LAW OF THE JUNGLE (1942)

Sultry chorus girl Nona (Arline Judge) is stranded in an African village, having lost her passport and been deserted by her manager. Hotel owner Simmons hires her to sing, but unknown to her, he is in cahoots with two German agents, Grozman and Belts, who are trying to start a native uprising—and who have stolen her passport, to what end, I was never sure, except so there would be some femme appeal in this movie. Meanwhile, paleontologist Larry Mason (John King) and his "gentleman's gentleman" Jeff (Mantan Moreland) arrive looking for "the missing link." Mason is warned to steer clear of Nona (bad influence and all), but when she witnesses the assassination of a British agent, she lights out for the jungle and is reluctantly taken in by Mason, even though the natives accompanying him say that the "white woman is bad juju"—of course, all it takes is for King to tell them that she is NOT bad juju, and they're appeased. It turns out that the dead British agent's report on the German spies is in the possession of Nona, though she doesn't know it. Soon, Larry's band is being hunted not only by the Germans but also by two British cops. They discover the agent's report, hide it in a human skull they find in a cave, and are promptly attacked by a gorilla and captured by a native tribe—who might be cannibals.

This B-jungle melodrama from Monogram (I almost called it an "adventure" but very little exciting actually happens) suffers from particularly cheap production values and a derivative, predictable script, but a couple of actors make up to some degree for the shortcomings. Arline Judge is a good, cocky, gruff female lead; John King is adequate—many critics fault him for being wooden, but I think it's just that he suffers a bit in comparison to the more enthusiastic performance of his leading lady. The real saving grace here is Mantan Moreland who manages, as he often did, to transcend his role as African-American dumb-guy comic relief. In fact, the last fifteen minutes of the movie belong to him as he winds up getting our heroes out of trouble when it turns out that the chief of the kidnapping tribe (Laurence Criner) is an Oxford-educated fellow who belongs to the same Harlem social club as Moreland. When Moreland is faced with a giggling female who seems to be mocking him, he retorts, "You ain’t no Maxine Sullivan yourself," a fairly obscure reference to a 30s jazz singer. But actually the woman wants to marry Moreland, which, because she's rather large, is supposed to a joke all by itself but which will be offensive to many viewers today. Another odd detail: Mason's chief native associate is named Bongo. If those last two items don’t offend you, you might enjoy this outdated but occasionally fun flick. Arthur O'Connell, later a respected character actor (Oscar-nominated for ANATOMY OF A MURDER) is unrecognizable as the doomed hotel owner. [YouTube]

HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT (1937)

Bruce Vail (Colin Clive) is a shipping magnate whose company is working on a new passenger liner named after his wife Irene (Jean Arthur). But their married life is on the rocks, to say the least: he is constantly jealous, thinking she's having affairs, and she—who is unhappily faithful to him—finally decides she wants a divorce and moves out into a hotel room. Bruce tries to put a hitch in her plans by hiring his chauffeur to go to her room and be "caught" in the act of seduction, which would pressure her to drop the divorce, but in the midst of this, a man (Charles Boyer), apparently a thief hiding on the balcony, enters the room, knocks out the chauffeur and locks Bruce in a closet. But Paul Dumond is not a thief; he was putting a passed-out friend to bed in the next room and overheard the ruckus in Irene's room, so broke in to save a damsel in distress. Paul takes Irene to the Chateau Bleu just as it's closing and sweet-talks the chef Cesare (Leo Carillo) and the band into staying open just for the two of them. It's a lovely meet-cute situation and the two fall for each other, but back in the hotel room, Bruce, thinking that Paul was Irene's lover, kills the chauffeur to put the blame on Paul, and forces Irene to travel to New York City with him. Sure enough, she does, disappointing Paul who is actually the headwaiter at the Chateau Bleu. So what does Paul do? Of course, he and Cesare head to New York City hoping to break into the restaurant business to impress Irene who he hopes will come running back to him. However, Paul has heard nothing about the murder so is unaware that she left to save him from scrutiny. The unhappy Irene does eventually wander into Paul's restaurant, but because her husband is with her, Paul is upset. Will these two kids ever get together? Will Paul go on trial for murder?

Did I mention the Titanic-like climax, as the liner named for Irene, with Paul and Irene on board, hits an iceberg? That makes for one of the strangest scenes ever in what is essentially a romantic comedy. And this is one of the more unusual movies of its era. The plot, full of incident and unusual turns, feels fairly contemporary, as do its tonal shifts from comedy to romance to drama. The sequence of Boyer and Arthur getting to know each other is quite charming, but at various points along the way, you're not sure that the two will wind up together and/or alive, and that's unusual for a 30s romance. They make a very good screen couple, and this may be my favorite Boyer performance—I looked back at my reviews of other Boyer films and I nearly always say, "I’m not really a Boyer fan, but I liked him here," so maybe I'm actually a Boyer fan. Carillo functions as a comic relief wingman most of the time and he does a good job. Colin Clive's character is basically a one-note sociopath and it's difficult to care at all about him, or to understand the lengths he goes to in order to keep a wife who hates him. A different actor may have been able to flesh out Vail a bit, but he's really just a cardboard villain. Also with Ivan Lebedeff as the ill-fated chauffeur. [Criterion streaming]

DREAMBOAT (1952)

Thornton Sayre (Clifton Webb) is a mild-mannered and respected professor of English at Underhill College. However, he has a secret in his past that he has kept from his students and colleagues: years ago, he was a famous silent movie star named Bruce Blair, aka Dreamboat. But now the movies he made with his famous co-star Gloria Marlowe (Ginger Rogers) are being broadcast on television in prime time on the Exotic Perfume Hour, hosted by none other than Marlowe. His daughter Carol (Anne Francis) discovers the connection and is horrified, as is Sayre, as are his colleagues—though Dr. Coffey, the college president (Elsa Lanchester), admits privately that she's always had a crush on Dreamboat. To save his reputation, Sayre takes off to New York with his daughter to stop the show from being broadcast. Marlowe claims she needs the show because she's broke, but when Sayre finds out that's a lie, he files an injunction to stop his movies from airing. Meanwhile, young and handsome TV executive Bill Ainslee (Jeffrey Hunter) squires Carol around town while her dad is occupied and soon they're dating. Then Dr. Coffey shows up and puts the moves on Sayre, and when he rejects her, she fires him. In court, Sayre claims the movies have been re-edited to make him look ridiculous—which they have—and he wins the suit. But Marlowe has one last plan to set in motion…

This is a cute comedy, and especially interesting for being an early indictment of television as a conduit of idiocy, but as far as I'm concerned, there's a big obstacle to total enjoyment: Webb (who was over 60) plays his younger self in the silent movie clips, and he can't really pull off the romantic swashbuckler type. Rogers (only 40 at the time) is more believable. It's not a fatal flaw, but given that Webb actually was in a handful of silent films, it's too bad they couldn't have used actual footage of him from that era. Otherwise, Webb is very good, as is Rogers. The Francis/Hunter storyline feels tacked on, but it's pleasant to watch these two pretty people (pictured above) go through their romantic comedy paces, mild as they are—Hunter thinks Francis is a small-town "museum" type, and she has to show him that she's not. Harmless fun. [FMC]

THIS IS NOT A TEST (1962)

One night along a California highway, Deputy Colter is ordered to put up a roadblock. Several travelers who are stopped get annoyed until Colter tells them what's happening: martial law has been declared because nuclear missiles are headed toward the States and they happen to be in a prime target area (military technology and oil reserves). Among the inconvenienced citizens: Jacob, an old farmer, and his daughter Juney; businessman Sam and his mildly disgruntled wife Karen; young speeder Cheryl and her playboy boyfriend Joe who has finally landed some big money but now realizes he has no use for it; trucker Al and Clint, the handsome but strange guy he picked up on the road; and cleancut young Pete. Tensions ebb and flow in the group, particularly when Colter takes charge and makes Al clean out his truck so they can all get inside and wait out the blast and the ensuing radioactivity. Not everyone thinks that's such a good idea so a few wind up striking out on their own. Other problems: Clint is a psychotic killer on the run and, though Colter scares him away, he hangs around in the hills near the group; Al flirts with Karen which threatens to unhinge her husband; Pete gets sweet on innocent Juney. Then there's the gang of looters who arrive just moments before the bombs are due to fall. And don't forget Karen's pet Chihuahua.

