WILD ON THE BEACH (1965)

There's this college, see, and it's near a beach. The college is so overcrowded that there's a housing shortage, and students who can't find places to live must disenroll. Handsome Adam (Frankie Randall) is renting a nice beach house from his absent buddy Skipper, and he's decided to get a license from the college so he can legitimately rent rooms to his friends. But guess what? Skipper's sister Lee (Sherry Jackson) shows up to claim the house for herself, though her ownership won't become legal for another week. So Adam and his buddies compete with Lee and her buddies to get the official license, in the meantime agreeing to split the house (girls in the bedrooms, boys in sleeping bags in the living room) while having to hide the co-ed situation from the college dean and his bumbling assistant.

Though this movie has a couple of stray charms (the handsome Randall, some decent musical performances and some ass-wiggling dancers), beware if you're expecting anything like an Annette & Frankie movie. Despite the title—and the presence of an actor named Frankie—there is very little wild going on, and, quite disappointingly, nothing happens on the beach except for the opening credit sequence and a fully-clothed beachside walk. This is Randall's only major film role—he later had a singing career—and while he's no great shakes, he's adequate and nice looking. I remember Jackson as the younger daughter in the Danny Thomas TV show Make Room for Daddy and she's by far the most professional actor here, with the possible exception of Russ Bender who plays a record producer neighbor who gets the kids in trouble by complaining about their noise, then gets them out of trouble at the end when he volunteers to let the boys live in his fancy beach house. [Oh, dear, I forgot to say "spoiler."] Justin Smith has the comic sidekick role of the dean's assistant, but Smith seems to have no facility for humor and looks embarrassed whenever he has some slapstick business, which is most of the time he's on screen. One of the boys, played by Marc Seaton, is a hunky bodybuilder whose character name in the credits is Jim Bench. For me, the brief scene in which Seaton walks around shirtless (pictured at left) is just about the highlight of the movie.

The musical performers, mostly filmed in a club setting, are worth mentioning. This movie earns a small historic footnote for featuring the first film appearance of Sonny & Cher, performing "It's Gonna Rain"; not one of their best songs, but still, it's fun to see them before they made it big—the movie was released just as "I Got You Babe" was hitting the charts. Someone named Cindy Malone does an echo-drenched ballad called "Run Away from Him" (the echo effect actually being a minor plot point), and Randall does a couple of OK songs, but best of all are the songs by The Astronauts (pictured top right), a surf band who, though never having a major hit, still had a decent career. Among their tunes is a fun novelty song called "Little Speedy Gonzales." The movie tries to keep your attention—there's a guy who has a dozen reel-to-reel tape decks wired into a house-wide intercom, two friends of Jackson's who are aspiring singers, and the gimmick of the "Iron Curtain," a chain that separates the two halves of the house which blares out a loud announcement about being violated when someone unhooks it. But it's a fairly tough slog, mostly because the director seems to have known nothing about comedy. [FMC]

THE SILVER FLEET (1943)

During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, shipyard manager Ralph Richardson is called in by the Gestapo and told by Nazi officer Esmond Knight to continue working on submarines which were being developed for the Dutch Navy which will now be repurposed for the Germans. Richardson is reluctant to do so, fearing he will be seen by his fellow citizens as a quisling, a traitorous collaborator, but then he realizes he could actually do some sabotage work from the inside, so he agrees to stay on and work on the subs. He takes on a secret identity using the name of Piet Heim, a 17th century Dutch naval hero who broke the Spanish "silver fleet" and spreads resistance messages using a "PH" symbol. His idea works, sparking an underground movement, but because he tells no one what he's doing on the sly, Richardson and his family become isolated in town, snubbed socially and having quisling "Q"s chalked on their front door. He masterminds a plan to have shipyard workers smuggle arms aboard one of the subs on its test run, and the men manage to take over the sub and sail it to England. In order to keep the trust of the Germans, he foils an attempt at shipyard sabotage, and then decides to risk his own life to take out a number of Nazi bigwigs when he gets the opportunity to travel on one of the submarine trials.

As WWII resistance movies go, this one, which has kept a low profile over the years, is quite good. It doesn't have many exciting action setpieces, like some of the better-known films (EDGE OF DARKNESS, THE NORTH STAR, COMMANDOS STRIKE AT DAWN) nor is there any sentimental scene of celebrated self-sacrifice (THIS LAND IS MINE, THE MOON IS DOWN), mostly because the hero remains anonymous to most of the townspeople. But the scenes of sabotage are, if not thrilling, at least tense and well staged, as is a scene later when a resistance member comes to Richardson's house while some Nazi officers gather there for dinner. Richardson is appropriately low-key, leaving Esmond Knight (pictured above to the left of Richardson) to steal most of his scenes as the belligerent Nazi. Googie Withers doesn’t get much to do as Richardson's wife, but the large supporting cast is fine, though no one really gets to shine. The takeover of the German sub is based on an actual incident, though the rest of the story seems to be fiction. I'm a sucker for these underground resistance movies, and this is definitely one of the best. [DVD]

ALLOTMENT WIVES (1945)

During World War II, a particularly heinous racket was being run in which an unscrupulous woman would marry a GI in a hurry while he was in town on a furlough only to collect his domestic allotment money from the government. Even worse, she would marry several of them and collect all their allotments, splitting the money with the head of the racket. As the war winds down and fraudulent claims are being racked up, an army colonel who was a journalist before the war (Paul Kelly) is assigned the task of breaking the ring. Kelly poses as a reporter working on a story about the racket and is present in a bar to see one of the "allotment wives" get busted as she is about to lower the boom on a young GI. While there, Kelly meets Kay Francis, beauty salon owner and manager of a canteen for soldiers; unknown to Kelly, Francis is also the head of the racket. She cozies up to Kelly to keep him off her trail, but has to dirty her hands to deal with some internal problems in her organization. Soon, however, another big problem comes her way: her teenage daughter (Teala Loring) shows up fresh from boarding school and ready for some GI flirting of her own. Finally, Francis has to deal with the arrival of an old friend (Gertrude Michael) who's not above trying a little blackmail so she won't spill the beans about Francis' business to her daughter.

Some consider this a film noir, and I guess I can see that Francis (pictured with Michael) come off as a moderately conflicted central character, but it doesn't really have the look or feel of a noir. Instead it's a cross between a gangster film and a "women’s melodrama" like IMITATION OF LIFE or MILDRED PIERCE (without the glossy look or showy acting of PIERCE). This is one of Francis' last movies; by this time, she was at the Poverty Row studio Monogram, a long way from her high glamor days at Warners. But, in an ahead-of-her-times move, she struck a deal there not just to act, but produce. Her Monogram films look a little shabby, and they could be better scripted, but she keeps her head high and remains worth watching. Another plus is the presence of Otto Kruger as her trusted associate. Paul Kelly, though nominally the hero, doesn't have much to do, getting largely shunted aside when the daughter shows up. The title conceit is interesting, but even that (which apparently did happen occasionally) is almost forgotten by the end. Mostly for Kay Francis fans. [Netflix streaming]

FOURTEEN HOURS (1951)

On St. Patrick's Day morning, bellboy Frank Faylen is on a room service call at the Hotel Rodney; he brings in the cart, then turns around to find the guest (Richard Basehart) gone: he's climbed out on the ledge and is threatening to jump. A lowly but friendly traffic cop (Paul Douglas)—Irish, of course—is the first one on the scene, followed by his brusque superior (Howard Da Silva) who is irritated when he finds out that Basehart will only talk to Douglas. As police, fire trucks, and crowds congregate below, Basehart, seemingly a mild-mannered fellow, won't say what the problem is, but soon a psychiatrist (Martin Gabel) theorizes that he has mommy issues, and when his parents show up, we can believe it: Mother (Agnes Moorehead) is shrill and overbearing, and Father (Robert Keith) is passive and a drinker. Gabel thinks that Mom didn't really want Basehart and unconsciously led him to dislike his father. They soon find out that Basehart has recently broken up with his lovely and wholesome girlfriend (Barbara Bel Geddes) after he told her he could never make her happy. As all these threads present themselves, the day turns into night and Basehart is still on the ledge.

