, an attractive man named Paul (Jean-Louis Trintignant) makes eyes at Why and takes her home. The jealous Frederique then sets her cap for Paul, playing a flirtatious game with him which causes him to miss a date with Why. The game-playing gets to be too much for Why who begins to snap, making herself up to look like Frederique and talking to herself in the mirror. One drunken night, Paul is flirting with both women, calling them his "does" (hence the title, which has nothing to do with "bitches"), but it's Frederique he takes to bed, leaving Why outside the bedroom door, her obsessive thoughts building as she plans her revenge against Frederique. This is a sexy Hitchcockian thriller that deals with issues of sexual obsession, jealousy and identity, though in far more ambiguous ways that Hitch ever did; it's a little like Bergman's PERSONA done French new-wave style. The characters are mostly ciphers, with Paul being the one who comes off the most straightforward, and a little more background for the two women (pictured, Audran in front) would have helped humanize the characters—as it is, they all come off as game pieces being moved around by the director, Claude Chabrol. It's all very cold and brittle (the one exception being Dominique Zardi who seems to be having fun as one of the gay men), but the acting is good, particularly by Audran, and fans of psychological thrillers will find enough to enjoy here. [DVD]

THE SEA BAT (1930)

Our story takes place on Portuga Island in the West Indies where there is, we are told, "the weird chant of voodoo worship" by night and "the weird industry of sponge fishing" by day. We meet a motley group of rough-edged men who work in the boats and live together in a large barracks. The banes of their existence are the "sea bats," the shark-sized manta rays that frequent the waters. Lovely Nina gives her handsome brother Carlo a charm to ward off the ray, but instead he winds up wearing a cross given to him by a priest, and when Carlo is killed in a ray attack, Nina blames his embrace of Christian symbolism; she turns to voodoo ritual and offers a reward to any man who will catch and kill the sea bat. What she doesn't know (but we do) is that the real reason Carlo died is because the slimy Juan, who resented Carlo for standing in the way of him wooing Nina, put a rock on his line so he couldn't make it up to the ship when the ray attacked. Meanwhile, a new priest, the Reverend Sims, arrives on the island, and Nina expresses her resentment of his faith. What she doesn't know (but again, we do) is that Sims is actually a criminal on the run from Devil's Island. Slowly, Sims and Nina fall in love, and Sims wants to take off with her to start over, but Juan (and the sea bat) may put a kink in their plans.

This early talkie is interesting for a few reasons: 1) Boris Karloff (pre-FRANKENSTEIN) has a small role; 2) the heroine (Raquel Torres, pictured above) spends a chunk of the movie wearing only a very wet and sheer blouse—this was in the pre-Code era when hints of nudity weren't unheard of; 3) the ray attack early in the movie feels a lot like the shark attack at sea in JAWS. Charles Bickford is only OK as Sims, Torres a little bit better, but John Miljan is fine as the slimy Juan, and Nils Asther is very good as Carlo, though he's killed off fairly early. Many reviews of this film refer to Asther and Torres and lovers, but, though their scenes together do have a strange intensity, I'm fairly certain that it is made clear that they are brother and sister. Memorable line: Bickford, seeing Torres dancing in a voodoo ritual: "What kind of white girl are you?" [TCM]

THE MOON AND SIXPENCE (1942)

This interesting but flawed adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel based loosely on the life of artist Paul Gauguin opens with a scene of the writer Geoffrey Wolfe (Herbert Marshall, playing a thinly disguised Maugham as he did a few years later in THE RAZOR'S EDGE) wandering about his apartment, washing and getting dressed and talking to us (as his butler picks up after Wolfe) about a famous artist named Charles Strickland. In flashback, we see that Strickland (George Sanders) is a quiet, unassuming stockbroker until one day when he picks up out of the blue, leaves his wife and children, and goes to Paris.  His wife Amy assumes the cause is another woman, but when Wolfe goes to Paris to talk to Strickland, he discovers that Strickland has left to become a painter. He has no qualms about leaving everything and everyone behind—when Wolfe asks if he doesn't care for his wife anymore, Strickland replies, "Not a bit." Strickland paints but winds up on the edge of starvation until a good-natured painter named Dirk (Steven Geray), who sees the potential in his work, takes him in; Strickland repays him by taking Dirk's wife from him. When Strickland tires of her, she kills herself. Eventually the restless, penniless Strickland heads off for Tahiti where he finally finds some measure of happiness, married to an undemanding native woman and painting to his heart's content until he contracts leprosy. After he dies, his wife, obeying his wishes, burns the hut that contained his final paintings.

I know nothing about Gauguin and I have not read Maugham's novel, but this film adaptation is striking in at least one respect: it is the rare Hollywood film in which the lead character is a nasty, unrepentant shit who isn't really redeemed by the end. There is a final title card, inserted certainly to get around the Production Code, which calls him out for ignoring his wife and children and notes that all of his talent couldn't "hide the ugliness of his life, an ugliness which finally destroyed him." (The real Gauguin died of syphilis, which would have been a more punishing ending for the movie, but that would most certainly have been a Code no-no.) George Sanders is always good playing cads (MAN HUNT, CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY, THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, and most fabulously and perfectly in ALL ABOUT EVE) and he doesn't disappoint here—he's the main reason for watching. The character of Strickland remains unexamined so we get little depth in the portrayal, but that's a problem with the writing—and I'm not even sure it’s a problem, as I imagine that's how the passive, recording eye of Maugham rendered Strickland in the novel. Marshall (pictured to the left of Sanders) plays Maugham with a little more zest than he did in THE RAZOR'S EDGE. Geray is believable and heartbreaking as the man willing to be stepped on and betrayed by someone he saw as an artistic genius. The restored print I saw on TCM was in a mild sepia tone, which shifted to a bright yellow in the Tahiti scenes (though everyone looked like they had jaundice) and full color for just a moment when we see Strickland's final paintings, full of bare-breasted women but without anything approaching Gauguin’s style. [TCM]