Though a micro-budget, no-star affair, this still manages to be mostly effective, as long as you're not looking for apocalyptic special effects. It's primarily a character drama and, appropriately, it proceeds on limited sets like a TV episode or, as another critic has noted, a play (it has a bit of the feel of The Petrified Forest  but set outside). The writing is good enough that I wish the acting had been better; the actors are OK but bigger talents would have added another layer of appeal to the film. Seamon Glass (at right) has the burly build and steely gaze of a highway cop, but he mostly seems to be reciting lines he just learned, though when his character stars showing signs of falling apart near the end, Glass gets a chance to shine, especially in a scene with the dog. No one in the cast was familiar to me, but mention should be made of Ron Starr (pictured above left), who makes a very effective psycho—the script hints at a Norman Bates-type of personality but he's the least developed of all the characters; Norman Winston, who gives the wronged husband a nice touch of gravitas; and Don Spurance and Aubrey Martin as the coupled-up Pete and Juney. I like the fact that several boxes of Christmas ornaments are taken out of the truck and spread about in a fatalistic stab at humor and irony. Not a bad little film, best approached as a period piece from the middle of the Cold War—though interestingly, there is absolutely no political discussion or mention of where the bombs are coming from; audiences of the time would have known they were Russian. [YouTube]

PLANET OF DINOSAURS (1977)

A spaceship in trouble crash lands in an ocean on a planet very much like Earth. The crew manages to swim to shore with some supplies before the ship sinks, and they discover a seemingly hospitable environment. But when Cindy tries to go swim back to the ship, she is eaten by a sea creature (as JAWS-like music plays). The remaining eight crew members hike inland to find a place to set up camp until they are rescued—which may or may not be a realistic hope as they have no way to communicate with their home base. Among the eight are: Lee, the nominal but indecisive leader; Chuck, the hunky navigator who spends almost the entire movie shirtless; Jim, the bearded lumberjackish fellow who becomes a more reliable decision-maker; and Derna, a sexy secretary. There are personal tensions, but given the title, what we really want to see are the dinosaurs. When they eventually arrive, after much tedious conversation and lots of walking and rock climbing, they are sort of worth the wait. And sort of not, depending on your tolerance for bad acting and terrible dialogue.

This movie is of a much later vintage than I usually include on this blog, but it seems part and parcel of the rash of low-budget 60s and early 70s sci-fi movies I've been watching this summer. It's very low-budget, and what money there was went to the special effects (including some nice Harryhausen-like stop-motion effects) by some men who later worked on better movies such as GREMLINS 2 and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. I especially liked the little pet-sized dinosaurs, though all the effects are of higher quality than the surrounding movie. There is a great death scene involving one especially unlikable character getting speared in the chest by the horn of a Centrosaurus. Lucky for me, the undistinguished acting and bad screenplay were made tolerable by the cheesy costumes (men in jumpsuits open to the navel), porn mustaches sported by a couple of the guys (see Mike at right), and the bared chest of Chuck Pennington (as Chuck, pictured above killing one of the petlike dinos). Generally, it felt like the cast and crew were just out for a week of hiking in the hills around Los Angeles in sporty 70s duds and decided to shoot an unfinished script that the director just happened to have in his pocket. Weirdly, the whole thing has a 70s porn movie vibe to it, even though nothing remotely sexy happens—unless you count Chuck's chest, which I guess I do. I was even pleasantly distracted by Michael Thayer (as Mike) and James Whitworth (as Jim). Even Derna was played by a woman named Derna! (Whitworth went on to gain notoriety as the cannibal dad in the original THE HILLS HAVE EYES.) [Streaming]

SUSAN AND GOD (1940)

Barrie Trexel (Fredric March) is a rich but depressed alcoholic whose wife Susan (Joan Crawford) has left him for an extended tour of Europe. Her return gives him hope that she will come back to him—and their young daughter Blossom—but instead she returns full of religion, that of a specific movement headed by Millicent Wigstaff, which requires only love, and confession of sins and shortcomings. Her high society friends welcome her back and are torn between obeying her wish to be kept away from her husband, and Barrie's wish to see her. Meanwhile, Susan, filled with missionary zeal, tries to convert her friends and in the process of getting them to face up to their failings, meddles in their lives to the point of breaking up relationships. However, when it comes to facing up to her own problems, Susan is less enthusiastic and problems erupt all around.

This is an odd duck of a movie. Despite the title and the time taken up with the Wigstaff Movement, the religious content, satirical or otherwise, is minimal. The first half is built like a screwball comedy, and indeed at times the movie has the feel of THE PHILADELPHIA STORY—rich people, big houses, fancy clothes, sophisticated love lives, alcoholism, etc. Joan Crawford even seems to be imitating Katherine Hepburn for a while, though apparently she was actually channeling Gertrude Lawrence who played Susan on stage. But Susan's friends mostly vanish in the last half as the focus becomes family melodrama, and I lost interest. I don't typically find March a good comedy player and nothing he does here changes my mind. Crawford gives a busy, shrill performance, swanning about in lovely clothes but getting on my nerves—of course, her character is supposed to be unlikable, but I also found her unpleasant, and wondered why the hell her husband wanted to get her back. The supporting cast is good: Nigel Bruce is a wealthy middle-aged man recently married to aspiring actress Rita Hayworth, who is carrying on an affair with handsome actor John Carroll; Rose Hobart and Bruce Cabot are a couple whom Crawford insists are wrong for each other; Ruth Hussey is especially good as a family friend who has nursed a long-time crush on March. At two hours, this goes on far too long to a predictable, if unlikely, happy-ish ending. Pictured from left: Crawford, Carroll, Cabot and Hayworth. [TCM]

MISS JULIE (1951)

On the night of a Swedish Midsummer's Eve festival, Count Carl's servant Jean (Alf Palme) returns to the estate after dropping the Count off at another party. Julie (Anita Bjork), the Count's restless daughter, who has just told off her supposed fiancé, is slumming with the common folk at the party and flirtatiously tries to get Jean to dance with her, despite knowing that he is engaged to Kristin, the cook. As the two parry back and forth for the rest of the night, we get several flashbacks showing aspects of their relationship over the years. Jean, as a young boy, sneaks into the house to see her, then winds up literally in shit when he hides in an outhouse. Years later, Julie asks her fiancé to wade out in a pond and get her a water lily; when he refuses, Jean does it instead. We also get some insight into Julie's upbringing: her mother, Berta, was the Count's mistress and rebelled against traditional gender roles, but eventually went mad and, on a past Midsummer's Eve, burned the house down. Julie promised her mother not to let men enslave her, and tells Jean, "I'd like to see your whole sex awash in blood." Nevertheless, Jean has plans to leave and run a hotel, and Julie steals money from her father so she can run away with him. Still, master and servant mindsets are hard to change, and the best laid plans of mice and men and unstable women…

This beautifully shot and acted film is based on a well-known play by August Strindberg, but you'd never guess it from the inventive, fluid opening-up the material has received from director Alf Sjoberg and cinematographer Goran Strindberg; visually, this movie kept reminding me of CITIZEN KANE which is a high compliment. The action, as in the play, takes place over an evening and a morning, but the constant flashbacks never allow the narrative to bog down and the camera never lets the pace flag. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Ingmar Bergman was influenced by Sjoberg, and this film in particular. Bjork seems just a tad too old for the part, but she's very good, and Palme (picuted with Bjork) is even better, though his character is a bit perplexing in terms of intention and motivation. The young Max von Sydow has a small role as a mostly mute observer. Highly recommended. [TCM]

SHE'S BACK ON BROADWAY (1953)

Virginia Mayo is a movie star who feels washed up in Hollywood. Her agent (Larry Keating) talks her into heading back to Broadway to star in a new musical. The catch: she would be working with director Steve Cochran, the man who directed her breakout show years ago; the two were lovers and he never forgave her for leaving both him and the hit show for a movie contract. Cochran resists using Mayo until his producer (Frank Lovejoy) tells him that with her name attached to the project, financing for the show has come pouring in. Cochran reluctantly agrees to give her the role and for a while, things run smoothly, but when he discovers that her agent is the main backer, he assumes the whole thing is a set-up for Mayo to make a big splash, then leave the show like she did before. He starts treating her harshly at rehearsals; she storms off stage and he quits. Cochran soon realizes that he's getting bad publicity, and he and Mayo reconcile professionally and go on with the show. Though there still seems to be an attraction between them, Cochran has a lover (Patrice Wymore), a dancer in the show—their relationship is made quite clear, somewhat surprisingly for a Production Code movie—and that triangle combined with, sure enough, a Hollywood offer after the New Haven previews, may wind up scuttling both the show and the re-warmed affair.

