DESERT COMMANDOS (1967)

It's Christmas, 1942 in Berlin and five German soldiers are called upon to cut their holidays short to go on a mission. They are parachuted into the North African desert, disguised in British uniforms, and told to head to Casablanca where they will meet up with an agent who will help they complete their task: to assassinate Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, the Allied "Big Three" who are meeting there to plan war strategy. The leader, Scholler (Ken Clark), is a by-the-rules guy and, seemingly, a fervent Nazi, though he doesn't seem fazed when one of his men, Wolf (Horst Frank), expresses admiration for a Jewish writer. An officer named Huber and two young guys, Mainz and Ludwig, round out the group, all picked because they can speak English and have some connection in their past with America. After some problems in the desert (lack of water, falling under enemy fire), they get near Casablanca where they find, not their contact, who has been killed, but his daughter Faddja (Jeanne Valerie) who agrees to help them. Is this Arab woman sincere or is she actually an Allied sympathizer? The same question is asked about the lovely Simone, a club owner who may or not be genuinely helpful. Though we know from history that they can't possibly succeed in their mission (unless this turns out to be a Quentin Tarentino movie), we do end up engrossed in their situation, wondering what will happen to them when they fail.

This Italian war film is, as other commentators have noted, almost existential in its view of human life, conflict and ambition. The upbeat/downbeat ending works because we have grown to know, if not necessarily like, these men. We don't want them to succeed but we don't want bad endings for them, either. Though the first half of the film drags in places, real tension is built up in the last half-hour, and the conclusion is satisfying. This acting is a bit above average for a grade-B war film: Ken Clark (pictured above right), a big slab of blond manhood, is quite good as the hard-ass German soldier who may not be a Nazi sympathizer but who answers the call of duty; Jeanne Valerie keeps us guessing as to her true nature (pro-Nazi or pro-Allies); Hardy Reichelt and Howard Ross provide some handsome beefcakiness as the two younger (somewhat interchangable soldiers; one of them, I'm not sure which, is pictured to the left with Clark). The desert backgrounds are effective. The best scene involves a scorpion crawling up to an badly injured soldier on the sand—will Clark let it bite him to put him out of his misery? The climax involves a clever trick that I didn't see coming. One odd mistake: the Jewish writer that Wolf admires is William Faulkner who was not Jewish. The dubbing is distracting, as usual, but overall this was an enjoyable film. Its original Italian title, Attentato ai tre grandi, translates as Attack on the Big Three. [Amazon streaming]

CIMARRON (1931)

In 1889, the U.S. government opened up vast amounts of Native American lands (in what would become Oklahoma) for white settlement, leading to a land rush; literally, hundreds of people on horses and in covered wagons racing through the land to claim property. With the land rush as a starting point, this film tells the story of newspaper editor Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) and his wife Sabra (Irene Dunne) over the next forty years. Yancey is tricked out of his first land plot choice by the saucy prostitute Dixie Lee, but he and Sabra settle in the barely-built boom town of Osage. Characters we meet include an outlaw known as The Kid, who tries to hold up Yancey until they recognize each other as old buddies; a thuggish roughneck named Lon who is not above shooting someone in the back; Mr. Hefner, the town's furniture dealer and undertaker; newspaper printer (and constant stutterer) Jesse; and Sol Levy, the sole Jewish man in town, whom Yancey takes under his protective wing. As the years go by, the town gets more built up and more civilized—though not before Yancey's young black servant Isaiah is killed in a bandit raid. While his wife is raising children, Yancey gets the fever to participate in another land rush on the Cherokee Strip, and Sabra is left alone to run the paper by herself, with help from Jesse and Sol. By 1907, Oklahoma has become a state, Yancey decides to run for governor, and their oldest son Cimarron falls in love with an Indian girl, a development that bothers Sabra but not her more tolerant husband. When oil is found on Indian land, Yancey refuses to take part in schemes to cheat them out of their land and publishes an editorial to that effect, straining his relationship with his wife. More years pass, Yancey once again lights out for further far-flung territory, and Sabra thrives, accepting Cimarron's marriage and even winning an election to Congress.

This is often cited as the worst and/or most boring Best Picture winner of all time (for me, that title is shared by BIRDMAN and OLIVER!, and possibly THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA though I've never made it all the way through that one). It's true that, for all the action—the land rush scene that starts the film still comes off as rousing—and all the many plot threads, it does seem to move at a slow pace, though its ending feels artificially rushed. Part of the problem is that what held audiences' attention 90 years ago (the New York Times called it "engrossing" and "a stupendous undertaking") often does not today. Still, the narrative is filled with incident and I was never bored. The acting is generally fine, particularly in the supporting parts. Dix is a rather stolid and uninspiring lead, and Dunne doesn't get to shine until late in the film. George E. Stone as Sol, Roscoe Ates as Jesse, and Edna May Oliver as a high-toned older lady are all quite fine and each gets at least one good scene to themselves. William Collier Jr. as the Kid shows promise in his first scene, but doesn't get to stretch much beyond that. The message of tolerance is admirable and seems a little ahead of its time. The print that is in circulation is not in great shape, especially the sound elements. I couldn't recommend this to just anyone, but if you have any affinity for the early sound era, you should catch this. Pictured at top right is a newspaper ad for the film's initial run in New York City; above left are Dunne and Oliver. [TCM]

THE CLAY PIGEON (1949)

Jim Fletcher (Bill Williams) comes out of a coma in a naval hospital to find a blind veteran trying to strangle him. His nurse saves him but treats him with contempt, calling him a traitor. It turns out that Fletcher is facing a court-martial over treason charges that, while in a Japanese POW camp, his actions led to the death of another prisoner, though Fletcher can remember almost nothing from his experience. He escapes from the hospital and heads to San Diego to find his pal Mark Gregory; at Mark's apartment, his wife Martha (Barbara Hale) answers, seems very sociable, and lets him in, but Jim sees a newspaper headline about his escape and discovers that it’s Mark's death for which he is being held accountable—he supposedly ratted out Mark for smuggling food in the camp. Jim takes Martha against her will on the road to LA see his Ted, a fellow former POW, to try and clear things up. Along the way, Martha sees torture marks on Jim's chest and begins to believe that he is innocent. At a Chinese restaurant, Jim sees Tokoyama (Richard Loo), the man who tortured him in the camp, and soon realizes that he is being hunted not just by the authorities but also by someone who wants him dead.