First off, despite Fox's publicity, this is in no way, shape or form a film noir: most of it takes place in daylight, and almost every scene is set either on the ledge or in the hotel room. The hero, the cop, is not a dark and conflicted figure; Basehart, who might be seen as a kind of noir anti-hero, is not fleshed out at all—we never find out what his problem is, though of course now we can fill in the blanks that they couldn't make plainer back then: his mom has made him gay. Still, it's a nice, fairly taut thriller, given the lack of what we would call "action." At one point, Basehart is talked back into the room, but a crazy preacher scares him back out on the ledge. He almost loses his footing a couple of times, and the fairly abrupt ending is tense. Given he has little to work with, Basehart (pictured) makes the character memorable, and Douglas is very good as the average-Joe cop who becomes invested in saving Basehart. The first several minutes of the movie, as Faylen enters the room and Basehart winds up on the ledge, have no dialogue, and the first human sound is a woman's scream from the streets. There are some peripheral bystanders on the ground: Grace Kelly, in her first movie role, plays a woman heading to her lawyer to finalize a divorce; Jeffrey Hunter (in only his second credited role) and Debra Paget are two strangers who make a romantic connection during the hubhub. Despite a disclaimer at the beginning of the film, this actually is based on a real incident from some years earlier. [FMC]

ARE YOU LISTENING? (1932)

A strange little movie about the goings-on at radio station WBLA. The title comes from a top-of-the-hour time announcement: "At the tone, the time will be 9:00. Are you listening?" Bill (William Haines) is the glib, likeable writer of a popular soap opera. He's married to Alice (Karen Morley), a whining shrew who says she'll divorce him only when he has enough money to pay her the alimony she thinks she deserves. Meanwhile, he's seeing Laura (Madge Evans), an actress at the station. She lives with her sister Sally (Anita Page) who's a gold-digger; when Laura reprimands her for her late hours, she replies, "The bloom's got to be rubbed off sometime—might as well be when you’re young enough to enjoy the rubbing." After various tribulations, Bill gets fired because his writing shows that he's lost his sense of humor. Then on Christmas Eve, during a heated argument, Bill shoves a haranguing Alice away from him; she falls, smacks her head on a dresser, and dies. Not thinking rationally, Bill goes on the run with Laura.

Wait, that’s not all. In a parallel storyline, Laura and Sally's younger sister Honey (Joan Marsh), comes to town to stay, fully intending to join Sally in her gold-digging layabout ways, but she can't handle booze like Sally can and winds up getting smashed and falling for an older guy who two-times her. Honey ends up taking a job with a tabloid paper. To bring the two plotlines together, the paper's editor teams up with the radio station to sensationalize the story of Bill going on the lam by broadcasting constant warnings and updates over WBLA. This winds up being, not so much a crime story as a rambling melodrama about loosely connected characters. I'm not really complaining; it's different and I guess trying to figure out how it will all get tied up is one of the (mild) pleasures of the film. Haines, a silent movie star, was getting a little long in the tooth to be playing the carefree juvenile, but he's not bad here, coming off like he was heading for Gene Kelly territory, not as a dancer, but as a smiling charmer. I also quite liked Joan Marsh who adds some fizz as the naïve Honey. Neil Hamilton and Jean Hersholt also appear. Wallace Ford does his usual likeable fellow routine, and John Miljan is effective as the ruthless tabloid editor. I enjoyed the quirky novelty of having Christmas music playing in the background throughout the death of Alice and its aftermath. [TCM]

GO NAKED IN THE WORLD (1961)

This movie was recommended to me by a fan of bad movies, and let me tell you, this is indeed a special kind of bad. Anthony Franciosa returns from a stint in the military which he undertook specifically to get out from under the thumb of his old-fashioned Greek father (Ernest Borgnine), owner of a successful construction company who has his son's life all planned out for him. Unfortunately as soon as Tony returns, Ernie is all over him, expressing his parental love in a grotesque, smothering, almost physical way. Before he lets Tony in the house, he makes the family (mom and sexy sister) and the gardener literally get down on their knees and give thanks that Tony is back safe and sound—this over-the-top scene is played with a bit of a wink (the reactions of Tony and the gardener), but sadly, the rest of the movie's melodrama seems intended to be taken seriously. Ernie wants to pair Tony off with the daughter of a business associate, but during a night on the town, Tony meets the luscious Gina Lollobrigida and they hit it off, so much so that he spends the night. What he doesn't know is that Gina is a high-priced call girl who's been with practically every high roller in town, including his father. The rest of the movie charts the ups and downs in Tony and Gina's relationship to its ludicrous ending.

This is faux-Tennessee Williams or William Inge territory, a psychological dysfunctional family soap opera which might have worked better with a more subtle director. The screenplay is no great shakes, but the acting is terrible and I blame the director, Ranald MacDougall, because all these actors are capable of much better. Franciosa is too butch and hearty to be playing a maladjusted daddy's boy; Lollobrigida is all over the map, not knowing how to handle her character's mood swings. The mother (Nancy R. Pollock) is barely a character. And worst of all is Borgnine, who gives an obnoxiously operatic performance that never, for a moment, feels real, all shrieking and in-your-face; even when he calms down, he's grating, and I can't imagine why this man's family hadn't deserted him years ago. The ending is so bad and creepy; I want to talk about it but it really shouldn't be spoiled. Suffice to say it's a bizarre downer that I didn't quite see coming. Two quotes will give a good idea of the overheated dialogue. Ernie to Tony, about Gina's career: "Love is love, but we’re talkin' about rent"; Gina, when Tony asks her how many men she's had: "Why count the waves in the ocean?" Indeed. [TCM]

THE YOUNG RACERS (1963)

In Monaco at the Grand Prix, Mark Damon, a former racer turned writer, watches as cocky driver William Campbell wins the race. Campbell is brash, reckless and a womanizer, and soon Damon discovers the married Campbell has taken Damon's girlfriend as a mistress and then discarded her. Deciding to dig up dirt on Campbell for revenge, Damon gets a job on Campbell's crew by saying he's writing a biography, without mentioning that it will be an exposè. As Damon follows Campbell along the Grand Prix trial, from Belgium to France to England, he sees Campbell continue to seduce women while using his own brother Bob to hide his exploits from his wife. But he also soon comes to see that Campbell's arrogant surface hides a more sensitive side. For a Roger Corman B-movie, there are a couple of surprises in store, one good and one bad. The good one: it was filmed on location—supposedly to take advantage of Corman's vacation plans—and looks pretty decent, especially the racing scenes. The bad one: it's not really an action movie; it winds up being a talky, at times almost philosophical, movie about celebrity and psychology, but the screenplay and actors aren't quite up to the challenge of making an engrossing character study. So this winds up being stuck uncomfortably between two genres, not satisfying as either one. B-movie star Luana Anders and Shakespearean actor Patrick Magee (the man whose wife Alex rapes in CLOCKWORK ORANGE) have small roles. [TCM]

CODE TWO (1953)

This film follows three buddies as they make their way through training at the Los Angeles Police Academy. Ralph Meeker is the cocky, anti-authority guy who, even when he takes a wrong step and gets in trouble, doesn't learn his lesson—but we all know from WWII movies that there's something in him that will lead him to redemption; Jeff Richards, whose father was a cop killed in the line of duty, is handsome and quiet; Robert Horton has a stable married life, though Meeker and Richards become rivals for Horton's sister-in-law (Elaine Stewart). All three make it through the Academy, even though Meeker's superiors (Keenan Wynn and James Craig) disagree over his potential, and all three decide to apply for motorcycle duty—it's considered glamorous and exciting—but tragedy strikes when they clash with a gang of cattle smugglers and one of the three is killed, knocked unconscious and deliberately run over by a truck. The final confrontation between the bad guys and the surviving cops involves a chase in a slaughterhouse, a butcher knife, and a vat of quicklime.