Despite the title and the presence of the fairly lightweight actress Virginia Mayo, this isn't a musical comedy. There are some songs, all in the context of the show being rehearsed, and most of the numbers are in fact seen in rehearsal form rather than as staged songs—oddly, the full-blown production number "Breakfast in Bed" isn't as fun as the rehearsal numbers. As far as tone, it's basically a fairly serious melodrama done with a light but not comic touch. The film begins with Mayo feeling depressed over the suicide of an actress very much like her. The scenes between Mayo and Cochran are well-played and serious. There isn't real comic relief, except for the presence of one poor untalented schmoe who keeps auditioning for a part and is finally given a job as a stage assistant. The problem is that it never feels like there's much at stake here. The movie feels uneasily stuck between being a show-biz comedy like THE BAND WAGON and being a show-biz drama like THE COUNTRY GIRL. For me, Cochran (pictured at right) can do no wrong, and his solid performance is like a stepping stone to Roy Scheider's portrayal of a fictionalized Bob Fosse in ALL THAT JAZZ. Speaking of which, Fosse may have seen the audition scene early in this film, as his great "On Broadway" number in JAZZ seems to have been inspired by it. Also with the always fun Gene Nelson as Mayo’s leading man (Nelson and Mayo are pictured above left), and a spectacular two-man dance team of Steve Condos and Jerry Brandow whose tap routine is the musical highlight of the film. Worth seeing if you don't expect a frothy comedy. [TCM]

ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE (1973)

John Wintergreen (Robert Blake, at left) is an Arizona motorcycle cop, assigned to a deep desert area, who desperately wants to become a homicide detective. He gets his chance when an old man is found dead in his isolated shack; it looks like an elaborate suicide but John picks up on a couple of clues that would indicate it was actually murder, so Detective Poole (Mitchell Ryan) lets him assist on the case. As it's the early 70s, a member of a nearby hippie commune comes under suspicion, and Poole uses unnecessarily brutal questioning tactics to get information, but Wintergreen sees himself as an unfailingly fair and moral man—when he stops someone for speeding and it turns out to be a Tucson cop, he gives the guy a ticket anyway—and he's upset with Poole's ways. Eventually, Wintergreen figures out who the real killer is, though his discomfort in trying to fit in with the detectives puts him back out on his motorcycle, with a tragic result.

This cult film is the only movie directed by James William Guercio, better known as the producer of most of Chicago's big hits in the 70s. On release, some critics labeled this film "fascist," I'm guessing because it was telling a policeman's story sympathetically—and also because of the visual fetishization of the hyper-masculine leather uniforms and motorcycles. In an early scene, John and his fellow cop Zipper (Billy Green Bush, pictured at right) use an Easy Rider poster for target practice, which could indicate anti-counterculture feelings, to say the least. However, whatever his politics, John wants to be fair and do the right thing. Both cops and hippies come in for criticism in this film, and today it doesn't seem quite as politically charged as it did then. Blake is excellent, making Wintergreen a round character and resisting the temptation to play his as a naïf or baboon. Ryan is fine, as is Elisha Cook as the nutty old guy who stumbles on the death scene. Jeannine Riley, best known for roles on TVs Petticoat Junction and Hee-Haw, is good in the small but important role of John's occasional lover. However, Billy Green Bush practically steals the movie with his tragicomic antics as John's tightly wound cop buddy—he's not comic relief but he does bring an interesting sense of tension (sometimes light, sometime dark) to the film. Pay attention to the hippie commune scene and you'll see some members of Chicago who each have a couple lines of dialogue, and a quick glimpse of Nick Nolte who has no lines. The exteriors, shot in Arizona and Utah by Conrad Hall, are gorgeous, and the interiors bring to mind film noir. An interesting film which deserves a wider audience. [DVD]

THE DAMNED (1947)

aka LES MAUDITS
With the end of the war in sight, a group of Nazis and collaborators leave Norway in a submarine headed for South America. Among the passengers: a Nazi general, an Italian industrialist, his wife Hilde (who is also fairly obviously the general's mistress), an academic, his teenage daughter, and a reporter. Barely out of port, the ship is hit by depth charges and Hilde is knocked unconscious. A Nazi named Forster, who still holds out hope for "victory" in a larger sense, wants to get rid of her as dead weight, but the general instead threatens to get rid of Willy, Forster's thug buddy—or is he more than that to Forster? With tensions established, the sub stops at a port town in France and a doctor named Guilbert is shanghaied to attend to Hilde. As the trip continues, word comes that Hitler has committed suicide—not good news for most on the sub—and Guilbert does what he can to sow dissent among the Nazis and enlists the help of the radio operator to try and figure out a way to escape. Something of a forerunner to DAS BOOT, at least in terms of look and feel, this is a small gem of claustrophobic tension, well acted and involving, leading to an exciting climactic encounter with a cargo ship. Most of the actors weren't familiar to me (except Marcel Dalio in a cameo as a South American agent) but they’re all fine, though the standout is Henri Vidal (pictured) as the doctor. [DVD]

THE ROADHOUSE MURDER (1932)

Eric Linden is a cub reporter at the New York Star who is desperate to make a name for himself. He thinks he has a line on some diamond smugglers and gets the police to break into an apartment, but the occupant is a young naked woman in a bathtub; the jewels she has are legitimately hers—and they were a gift from the Star's publisher. Frustrated and close to getting fired, Linden takes his girl (Dorothy Jordan), the police commissioner’s daughter, on a moonlight drive in his convertible to vent. When it starts pouring down rain, they take refuge at a small roadside inn run by an unfriendly clerk. In the middle of the night, Bruce Cabot and Phyllis Clare break in to steal jewels from another guest. They kill the guest and the clerk, but Linden and Jordan see them escape, and Clare even leaves behind her purse.

Up to now, this has been a decent B-movie crime story. But then it all goes to hell; instead of calling the police, telling their story and giving them the purse, Linden gets the bright idea of leaving fake evidence to make it look like he committed the murders. He figures he'll go on the run, get caught, write a series of articles about his ordeal, than have Clare bring the purse forward before he gets in too deep. Yeah, what the hell could go wrong with that? He does make headlines with a series of articles called "Diary of a Hunted Man," but once he gets caught and put on trial, we know the purse is going to go missing and his life will be in danger. I've always liked Linden in his 30s young pup roles (BIG CITY BLUES, FLYING DEVILS) but even he can’t quite make his character credible. Jordan is OK and there is a good supporting cast including Cabot, Roscoe Karns (pictured to the left of Linden) as Linden's boss, and Gustav von Seyffertitz as the innkeeper. [TCM]

THE PIED PIPER (1942)

In June of 1940, the curmudgeonly British John Howard (Monty Woolley) is traveling in France, fishing at a lodge, just as the Germans are invading France—with England seemingly their next stop. As Howard makes plans to leave, a woman at the lodge asks him to escort her two children, Ronny (Roddy McDowell) and Shelia (Peggy Ann Garner), back to relatives in England while she makes her way to Switzerland. Reluctantly, he agrees and the three board a train, but when it's stopped and taken over by the French Army, they wind up on a crowded bus—accompanied by another child, asked along by Shelia. At Chartres, they come under German airplane fire and pick up another child, a boy who has been traumatized into silence by the death of his parents. Howard gets news that his son, an RAF pilot, is dead just after he meets up with the young Nicole Rougeron (Anne Baxter) who had an affair with his son. She helps arrange passage for Howard and his charges across the English Channel, but a Nazi major (Otto Preminger) who thinks Howard might be a spy could bring all their plans to an end.

I spent years trying to see this film, based on a novel by Nevil Shute, because I'm a fan of Monty Woolley and he was nominated for Best Actor for his role here. It was shown occasionally on Cinemax back in the 90s but by the time I had access to that channel, they had quit airing it. Now all these years later, I was able to see in on a gray-market DVD. I'm not sure I'd say it was worth a twenty-year wait, but it is a solid wartime drama with a very good lead performance from Woolley. The child actors McDowell and Garner acquit themselves well and the tone is much less saccharine than it could have been. The horrors of the war are downplayed for a lighter tone in general which fits the feel of the original novel by Nevil Shute. Also with J. Carroll Naish and Marcel Dalio. I'm not sure why this has not gotten a legal commercial release on DVD, but it should.