This is a short, well-paced B-film with good performances, a few nice noir touches, and a fine climax on a train. Leads Williams and Hale were married in real life (and actor William Katt is their son) and their chemistry here is another plus. Williams (pictured above) is handsome but has just enough roughness in his face that he's perfectly suited for playing the noir role of a confused man trying to solve a mystery with himself at the center. Richard Quine, best known as a director (MY SISTER EILEEN, BELL BOOK AND CANDLE), is fine the small but crucial role of Ted. There is an interesting scene in which Jim takes refuge briefly in the apartment of a Japanese widow whose husband was a decorated soldier in the American armed services. The movie takes its time getting its ducks in a row, then at the 50 minute mark, rushes a bit too quickly to the end, a common B-movie problem. But I recommend this one wholeheartedly for fans of noir, crime, or post-war films. [TCM]

THE HELEN MORGAN STORY (1957)

It's Chicago in the Roaring Twenties, and everyone was trying to get rich quick. Helen Morgan (Ann Blyth) is a dancer at a sideshow exhibit run by Larry Maddux (Paul Newman) who is using dancing girls to get folks to hear his pitch to buy real estate at Sunny Acres in Florida. When a sudden storm stops the show, Larry decides to pack it in and he pays the girls off. Helen dawdles a bit, Larry sweet-talks her into making out, and a one-night stand ensues. The next morning he's gone and she's alone and jobless. She struggles to find a place in the world of show business, and one day when she's auditioning at a speakeasy she runs into Larry who is now a bootlegger working for a big-time gangster. Back in her life and wanting to help and protect her, Larry gets her hired at the club (but then gets her fired when he beats up a customer who was getting handsy with her), then talks her into posing as a Canadian to win a fixed Canadian beauty pageant (she wins but a reporter finds out she's not from Canada). One of the judges, a married lawyer named Russell Wade (Richard Carlson) takes a shine to Helen, though it's hard to tell at first if he wants her to be a friend or a mistress. Things finally look up when Larry sets her up with her own nightclub—with Russell as a silent partner whom even Helen doesn’t know about—and soon Helen is discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld and becomes the toast of Broadway starring in Show Boat. Sadly, it's all downhill from there as Helen winds up unhappy in love and begins drinking which ends her career and leads to a stay in an asylum, though a final reunion with Larry holds the promise of redemption.

This follows the usual path of the Hollywood biopic—ambition, romance, fame, the downturn into the miseries of alcohol. In real life, it seems her fall was slower—she starred in the film version of Show Boat several years after the stage show and kept performing in movies and in theater until she collapsed on stage in 1941 and died shortly thereafter of cirrhosis of the liver. The problem here isn't that her life has been heavily fictionalized, but that for much of the movie's running time, she feels like a secondary character in her own story. Blyth is outshone not just by the charismatic Newman but also by supporting players like Alan King, Gene Evans and Cara Williams. In the last half of the movie, Blyth is able to cut loose a bit in scenes depicting her downfall, but the unrealistic conclusion (best described as "sadly upbeat") ends things on an unsatisfying note. Gogi Grant does a nice job providing Helen's singing voice on songs like "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street," and it's fun to see Rudy Vallee and Walter Winchell in cameos playing themselves. Pictured are Newman and Blyth.[TCM]

MORNING GLORY (1933)

A young, naïve aspiring actress (Katherine Hepburn) arrives in Manhattan from a small town in Vermont, ready to take Broadway by storm. While in a crowded waiting room, hoping to talk with Broadway hotshot Adolphe Menjou, she chats up older actor C. Aubrey Smith who takes a fatherly liking to her, and he agrees to be her mentor, giving her acting lessons that she'll pay him for when she can. Playwright Douglas Fairbanks Jr. also takes note of Hepburn, but her bubbly chattiness and her high opinion of herself are a bit off-putting; she's reluctant to take small roles, so her career essentially stalls out. Weeks later, Menjou, Smith and Fairbanks (and obnoxious alcoholic leading lady Mary Duncan) have a hit show and Smith brings a starving, struggling Hepburn to the opening night party where she proceeds to get smashed on champagne but also delivers a couple of Shakespeare pieces that are truly impressive. That night, Menjou beds her, but the next morning he regrets it and tells Fairbanks, who is a bit in love with Hepburn himself. Eventually, she realizes that Menjou has just been toying with her, and she goes off to do stock and vaudeville. But months later, as another Fairbanks play is about to open, Duncan throws a tantrum on opening night, so Menjou has Hepburn, who has been hired as her understudy, take her role. She's a success and, as she soaks in the praise (and a declaration of love from Fairbanks which she turns aside), she is warned by her dresser, a former Broadway star, not to become a "morning glory," one who blooms beautifully but who then fades quickly. Confident in herself, she claims that even if that does happen to her, she's not afraid of the future.

This well-worn making-of-a-star story was, I imagine, rather old hat even in 1933. But a few things make this stand out. One, of course, is Hepburn, who pulls off the role quite well. Too much of either starry-eyed innocence or blind confidence could have made us not like the character, but Hepburn strikes a good balance, and the ending, in which she is left in limbo, is unusual—the norm would have been to either have her future star status be assured, or to have her decide that love trumps her career, but neither thing happens. The three men in her life, though stereotypes, have characters that are developed about as well as they could be in a short (75 minutes) movie. Fairbanks is sweetly charming, Smith is likeable, and Menjou even makes his cold-hearted producer come off in a way that isn't totally alienating. Hepburn won her first of four Oscars for this role, soon proving that she certainly was no morning glory. [TCM]

CRESCENDO (1972)

Georges Ryman (James Olson, pictured) is on a blustery beach, making out with a woman whose face we cannot see. A figure approaches holding a shotgun. Georges turns and sees that the threatening man is himself. The doppelganger shoots at the woman, and we see she has turned into a rotting corpse. But this is all a dream, and Georges wakes up in a sweat. We soon learn that Georges is the only living son of the late composer Henry Ryman; his brother, perhaps more talented than Georges, died some time ago. Georges is wheelchair-bound, addicted to heroin and lives with his mother Danielle (Margaretta Scott) in a lovely villa in France. She gives him a daily injection of heroin, but when he starts jonsesing for a fix later in the day, the pouty maid Lillianne shoots him up (unbeknownst to Mom), and teases him sexually, knowing that his paralysis means he's impotent. We don’t know why he's in a wheelchair, but we suspect some past trauma is responsible for that and the drug problem. Into this uncomfortable family situation (a beefy manservant named Carter also lives there), comes American grad student Susan Roberts (Stefanie Powers), doing research on a thesis about Henry Ryman. Danielle seems quite pleased to welcome her, and even the gloomy Georges brightens up a bit around her. In fact, an attraction builds between them, but he keeps shattering their romantic moods by falling into bouts of self-pity or getting the screaming fits for his heroin. It seems like Mom is planning for Susan to marry Georges, but Lillianne has some plans of her own in that direction. Carter doesn't like Lilliane, but it's difficult to tell where his sympathies lie, if for anyone. As tensions grow in the villa, Susan hears someone playing piano at night, trying to finish Henry's unfinished concerto but winding up playing chaotically. Georges keeps having sweaty dreams about his doppelganger, and when we find out that Susan resembles Georges' dead girlfriend Katherine, we know no good can come of these relationships.