This begins like a Dragnet-type police procedural with a long narrated segment on automobile accident statistics, but once the story kicks in, it becomes a traditional human-interest police drama. The acting is variable: Meeker can't do much different with his character as written, but he's compelling enough; Horton is a bit on the bland side—again, partly due to his bland character; Richards is good in a role that doesn’t give him much shading. Keenan Wynn is fine as the guy who puts his own reputation on the line for Meeker. As is par for the course, the women fade into the background, and the strongest connections are between the men. Keep your eyes peeled for a young Chuck Connors in a small role as a cop. Though predictable, the finale really is worth sticking around for. Pictured, left to right, are Meeker, Horton and Richards. [Warner Archive Instant]

BLANCHE FURY (1948)

In this Gothic melodrama, Blanche (Valerie Hobson) is a poor outcast relation of the Fury family, eking out a living as a paid companion to a cranky old lady until she is called back by her rich uncle to be governess to his widowed son's daughter Lavinia. Eventually, she marries Lawrence, the rather mild-mannered son (Michael Gough), though it's clearly more a convenient arrangement on both their parts than a love match. Blanche soon gets involved with the handsome but sullen estate manager Philip Thorn (Stewart Granger); he is the bastard son of another Fury but his relationship has never been recognized by the family. Philip has lawyers trying to track down evidence of an Italian wedding license, but when nothing comes up, he takes more decisive action, killing Lawrence (with the passive acquiescence of Blanche) and then marrying Blanche so he will be set up to be the legal master of the estate. Things are peachy for a while, but when Blanche suspects that Philip wants to kill Lavinia to get her out of the way of succession, she changes her mind about acquiescing. 

This may well be the first Technicolor Gothic film, and the main reasons for watching it are the sumptuous color and the lovely sets. Generally, the movie lacks tension and the acting is so-so. Hobson and Granger (pictured at left) do have some chemistry, but it's allowed to dissipate in the last half-hour. There's a lot of plot in the movie, but still, not much seems to happen. The weirdest thing in the movie is the family legend of Fury's Ape which supposedly watches over the family. A carving of the ape's face is shown occasionally, but to no real effect. Not without interest, but not essential viewing. [Netflix streaming]

MEN ARE NOT GODS (1936)

Skeates, a London drama critic, dictates a scathing review of the actor Edmund Davey (Sebastian Shaw) in a new production of Othello; Edmund's wife Barbara (Gertrude Lawrence), who is playing Desdemona, arrives to try and stop the review from seeing print because Edmund is particularly sensitive right now. Skeates' secretary Ann (Miriam Hopkins) sneaks down and, knowing that Skeates never reads his own paper, changes the review. Unfortunately Edmund finds Skeates and thanks him for his praise, so Skeates, having discovered the switch, fires Ann. That night, Ann goes to see the play and develops a thing for Edmund, going back to the play night after night; eventually Barbara invites Ann to dinner, and Edmund falls for Ann. Skeates lets Ann come back to work, and fellow reporter Tommy (Rex Harrison) tries to get Ann to date him, but she's begun an affair with Edmund. When Barbara finds out, she tries to get Ann to give him up, but Edmund, going a bit overboard, decides to kill Barbara for real during Desdemona's onstage death scene.

This sounds like a downbeat melodrama, and indeed the later movie A DOUBLE LIFE would use the same central premise: an actor begins to go insane during a run of Othello and acts out the climactic moment in real life. But surprisingly, despite the darkish turn this film takes, it's mostly played in a frothy comic tone; the juxtaposition of comedy and melodrama is the most interesting thing here. Hopkins is sprightly; Shaw is intense; it's fun to see the legendary stage performer Gertrude Lawrence—she only made a handful of movies—though she's fairly drab here, upstaged by Hopkins. Harrison has little to do beyond being basically a lanky supporting juvenile. The best scene might be one in which an artist tries to blackmail Barbara by making her buy a painting of Ann and Edmund canoodling in the park, but doesn't get past Barbara’s intimidating maid (Laura Smithson). The title is a line from Othello. Interesting if not essential. Pictured, from left to right, are Lawrence, Shaw and Hopkins. [Criterion streaming]

DARK JOURNEY (1937)

During World War I, Vivien Leigh is a designer living in Sweden who, as a citizen from a neutral country, can travel back and forth between Stockholm and Paris regularly on business. But actually she's a spy, passing military secrets, cleverly stitched inside of clothes, on to the Germans. At a nightclub, Conrad Veidt, a former German officer, is pulling a parlor trick in which he predicts what women will say after he kisses them. Leigh exposes his secret and the two begin flirting, to the chagrin of her British escort (Anthony Bushell). Then the plot twists: it turns out that Leigh is actually working for the French, feeding misinformation to her German bosses, and her last case is to find out who the head of the German Secret Service Section 8 is. And Veidt is, of course, the head of Section 8, and he has been charged with finding the double agent. Of course, this strains their growing relationship, to say the least. Some reviewers find the plotlines here a bit tangled, perhaps because Leigh and Veidt defy the typical wartime propaganda stereotypes; he's quite human for a German soldier and she's presented as wavering in her duty when she realizes she will have to expose Veidt. Both actors are fine, have good chemistry, and pretty much carry the film. An enjoyable spy romance which, even if it is ultimately predictable, is satisfying. [TCM]

CONGO MAISIE (1940)

Chorus girl Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) slips out of her hotel room in a West African town without paying and sneaks aboard a rickety boat to Lagos where a job (supposedly) awaits. She tries to hide in the cabin of Michael Shane (John Carroll), a former rubber plantation doctor who became disillusioned and now runs a plantation, but he kicks her out and puts her at the mercy of the skeevy captain. But halfway down the river, the boiler room explodes and Shane reluctantly takes Maisie with him to a nearby plantation's medical office, coincidentally, the one where he used to work. The current doctor, McWade, lets them stay on a while, but the two soon realize they've stepped into a couple of sticky situations. For one, McWade is spending too much time on research and not enough time with his wife, Kay, who responds a little too freely to Shane's flirtations. For another, McWade is fighting the attitudes of several natives, led by a gaggle of witch doctors, who don't trust Western medicine. At the climax, a crowd of rebellious natives arrives at the doctor's home, ready to carry him off for a sacrifice, until Maisie's quick thinking saves the day.

This is the second in a series of B-movies from MGM (which means they're much glossier than the average B-film) about the adventures of Maisie, a character created by writer Wilson Collison. The first film, set on a dude ranch, has plot points similar to this film, which is itself based (theoretically) on a Collison novel called Congo Landing but clearly harks back to a Collison play called Red Dust which was made into a classic 1932 movie with Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. (I hope I have all these details right—the trail of credits is a bit confusing.) Sothern makes this worth seeing, doing a fine job as a brassy dame with a heart of gold. Because these were made under the Production Code, Maisie can't be as morally loose as she probably was in the original novel, but Sothern manages to make her both wholesome and sexy. Carroll, the B-movie Clark Gable, is one of my favorite 40s supporting actors and he's perfect as a Gable stand-in. Shepperd Strudwick and Rita Johnson are fine as the distracted doctor and his dying-to-be-unfaithful wife. Ann Sothern's performance of "St. Louis Woman" at the climax is worth the wait. Fun line: Maisie tells a sailor that in her stage act she was billed as a little girl with a big harp. He says, "Oh, you played with an Irishman." She replies, "Maybe that's what the act needed." [TCM]

NOBODY LIVES FOREVER (1946)

Nick (John Garfield) has just been discharged from an Army hospital in New York City and goes to see his pre-war girlfriend Toni (Faye Emerson), a nightclub singer; he left her $50,000 but she gave it to her new boyfriend Chet to bankroll his club where she's the main attraction. Understandably pissed, Nick threatens Chet with physical violence, gets the money back, and takes off for Los Angeles where he renews contact with old Pop Gruber (Walter Brennan), a veteran con man who hooks him up with slimy crook Doc Ganson (George Coulouris) and his gang who want Nick to bankroll their "project": fleecing rich widow Gladys (Geraldine Fitzgerald) out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by getting her to invest in a phony salvage business. Nick agrees, but also takes control of the plan by romancing the widow and getting in good with Manning, her business advisor. But soon complications arise: 1) Nick finds himself falling for Gladys; 2) Doc Ganson gets itchy and wants to take control of the plan back from Nick; 3) Toni shows up in L.A.