I WAS A SPY (1933)

In 1915, behind enemy lines in Belgium, nurse Madeleine Carroll agrees to help out at a hospital treating wounded Germans. In town, German commander Conrad Veidt is forcing residents to give up food and supplies to give to his troops. Carroll is approached by her aunt and agrees to pass secret messages to the British. One of her German co-workers, Herbert Marshall, turns out to be the head of the local resistance force and, working together, they figure out that the Germans are planning to use poison gas, and they manage to blow up important German supplies. Meanwhile, Veidt begins to fall for Carroll even as he suspects that she may be a spy. This is an above average spy-romance story, based on the exploits of a real person, Martha Cnockhaert, and it's filled with tense scenes of spy activities and people almost getting caught and people sacrificing their own safety to help others. There are particularly good sequences involving a supply dump explosion, the aftermath of a poison gas attack in which a crowd chants the Our Father as injured soldiers are being tended to, and the slaughter of war vets who are gathered for a church event. Carroll and Veidt are fine, though I have my usual Herbert Marshall problem: in movies where he’s supposed to be charming and dashing and romantic (like BLONDE VENUS), he never comes off like that to me so the sparks between he and his leading lady never feel real. But the chemistry between Veidt and Carroll (both pictured at right) makes up for Marshall's lack. Also with Edmund Gwenn as the town’s burgomaster, Nigel Bruce, Martita Hunt, and Gerald du Maurier (Daphne’s father). [DVD]

THE SNAKE WOMAN (1961)

We open with a bucolic scene in 1890 Northumberland of a piping shepherd. But elsewhere in the same village, a woman is writhing in discomfort while her husband, Dr. Adderson, milks snake venom in order to give her injections he is convinced will cure her "sick mind." Unfortunately, she is pregnant and goes through a very painful delivery just after she has gotten another injection. The mother dies and Aggie, the eccentric midwife, thinks the infant girl is dead as well, as she is born cold, but soon the child begins breathing and when the midwife sees that she has no eyelids, she proclaims her the devil's offspring and tries to kill her. Adderson saves the child and gives her to Dr. Murton who leaves it with the piping shepherd we saw earlier. Aggie goes to round up some torch-wielding villagers to destroy Adderson's house and Adderson dies at the hands, er, teeth, of his snakes. Twenty years later, Murton returns to the village and learns the strange girl, named Atheris (oddly, also the name of a genus of poisonous snake) by the shepherd, has vanished and villagers are being found dead of snakebites; they specifically appear to be from a cobra which is not native to Northumberland. When Prentice, a Scotland Yard man, comes to investigate, he meets the mysterious Atheris wandering the moors, and finds it strange that she seems attracted to a snake-chamer's flute he happens to be playing. Could this wild child be the cause of the recent snakebite deaths?

This feels like a Hammer movie but without the style or atmosphere. It’s not a bad movie (one critic called it totally inept which it certainly is not—though it is, considering its short 70 minute running time, a bit of a slog at times), but it will disappoint viewers drawn in by the lurid promise of the title. Yes, Atheris can turn into a snake, but we figure that out very early on. This is not a special effects movie, but given its title, it's a letdown that we don’t see at least some graphic scenes of transformation or blood. Elsie Wagstaff steals the movie as the crazy midwife who is into voodoo and who's shown to be not so crazy after all. Susan Travers is attractive and spooky as Atheris, and John McCarthy (pictured with Travers) is so-so as the Scotland Yard hero. This is stronger on mood than action or character development, and even the mood is sustained only off-and-on. [Amazon]

ASSIGNMENT OUTER SPACE (1960)

It's the year 2116 and Ray Peterson, star reporter for the Interplanetary Chronicle of New York, has been assigned to get a story about Space Station ZX34. On the transport ship taking him to ZX34, he bonds with the pilot, Al, who nicknames the young man "Leech" and lets him know that he will be seen as a "parasite" by the cosmonauts (called this though everyone seems to be American, or at least English speaking). Sure enough, Ray immediately pisses off Commander George with his cocky attitude. On a refueling spacewalk, Ray saves the life of Cosmonaut Y13, but also causes the loss of a large amount of the precious fuel (hydrazine), so he's in Dutch even more. Turns out Y13 is a lovely young woman named Lucy, but she's also George’s girlfriend—love triangle, anyone? George is also acting a little strange, and soon we find out why; their mission has changed. They need to intercept the malfunctioning Rocketship A2; communications are down, the crew is dead, it's out of control and speeding towards Earth, and its photonic energy source will cause it to blow up our planet.

This fairly obscure film is hailed by some critics as the forerunner of the 60s Italian sci-fi movie craze, led by director Antonio Margheriti (aka Anthony Dawson) who made this film and the later, better known WILD, WILD PLANET among others. This is harder to slog through than his mid-60s movies, partly because this is less stylish and a lot less campy fun. It takes itself seriously but would have aged better if it had been a little silly. Actually, there are a couple of nicely campy moments. When Lucy has a heart-to-heart talk with George, moments before the possible space apocalypse, about her love for Ray, she says, "I love him, George. But love has no meaning now, George." There's something about her flat delivery and the repetition of George's name that made me crack up, but I don't think I was supposed to. Another fun scene is when Ray reminds Lucy that, yes, the date is officially Earth Day 359 but it's also Christmas—and then "Deck the Halls" plays on the soundtrack.  Of course, these are the kinds of things that make a movie an unintentional camp classic, but there's not enough of these scenes to go round, though some may find the terrible special effects worth a laugh or two.

Rik Van Nutter is fairly unlikable as the hero Ray, David Montresor is one-note as George, and Gaby Farinon is bland as Lucy. That leaves the actor with the unlikely name Archie Savage as Al—perhaps the first black character in Movieland outer space—as the saving grace of the cast. There are some plot loopholes that left me mystified, the biggest being that, in the beginning, it is stated that Ray is heading to Galaxy M-12, but they actually appear to have never left our solar system. Or maybe I was confused by the bad dubbing. The print I saw on Amazon streaming was in terrible shape; worst of all was the badly faded color, leaving the movie in shades of green and purple. This is a little fun, but I can only recommend it to die-hard 60s SF fans. Aka SPACE MEN. [Amazon]

THE BRONZE BUCKAROO (1939)

Bob Blake (Herb Jeffries), singing "I’m a Happy Cowboy," and his band of merry cowboys head to the Joe Jackson ranch. Joe and his dad have been pressured to sell their ranch to Buck Thorn, but they've refused. Joe's dad disappeared and was later found dead; now Joe has vanished as well, and his sister Betty is worried. At Joe's ranch, the slightly ditzy Dusty is befuddled by a talking mule that ranch hand Slim owns—what Dusty doesn't know, but eventually figures out, is that Slim is using ventriloquism to make the mule talk. Dusty and another of Bob's buddies mosey into town and stop at the saloon, hoping to get some information about Joe. After the entire bar of poker players sings "Almost Time for Roundup," the thuggish Pete shoots a cheating player dead and then proceeds to humiliate poor old Dusty by making him smoke four cigars at once. Bob comes to his rescue, and that sets the pace for the rest of the plot: people get in trouble and Bob saves the day. At one point, poor Dusty loses all his clothes in a poker game and even Bob can't help him out. It turns out that Buck knows there's gold on Joe's land and he has kidnapped Joe in order to get his land. At the climactic showdown, Slim's ventriloquism trick comes in handy for the good guys.