Many Hollywood psychological thrillers of the late 60s and early 70s have elements in common: damsel in distress, hidden secrets, a glossy look and pretty locations, and a smidge of decadent behavior. In other words, they are old-fashioned Gothic tales done up in mod style. This one, from Hammer Studios, feels directly influenced by an earlier Hammer modern Gothic, SCREAM OF FEAR, even featuring the similar physical setting of a villa with a big pool in its middle and a character confined to a wheelchair. The surprise gimmick here, however, is not quite the same as in earlier movie, but you'll probably guess it not long before its full reveal. Still, this is an enjoyable thriller with a decent, if rather second-string, cast. I like James Olson (Andromeda Strain, Ragtime) quite a bit, and he's good in the central role of the neurotic (or is it psychotic?) hero (or is it anti-hero?). His swings from pleasant and friendly to rude and unhealthy are pulled off well. Powers, whom I think I've only ever seen in TV productions, is fine as the damsel who also walks a line between determined and helpless. Joss Ackland, a very busy British character actor, is good but mostly wasted as the creepy (or is he?) manservant. Jane Lapotaire is fine as Lilliane, making the most of her big scene in which she starts rubbing and groping the helpless Georges before she gives him his fix. At first, I didn’t like Margaretta Scott as the overbearing mom, mostly because she looked so much like Joan Bennett in her Dark Shadows days that I was wishing that Bennett had played this role. But by the end, I appreciated her fairly low-key approach to the Gothic mother part. Not a well-known flick, but good for a rainy Saturday night. [DVD]

THE SINGLE STANDARD (1929)

This film opens with a quoted bit of wisdom: "For generations men have done as they pleased—and women have done as men pleased." At a glittering house party, we see young attractive Arden Stuart (Greta Garbo) on a balcony, looking both bored and amused as she watches three married men returning from a quick road trip with three women who are not their wives. Her boyfriend Tommy (Johnny Mack Brown) tries to get her interested in some canoodling but she's restless and instead takes off for her own midnight ride with the handsome family chauffeur. He's a former war pilot and before the hanky-panky happens, the two talk about wanting to live freely and honestly. When they return, they are greeted by her angry brother Ding (?!) who immediately fires the chauffeur who then proceeds to kill himself by crashing the car. In an existential funk, Arden isolates herself until one rainy day, she enters an art gallery and is fascinated by Packy Cannon (Nils Asther), a former boxer turned artist. The two begin a flirtation—as Liszt's "Liebestraum" plays on the background score—and when Packy says that for him, love is "equality and perfect freedom," Arden is hooked. He's about to set sail for a solo around-the-world trip on his yacht but impulsively asks Arden to join him which she does. After several months of romantic (and/or erotic) isolation, Packy eventually takes Arden back home and returns to the sea by himself. She is heartbroken and her behavior has caused her to be a figure of scandal, but she is invited to the latest society shindig anyway where lovesick Tommy begs her for another chance. She agrees to marry him, but she warns him that she can't promise what will happen if Packy comes back for her—which, a few years later, he does. By then, she is settled with a child, but the allure of the free life with Packy is tempting. What will she decide to do?

This is one of Garbo's last silent films and it's no emotional fever dream like The Flesh and the Devil or Wild Orchids; the direction (by John Robertson), cinematography, scenery and narrative flow are all rather plain which leaves the acting to spice things up, and luckily the lead trio comes through. This was touted as Garbo’s first "100% American role" and she does indeed play down her exotic appeal; you can imagine Katherine Hepburn playing this part—indeed, Arden could be a slightly different take on Hepburn's Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story, though Arden is more interested in sex than romance, unlike Tracy. Garbo is called on to be sad, frustrated, passionate, thoughtful and (eventually) a loving mother and she does a nice job on all counts. Asther (pictured with Garbo) is good as the male exotic and Brown is appealingly, stolidly masculine. They all come off as rather likable, unusual for a romantic triangle movie of the era. Zeffie Tilbury stands out in the supporting cast as a society matron. Definitely pre-Code material, if rather conventional in its ending. [TCM]

TWO GIRLS AND A SAILOR (1944)

The Deyo sisters, Patsy (June Allyson) and Jean (Gloria DeHaven), grow up in vaudeville houses as part of a performing family. Little Jean carries around her "oogy" doll that looks just like comedian Billy Kipp (Jimmy Durante), who often is playing on the same bill with the family. By 1943, the two girls have their own act, and occasionally wonder whatever happened to Billy. But they keep busy not only performing at a nightclub but turning their (surprisingly spacious) apartment into a servicemen's canteen after hours, so lonely men on furlough have a place to go and be sociable. One night, the two girls attract the attention of a sailor (Van Johnson) and an Army soldier (Tom Drake) who wind up vying mostly for Jean's time. We find out that the sailor is actually rich heir John Dyckman Brown III, and when the sisters express a wish to lease an abandoned warehouse near them to use as a real servicemen's canteen, Brown secretly arranges for them to get the lease and the money and materials to fix it up. In the midst of renovation, the girls discover that the broken-down Billy Kipp has been living in the building, distraught over his wife and son leaving him years ago. They enlist his aid and soon the canteen is up and running, featuring entertainers like Lena Horne, Virginia O'Brien, Gracie Allen and Harry James and his band. We know it’s just a matter of time before Brown's identity is exposed, but when it is, who will he choose—pretty Jean or smart Patsy? If you've seen enough (or any) romantic comedy musicals of the classic era, you know the answer even before the question comes up.

This is a predictable wartime musical revue, with all the songs presented as on-stage numbers, and there are a lot of them, mostly OK but unmemorable, with the exception of June Allyson singing with Harry James on "Young Man with a Horn" and Virginia O'Brien doing her deadpan routine on "Take It Easy." Another bright spot: an uncredited actor named Arthur Walsh has a recurring role as a lonely and silent soldier who keeps trying unsuccessfully to get some feminine attention until he suddenly cuts loose on the dance floor late in the film. Van Johnson is unbelievably cute and dewy-eyed in his first full-fledged leading role, and Allyson and DeHaven are charming. A little Durante goes a long way for me, but he mostly remains on the sidelines. Henry Stephenson and Henry O'Neill have a nice scene as Johnson's grandfather and father. Also with Frank Jenks, Donald Meek, and Xavier Cugat and his band. Worth a viewing, if not exactly a keeper. Pictured are Allyson, Johnson and Durante. [TCM]

THE WITCH (1966)

aka THE WITCH IN LOVE or LA STREGA IN AMORE

Sergio (Richard Johnson) is a playboy grad student in Rome who spends more time hanging out with his latest female conquests than studying, but currently he's disturbed that an older woman seems to be following him, even waiting out on the sidewalk one morning near his current mistress's apartment. When he finally confronts her, she claims she has put a want ad in the paper for an academic to work as a librarian to sort and catalog the writings of her late husband, and thinks he'd be perfect. Consuelo (Sarah Ferrati) takes him to her palazzo in the middle of the city where he discovers a few complicating factors: 1) the huge library is a mess and the papers are mostly the husband's erotic memoirs; 2) Conseulo may be a drug addict—she passes out in front of him after drinking a potion of some sort; 3) living with the older woman is her young and sexy daughter Aura (Rosanna Schiaffino) who practically throws herself at him; 4) he's expected to get rid of Fabrizio (Gian Maria Volonte), the current librarian, who follows Aura around like a wounded puppy. He takes the job and, though he enjoys the favors of Aura, he notices some more strange touches around the house, including the dead husband's embalmed body laid out upstairs and Consuelo going through some odd rituals, and later, Aura talking about the still-present Fabrizio while she's making out with Sergio. Eventually, given the title of the movie, we assume we'll run into a witch, but who, and what does she want with Sergio?