This film noir is impressive primarily for its acting; basically every actor but one is firing on all cylinders. Garfield is fine as always as the little tough guy with the soft heart who desperately wants to redeem himself—I like that we can see him slowly change over the course of the film; Brennan (pictured with Garfield) is excellent playing against type as a formerly sly con-man who is now over the hill and getting by the best he can; Coulouris, always underrated, is sweaty and twitchy and thoroughly unlikable—which in this case is a compliment. Emerson is good in what would usually be the femme fatale part, though here she's mostly a minor nuisance. Even Doc's thugs (James Flavin and Ralph Peters) make good impressions. The lone problem is Geraldine Fitzgerald who is too passive and ethereal to seem attractive to Garfield, but even she's basically OK. Not terribly noir in look or style, more so in its themes. [Warner Archive streaming]

SIEGE OF THE SAXONS (1963)

After a jousting competition in which Edmund of Cornwall unseats Roderick, the reigning champ of the rebellious Saxons, King Arthur falls ill with heart troubles and his daughter Katherine suggests that he recuperate away from prying eyes at Edmund's estate. On the way, they have a brief scuffle with the outlaw Robert Marshall, a kind of Robin Hood figure, but Marshall ends up joining them and is sent ahead to prepare the estate for the King's arrival. Marshall finds a mysteriously empty castle and a limping man who knocks him unconscious; when the royal entourage arrives, the strange man wounds Arthur with an arrow to the chest and gets away. Marshall is blamed and runs out of the castle, but he hangs around in secret in order to clear his name. Unknown to our entourage, Edmund is in league with the Saxons and is plotting to assassinate the King and take over the throne. A second assassination attempt by a marauding gang of Saxons succeeds and, with Katherine on the run with Marshall, Edmund claims the throne. Will Marshall and Katherine be able to find Merlin to help them oust the wicked pretender?

This film tries something interesting by giving the legends of both King Arthur and Robin Hood twists—I'd certainly never heard of a daughter named Katherine—but when the novelty has worn off, this is just another B-budget swashbuckler. The battle scenes are pulled off fairly well, and the sets are good, but the acting leaves something to be desired. Janette Scott, a B-actress made immortal by being name-checked in the Rocky Horror theme, is adequate as Katherine as is Ronald Howard as the villain. Only Ronald Lewis as the outlaw Marshall (pictured above to the left of Howard) makes much of an impression. The movie is generally fun; I wish there were a more magical air about it; the brief appearance of the enchanted sword Excalibur at the end is the only fantasy element here. [TCM]

THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1937 (1936)

For a few years in the 1930s, Paramount produced a series of Big Broadcast films, intended to introduce radio stars to movie audiences. Like the 1938 version I've reviewed previously, this is basically a revue of musical, comedy and novelty acts tied together by a featherweight romantic comedy plot. Jack Benny, boss at National Network Radio, is creating a new show for eccentric husband-and-wife sponsors George Burns and Gracie Allen, who manufacture golf balls. Allen wants the vaguely exotic singer Frank Forest to be her star, but when Benny hears a suburban lady DJ (Shirley Ross) make fun of Forest's singing style on her late night show, he hires her away for the express purpose of being silenced. But agent Ray Milland falls for Ross and soon a fake romance is whipped up between Ross and Forest. How all this plays out is rather uninteresting and, unfortunately, takes up most of the last half of the movie. But the first half, with its almost surreal tone—largely provided by Gracie Allen's humor—and meandering non-narrative, is more interesting. The parade of acts include Bob Burns as a hillbilly comic, Benny Goodman with drummer Gene Krupa, Martha Raye (whose energetic number "Vote for Mr. Rhythm" is a highlight), and, adding to the odd tone of the film, Leopold Stokowski conducting Bach's Fugue in G Minor. The way Stokowski's sequence is shot—lots of shadows and big gestures—seems to have inspired the makers of FANTASIA a few years later. Much of the directing style of Mitchell Leisen, at least during the first half, feels very modern, but by the 80 minute point, the film mostly gives way to its tedious plot and a far more standard visual style. Pictured are George Burns, Martha Raye and Gracie Allen. [TCM]

HE KNEW WOMEN (1930)

Lowell Sherman is a second-rate poet and writer who has lived the philandering playboy life for quite a while, but now he finds it prudent to marry—the first scene in the movie is of Sherman giving a speech at a bachelor party for himself at which the guests are a dozen or so of his former lovers. Neither he nor his wealthy fiancée (Alice Joyce), who has been keeping him, has any illusions about this being a love match, but young Frances Dade is upset because she's in love with Sherman and can't abide the thought that he's settling for less. However, Dade is being pursued a wealthy young chemist (David Manners) who has, until now, been a good friend to Sherman. Manners discovers that Dade has been sneaking around with Sherman, and hoping to get Manners off her back, Dade lies and says she's pregnant by Sherman. But instead of losing interest, Manners arrives at Sherman's home with a gun.

Every so often, I get hooked on a classic-era actor, usually a supporting player (Eric Blore, Edna May Oliver) or a B-movie actor (Tom Neal) or someone who was a big name in their day but who is largely overlooked now (Kay Francis), and I try to see as many of their movies as I can. Usually this leads to more appreciation of the actor on my part, but sometimes things take a different turn. Back in the early days of my immersion in classic movies—about the time that Turner Classic Movies got started in 1994—I glommed on to David Manners, a handsome fellow whom I knew primarily for his roles in two of my favorite 30s horror movies, DRACULA and THE MUMMY. His career was relatively short, from 1930 to 1936; he retired young and went on to paint and write (fiction and philosophy), and the fact that he came out late in life as gay was interesting to me. Though he was only onscreen for six years, he made almost 40 movies in that time, usually as a romantic second lead, but few of those movies were well-regarded enough to be on home video, so I had my work cut out for me. Thanks to TCM and YouTube, I’ve now seen over 20 of his films, and this is the one that made me stop and wonder why. Manners (pictured below to the right of Joyce and Sherman) is hardly a terrible actor, but his comfort zone is slim; he's best as a passive playboy type and when he tries something more challenging, he usually just comes off as weak and whiny. As I look back, I see he's actually a weak link among the casts of his Universal horror films (in DRACULA, it's mostly because his character, Jonathan Harker, was gutted to the point where he has very little to do except wring his hands over Dracula's attempt to possess Mina). Manners' best acting is done opposite Barbara Stanwyck in Frank Capra's THE MIRACLE WOMAN, so maybe he just needed a good director to get him out of his mild-mannered shell.

Sorry for the digression, but the first 20 minutes or so of this film were so bad, I considered not finishing it, unheard of for me for a movie that features one of my favorite actors. I had to re-consider Manners’ standing in my classic movie pantheon. Ultimately, the movie got better, but it's basically a filmed stage play, most of which takes place on one set, Sherman's apartment. The direction is (mostly) static with awkward staging and melodramatic dialogue delivered almost over-the-top but not enough to be campy. (Dade: "Please don’t make love to me…"; long pause; Manners: "I can't help making love to you.") In particular, Sherman's artificial acting style takes some time to get used to. Oddly, however, it all started to come together in the last half, and though I could not really recommend this movie strongly, I wound up not sorry to have seen it. Despite the serious nature of my summary above—and the dramatic bent of the acting—this is basically a romantic comedy, and it ends satisfyingly. I never believed that these people were really in love, except for Manners who did seem sincere if not passionate, and maybe his sincerity is what makes him worth watching. In fact, the most positive feelings of affection are expressed between Sherman and Manners. The general picture of the battle of the sexes that emerges here is best embodied in this exchange when Dade expresses her disillusionment with Sherman: "I saw you—mercenary and unadventurous—I saw your soul!" Sherman replies, after a beat, "Why do women always talk about souls?" You know, maybe I enjoyed this movie after all. I do know that I'll keep digging up movies with David Manners. [TCM]

IT HAPPENED TOMORROW (1944)

In 1890, Larry Stevens (Dick Powell) is a rookie newspaper man on the verge of getting promoted from obituaries to full-fledged city reporter. When he whimsically expresses the wish that he could read tomorrow's papers so he could get a head start on getting scoops, old-timer Pops Benson tells him that he would find he really didn't want that power. Late that night, as Larry passes by the newspaper office, Pops appears out of the darkness and gives Larry what he wanted: tomorrow's newspaper. The next morning as he reads a story about an unseasonable spring snowfall, it starts to snow. When he reads about a robbery at an opera house that afternoon, he takes off to be there when it happens—and it does—but he winds up becoming a suspect himself. Larry keeps getting midnight deliveries of tomorrow's paper from Pops, and though they do help him in his career, they are decidedly mixed blessings to him personally. Finally, he reads a story that stops him in his tracks: he’s going to be shot dead at the St. George Hotel. Can he use this knowledge to change the future, or is fate inescapable?