This B-western starring a singing cowboy is very much like any other of the era except it's got an all-black cast and, as a "race film," was produced on a much lower budget than even the mainstream Hollywood B-movies of the era. But it's certainly watchable for western fans. Herb Jeffries (called Herbert Jeffrey in the credits), also a singer for Duke Ellington's band, is fine in the lead role—this is the second of three Bob Blake movies he made. The rest of the acting is par for the course, with F. E Miller as the devious Slim deserving mention. Singing group the Four Tones provide the backing voices as the rest of Bob’s men. The movie’s chief downfall is in the staging of the fight scenes; the bar fisticuffs come off as amateurish, not just in the ineffective punches thrown but in the decidedly weak and muffled sound effects of the fists hitting flesh (which we can clearly see them not doing). Pictured above are Jeffries (in the middle) and Lucius Brooks as Dusty (at left). [TCM]

HE RAN ALL THE WAY (1951)

Nick (John Garfield) is a small-time crook still living with his mother who still pesters him about getting out of the apartment and finding a job. He and his buddy Al (Norman Lloyd) rob a payroll truck, a job which should be easy but which they mess up, resulting in Al getting wounded, a security guard getting killed, and Nick running away with a satchel full of money. He winds up hiding out at a public pool where, to look less suspicious, he chats up Peg (Shelley Winters). She is clearly taken with him, though he sees her more as a convenient way out of trouble. He escorts her home where she lives with her mother, father, and little brother, and winds up staying with Peg while the rest of the family goes to the movies. Later that evening, when he discovers that Al has ratted him out, a paranoid Nick holds the family at gunpoint, insisting on holing up with them indefinitely until he can think of a way out. This noir is known mainly as John Garfield's last movie; he died the year after its release at the age of 39 of heart disease, though many believe that the hounding of the House Un-American Activities Committee hastened his death. This is not his best movie, though he is excellent in it, as he almost always was. Despite a title that promises action, the bulk of the film after the first 15 minutes is set in Peg's family's apartment. Although the possibility of claustrophobic tension exists, I felt the movie went slack too often. But the interplay between the thuggish but not evil Garfield and the innocent but not naïve Winters saves the day. She clearly falls for him, and he's clearly using her for protection, but their feelings do change over the two nights he spends in the apartment. Wallace Ford is very good as Winters' father who desperately wants to keep his family safe. Gladys George has a nice couple of scenes as Garfield's unsympathetic mother. Not essential viewing, but interesting. [DVD]

WAY BACK HOME (1931)

This rarely-seen oddity was based on a popular radio character, and is of interest today primarily because it was one of Bette Davis' first movies. In the 1920s, Phillips Lord created a radio show called Seth Parker's Singing School featuring himself as Parker, a old down-home New Englander who waxed philosophic and held sing-alongs—sounds like a non-ironic forerunner of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion. The show was so popular that in 1931 this film was made featuring Lord (who was only in his late 20s) under heavy (and not terribly convincing) makeup as Seth Parker, a man at least in his 50s. What plays out is a soap-operaish tale of small town life in Jonesport, Maine.

Farmer Parker and his wife are well-liked figures in town, frequently holding barn parties and cozy parlor sing-alongs. In between these functions, we are witness to goings-on both comical and melodramatic. The Parkers have a young foster son named Robbie (Frankie Darro) who is happy and well loved, but, in a plotline out of Huck Finn, his blood father, a no-good scoundrel, decides he wants Robbie back, and when asking doesn’t get results, he resorts to kidnapping. Meanwhile, David (Frank Albertson), a seemingly wholesome young man, is in love with Mary Lucy (Bette Davis), but her father objects because David's mother (Dorothy Peterson) bore him out of wedlock. The two have to sneak around behind her dad's back to find time and places for some canoodling. And there's young Lizzie (Sophia M. Lord, wife of Phillips Lord), a shrill-voiced spinster who has her cap set for a retired sea captain. Before it's all through, there's a wild buggy chase with Parker using his huge family Bible to thump a bad guy on the head, a taffy pull, the aforementioned barn dance and sing-along, and tolerance and redemption for almost everyone, brought about through the influence of the good-hearted Seth.

Today's viewers are likely to find this slow and rough going. I almost quit at the 15 minute mark myself, as the first 5 minutes are taken up with a long, obvious comedy routine that brings to mind Abbot & Costello's classic "Who’s on First?" bit. Later there's some more effective humor when a young man refers to Albertson's mother as being "like that Mary Mandolin in the Bible." But I was eventually sucked in to these people's lives, even though all the outcomes are predictable. Lord is not especially effective as Seth Parker—he's just too young to play old. His real-life wife, however, is very amusing as the not-so-old maid; I laughed every time she spoke as her voice sounds like that of a young Margaret Hamilton. Albertson is quite good as the most likeable and sympathetic character; Davis isn't bad but it feels like she may have thought she was better than the material—which she was. I always like Darro and he's excellent here. If you don't like soap opera, or don't appreciate these period artifacts, you’ll want to skip this, but I enjoyed it. Pictured are Albertson and Davis (above right) and Albertson and Peterson (above left). [TCM]

TIMETABLE (1956)

This buried gem of film noir begins on a nighttime train trip through Arizona when a doctor (Wesley Addy) is roused from his sleep to attend to a sick man. Determining that he needs to be in a hospital, the doc arranges for the train to make an emergency stop at the small town of Winston. Then he gets someone to let him into the baggage car so he can get his medical bag. Once he's back there, he pulls a gun on the guards, gives them an injection to knock them out, and blows up the safe to steal half a million dollars. As the doctor, the patient, and the patient's wife get off the train, we realize that this operation has been planned meticulously. When the theft is discovered, insurance investigator Charlie Norman (Mark Stevens, at right) is put on the case—even though it means he'll have to postpone the vacation to Mexico City that he and his wife were looking forward to. He's paired up with veteran cop Joe Armstrong (King Calder), a friend of his, and together they begin the search for clues that will lead them to the perpetrators.

At this point, about 20 minutes in, a major twist occurs which, though technically a SPOILER, must be mentioned in order to talk about the film: the mastermind behind the robbery is actually Charlie, the insurance man. The plan was that his accomplices would get away to Mexico and Charlie would join them, escaping his humdrum life. But after the near-perfect execution of the crime, things start to fall apart, Charlie has to resort to murder, and suffice to say that the climax occurs in Tijuana where Charlie's hopes of getting away to Argentina with the doctor's sexy wife (Felicia Farr) are dashed for good. This is a very good B-movie which deserves a wider audience. Mark Stevens is great as the worn-down anti-hero (he also directs in a no-nonsense fashion)—the character is at the end of his rope and Stevens shows his increasing anxiety by the way he fiddles with his hands. Wesley Addy handles very nicely the bulk of the heavy lifting in the first section as the duplicitous doctor who, we discover, has been disgraced in the past. All the acting is solid, with special mention deserved for Alan Reed (the voice of Fred Flintstone) as the poor slob who winds up dead. You'll recognize Jack Klugman in a small role. Highly recommended. Aka TIME TABLE. [TCM]

CRACK-UP (1936)

At Fleming-Grant Airways, the new plane known as the Wild Goose is about to make its first trans-Atlantic flight, piloted by cocky Ace Martin (Brian Donlevy) and his young buddy Joe (Thomas Beck). They're present at the plane's christening ceremony along with Mr. Fleming, founder of the airplane company, Joe's girlfriend Ruth, and an eccentric fellow with a limp who is called Colonel Gimpy (Peter Lorre) and considered something of a mascot, and everyone is excited about the upcoming flight. But soon we learn of all the tensions seething under the surface: Fleming's wife is preparing to run off with Grant, the company's co-owner; Gimpy's not a harmless kook but a German baron and the head of a spy ring wanting to get their hands on plans for a new bomber plane, the DOX; the person who we think is our hero, Ace Martin, is the spy set to deliver the plans—though he is unaware of Gimpy's identity as the master spy—and he manages to trick the young and innocent Joe into helping him commit espionage.