Though often classified as a horror movie, this is, for most of its running time, more a psychosexual thriller. Most online critics note how appealing Rosanna Schiaffino is, which is true, but I found Richard Johnson (THE HAUNTING, KHARTOUM) to be almost equally appealing—he's handsome and has a slow burn sensuality in his scenes with Schiaffino, particularly an early scene in which she insists they make love without using their hands. But this is not a porn movie, not even a soft-core one; no one gets naked on camera even if erotic content is front and center for much of the film. Is this a psychological or a supernatural thriller? It may be better appreciated as the former, as the witchy elements seem almost tacked on to a story that doesn't really need them. After about half an hour, it's easy to see where this is going: [Slight spoiler] Sergio is the latest in a string of men that the two women toy with, and even if he manages to get rid of Fabrizio, he will eventually be replaced, too. The sets and cinematography are good, though the music is a little weird—at times, it sounds like a Vince Guaraldi score for a Charlie Brown show. Generally interesting, with a pronounced 60s feel. Pictured are Schiaffino, Volonte and Johnson. [YouTube]

GET OUTTA TOWN (1960)

Kelly Olesen used to be part of a notorious gang of thugs, but he left town and reformed, making money through hard work; now he's back in town to attend the funeral of his kid brother Tommy. The inquest found that Tommy died from a drunken fall, but Kelly suspects foul play and hopes that his old cronies Tony (a friendly underachiever who spent some time at San Quentin, or "The Q" as he calls it) and Rico (a slicker fellow who now is a member of a larger syndicate) might help him find out the truth. But his visit gets off to a bad start: the cops are not happy to see him and tell him to get out of town as soon as the funeral is over. His mother is cold to him and his ex-girlfriend Jill is only slightly more friendly. Kelly has to deal with a feisty young thug named Rocky who distrusts Kelly and comes at him with a knife ("Somebody’s spiking your pablum, kid," says Kelly who kicks his ass), two bar employees who may not have told the whole truth at the inquest, and Claire, another former girlfriend who is married to Rico now. Will Kelly find out the truth before his inquisitiveness gets him in trouble?

This B-film is a little rough in its production values, and most of the actors did not go on to long careers (virtually all of them were completely unknown to me), but if you're looking for a short crime story that feels like it came right out of an old pulp fiction magazine, you'll find some pleasures here. The narrative is a little fractured; the movie opens with Kelly getting beat up on the street and making his way to a woman's apartment to recover, then goes into a long flashback before catching up with the beginning. Doug Wilson (Kelly) doesn’t quite look or act like a hero or anti-hero—he's a little too vanilla in his personality and a little too lumpy in his looks to be all that appealing—but I got used to him. Jeanne Baird (Jill) and Marilyn O'Connor (Claire) are not memorable, and the main cop (Frank Harding) doesn't modulate his one-note performance—irritated bluster—at all. But as is often the case in B-films, a couple of supporting players stand out. Tommy Holden is fun as Squirrel, a gangster gofer who tries to ingratiate himself with Kelly even as he's not so sure that he should; Tony Louis as Rico manages to be slimy in a clean way; best of all is Sam Chiodo as Rocky, the good-looking but dumb as rocks thug who doesn’t trust Kelly. Some of the dialogue has a nice punch with my favorite line being delivered by Tony to Kelly, surprised to see him back in town: "I had you figured for a concrete kimono!" I've included the DVD cover above because it’s far cooler than any actual scene in the movie, but don't believe the claim about it being a "brutal noir"—it's really just a crime movie, fairly mild as far as violence goes except for Kelly's opening ass-kicking, and a pleasant hour of viewing on a Saturday afternoon. [DVD]

MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS (1945)

Unemployed working girl Julia Ross (Nina Foch) is on the verge of being evicted from her boarding house. To add to her woes, Dennis, the fellow boarder she had a crush on, has moved out to get married. And the landlady's maid, Bertha, is a nasty piece of work who isn’t above petty theft. But an interview at the Alison Employment Agency yields a job as a live-in companion for Mrs. Hughes (Dame May Whitty). Because Hughes has had several girls leave the position to get married or to go home to family, she is especially happy to hear that Julia has no living parents and no "young man" in her life (though just before Julia leaves the boarding house, Dennis returns, having called off his wedding, and Julia agrees to see him again soon). Also living with Mrs. Hughes is her adult son Ralph (George Macready) who seems fairly normal but is also a little highly strung, and has a thing for playing with pocket knives. On her first night at their house, a nefarious plot is sprung: Julia is drugged and taken to a house on a remote coast. When she awakens that morning, Dennis and his mother try to make her believe that she is Dennis' wife, Marion, who is recovering from some kind of breakdown. However, Julia is made of stronger stuff than mother and son assume. She never buys into their plan—though she (and we) aren't sure why they're pulling this charade. Julia tries to escape or get some villagers on her side, but her erratic behavior just strengthens the story about her illness. Her last chance may be Dennis, who is looking for her after she didn't show up for their date. But will he find her before the Hughes' plot comes to fruition—with the murder of Julia?

This hour-long B-movie has a bit of a cult reputation, probably due to the moody cinematography by Burnett Guffey (an Oscar winner years later for Bonnie and Clyde). This element is also what has led some to believe that it's a film noir. Actually, it's a fairly average Gothic thriller, with a predictable damsel-in-distress storyline. Though it moves along at a good clip, everything about it is strictly second-feature material except the cinematography and the performance of Dame May Whitty; she usually plays stodgy matriarch types (and at least once, in Night Must Fall, she was the damsel in distress in a similar Gothic story), but it's fun to see her as a villain for a change. Nina Foch is a blank sheet of paper as the title heroine—she has virtually no personality, though she does exhibit some backbone as things wind down to the ending you know is coming. Similarly, George Macready (pictured with Foch) is a little too bland to be playing a murderous psycho—it never quite feels like Julia is in life-threatening danger except in one nicely done scene near the end on a staircase. Mostly, I enjoyed Joy Harington as the sly Bertha but hers is a small role. [Criterion streaming]

DUDE COWBOY (1941)

U.S. Treasury engraver Frank Adams is on his way to Reno to visit his daughter when he's shanghaied at the train station by Gordon West and his henchmen who drag him off to a cave and force him to make counterfeit paper money plates for their forgery operation. Soon, however, the Feds are on alert, as they find that Adams has deliberately slipped errors and his initials onto the bills he's being forced to produce, and which are cropping up around Silver City, Nevada. Agent Terry McVey is sent there to investigate (with, unknown to him, Adams' daughter Barbara on his trail, using an alias). Terry enlists his medicine show buddies Smokey and Whopper to help him. The three get hired as entertainers at the local dude ranch and, with help from some supporting characters, eventually track down the bad guys and rescue Adams. This is not quite an hour long, and though it's not strictly speaking a musical, there are four songs performed, which leaves probably 45 minutes or so for the story to play out, which is plenty of time. Tim Holt makes a fairly charming lead, and one of his medicine show buddies is singer Ray Whitley (pictured), best known as the composer of Gene Autry's signature song, "Back in the Saddle Again." I'm not necessarily a fan of the singing cowboy movies, but I enjoyed Whitley's songs. The wooden Marjorie Reynolds leaves something to be desired as Barbara, but Louise Currie is a standout as the supporting gal Gail who sets her cap for Holt. Glenn Strange, who later played the Frankenstein monster in a couple of Universal monster movies, is a henchman. There is perhaps a bit more comic relief here than you might find in the typical B-western of the era, but it all goes by painlessly enough. [TCM]