This fantasy has the mix of creepiness and whimsy that Twilight Zone episodes often had. It's generally very light in tone, with just enough slightly dark unease around the corners to make things interesting. The main narrative is told as an extended flashback from fifty years later, so there is little suspense about Powell's fate at the hotel, but the story holds your interest anyway. The cast, however, feels a little second-string. This film came out when Powell was in his difficult years, casting-wise; he was no longer a wholesome juvenile but hadn't found his adult niche yet. He would do so later in 1944 when his noir detective film MURDER MY SWEET was a hit, but here, Powell, at the age of 40, seems a little too experienced to be playing a naïve junior reporter. Linda Darnell is his bland romantic interest, a phony mind reader, who ultimately plays only a small part in the plot. Jack Oakie is fine as Darnell's uncle, a cohort in the mind reading act. Some good supporting actors (George Chandler, Sig Ruman, Edward Brophy) are mostly wasted in nondescript roles. The director, René Clair, made some fine films in France in the early 30s but his Hollywood output was less distinguished. If you don’t ask too much from this film, you’ll enjoy it. [TCM]

WILD, WILD PLANET (1965)

On the space station Gamma 1, Dr. Nurmi (Massimo Serato) is conducting bizarre experiments with human tissue grafts. Commander Halstead (Tony Russel) is opposed to Nurmi's work which is being done for a large corporation, and when Halstead goes back to Earth to investigate the disappearance of several citizens, he discovers that they are being miniaturized and taken to another planet as guinea pigs for Nurmi's corporation which is out to create a biologically transformed human race, a "designer race." Halstead's efforts to stop this are complicated by his love interest Connie (Lisa Gastoni) who cozies up to Nurmi just to make Halstead jealous. Along the way we encounter a small army of thug clones (all bald, wearing sunglasses and trenchcoats), a band of sexy female robots (Fembot, anyone?), a miniature man with four arms, a futuristic ballet performed by dancers in colorful tights and capes, and the delicious Franco Nero playing a buddy of Halstead's.

Italian director Antonio Margheriti (anglicized as Anthony M. Dawson) covered several genres in the 60s: horror (CASTLE OF BLOOD), fantasy (THE GOLDEN ARROW), and adventure (GIANTS OF ROME), but he's mostly remembered today for his low-budget but colorful science fiction films. This was the first of several set on Gamma 1 (see THE SNOW DEVILS) and while they're not great art, they are fun, mostly because of their colorful costumes, crazy sets—including many miniature models which are fake-looking but charming, and some goofy futuristic cars—and a go-for-broke directorial ethos which seems to be, throw it at the wall and see if it sticks. Russel (an Italian-American born Antonio Russo) comes off as a fairly wooden B-movie George Clooney; Serarto is marginally more interesting as the villain, reminding me of a cross between Rex Harrison and Lost in Space's Dr. Smith (see him at left), but the young and handsome Franco Nero (pictured above right, to the left of Russel) is good enough as eye candy that I'd watch this again. [TCM]

THE CHASE (1946)

In Miami, down-on-his-luck Chuck (Robert Cummings) finds a wallet stuffed with money on the sidewalk right in front of a diner, so he takes out a couple of bucks, buys a meal, then goes to the owner's house to return it. The owner is rich underworld figure Edward Roman (Steve Cochran, pictured) who takes a shine to this honest bum—Chuck fesses up to taking the money out—and hires him as a chauffeur for himself and for his restless wife Lorna (Michele Morgan). The car is a bit crazy: Edward can switch control of the gas and brakes to the back seat if he wants to, and he gives Chuck a scare the first time out by doing this without telling him. [Why, I wondered, is this gimmick in the film at all? All I could imagine is that it was going to be pulled out again in the third act for some important use, and it is, but it remains quite a silly device.] Lorna wants to leave her husband, and most days she has Chuck drive her down to the coast to gaze longingly at Cuba where she wants to escape. Soon the two hatch a plan: he'll make arrangements for the two to them to take a ship to Havana and they'll sneak away under cover of night. But things don't quite go as scheduled and from here on, the movie gets pretty weird. We find out that Chuck is a victim of shellshock and sometimes slips into blackouts. Chuck and Lorna get to Havana but are hunted down by Roman's slimy henchman (Peter Lorre) and she is knifed in the street and killed. Or is she?

All is worked out by the end but it's a bit of a slog getting there. I must admit that part of my problem was that the public domain print on the DVD I was watching, from St. Clair Vision, was in terrible shape with lots of splices and murky darkness with little visible detail. The DVD is shorter by four minutes than the running time indicated at IMDb and I think an important plot point or two got scrambled because of that. Still, this has some good film noir elements including the conflicted and wounded hero, the potential femme fatale, and the role of fate in the proceedings. The ambitious visual style of director Arthur Ripley is hampered by the extremely low budget of the film, but some sequences, including the knifing of Lorna and the death of another character in a wine cellar, still pack some power. One quirk that doesn't work is when a take, usually involving just one actor looking intense or confused, is held for a long time as though the film editor fell asleep. The acting is all over the map and some of these problems can be chalked up to the direction: Cummings is OK but a little lightweight for a noir hero, never coming off as tortured as his character should be; Morgan's range goes from catatonic to bored; Lorre sounds like he's just rehearsing his lines. The only actor who emerges unscathed is Steve Cochran who is very good and believably menacing as the villain. An interesting experiment in noir atmosphere which I'd like to watch again if it ever gets a restoration. [DVD]

THE LITTLE PRINCESS (1939)

In 1899 England, widower Ian Hunter is off to fight in the Boer War and leaves his young daughter (Shirley Temple) at a well-regarded boarding school run by somewhat stand-offish Mary Nash and her more engaging brother (Arthur Treacher), a former music hall entertainer. Because Temple has been a bit spoiled, she is referred to as a "princess," but she's very pleasant and she soon makes some friends: an ill-treated servant girl (Sybil Jason), a teacher (Anita Louise), and a riding instructor (Richard Greene) who happens to be sweet on the teacher. On the day of Temple's birthday party, news arrives that Hunter has been reported dead and the enemy has taken all his money. Nash, who has just barely tolerated Temple all along, turns on her, taking her clothes and making her live in the attic and work as a servant. She bonds more strongly with her friends, including an Indian gentleman (Cesar Romero) who lives next door and who secretly provides her with nice furnishings for her shabby room. Meanwhile Temple refuses to believe that her father is actually dead and goes searching the nearby military hospital constantly to see if he's shown up, Sure enough, he's there in a shell-shocked daze though none of the doctors know his name and she keeps just missing him. The climax involves a chase through the streets and a visit to the hospital by Queen Victoria.

This is one of the last of Shirley Temple's little girl roles before she became an adolescent. Her movies aren't generally to my taste, but this one is certainly watchable, even as the plot grows predictably and tediously melodramatic. It's based on a classic story by Francis Hodgson Burnett, and I kept getting the story mixed up with Burnett's other big book which was also turned into a movie, The Secret Garden. Temple is good, and Treacher, who gets to do a dance routine with her, is fun. The rest of the cast mostly downplays the drama, which is actually a bit of a problem when it comes to Mary Nash, the mean headmistress; I could have stood for her to be a little more wicked. Greene and Louise make a rather bland couple, but Jason does well as the downtrodden servant and Romero is memorable in a small role. [TCM]

CARNEGIE HALL (1947)

Carnegie Hall cleaning lady Nora Ryan (Marsha Hunt) sees pianist Tony Salerno get in an argument with a conductor over how to play Tchaikovsky. Salerno is fired but Nora befriends him that night and tells him how, as a child, she was present at the opening of the Hall to see Tchaikovsky himself conduct his own symphony. Nora and Salerno fall in love, get married, and raise a child, Tony Jr., but one night, the alcoholic Salerno falls down the stairs and dies. Over the years, Nora works her way up to become a concert supervisor at Carnegie Hall and becomes dismayed when Tony Jr. (William Prince), trained in the classics, takes a liking to jazz, hooks up with a big band singer, and strikes out on his own playing in what his mom sees as disreputable clubs. Of course, by the end, jazz and classical meet up as Tony successfully debuts his jazz concerto (with Harry James) at, you guessed it, Carnegie Hall, with Nora in attendance.