[Spoilers follow:] This pre-WWII spy film is interesting for at least one reason—there isn't really a central heroic figure among the characters. Like other viewers have noted, I assumed that Ace Martin would be unmasked as a double agent for the U.S., but he's not. That leaves Joe as the moral center of the movie and he's a fairly minor character, corrupted by Martin but still salvageable as a man of good conscience if not a full-fledged hero. So even though Brian Donlevy is fairly charismatic as Ace, his character is not fleshed out very well and that leaves Peter Lorre—who is in fact first billed—as the star of the show. Lorre is almost always an asset to a movie and he is fun here; he does a nice job as the simple-minded Gimpy and an even better one as the cold-blooded spy. The last stretch of the film features Ace, Joe, Fleming and the Baron together in the Wild Goose, which eventually crashes in the sea during a storm, and the ending, which leaves three of the four alone in the disabled plane, is surprisingly downbeat—to its credit. Pictured left to right are Beck, Lorre, Ralph Morgan (as Fleming) and Donlevy. [DVD]

ROMEO AND JULIET (1968)

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene… well, you probably know the rest. Shakespeare's classic tale of star-crossed love is brought quite magnificently to life by director Franco Zeffirelli. This is renowned as being the first screen version to have age-appropriate actors (teenagers) in the lead roles—unless you count the musical WEST SIDE STORY with leads in their early 20s). The only other film version I've seen is the 1936 movie with Norma Shearer (in her 30s as the 13-year old Juliet) and the over-40 Leslie Howard as her lover Romeo. Shearer and Howard are fine, but with actors of that age, the impact of the story is different. The tragedy of young people in the blush of first love, stymied by their elders and their social structure, is blunted with full-fledged adults as the central figures. Here, youth fairly glistens on the skin of Olivia Hussey (at 15 playing Juliet) and Leonard Whiting (17 playing Romeo), and it certainly doesn't hurt that both are quite beautiful. Considering they were unknowns at the time with few screen credits, they are remarkably good both at filling out their characters and at handling the Shakespearean speech rhythms. The rest of the cast is not exactly star-filled—aside from Michael York as Tybalt, Robert Stephens as the prince, and Milo O'Shea as the friar (all three very good), I was not familiar with anyone else, though Pat Heywood does a very nice job balancing comedy and drama as Juliet's nurse. York plays against type as a villain with his face made up so much—mostly with eyeliner, I think—that I didn't recognize him at first.

For all the differences in casting, this plays out very much like the 1936 version, and even the sets look similar. The Montagues and the Capulets are feuding families in Verona; when the young bucks go traipsing through town and meet up with each other, fights ensue, even though the Prince has decreed they must end their public enmity. Restless Romeo, a Montague who tends to keep to himself, sees Juliet from afar at the Capulets' ball and is immediately smitten. So is she, and the famous balcony scene cements their attraction. But Juliet is getting on in years—she is described as being a fortnight away from 14—so she is promised in marriage to Paris. Instead, she and Romeo sneak away and get married by the sympathetic Friar Laurence. Unfortunately, there is further strife in the streets between the families and during a brawl, Romeo's buddy Mercutio is killed by the hot-headed Capulet Tybalt; Romeo kills Tybalt, then flees. With Romeo being hunted down and Juliet about to marry Paris, a happy ending is not in store for our young lovers.

The movie, well done as it is, is aided immeasurably by a great score by Nino Rota who later did a similarly great score for THE GODFATHER. The main theme became a pop hit in an instrumental arrangement by Henry Mancini under the title "A Time for Us" and was also sung by Andy Williams with lyrics that turned it into a West Side Story-type song ("A time for us/Someday there'll be/When chains are torn/By courage born/Of a love that’s free"). In the movie, it's heard instrumentally throughout, but is sung at the ball where Romeo and Juliet first meet by Italian pop singer Bruno Filippini (pictured at left) as "What is a Youth" with lyrics that resonate more strongly with the theme of youth and age: "What is a youth?/Impetuous fire/What is a maid?/Ice and desire/The world wags on/A rose will bloom/It then will fade/So does a youth." I found this scene quite effective: the lyrics, the handsomeness and glowing youth of the singer, and of course, the shy flirting of Romeo and Juliet during the dance. Though I've been told I should see the Leonardo DiCaprio version, I can't imagine anyone else getting this as right as Zeffirelli and his cast did. [DVD]

REMOTE CONTROL (1930)

William Judd Brennan (William Haines) is a wisecracking fellow who works at a music store and has dreams of becoming a radio host. Brennan flirts obnoxiously with Marion (Mary Doran), a customer, and winds up following her to her place of business which happens to be radio station WPN where the big boss is her brother Sam (Robert King), who just happens to be an old friend of William's. The station is losing ratings and Sam hires William to help come up with some new programming. How cozy—except Marion still can't stand the perpetually insufferable William. One of the people William hires for his new show is clairvoyant Dr. Kruger (John Miljan) who is actually the head of a group of small-time crooks known as the Ghost Gang; as he performs readings for people over the air, he is actually sending coded messages to his gang to aid in pulling off their robberies. Kruger also starts dating Marion, which causes William no end of irritation. When the gang hits a group of socialites gathered at the radio station, William figures out that Kruger is behind it, so Kruger kidnaps him and makes it look like William is actually the criminal mastermind. Can William escape before the crooks launch another crime during which they plan to eliminate him for good?

I’ve reviewed other William Haines movies before; he was a popular silent comic actor who had the persona of the eternal juvenile, always joking, always assuming he could win anyone over with his charm. But in sound films, his "charm" comes across more often as unpleasant arrogance. Today's viewer may also note a touch of camp in his over-the-top jesting, though his characters were apparently to be read as 100% heterosexual. Here, he has absolutely zero chemistry with Mary Doran—to be fair, part of the problem is Doran who gives a frowning, low-energy performance opposite Haines' grinning, bouncing off the walls style. In terms of plot, I don't think it's ever explained why the gang has to rely on radio messages—why couldn't Kruger just deliver his orders in person? As with some early sound films, there are a handful of dialogue flubs left in, but otherwise the technical aspects of the film are satisfactory. The stuttering comedian Roscoe Ates has a couple of bits that are the high points of the film. If stutterers and prancing ninnies aren't your cup of tea, you may want to skip this. [TCM]

MOZAMBIQUE (1964)

A cocky but blacklisted pilot (Steve Cochran) gets in a barfight in Madrid. Instead of being jailed, however, police detective Paul Hubschmid arranges for him to get a job in Mozambique for a businessman named Valdez. By the time Cochran gets there, Valdez is dead and Cochran has to deal with Valdez's widow (Hildegarde Knef) and two of his underlings (Martin Benson and Dietmar Schonherr) who all seem engaged in a power struggle. Valdez had a lot of money in Swiss bank accounts, but the paperwork is missing so everything is up in the air. Cochran isn't sure who he can trust, but he winds up piloting a small plane that he soon discovers is involved in drug smuggling. He also gets close to the lovely Vivi Bach, a singer at Valdez's nightclub, and helps her out when she discovers part of her job is to be a sex slave to a wealthy Arab sheik. Cochran, along with Schonherr, rather improbably flies in and helps Bach escape, but while Cochran and Bach get in a little skinny-dipping and canoodling in a river in the middle of nowhere, Schonherr is murdered in the plane. When Hubschmid, the Madrid cop, shows up in Mozambique, Cochran realizes that there is more at stake here than he's known.

Steve Cochran was a solid B-lead antihero in noir and crime movies of the 50s (PRIVATE HELL 36, HIGHWAY 301, but by the 60s he was moving toward the world-weary good-guy end of the spectrum (OF LOVE AND DESIRE). Cochran died at 48 less than a year after filming this movie, and it's hard to say where his career would have gone—he was doing more television than film at this point but he surely still had some good years left. In this film, he showed he could be tough, sensitive, grungily sexy and morally conflicted, even if he might never again have been in an A-movie. This film occasionally has the feel of a low-budget European spy film, what with the exotic settings, the eye-candy women, and the fairly exciting climax, set at Victoria Falls. Cochran (pictured above with Bach) carries the film over some loose plot points, and he gets help from a decent supporting cast, especially Knef, Hubschmid and Schonherr. Even Bach, who doesn't have much to do (even though she's on screen more than Knef) is OK—and she married Schonherr the next year. The movie could do with a little more humor or wit, and there is a bizarre "killer dwarf" plot twist that comes out of nowhere, and goes right back there again. But overall, watchable, especially as a relic of the international intrigue genre of the 1960s. [DVD]

COBRA WOMAN (1944)

On Harbour Island in the South Seas, the lovely maiden Tollea (Maria Montez), who is about to marry Ramu (Jon Hall), is kidnapped by the mute Hava (Lon Chaney Jr.) and taken off to nearby Cobra Island. It turns out that Tollea was born on Cobra Island, the twin sister of the wicked queen Naja (also Montez), but was more or less accidentally brought over to Harbour Island by the Scottish sailor MacDonald when he was shipwrecked on Cobra Island and escaped torture. Tollea's grandmother (Mary Nash) has had her brought back with the intention of putting her on the throne to replace Naja, but Naja and her protector Martok may have something to say about that. Meanwhile, Ramu and his buddy Kado (Sabu) travel to Cobra Island to save Tollea, but wind up potential sacrifices to the island's volcano god.