THE HIDDEN HAND (1942)

Killer John Channing escapes from a mental asylum (by sneaking into the sheriff's car) and goes back to the Channing estate where his sister Lorinda rules the roost. She helped him escape so he could help her with a plan to test her family members who are waiting to hear how she plans to disperse her money and property. Two nephews and their wives are invited for the weekend; also present are Lorinda's doctor (another nephew), Lorinda's lawyer Peter, and her faithful secretary Mary (who is romantically involved with Peter), with John posing as a butler to keep an eye on the proceedings.  Lorinda then fakes her death with the cooperation of the doctor who gives her a serum that induces suspended animation, and the will is read: most of the estate goes to Mary, but a quarter of her money is hidden somewhere in the house and whoever finds it, gets it. The doc, who is supposed to give her an antidote, decides not to, and joins the others in their greedy hunt. Death practically stalks the house; first, Lorinda's pet raven is poisoned, someone is drugged, then a nurse is killed, then one of the nephews. Can Peter and Mary get to the bottom of this, retaining both their lives and Mary's share of the estate?

This is an old-dark-house movie with a light touch. Murder, bad behavior, and secret passages are present but a rather fizzy atmosphere is retained, including the presence of African-American comic relief actor Willie Best as the always frightened chauffeur. Though top billing is given to Craig Stevens as Peter and Elisabeth Fraser as Mary, the movie belongs to Milton Parsons (pictured) and Cecil Cunningham as the two most interesting characters, John and Lorinda. There are several twists along the way, mostly predictable but still fun, and the atmosphere brought to mind the eccentric mystery SH! THE OCTOPUS though this one is more straightforward and less daffy. A decent entry in the consistently entertaining Warner Bros. B-movies of the 40s. [DVD]

THE GOSPEL ROAD (1973)

Usually, my Easter viewing consists of a film I've seen many times, such as Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar. But this year I ran across a rarity I'd never heard of, which was released the same year as the above two films, and like them could be considered a musical. It was co-written and produced by Johnny Cash not long after he and his wife June Carter became born-again Christians, and feels like a "labor of love" vanity production. The life of Jesus is presented with very little spoken dialogue; instead, Cash provides on-screen narration, much of it sung. The feel is something like a live church production except instead of being performed on a stage, it was shot on location in Israel. We get all the highlights that a church Easter show would cover. The Nativity is not shown, but we begin with shots of a young Jesus roaming in rocky hills, then jump to the time of John the Baptist announcing the arrival of the Messiah. Jesus is baptized, begins collecting followers, changes water to wine at the wedding at Cana, chooses his apostles, performs miracles (the resurrection of Lazarus is mentioned in passing but not shown) to the preordained conclusion of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

In general, this oddity is too mild to be harshly criticized, or to be particularly inspirational. Cash's narration takes some getting used to; his off-screen voice is fine, but when he's on screen, dressed in black and carrying a bible as he strolls the Israeli hills, it feels like a TV special and you half-expect him to introduce his special guests (and there are a few: Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and the Statler Brothers take over offscreen for a couple of songs and Cash's wife June Carter sings and plays Mary Magdalene). Jesus is played by the film's director, Robert Elfstrom, a blond Nordic-looking fellow in 70s hippie hair and beard. Many viewers on IMDb criticize the film because Jesus isn't more Semitic looking (like most of the apostles), but the figure of a blond Jesus was a long tradition in religious painting and even into the "Jesus freak" era. My problem with Elfstrom is that his face isn't very expressive—he sometimes looks like he might be just a little bit high—and since he has no lines to speak, he has no other way to get across mood or character other than his bland facial expressions. To counter that, however, we have June Carter overemoting like mad as an constantly overwrought Mary Magdalene, to the point where she frequently seems like she's about to have a nervous breakdown. However, her singing of John Denver's "Follow Me" is a musical high point. Because they didn't have a budget for extras, some scenes of Jesus in crowds play out with Jesus alone on screen with crowd noises, and this is actually fairly effective, especially when he's carrying his cross to Calvary. I was worried by an early scene of a dove landing on Jesus' head while John baptizes him; it's rather comical and close to being campy. But for the most part, the film recovers from this, staying in a vanilla Sunday school mode until the Crucifixion when we see Jesus on the cross, shot against a background of a handful of modern cities. An unusual film in style if not content, with some beautiful location shots, but too bland to be effective as a cathartic or celebratory Easter movie. [DVD]

THE GHOSTS OF BERKELEY SQUARE (1947)

At a meeting of the Old Ghosts Society (a banquet hall filled with ghosts having a fancy dinner which is being covered by BBC radio), two army officers (Robert Morley and Felix Aylmer) relate the story of how they became ghosts. In 1708, the two men—who live together in a rather nice home—are awaiting a visit from the Queen at the same time that they are hatching a plan to prevent a new war. They decide to invite a warmongering duke over, then, via a trap door, hold him prisoner in their basement until the threat of war ends. But in testing the trap door, the two go plunging down themselves and wind up dead. The Queen is annoyed at not being able to have her tea, and in the afterlife, they are sentenced to be stuck haunting that house until another royal ruler visits. What follows is a string of episodes set over the next 250 years as the two rather sad-sack ghosts comically haunt the various inhabitants of the house (the ladies of a French brothel, members of a traveling circus, an Indian rajah) while trying to attract royalty—apparently the rajah doesn't count. This very British comic fantasy is fun in fits and starts, but it feels like a series of variety show sketches that go on too long. Any appeal it has after its first half-hour is due to Morley and Aylmer who are game to try anything here—there's even a little slapstick here and there. No attempt is made to explain why these two grown men live together—are they lovers or just an "odd couple" pair? It's based on a novel, but the narrative frame is the weakest element of the movie—their ghostly imprisonment due to the Queen made no sense to me. Many things made little sense, and the movie, to its credit I guess, doesn't dwell on trying to make sense. But without narrative logic and with its repetitive comic episodes, it all grows wearying by the halfway point (45 minutes in). Ernest Thesiger has a small role as a psychic investigator. As a novelty, this is interesting, but it did try my patience. Memorable nonsensical line from the circus owner: "It’s not enough to be Hungarian, you’ve got to be clever!" [YouTube]

STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR (1950)

The rich, older industrialist Enrico has been married to his considerably younger wife Paola for seven years, but has just discovered a cache of photos of her from before he knew her, and he hires a private investigator to find out if there's anything in her past she might be hiding. In her hometown of Ferrara, the detective hears an odd story: years ago, Paola's friend Giovanna was set to marry Guido, but Paola also had a crush on Guido, and just before the wedding, Giovanna fell into an elevator shaft, in the presence of Paola and Guido, and died. The death was deemed a tragic accident, though some had their doubts (as do we), and Paola and Guido parted. In the present day, Guido finds out that the detective has been sniffing around and he gets in touch with Paola. So in a roundabout way, the husband's own actions wind up setting the stage for a rekindled affair between his wife and Guido, to the point where, like any good film noir femme fatale, she suggests that they murder Enrico. And, just like in the typical film noir, nothing good comes of this.