The plot takes up probably less than half of this film's two and a half hour running time; much of the movie consists of performances of classical pieces by famous musicians of the day, performed (I assume) in Carnegie Hall. This was a project close to B-movie director Edgar G. Ulmer's heart, and though it may not quite rise to A-grade filmmaking, it is nicely shot in a striking, almost film-noir style. The acting is so-so, and Hunt (pictured at right with Prince) isn't helped by her rather poor old-age make-up. Among the real-life musicians appearing in the film are conductors Walter Damrosch and Bruno Walter, singers Rise Stevens, Ezio Pinza and Vaughn Monroe, pianist Artur Rubinstein, and violinist Jascha Heifetz. In the middle of the movie, I thought, man, these musical interludes are so long that they hurt the momentum of the narrative, but then I realized that Ulmer probably wished he could have discarded the plot altogether and done a Fantasia-style movie. Interesting if not essential viewing, except for Ulmer fans. [TCM]

MYSTERY IN MEXICO (1948)

In the shadows, a handsome young man getting into a safe is shot at and manages to escape into the night. And though the DVD cover claims this as a film noir, that's about all the noir there is. The man, we discover later, is Glenn Ames (Walter Reed), an insurance investigator sent to Mexico City to check on a claim concerning a stolen necklace. When Glenn stops communicating with his bosses, they assign fellow detective Steve Hastings (William Lundigan) to follow Victoria Ames (Jacqueline White), Glenn's sister, down to Mexico City; they're worried that Glenn has found the necklace and will use her to abscond with it. Steve flirts with Victoria, a lounge singer who gets a gig at the Versailles nightclub, and when she realizes her brother is missing, they joins forces to find him, helped by a gregarious cab driver named Carlos (Tony Barrett). Others who are soon involved: the charming owner of the Versailles (Ricardo Cortez), a Versailles bartender who knew Glenn but is afraid of saying too much, the local police, and a peasant family with a secret.

This is a perfectly acceptable B-thriller, competent and reasonably entertaining, though showing few signs of the talents that its director, Robert Wise, would show years later (THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE HAUNTING, WEST SIDE STORY). I have a thing for Lundigan and his blond, lackadaisical doofiness so I quite enjoyed seeing him in his element—his character is smart but has to act a bit dumb for a while until he knows who to trust. White (pictured above with Lundigan) is totally average—fine but not memorable. I like Cortez but he is criminally underused here. Barrett makes a good impression in a small but important role; he went on to write for TV (Honey West, The Mod Squad). Shot on location in Mexico, though honestly it could have been California soundstages for all the difference it made. [DVD]

LE BEAU SERGE (1958)

Francois (Jean-Claude Brialy) returns to his small French hometown after several years away; he has spent some time in a TB sanitarium and is searching for rest, and also, it seems, something to center his life. He is shocked to find that this former best friend Serge (Gerard Blain) has become a drunken wastrel who doesn't even recognize him at first. Serge does menial delivery work and is unhappily married. His wife Yvonne had a stillborn child who the doctors said would have been mentally damaged if he had lived; now she's pregnant again and Serge, convinced that there is "bad blood" in their commingling, is certain that this will result in another tragedy, so he spends every moment that he's not working shitfaced drunk. Francois decides that he can help to rehabilitate Serge, and thinking that Yvonne is to blame for his depression, he suggests that Serge leave her. Soon Francois falls in love with Marie (Bernadette Lafont) who lives with a man who may or may not be her father, and when a (possibly) incestuous attack takes place, he begins to think that Serge's problems may have to do with something about village life itself that takes its toll on everyone.

This film by Claude Chabrol is often considered one of the first New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) film, but unlike other contenders for that title (Godard's BREATHLESS, Resnais' HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR), there seems to be little groundbreaking stylistically here. In fact, it reminded me more of older films set in small French villages, like Bresson's DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST or Clouzot's LE CORBEAU. I enjoyed it, but it doesn't feel "new wavish" to me; there's no chopping-up of chronology or narrative, no camera tricks that call attention to themselves. Where I thought this was going was that the pretentious big-city guy would get his ass handed to him by the sly country folk, but actually it's a little bit like a rustic Peyton Place, and the big-city guy does indeed get to help out, and is helped himself a bit, even though he does have to suffer through a few missteps. Brialy (on the left in the picture at left) is solid as the somewhat bookish, rootless guy who needs to be needed, but Blain (on the right) is even better as the handsome brooder who seems well on the road to self-destruction. Blain was sometimes referred to as a French James Dean though he's got a lighter touch—he is very sexy and seems more natural in his role than anyone else in the cast. It was shot on location in the actual village where Chabrol grew up and actual townfolk have some speaking parts. [TCM]

STRICTLY UNCONVENTIONAL (1930)

This remake of the 1925 silent film THE CIRCLE, which I reviewed earlier this month, makes me realize why the original film felt unsatisfying. The earlier movie changed the ending of the original Somerset Maugham play to be more conventional; this version, as the title hints, is perhaps a bit unconventional but more interesting and maybe more realistic. Elizabeth is married to the rich but stuffy Arnold; she's frustrated that he seems so obsessed with his political career, and she finds herself attracted to family friend Ted who is definitely attracted to her. On this day, Arnold's long-absent mother, Lady Catherine, is arriving for her first visit since she ran off with another man, Lord Porteous, years ago, and left young Arnold alone with his father, Clive. Elizabeth is anxious to talk to her and get her advice about running off with Ted. But throwing all plans into disarray is Arnold's father Clive who, by coincidence, also shows up that day for a visit. Actually, they all get along fairly well, but Elizabeth is disappointed to see that Catherine and Clive don't seem particularly happy after all these years, and she begins to question her plan to leave Arnold.

This plays out almost exactly like the 1925 film with the big exception of the ending [SPOILER coming]. In the silent film, the wife starts to run off with her lover, but when her passive husband finally shows some gumption—of course involving the threat of violence—and tries to stop them, she decides to stay. Here, Elizabeth and Ted do leave together, an ending that feels much more organic. When they first appear, Catherine and Clive do seem to be unhappy, sending a signal to Elizabeth that should scare her away from ending her marriage, but as the evening goes on, we see that the old couple still love each other, and Elizabeth is confident in her decision to leave Arnold to find happiness with Ted. The acting is strong across the board: Alison Skipworth and Ernest Torrence seem to be having fun in the roles of the older couple; Tyrell Davis makes a perfect Arnold, being unbearably prim and yet still retaining just enough charm that we have some limited sympathy for him; Catherine Dale Owen (pictured above with Davis) is a fine Elizabeth, and Paul Cavanagh, who tends toward blandness in his later career of supporting roles, is equally good as Ted. Lewis Stone is Clive and Mary Forbes is a family friend. I enjoyed the silent version, but this one is richer and more satisfying. [TCM]

LET'S BE HAPPY (1957)

In the quaint little village of Heatherdale, Vermont, Jeannie (Vera-Ellen)—and yes, she has light brown hair—is struggling to make ends meet after the death of her Scottish grandfather. She finds out that she has been left a small sum in his will, and though it's only a few thousand dollars, she thinks of it as a fortune and makes plans to take a month-long trip to see her ancestral home in Edinburgh, by way of Paris. On a flight to Europe, she meets cute (sort of) with an inventor from Idaho named Stan (Tony Martin) who is signing a deal to manufacture a combo washing, drying, and ironing machine—as Jeannie notes, "You just press a button for happiness!" He gets her out of a number of minor jams and they (sort of) start to fall for each other until a British Lord named Jimmy (Robert Flemying) comes on the scene; he's one of those lords with a castle but not enough income to take care of it. When she talks about her "fortune," he assumes she's rich and makes a play for her and they (sort of) fall for each other. When Stan sees them making romantic sparks, he tries to make her jealous by hooking up with a busty French redhead (Zena Marshall). How *will* it all turn out?