Of all the six exotic adventures that Jon Hall and Maria Montez made together in the 1940s, this is the one that has lasted, mostly because of its reputation as a camp classic. I first saw this film in a theater as part of a classic movie series and I had great fun cheering and laughing with hundreds of other viewers, and joining in on an audience chant when Montez does her notorious cobra dance. I think it's that dance that has kept this movie alive all these years, because overall, the film is no worse or better than ALI BABA AND THE SEVEN THIEVES or ARABIAN NIGHTS. As a B-adventure film of its era, for turning off your mind and enjoying, it's par for the course, its chief advantage being that it was filmed in Technicolor. Montez looks good in her costumes, the sets are effective, the color is fabulous, and Sabu is always fun to have around. Hall and Montez were strictly B-talent, appropriate for a strictly B-movie, though I did keep wishing that someone with a little more range was playing the dual good queen/bad queen role. Even though Hall is regarded as the era's best B-beefcake, I've never really been a fan—he's a smidge too lumpy for me, like Johnny Weissmuller in his later Tarzan movies. But this is still a must-see for movie buffs. Maybe the strangest thing in the movie is seeing Mary Nash, known best for playing Katharine Hepburn's slightly scatterbrained upper-crust mother in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, slumming here as Montez's grandmother. [DVD]

FAST WORKERS (1933)

John Gilbert and Robert Armstrong (pictured at left) are skyscraper construction workers, roommates and buddies who prank each other over women but also look out for each other. One night, Gilbert is arrested in a barroom brawl and Armstrong goes home with Mae Clarke, a shady lady who, unknown to Armstrong, has slept with Gilbert. Armstrong gets serious about Clarke and proposes marriage. When Gilbert gets wind of this, he's sure that Clarke, whom he thinks of as not much more than a whore, is out to fleece his buddy so he has a plan: he gets Clarke to take a weekend trip with him to Atlantic City and takes pictures of them being flirty, then arranges for Armstrong to find them, hoping to discourage his friend's wedding plans. But Gilbert doesn't know that Armstrong has already secretly married Clarke. When Armstrong discovers what's going on, he sets up a trap at the high-rise construction site to have Gilbert lose his footing and fall to his death. Will the plan work? And is Clarke really the gold-digger that Gilbert thinks she is?

This pre-code melodrama was, I believe, the last movie Gilbert made under contract to MGM, though Garbo insisted on having his co-star in QUEEN CHRISTINA later that year. Even at his weakest, Gilbert was worth watching, and he's actually in fairly good shape here as a cocky playboy, and Armstrong makes a good foil as his salt-of-the-earth friend. As others have noted, this isn't really a romance as much as a tale of male bonding, or bromance (which the ending makes quite clear), and though Clarke is good, she's almost wiped off the screen not only by the chemistry between the buddies but also because the best scenes in the movie are the ones with the construction workers hanging out together at dangerous heights. The shift in tones is interesting—from buddy comedy to romance to near-tragedy. Sterling Holloway and Vince Barnett are in the supporting cast, and there's a clip of Joan Crawford in LAUGHING SINNERS which we see when Armstrong and Clarke go to the movies. Directed by—though not credited to—Tod Browning, his first movie after the scandal of FREAKS. [TCM]

WEE WILLIE WINKIE (1937)

In 1897, young Priscilla (Shirely Temple) and her widowed mother Joyce (June Lang) leave their impoverished life in England to live with Priscilla's grandfather (C. Aubrey Smith), a colonel in a Scottish regiment in Northern India. Life on the military compound is not easy, but Priscilla, with her smile and joyful outlook, manages to charm almost everyone: a young and handsome lieutenant whom she nicknames Coppy (Michael Whalen) and who nicknames her Wee Willie Winkie from the Kipling poem, the gruff Sgt. MacDuff (Victor McLaglen) who lets her participate in military exercises, and even Khoda Kahn (Cesar Romero), the leader of a group of Indian rebels who have been stealing weapons in anticipation of an uprising. Kahn, who is being held in jail, escapes during a raid on the arsenal, his escape made possible because house servant Mohammet Din (Willie Fung) smuggled in information to Kahn using little Priscilla as a unwitting messenger. During the fracas, MacDuff is fatally injured, and he dies listening to Priscilla sing "Auld Lang Syne" at his bedside. Eventually, Joyce decides the situation has become too dangerous and decides to go back to England, but Priscilla makes a last-ditch attempt at bringing the two sides together through negotiations by sneaking away with Mohammet Din and meeting with Khoda Kahn. Can this 9-year-old girl succeed in ending the bloodshed between two sides with seemingly intractable conflicts? Of course she can; she's Shirley Temple!

The Temple movies I've seen (including HEIDI and BRIGHT EYES) have tended to be less sappy and melodramatic than their reputations would indicate (except for THE LITTLE PRINCESS). This one teeters occasionally but generally avoids too much cuteness and tear-jerking (except, of course, for McLaglen's death scene). Temple and McLaglen are very good, as is Romero. Lang is colorless, and Whalen, who becomes Lang's love interest, looks and sometimes acts rather suspicious, though ultimately he's a straight arrow. Directed by John Ford, who may be responsible for the fact that sentiment doesn't overwhelm the story. [TCM]

THE ENDLESS SUMMER (1966)

This is one of the first films to break out of the commercial doldrums of the documentary genre to become widely popular with film audiences. Unfortunately, it's not a great film, and time has not been kind to its patronizing views of women and native peoples. Director Bruce Brown, a surfer himself, follows two surfers, Robert August and Mike Hynson, on their trek to experience an endless summer by jetting the globe and surfing wherever they can. The two visit (moving eastward from the United States) Senegal, Ghana, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In Africa, they find at least one beach with good surf where they become the first people ever to ride the waves. Also in Africa, they (or at last Brown, the narrator) take a rather backward attitude to the natives who are friendly but, to them, hopelessly primitive. They treat the village children and adults pretty much all as children--it's "cute" when they can't quite fathom how to surf. The boys also complain about how much it costs to stay at local hotels and how difficult it can be to gain access to good surf. There is less of this as the journey progresses, though Brown also expresses amazement that women can surf--to be fair, not many did back then. The photography is lovely throughout, and occasionally the trip is interrupted by "flashbacks" to Hawaii. I'm not a surfer and am not especially interested in the sport except insofar as I get to see well-built young men in swimming trunks, though even I was amazed at the risks these guys and their fellow surfers take sometimes. The film is entertaining and fast-moving enough, though the lack of actual recorded sound on location means the only voice we here is Brown's narrating after the fact, and he is, on balance, likably laid-back. Interesting for one visit, though I don't I imagine I'd re-watch this. But I wouldn't mind seeing seeing a current-day take on this subject. [DVD]

BORDERTOWN (1935)

In the Mexican quarter of Los Angeles, Johnny Ramirez (Paul Muni) graduates from the Pacific Night Law School and is singled out for praise for overcoming bad circumstances to become a success. But when he goes into business, he winds up essentially donating his time to his impoverished clients. When he represents a food vendor in court who is trying to get the wealthy socialite Dale Elwell (Margaret Lindsay) to pay for damage to his vehicle, Johnny's cockiness and inexperience get him into trouble; Dale is found not liable—even though we know her recklessness caused the accident—and Johnny is disbarred. Disillusioned, he takes off, leaving his poor mother behind, and becomes a bouncer in a bordertown saloon. He gets in good with the boss and winds up becoming a business partner. Soon, the owner's young wife Marie (Bette Davis) takes a shine to Johnny, but he turns her away. Frustrated, Marie leaves her drunken husband in his car and closes the garage door, ensuring his death.  She hopes this will snag her Johnny, but she's wrong, as Johnny, who is now business manager and is rebuilding the saloon into a fancy casino, has reconnected with the socialite Dale, who thinks of Johnny as her "savage." Marie makes trouble by claiming that Johnny was behind her husband's death, but on the witness stand, Marie has a breakdown.