THE RECKLESS MOMENT (1949)

It’s Christmastime in California. Joan Bennett, a middle-class wife and mother who lives in Balboa and whose husband is overseas on business, heads in to Los Angeles one day to confront Shepperd Strudwick, the lover of her teenage daughter (Geraldine Brooks), a first-year student in art school. Strudwick is a slimy thuggish guy, considerably older than the daughter, and he tells Bennett he'll leave Brooks alone in exchange for money. Bennett refuses and tells Brooks what happened; she doesn't believe her mother and arranges to meet Strudwick that night in their boathouse. He admits to asking for a pay-off, she hits him and storms off. He loses his balance and falls to the beach below, impaled on an anchor. The next morning Bennett finds the body and, thinking that her daughter killed him, disposes of it in the sea. Strudwick's body is found but there appears to be no connection to Bennett's family until a blackmailer (James Mason, pictured with Bennett) arrives with love letters written by Brooks to Strudwick. Mason and his boss (Roy Roberts) want $5,000 for them, but Bennett has a hard time getting that amount of money. The lower-class Mason falls for Bennett and tries to get Roberts to lay off, but to no avail. How far will Mason go to protect Bennett, the love object he can never possess?

This Max Ophuls film noir has nighttime scenes and a few of his trademark long-take camera moves (with occasional snatches of overheard dialogue here and there) and is generally a good-looking film with good performances all around. The tentative relationship that grows between Bennett and Mason actually seems real, which gives the ending some tragic weight. Strudwick is especially good in a relatively small role. Henry O'Neill is Bennett's well-meaning father-in-law. There's a strange running joke about Bennett's teenage son (David Bair) never having enough clothes on—no shirt, bare feet, shorts at night. Brooks is a weak link, but that’s partly due to the underwritten role. This, based on a short story, was remade a few years ago as THE DEEP END with Tilda Swinton; the updated twist is that the child she's trying to protect is her gay son. Both versions are worth seeing. [TCM]

CLOUDBURST (1951)

In post-war London, John Graham heads up a code-breaking unit still working on deciphering enemy messages for use in war crimes trials. We learn that he is a Canadian veteran, has a wife named Carol who is pregnant with her first child, and has a photographic memory. John and Carol take her sister Peggy to the train station one rainy night and on the way home, Carol is killed, the victim of a thuggish hit-and-run driver and his girlfriend. John is devastated and when the police seem unable to find the killers, he uses his memory for details and his connections with old wartime friends to track them down. But rather than take what he knows to the police, he decides to take revenge himself and plots to kill them both. This was an early release from Hammer, the studio best known for their horror films of the 60s; this isn't horror but it is awfully close to film noir, and may be one the earliest uses of a likable anti-hero in film (with the possible exception of some of Cagney's leads in the Warner gangster movies of the 30s). Robert Preston does a nice job as Graham, an admirable man whose sense of morality is twisted by his wife's death—it doesn't help that Carol (Elizabeth Sellars) had a limp which happened when she was tortured while working with the resistance, and her stoicism in that situation helped save John's life. His tracking down of the guilty parties (Harold Lang—pictured above to the right of Preston—and Sheila Burrell) is shot in classic noir style and the film works up some good tension as we actually root for John to get his revenge even as we realize he's going to have to pay somehow. An added complicating element is a coded message he accidentally drops at the scene of a murder he commits and which is brought to his code-breaking unit by the police. The message itself has nothing to do with the murder, but it remains a conscience-poking plot element in the background, as John's people can't figure out the code but John knows he's going to have to break it himself eventually. Highly recommended. [Netflix streaming]

A NIGHT AT THE RITZ (1935)

Shown as part of a Turner Classic Movies tribute to William Gargan, this sad-sack comedy confirms my theory that some actors just weren't meant to be leading types. Gargan is fine as a sidekick (in movies like THE SPORT PARADE) but as a lead, even in a short B-film like this, he generally just doesn't have the stuff--though I did enjoy him in the earlier HEADLINE SHOOTER.  Of course, it doesn't help that the movie is badly written and directed. Gargan is a hotel PR man who is desperate to create some buzz for his new employer, the Ritz. To impress a young lady he's sweet on (Patricia Ellis), he hires as head chef her brother (Erik Rhodes), who claims enthusiastically to be a great cook. What Gargan doesn't know (and what his sidekick Allen Jenkins finds out) is that Rhodes' cooking actually makes people nauseous; it's the Old-Country mother (Bodil Rosing) who makes the delicious meals. There is a great deal of frantic movement and shouting, but little of it makes any real impression. The plot could have worked, but the weak acting of the romantic leads and the bland direction sink it without a chance. Jenkins does what he can to liven things up, but it's really a lost cause. The only reason to sit through this is Erik Rhodes (pictured; the guy who can't quite remember the phrase "Chance in the fool's name for fate" in THE GAY DIVORCEE), who is excellent as the clueless but good-hearted numbskull chef. [TCM]