Predictable as it is, there's nothing wrong with the plot of this grade-B musical that some sparkling performances and fun songs couldn't help. Sadly, very little sparkling fun is to be had here. Vera-Ellen was in her late 30s and is completely wrong for the part of a young naïve girl who passes herself off to Stan as in her early 20s. After her big breakthrough in WHITE CHRISTMAS, her movie career went nowhere—this was her last film—and she apparently had a sad life, suffering for much of her dancing career from anorexia. She dances well but is totally at sea trying to inhabit her character. Tony Martin is an unattractive blowhard; he would have been better cast as the jackass cad. In fact, Flemying as the cad is much more sympathetic than Martin as the hero; he is modestly attractive and charming, and his mercenary interest in Jeannie is not played as sinister; in fact, when he discovers that she's as poor as he is, he comes clean to her, says he's actually fallen in love with her, and keeps his marriage proposal on the table. The songs are bland and the production numbers unmemorable except for one scene in which Jeannie attends a ballet and imagines herself as the lead in a playing card-themed dance. The film was shot in England with what looks like a couple of hours of location shooting in Scotland, including a brief shot of the fabled Loch Lomand. The movie was shot in Cinemascope but the only print available is pan-and-scan, which just adds to the nightmarish qualities of this misbegotten musical. [TCM]

VIOLENCE (1947)

"America needs True Dawson!" is the slogan of the post-war political group United Defenders, of which Dawson is the leader. It's supposedly a veterans' rights organization but is actually a fascist group using the threat of violence against corporations to get extortion money. Ann (Nancy Coleman) is the UD secretary in Los Angeles but she's actually an undercover reporter from Chicago looking to break a big story on the group. She's called back to Chicago just as some UD members are getting suspicious of her, gets in an auto accident when her cab is followed, and winds up with amnesia: she remembers that she works for UD but forgets that she's a reporter. Her fiancé Steve (Michael O'Shea) arrives to take her back to L.A., but in reality he's an FBI agent who has also been investigating UD. By the time she gets her memory back, she and Steve are both in danger from Dawson's thugs who know the truth about them. This B-thriller has an interesting premise and begins well, but the weak script and so-so acting bring it down to average. Coleman and O'Shea (pictured at right) are OK, and Sheldon Leonard does his thug bit quite well. Emory Parnell is a colorless True Dawson, never making the character rise above mildly menacing—I'd like to have seen someone like Tom Neal or Lawrence Tierney give this part some teeth. UD's philosophies remain vague, and more concrete political content might have made things more interesting. Made by Monogram, a Poverty Row studio, it looks more like a Warner Bros. B-movie with its fairly high production values—though some of the action scenes are sloppily handled—and the print from Warner Archive is very nice. [Warner Archive Instant]

THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF (1950)

In her San Francisco mansion, Jane Wyatt, a rich and nasty piece of work, has a scene with her miserable husband; she's seeing someone on the side and has decided to divorce him, leaving him without a penny. When he asks her how long she's had her new boyfriend, she says, "Three years of misery too late!" He claims he's flying out of town that night, but we saw him earlier loading a gun and making elaborate plans—he returns after his exit to pull off a staged robbery so he can get some loot out of her. But when he's caught by Wyatt, she shoots him dead. As it happens, her new boyfriend is present: a veteran police detective (Lee J. Cobb). Cobb and Wyatt conspire to hide her crime; he takes the dead body to the airport and dumps it, making it look like he was the victim of a robbery, and later dumps the gun over the Golden Gate Bridge. Soon, as this is a film noir, fate takes a hand: first, Cobb's car is seen by an elderly couple, though they're a bit vague on the description; second, Cobb's younger brother (John Dall) is put in charge of the case along with him. Cobb gets a lucky break when a young crook, implicated in a robbery, is tied to the gun; he found it under the bridge and used it to commit the robbery, so Cobb insists that the boy must have killed Wyatt's husband. But just when it seems like Cobb and Wyatt might get away with it, Dall gets nosy and starts digging things up.

This is a solid film noir with an interesting cast. Cobb, who would move from B-films to A-films soon (ON THE WATERFRONT, 12 ANGRY MEN), is very good; Dall (best known for Hitchcock's ROPE and the noir cult classic GUN CRAZY) is more problematic—he seems like a lightweight out of his element next to Cobb. Wyatt, best known as the perfect suburban mom on Father Knows Best, is cast against type as the femme fatale; the critical consensus is against her, but I thought she was completely believable, and even creates the sense of a fuller character than the typical noir bad girl. This B-production is well-paced and benefits from some location shooting in San Francisco. There's a nice little twist in the last scene that gives Cobb a kick in the gut. Recommended, though the public domain prints available aren't in the best shape. Pictured above are, left to right, Wyatt, Cobb and Dall. [DVD]

OF LOVE AND DESIRE (1963)

Steve Corey (Steve Cochran) is an engineer who is in Mexico to work on a project for Paul Beckmann (Curt Jurgens). When he arrives at Paul's home, a fancy cocktail party is in full swing and Steve feels out of place until he is befriended by Katherine (Merle Oberon), Paul's somewhat tightly-strung half-sister. They hit it off, but in a private moment when Katherine tells Paul that Steve reminds her of her former boyfriend Gus, Paul flies off the handle and we don't know why. In the worst "day-for-night" scene ever, Katherine walks Steve to the guest house on the estate, then he walks her to her lavish home a few blocks away. He kisses her, she tears at his clothes, he freaks out for a minute, but they eventually give in to their desires. The next deay, when Paul realizes they've slept together, he becomes jealous (eww) and invites her ex-lover Gus (John Agar) along on a boat party. Sure enough, Gus and Katherine get up to their old tricks, though what Gus does verges on rape—an example of his sweet talk: "I wanna press the button and watch you melt"—and the next morning, when Steve arrives on the boat, she slashes her wrists. After she's patched up, Paul explains to Steve that Katherine's nymphomaniacal behavior is because she's searching for the lost passion she had with her first lover Richard who died in the war. But is there more to it than that? And what's behind the rather perverse jealousy that Paul feels for Katherine?

This is a cheaply-made, poorly-shot melodrama with bad sound that I still managed to enjoy for its occasional campy histrionics. Cochran and Oberon have no chemistry, partly because their acting styles clash (she's doing soap opera acting, he's going more naturalistic), but I liked each one individually. And it was nice to see two middle-aged people engaged in an affair, rather than the older-man/younger-woman pairing that we so often. Jurgens is very good in his climactic declaration to Oberon—I don't think it’s really a spoiler to note that there are incestuous feelings at play—and when she runs away from him, she winds up in a campy scene in which the streets which are filled with men seemingly clutching at her, a moment which reminded me of a scene in L'AVVENTURA, though Antonioni pulls it off with more class and subtlety. Steve Brodie has a small role as another old lover of Oberon's. My last comment: at 46, Cochran still looked good in skimpy bathing trunks (see picture). [FMC]

KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR (1937)

In 1913, British journalist Robert Donat is on a train to Russia to take a job translating novels. On the same train is Marlene Dietrich, a Russian countess who has been visiting England and is now returning home to get married. They don't know each other and they don't interact, but their destinies are intertwined. Donat is threatened with expulsion from Russia for writing an article critical of the government, but he gets a job as a British spy, growing a beard and taking on a new identity. However, when a revolutionary friend of his tosses a bomb at some carriages (as it happens, in Dietrich's wedding procession), Donat is arrested as a political prisoner and sent to Sibria. By the revolution of 1917, Dietrich's husband is dead and she is taken prisoner by a mob of former servants and serfs; Donat has been freed and is now a trusted second-tier revolutionary. Their paths finally cross when Donat is enlisted to accompany Dietrich to Petrograd to stand trial for crimes against the people. Of course, he is actually in sympathy with her, so he risks his own neck to take her to safety.