Despite the plot which pulls in elements of classic noir (Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice), this early film from Antonioni (his first feature-length fiction film) doesn't quite look or feel like a film noir, but rather a traditional European romantic melodrama. It's not grimy and the characters don't feel so much obsessed as they do bored with their situations. But that observation is not meant to be a criticism, just a description—on its own terms, it's an effective melodrama of alienation and fate with good performances from Lucia Bosé as Paolo and Massimo Girotti as Guido. There is some very nice use of urban locations, and some off-kilter backgrounds, such as a scene in a park with a whistling guitarist wandering about, and a conversation shot while the characters are walking up a long flight of spiral stairs. If you're not a fan of Antonioni's later more abstract films (Blow-Up, L’Avventura), you might still enjoy this. [Streaming]

THE SPIDER WOMAN (1943)

aka SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SPIDER WOMAN

A series of deaths, labeled "pyjama suicides" by the press, has London on edge. In the middle of the night, well-to-do men are throwing themselves out of their bedroom windows to their seemingly self-inflicted deaths, though none leave suicide notes. Meanwhile, the public wonders why super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes isn't working on this case. Actually, Holmes, in ill health and thinking he's had enough of the detective business, is on a fishing trip with Dr. Watson. As the two discuss the suicides, Holmes suddenly feels faint and falls into the river rapids, apparently to his death. But, of course, as this is Sherlock Holmes, we know he won’t be down for long, and he's not. A few days later, as a mourning Watson is making arrangements for the British Museum to take Holmes' archives, an eccentric postman pops in who eventually reveals himself to Watson and Inspector Lestrade as Holmes. To my recollection, it’s not made clear why Holmes pulled off such an elaborate charade, but he has decided that the suicides are indeed murders, pulled off in a way so subtle that a woman must be behind them. And one is—Adrea Spedding is pulling a deadly scam in which she visits gambling houses and loans desperate men money in exchange for their life insurance policies. Soon, these men all wind up dead on the street while she collects on their policies, and Holmes dons another disguise in an attempt to figure out how the men wind up driven to their deaths.

Though I was initially disappointed that this didn’t have a creepier horror atmosphere (given the title), I ended up liking this; rather than creepy, it's rather baroque, what with Holmes's disguises and the cat-and-mouse games that Holmes and Spedding play. There are (eventually) spiders and a mute child who hops on one foot every so often, and a sideshow pygmy. The climax involves Holmes being gagged and tied up behind a Hitler figure in a shooting gallery, with Watson himself taking aim at Hitler. Basil Rathbone is his usual fine Holmes, and Nigel Bruce is his usual befuddled Watson. Gale Sondergaard, who was a victim of the 50s blacklist, makes a memorable Spider Woman, her civilized and mannered exterior hiding a sinister and manipulative villain. She went on to play a (theoretically) similar character in THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK, which, despite its title has no connection with this film. Dennis Hoey is fine as Lestrade, and Angelo Rossito, one of Hollywood's busier dwarf actors, is done up in blackface as the pygmy in a small (no pun intended) role. A solid entry in the 1940s Sherlock series. Pictured are Rathbone (in brownface disguise) and Sondergaard. [DVD]

RHYTHM IN THE CLOUDS (1937)

Judy Walker is a struggling songwriter who has submitted some songs to well-known composer Phil Hale. He sends her a nice rejection letter, but promises to look at her stuff again when he comes back to town. When her landlady gets ready to evict her, Judy alters his letter to make it read as though she is his niece and he is letting her stay at his fancy apartment while he's gone. She also slaps Phil's name on a song of hers and gets it accepted on a radio show sponsored by the Dutchess de Lovely's cosmetic company. Her noisy habits immediately irk her neighbor Bob McKay, also a songwriter, and they get into a wall-hammering argument without even seeing each other's faces. Of course, we all know that soon enough, they will meet cute, and that happens when he supplies lyrics to some her melodies for the radio show. They hit it off until they both head home to the same building and realize they hate each other. More complications arise: singer Dorothy Day is approached to sing the new songs but Bob is her ex, and she is not inclined to be of help to him. Then, inevitably, Phil returns to his apartment, unaware of Judy's presence and the shenanigans being pulled involving his name.

This B-musical isn't even really a musical—only a couple of songs are performed, though Judy's breakout song, "Don't Ever Change," is actually quite catchy. It's best enjoyed as a mild screwball forerunner. The B-level actors are tolerable (Patricia Ellis as Judy, Warren Hull as Bob, Robert Paige as Phil, Zeffie Tilbury as the Countess), though you can see who the models are for the performers: Ellis is a cut-rate Carole Lombard, Hull is a cut-rate James Craig, Tilbury a lesser Mary Boland, sidekick William Newell is aiming for Franklin Pangborn. The comic writing is weak and the comic timing is sometimes off by quite a bit. I kept pulling for this to get better; if it never quite takes, neither is it a clunky disaster. It didn't get bad enough for me to stop watching—I guess that's the definition of "damning with faint praise." [YouTube]

MANFISH (1956)

The Swede (Lon Chaney Jr.) is a beefy, slow-witted turtle hunter who works on a boat called The Manfish which operates out of Montego Bay. He likes his work but he loves the ship, and can't imagine life without it. Brannigan, his boss (John Bromfield), is a shady character who is always one step ahead of losing the boat because he owes people money (which he gets but then gambles away). One night, Brannigan flirts with an exotic woman named Alita, but her sugar daddy, an eccentric older man known as The Professor (Victor Jory, pictured to the right of Chaney and Bromfield), takes exception to this and the two men tussle, with the Professor threatening to kill Brannigan. The next day, the turtle hunters come across a human skeleton underwater holding a bottle (a nicely creepy image). Inside the bottle, Brannigan discovers half of a treasure map in French and a ring, and he remembers seeing a similar ring on the Professor's hand. The Professor fesses up that he knows about the lost treasure of the pirate Jean Lefitte, and soon all of them, along with Brannigan's girl Mimi, wind up on the Manfish in search of the treasure.