This is a melodrama of jealousy, class (and race) conflict, and assimilation, which, with only a few tweaks, could probably be remade today and seem timely. Though Bette Davis is second billed, she's actually absent from much of the movie, though her courtroom scene is a standout moment, and this is Paul Muni's movie all the way. He does a good job as the Mexican-American who tries to assimilate the way he's taught he should, and when that doesn't work, takes a different path to the American Dream. In the end, he decides to return to his own "tribe," in the words of the socialite, which is not quite the ending I expected. Davis is quite good, as are Lindsay and Eugene Pallette as Davis' husband, in a role far from the comic parts he's probably more known for (the father in MY MAN GODFREY, Friar Tuck in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD). I'm not a Muni fan but I would recommend this one. [DVD]

THE NEXT OF KIN (1942)

During World War II, British intelligence learns that the Germans are massing a submarine fleet at the coastal town of Norville, a small town in occupied France, and the British military begin planning a commando raid. Security agent Richards (Reginald Tate) is upset by the loose talk he hears and he tries to amp up awareness among the soldiers who will soon be going to Watercombe to launch their attack upon Norville. They basically get a "loose lips sink ships" lecture and are sent on their way. Unfortunately, not everyone gets the message. We see a private named Jimmy go backstage to visit his stripper friend where he innocently lets it slip that his squadron is going to Watercombe on an important mission; he tells her that hoping that she'll meet up with him there, but we discover that she's working with her dresser, known only as Ma, who is actually a Nazi spy, and soon Berlin knows there's something afoot. Germany sends a spy known as Mister Davis and/or Number 23 (Mervyn Johns) who makes contact with a bookseller named Barratt (Stephen Murray) and together they work on figuring out the logistics of the coming British raid. They get help from a young Dutch woman who works at the bookstore by threatening the lives her parents back home; she tries to get information from her boyfriend, a private named Johnny. Number 23 also insinuates himself into the community and picks up tidbits of loose talk here and there. Ultimately, a briefcase containing maps of the raid are stolen by the Nazis, and though the commando raid is successful, many men die because of the security slip-ups.

This British wartime propaganda film is labeled "a military training film" right on its title card, but was released as a full-length feature film, and despite some occasional didactic teaching moments, mostly early on, it is a solid spy film well worth seeing. Though not exactly gritty in its realism, it does have some surprising moments for a 40s movie: there are occasional mild curse words; at one point, Number 23 is seen looking at a photo book with a naked woman boldly displayed on the cover; the stripper is a drug user and her addiction is what keeps her tied to her Nazi spymaster; the final fifteen minutes is mostly composed of well-shot battle scenes which incorporate small bits of actual battlefield footage. Johns (Bob Cratchit in the 1951 Christmas Carol) does a nice job playing against type as the chief bad guy—and somewhat surprisingly, he escapes justice in the end, remaining free to keep eavesdropping on British citizens. The characters can't be said to be well-rounded (see Private Jimmy and Private Johnny), but they are made individual enough so that we can follow their plotlines and have a little something invested in their fates. A little gem of propaganda filmmaking, directed by Thorold Dickinson. [YouTube]

THE NAKED MAJA (1958)

This biopic of the artist Francisco Goya (Anthony Franciosa) is set in 17th century Spain in the context of two social upheavals: the Spanish Inquisition and the rule of Napoleon. We first see Goya (called Paco by his friends) in the streets of Madrid with his friend José watching the procession of an Inquisition victim about to be burned. Watching from a more exalted place is Maria, the Duchess of Alba (Ava Gardner), disapproved of at court for her slumming activities. Both are disgusted by the spectacle, and later after the drunken José gets into a fight with Maria's bodyguard, Goya is slashed with a knife and Maria tends to him. When Goya gets a commission to paint a mural on the ceiling of the basilica, he paints common people instead of a traditional holy scene which causes some controversy, though it also cements Maria's admiration for him. They have an on-and-off affair, complicated by the machinations of Prime Minister Goday whom the common folk dislike because (if I followed the story correctly), he is seen as a collaborator with Napoleon. There is a brouhaha over a painting of Goya's, the Naked Maja of the title, because it is a graphic female nude—and not presented as a mythological figure but as a sensuous woman—and it is assumed to be a portrait of the Duchess of Alba. Maria is sent into exile, Goya is arrested by the Inquisition and, naturally, there is not a happy ending for the beleaguered pair. Apparently this film contains more fiction than the average Hollywood biography. It looks good, with sumptuous sets and lots of purple, though some of the dubbing—it was filmed in Italy with mostly Italian actors—is terrible. Individually, Franciosa and Gardner are fine, but they don't work up much heat together. Most critics trash this film but I couldn't really work up enough outrage to go that far. It's bland but generally watchable. [TCM]

MIDNIGHT SHADOW (1939)

Prince Alihabad, a turban-wearing mystic, has come to perform in a small Oklahoma town, staying at the home of the respectable Mr. & Mrs. Wilson and their 20-something daughter Margaret who has become enamored with the prince, much to the annoyance of her boyfriend Buster. Mr. Wilson owns oil-rich land in Texas which he plans to give to Margaret; when he tells the prince this, we see that Buster is also listening in, as is a figure outside in the dark. Alihabad tries to talk Margaret into eloping with him, but at the last minute, she decides not to. That night, we see someone sneak into the Wilsons' bedroom, dose them with something to keep them asleep, and steal the deed to the oil well. The next morning, Mr. Wilson is found dead—the sleeping potion hurt his weak heart—and the police are on the case. Tagging along is Junior Lingley, a bumbling detective wannabe who dresses up occasionally as Sherlock Holmes, and his slightly less bungling buddy Lightfoot.

This is one of those "race films" of the 30s and 40s with an all-black cast, produced by an independent company on a budget lower even than the Poverty-Row Hollywood films of the era. In that context, this is a decent little mystery, even with the following strikes against it: some truly terrible, amateurish acting (especially from Florence Redd as Margaret); cheap looking sets; a badly plotted mystery story (the culprit is a character we don't really know); and poor editing. But if a viewer can get past all that, there are some pluses: the mystery is interesting before it gets muddled, some of the dialogue is fun—when a police sergeant is criticized for not thinking enough about a clue, he replies, "Lady, I'm not paid to think—our job is finding out"; Richard Bates (think Jimmie Walker) as the bumbling Lingely is a bad actor but still gets a few laughs especially in his Sherlock Holmes deerstalker and with his obsession with fingerprints; two actors do fine jobs: Buck Woods as Lightfoot and John Criner as the prince. Also acting like pros are Jesse Lee Brooks as a cop, Ollie Ann Robinson as Mrs. Wilson, and Ruby Dandridge (mother of Dorothy Dandridge) as Lingely's mother. The bad guy is caught, but the conclusion is strangely inconclusive in a number of ways. Still, I'm not sorry to have caught this rarity on Turner Classic Movies. Pictured are Buck Woods and Richard Bates. [TCM]

SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (1940)

During the unsettled times of the Napoleonic wars, William Robinson (Thomas Mitchell), a Swiss watchmaker who lives in London, decides to move his family out of harm's way to Australia. His wife Elizabeth (Edna Best) is not happy about it, nor are her sons: foppish Jack (Freddie Bartholomew), bookworm Ernest (Terry Kilburn), and cocky would-be soldier Fritz (Tim Holt), nicknamed "Fisticuffs" by Jack (toddler Francis, the fourth son, has no opinion). William is not especially happy with the way his sons are developing and says he hopes to train them to create, not destroy. On the way to Australia, the ship they're on runs into a major storm. The crew is washed overboard but the Robinsons survive and the wreck drifts close to a deserted island where they drag the few provisions they can and try to survive. Father rallies the dispirited family and together they build a treehouse and slowly adapt to their new life, but tensions rise when Elizabeth realizes that, while the sons remain on the lookout for passing ships to rescue them, William is more than ready to stay put—he believes their trials and tribulations are part of God's plan for them.

This is not the Disney version of the Johann Wyss novel with which most of us are familiar. In addition to being shot in a studio rather than on location, and having a lower budget, this is also a little grittier and darker, probably closer to the novel—though it's been over forty years since I read it back in school. It is also difficult to see since Disney bought the rights to the RKO film back in 1960 when they produced their version and it apparently has never had a legitimate home video release. The print I saw on YouTube is murky and a bit splicy, but clear enough to show that it deserves a restored DVD release. This is not a larky boy's adventure like the Disney film but a more serious coming-of-age story in which the focus is on how the three sons change during their time on the island. All three actors playing the boys (pictured above from left: Kilburn, Holt, Bartholomew) are quite good, especially Tim Holt. The film was nominated for a special effects Oscar and, though not in the same league as the Disney film in terms of production values, the storms in particular are quite effective, as is the giant spider-web cave scene. An entertaining and interesting version of the story. [YouTube]