This movie has generally received positive critical comments, though I found it fairly tedious for the first half, composed as it is of short, choppy scenes that seem designed to get exposition out of the way. It is beautifully photographed by Harry Stradling and the sets and décor are occasionally striking. Donat is his usual passive self and Dietrich doesn't have much to do until the last half; the scene where masses of workers move in on her is especially good—with almost no dialogue, she does the acting with her eyes. The movie generally picks up in the last half hour, and one extended sequence near the end almost makes it worth watching the entire movie: at one point, when Donat and Dietrich are in danger of being exposed, they are saved by a sympathetic Red Army commissar (Lawrence Baskcomb) who accompanies them on a train toward freedom. The three share a lovely nighttime scene together before the commissar meets a sad fate the next day. Baskcomb is very good, and even Donat rises to the occasion here. Making it through the first half of the film is dicey, but if you do, it's worth sticking with it until the end. [Criterion streaming]

THE CIRCLE (1925)

This silent romantic comedy based on a play by Somerset Maugham begins with this bit of wisdom: "A man may select a wife—but he should be careful whose wife he selects." At Cheney Castle, Lady Catherine, wife of Lord Clive, is entertaining their friend Lord Hugh whom, we are told, was best man at their wedding "and still was as far as Lady Catherine was concerned." In fact, the two run off together, leaving her young son Arnold with the forlorn Clive. Thirty years later, Arnold lives at the Castle with his wife Elizabeth. He has grown into a rather droopy, stuffy man—his wife calls him a "thorough old woman," and it seems as if history is about to repeat itself as Elizabeth is considering running off with a handsome admirer named Teddy. On this day, Catherine is returning for a visit for the first time since she left, and bringing Hugh. Elizabeth is anxious to find out from her if "runaway love" can last. As fate would have it, Clive picks the same day to visit. At first, they all think there will be trouble, and in an almost slapstick scene, they try to get Clive's hunting gun away from him before he sees Catherine. But everyone is very civilized, and despite constant bickering between Hugh and Catherine, Elizabeth discovers they have actually been very happy. But does that mean Elizabeth and Teddy should be together? And will Arnold ever stand up for himself?

For a story that is heavily reliant on dialogue, this works surprisingly well as a silent movie, though I did miss hearing the sarcastic intonations that would have been appropriate for some of the lines. For the most part, the acting is subtle with much less gesturing and eye-rolling than you might expect in a silent comedy. The big draw here for some will be a very young Joan Crawford in the small role of Lady Catherine in her youth, but Eleanor Boardman and Malcolm McGregor (pictured above) are very good as Elizabeth and Teddy. I found the ending unsatisfying in a number of ways [SPOILER ALERT!]: Clive (Creighton Hale) is never portrayed sympathetically yet it's when he acts like a brute near the end to get Elizabeth back that he succeeds, though honestly she doesn't seem completely certain that she wants him, and I like to imagine that the next day, she comes to her senses and goes back to Teddy. Still, an enjoyable comedy. [Warner Archive Instant]

THE SILVER HORDE (1930)

In the small salmon fishing town of Kalvik, Alaska, independent fisherman Boyd Emerson (Joel McCrea) and his buddy Fraser, cold and hungry, are turned away from every home until they're finally taken in by good-hearted Cherry Malotte (Evelyn Brent), a former chorus girl and now owner of a copper mine, and her friend and protector, the roughneck Balt (Louis Wolheim). The town is largely run by Fred Marsh, owner of a salmon fishery business who wants no competition and who ruined Balt's livelihood. Boyd is trying to make money so he can marry Seattle socialite Mildred (Jean Arthur), and Cherry, though by now a bit in love with Boyd, decides to help him by sending him to a banker in Seattle who will back his new fishing venture. But things don’t go well: Mildred seems to have become Marsh's lover, and Marsh manages to get Boyd's bank loan stopped. Cherry steps in and sacrifices her copper mine to get Boyd his money; for a time, Boyd and Bolt build up a good business involving catching and canning fish, but Marsh's men start bullying Boyd's workers leading to a couple of confrontations that threaten to turn deadly.

This pre-Code melodrama takes a while to get going, but it becomes worth watching, partly for the acting surprises. Jean Arthur, who I usually like, is only fair to middling here. She's playing against what became her type; instead of the down-to-earth, slightly screwballish best gal pal, she's a haughty, cold-hearted shrew, and that role just doesn't fit her—she's wooden and obvious. Better is Evelyn Brent whose career never took off like Arthur's did, though she's subtle and complex as the rough woman with the heart of gold. McCrea (pictured), only 25, is young and handsome, and though not beefy or particularly butch, he does display an admirable fortitude in his attempts to make good—though it takes him a little too long to see through the unworthy Mildred. The scrunch-faced Wolheim is fine. There’s a deus ex machina gimmick in the end involving the sudden importance of a heretofore minor character that's a bit hard to swallow, but the pre-Code morality leads to a fairly big surprise twist in the finale. Not for all tastes, but watchable. [TCM]

PHAEDRA (1962)

Phaedra (Melina Mercouri) is the second wife of Greek shipping magnate Thanos (Raf Vallone); when we first see her, she is at the christening of a new ship named for her. Thanos is upset that Alexis (Anthony Perkins), his son from his first wife, is wasting his life in London trying to be a painter and he sends Phedra off to bring him back to Greece and get him into the family business. Phaedra's companion Anna predicts trouble, and sure enough, when Phaedra meets Alexis, there are sparks and soon the two of them are lovers. As part of a bribe to get Alexis home, Thanos promises to buy him an Aston-Martin sports car, so Alexis and Phaedra return to Greece where things begin to go wrong immediately as Thanos tries to marry Alexis off to the daughter of another shipping millionaire to forge a strong connection between the two companies. When the S.S. Phaedra goes down at sea with much loss of life, it seems to be a portent of things to come for the flesh-and-blood Phaedra.

If you know your Greek mythology, you will know from the beginning that this is going the way of all Greek tragedy: Phaedra, wife of Theseus, falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus and bad things happen. Because the narrative is overdetermined, you can sit back and enjoy the overheated soap opera machinations and the lovely black and white cinematography. Mercouri is gruff-voiced and striking looking, and is perfect for Greek tragedy. Some critics have said that Perkins is in over his head here, but I think he's fine as the sleek, callow, puppy-dog boy who doesn't really know what he wants. Their first lovemaking session is filmed in front of a fireplace through hazy glass with rain pouring over it, and though not explicit by today's standards, it gets the point across that these two in are in lust. Vallone is, surprisingly, a largely sympathetic figure and gives a strong performance. At two hours, this drags a bit near the end, especially since you know what's going to happen, but for fans of this kind of melodrama, it's worth seeing. [DVD]

DECOY (1946)

What a pleasure to watch a movie that's marketed as film noir and to discover that it really is a film noir—and a good one!—and not just a black & white crime movie. The opening sequence is tantalizing: a nervous man (Herbert Rudley) is washing his hands in a filthy gas-station restroom. When we see his face in the jagged shard of glass that passes for a mirror (pictured at left), we figure he's either sick, scared, or insane. He leaves in almost a trance and hitchhikes to San Francisco where he arrives at the apartment of Jean Gillie; he shoots her, then drops dead. A cop (Sheldon Leonard) walks in and attends to the seriously wounded woman who keeps asking for a large locked box. The rest of the film is a flashback. Gillie is the moll of gangster Robert Armstrong; he got away with a big chunk of money during a robbery and managed to hide it, but eventually was caught and because he killed a guard, he's about to be put to death by gas. Gillie and gang member Edward Norris get Rudley, an idealistic but tortured prison doctor, to administer a drug called Methelyne Blue to Armstrong right after the execution that is an antidote to the gas and will bring him back to life. Sure enough, it works, and that's where all the trouble starts: Armstrong may not want to split the money; Rudley doesn't want to go along with the gang's plans; Gillie proves herself capable of anything to get her hands on the dough.

This is a straightforward B-noir: crime, nighttime shadows, a morally ambiguous antihero, and a vicious femme fatale, all on a low budget. It's not a great movie, but it's good enough to feel like a discovery. The situations and characters are solid, but the B-acting is a little disappointing. Gillie (pictured at right) is a British actress whose career never really got off the ground—she died of pneumonia just three years later, at the age of 33. She's only so-so here, but she's certainly promising, and the character is a juicy one. Her best moment: making a guy who has outlived his usefulness to her get out and change a flat tire, then running him over and checking to make sure he's dead. The character of the doctor is the definition of the noir antihero; he’s a good man, or at least, not a bad man, but he makes bad choices for mostly understandable reasons. But Rudley's acting weakens the impact this character's fate might have had on us. Aside from the powerful and disorienting opening, he mostly just looks anxious and depressed, and we never get any sense of what makes him tick. Edward Norris, who had a strong B-movie career, is very good, as is Sheldon Leonard as the cop. Armstong doesn't have much to do, but he gets a really creepy moment as he tries to kiss Gillie after he's been brought back from the dead—and the addition of the horror/sf element is interesting but not overdone. The musical score is a little bombastic, which perhaps is better than the usual Monogram Pictures lack of a score. Overall, this is one for noir fans to watch for. [Warner Archive streaming]