Though the title promises sci-fi horror a la Creature from the Black Lagoon, this is just a so-so B-adventure thriller. It's a fairly cheap production, but the location shooting in Jamaica helps. With the exception of the Swede (Chaney in Of Mice and Men mode) and the two native turtle hunters on the Manfish—and all those two do is complain that they haven't gotten paid—no character is likeable. At first, I saw this as a debit, since I didn’t really care if the asshole Brannigan or the dissolute Professor got the treasure. But midway through, when they decide to join forces, I realized the film was heading into ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ territory, and it got a little more interesting. To protect himself against the younger and stronger Brannigan, the Professor burns the map and memorizes it, so the two men really do need each other. But greed causes things to move inexorably toward a downbeat ending with a couple of interesting plot twists along the way. The credits claim that the screenplay is based on two Poe stories, The Gold Bug (following secret codes to find a treasure) and The Tell-Tale Heart (murder followed by guilt), but these are minor plot points. Sierra Madre is clearly the strongest influence on the story. Bromfield is hunky but can't quite throw himself into despicable bad-guy mode in a part that calls for an over-the-top performance. Jory comes closer, but I've never taken to him—maybe because I remember him mostly as Tara's slimy overseer in Gone With the Wind—so that leaves Chaney by default as the best actor here, though his (deliberately) halting delivery gets repetitious. Rough going for a while but worth sticking with if you have 90 minutes to fill. [Streaming]

IDIOT'S DELIGHT (1939)

After returning from World War I, small-potatoes entertainer Harry Van (Clark Gable) tries to restart his career and eventually gets a gig as an assistant to mind reader Madame Zuleika. One night in Omaha, when Zukeika, a bit soused on gin, messes up the act, acrobat Irene (Norma Shearer) tries to help out by prompting her from offstage but ends up making things worse, and Harry and Zuleika are run from the stage. Later, Irene apologizes to Harry and we discover two things: she makes up most of the details of her life—among other things, she claims to have grown up in Russia despite having no trace of an accent—and she thinks she's destined for greatness. He calls her a "beautiful phony" and the two have a one-night stand before parting for other towns. Ten years later, in 1938 as wartime jitters have taken hold of Europe, Harry, now a traveling song-and-dance man, is stranded at a hotel in the Alps with his band of six young women called Les Blondes. The border into Switzerland has been closed, at least temporarily, and just below the hotel is an air base out of which threatening military maneuvers have been occurring. Also stranded are a German doctor, an agitated pacifist, and a young and innocent newlywed couple. A little later, who should show up but Irene, now calling herself Irina and sporting platinum blonde hair, a thick Russian accent, and a important lover, the arms dealer Achille Weber (Edward Arnold) who stands to make a lot of money if war breaks out. In addition to the rapidly growing international tensions, the guests get on each other's nerves, and Harry is determined to make Irina admit to him that she is Irene from Omaha.

This is an odd duck of a movie. Despite the straightforward narrative summarized above, it's difficult to say what this movie is about. Its stars, Gable and Shearer, are in romantic comedy mode, and if this had been made a few years later, the pace might have been quickened, turning it into a screwball comedy. But the overwhelming tone is one of pessimism about the state of the world—this was released in January of 1939, before the start of World War II but after the first acts of German aggression—and most of the other characters function more as symbols than as people we come to care about. This is especially true of the pacifist (Burgess Meredith, struggling with his character's lack of, well, character) and the Army officer (Joseph Schildkraut, very good in what ends up being a muddled and unimportant role). It's based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play from 1936 which wound up predicting the European war situation, but the movie, for practical reasons concerning the possibility of getting banned in Europe, is less specific about the who and where—in the play the hotel is in Italy, which would make Italy the attacking country, but here, the hotel is just on a border in the mountains, and the only foreign language we hear is Esperanto.

Despite the general fogginess of the narrative and character motivations, this is quite watchable, due partly to fine acting all around. Norma Shearer seems to having a ball hamming it up in her countess persona, and Gable also has fun with his roguish character. He even gets to sing and dance with Les Blondes to "Puttin' on the Ritz." The first 20 minutes or so, with Gable and Shearer in Omaha, is not in the play, but it certainly helps flesh out the characters and does not feel like an artificial addition. Arnold (in the kind of pompous, posturing role he could do in his sleep,) Meredith and Schildkraut give good support, as do Skeets Gallagher and Charles Coburn. Honestly, however, what I like most about this movie is the fabulous set: the modern hotel lobby with huge windows giving a panoramic view of the mountains. The action is a little stagy in the lobby, but that didn't bother me. The apocalyptic ending of the play, with bombs falling all around the hotel, is tempered a bit too much here, leading to a happy ending (of sorts) that works for the chemistry that Shearer and Gable have concocted, but works against the philosophical themes of the film. "Muddled" is a good word to describe this movie, but it's still fun and interesting to watch. [TCM]

SCREAM OF THE WOLF (1974 TV-movie)

One night a guy runs out of gas on a deserted stretch of highway and is attacked and killed by some kind of beast (we don't see it but we hear it, and see its claws rip through the convertible roof). After other similar attacks, the police assume the culprit is a wolf or some other wild animal, but the weird thing is that the tracks in the dirt at each attack are those of a four-legged wolf, but then become two-legged human, then vanish. The sheriff calls in Peter Graves, a writer and outdoorsy kind of guy, to help investigate. He, in turn, goes to his old friend Clint Walker, a retired big-game hunter, for added help. Their relationship is odd—they used to be good friends, but somewhere along the line, Walker became a kind of wild nature fanatic loner, thinking that society had softened up men too much. For him, hunting is like a religion, though he makes a rather creepy spokesperson for that argument with his unchanging unfriendly grimace and his absolutely humorless stance. Graves still thinks he'd be a helpful ally, but Walker turns him down, even though Graves continues to chat him up on the subject. Graves' girlfriend (Jo Ann Pflug, pictured with Graves) suspects Walker is the killer, and soon she nearly becomes the next victim. It's pretty clear early on that the werewolf aspect of the plot is a red herring, and given the paucity of characters, at least ones that don't get killed off right away, it's too easy to finger the killer. The only pleasure in this film from the classic TV-movie era is Walker's eccentric performance. His character is so weird, you can't imagine that he could really be the killer, but who else is there? I enjoyed seeing Pflug, a 70s B-actress best known as Lt. Dish in the MASH movie, who is surprisingly good here. Otherwise, this is a fairly drab production which builds to a decent if predictable ending. [Amazon Prime]

GLAMOUR FOR SALE (1940)

Anita Louise is the new girl at the Lady Middleton Escort Club—get your mind out of the gutter; this is a clean-cut place with clean-cut girls (looking like the cast of STAGE DOOR) who simply accompany men out for a night on the town and have to be back at the club, where they live, by 1 a.m. sharp. Roger Pryor is a vice squad cop investigating these clubs. He enlists a salesman friend (Arthur Loft) to help him. Roger calls Lady Middleton and gets wholesome Anita; Arthur calls the Companion Club and gets June MacCloy, less wholesome and, as it turns out, a blackmailer, something her club specializes in. His picture gets snapped in a compromising position with June, and her boss (Paul Fix) threatens to publish the photo—even showing Arthur a mock-up of what the front page will look like—unless Arthur pays up. Instead, Arthur kills himself, so Roger gets Anita involved in an elaborate plan to infiltrate the Companion Club to get the goods on these bad guys who are giving escort services a bad name. The production values on this B-movie aren't bad but the overall production feels a bit shoddy. Part of the problem is a patched-together plot (perhaps necessitated by censorship problems). Though one might assume that an escort club would be a cover for a prostitution service, the movie is at pains to convince us that this is not the case, at least for the Lady Middleton Club.  Also, there is suicide, always frowned upon by the censors, and Anita steals property from her club, though that is done in the service of helping Roger get the goods on the bad guys. The performances are only fair-to-middling all around. Louise is attractive but bland and low-key; Pryor isn't even attractive. Loft and MacCloy are at least energetic. The ubiquitous Veda Ann Borg, a minor cult personality just for the sheer number of movies she appeared in—nearly 100 in a 20-year period—may be a draw for some viewers. Others can skip this drab low-energy crime film. Pictured from left are Louise, Loft, MacCloy and Pryor. [TCM]

THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946)

Jean (Brenda Joyce) arrives in the small western town of Domingo to begin a new job as a companion to Zenobia Dollard (Gale Sondergaard), a blind, wealthy and seemingly mild-mannered woman who can't seem to keep good companions—her last one, Betty, left abruptly to go back east. Jean is surprised to find that her ex-boyfriend Hal (Kirby Grant) lives in town, and still has hopes that the two of them will get back together, even though he gets only surface friendliness and no encouragement out of her. Living at the Dollard mansion with only Zenobia and a hulking mute servant named Mario (Rondo Hatton) is a little unsettling to Jean, especially when Zenoiba keeps gently forcing her to drink her nightly milk. We soon discover that the milk has a sleeping drug in it, and in the middle of the night, Zenobia, who is not really blind, comes to Jean's room, draws some of her blood, and feeds it to some poisonous plants in her greenhouse. What's up with that? Could it have something to do with cattle in the area which are dying off mysteriously? When Jean tries to correspond with Betty but has her letters returned as undeliverable, she becomes suspicious. Sure enough, Zenobia's blood-drawing weakens her victims; she killed Betty and will certainly have to take care of Jean soon, unless poor, unloved Hal can save the day.

This is a fairly mild late entry in the Universal horror cycle of the 1940s. The title is a total fake-out; though there are spiders involved somehow in the poisoning, they aren't crucial to the plot, or I never figured out how. Rather, the title refers to the fact that, a few years before, Sondergaard played the title villain in a Sherlock Holmes movie called THE SPIDER WOMAN. But this has nothing to do with that movie, and darned little to do with spiders. I'm not even sure that it should be called a horror movie; it's more a variation on the mystery genre with a damsel in distress in a spooky house. Sondergaard does her best to bring some sense of mystery and menace to the movie, but the low budget and the other actors defeat her. Brenda Joyce (Jane in some of the late 1940s Tarzan movie) and Kirby Grant (better known to me as TV's Sky King) are fairly bland, and are kept apart for the most of the film by their uncomfortable relationship. Actually, more examination of the two of them might have added some interest. A so-so film at best, recommended mostly for fans of Sondergaard. [YouTube]

STATE DEPARTMENT FILE 649 (1949)

The U.S. State Department is having trouble at a consulate in Mingu in Northern China, referred to as a "listening post" since its main function is to collect news and information about any goings-on that might be of interest to our government. Marshal Yun Usu, an exiled Mongolian warlord who, yes, eventually gets compared to Genghis Khan, is stirring up trouble, and when a fur trader who had been a good source of info is found dead with his tongue cut out, the State Department decides to send former Marine Ken Seely (William Lundigan, pictured) in as a deputy for the beleaguered chief counsel. During training, he meets up with old friend Marge Walden (Virginia Bruce), also in the foreign service. We find out that Ken was born in Mongolia of missionaries who were murdered by bandits and he welcomes the chance to go back there and help fight the current bandits. The two go on a date, parking at the Washington Monument, but their love chat consists mostly of patriotic propaganda pronouncements—perhaps due to the intimidating symbolism of that big monolith. Ken runs into some trouble on his way to Mingu, barely escaping a midnight knife attack, but when he arrives, he is pleased to find that Marge has also been assigned to Mingu. Eventually, Yun Usu and his men also arrive (in a large and fancy trailer). When local radio operator Johnny Han tries to sneak a message out to Peking, Yun Usu's men kill him, cutting off his arm first. A battle of wits begins between Ken and the warlord, who is essentially holding the foreign service folks hostage. Ken is able to plant a bomb in the trailer, but plans may backfire when Yun Usu decides to escape and take Ken with him.

The genre we think of today as "docudrama," a fiction film based on real events and filmed at least partially in a documentary or newsreel style, started (as far as I can tell) with Henry Hathaway's THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945), which purports to be based on an actual FBI case involving the infiltration of a Nazi spy ring. It was shot largely on location, incorporated a short snippet of real FBI surveillance footage, and apparently used some real FBI employees. It was also something of a propaganda film, both anti-Nazi (though it actually opened after the war had ended) and pro-FBI. This B-film goes for a similar vibe. It's based on a Reader’s Digest article written by J. Edgar Hoover, and the first part of the movie has a mild documentary feel, but that is jettisoned by the time of the Washington Monument date (pictured at right) and it becomes a traditional B-thriller. Its main problems are a drab feel, poor direction (lots of awkward fadeouts), a rushed-through narrative and a lack of tension. Lundigan and Bruce are favorites of mine, but Lundigan is not at his best as an action hero and Bruce feels tamped down by the more-or-less realistic tone of the proceedings. Victor Sen Yung, Jimmy Chan in several Charlie Chan films, is good as the sacrificial lamb Johnny. Richard Loo is adequate as the villainous warlord. Other familiar faces include Philip Ahn (Carol Channing's trusted servant in Thoroughly Modern Millie) and Jonathan Hale. There are two propaganda elements here: hurrah for the unsung Foreign Service—also referred to as the "silent service"—and, though the historical context is no longer obvious to viewers, boo, hiss for the bandits who are stand-ins for the Communists. The finale does finally work up some excitement, but it’s really too little, too late. [YouTube]

KHARTOUM (1966)

In the 1880s, a Muslim who calls himself the Mahdi (the Expected One) has risen out of the sands and is engaged in a Holy War against any, Muslims or Christians, who stand in the way of his attempt to conquer the Middle East. The British try to stop the Mahdi and his forces in Sudan before they can get to Cairo, but their first attempt leads to total failure. Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) doesn't want to lose face again, but he is forced into sending General Gordon (Charlton Heston, pictured), a well-liked former Sudan governor, to Khartoum to, if nothing else, get the British out before the Mahdi conducts his promised massacres. He's to be given no official help so that if he fails, he'll be blamed, not the government. Gordon is arrogant and a bit of a mystic (so we're told) and strong in his religious beliefs, so he is in some ways a Christian mirror image of the Mahdi (Laurence Olivier). Colonel Stewart (Richard Johnson) is sent as his assistant (and to keep an eye on Gordon for Gladstone); the two are wary of each other for a while but soon develop a mutual respect. Gordon arranges a meeting with the Mahdi, but to no avail, and with England not fully prepared to bail Gordon out with military help, Gordon must make a decision about leaving while there is still time or remaining with the other Sudanese and facing death.

You can see the seeds here of an attempt to make another LAWRENCE OF ARABIA—desert vistas, heroic diplomats, people of the Middle East, culture clash. But, though this is fairly engrossing, it falls short of LAWRENCE in at least two areas: 1) Basil Dearden, the director, is no David Lean; though he's certainly a competent filmmaker, there's little epic feel and few stylistic visuals to capture the imagination or the eye; 2) the protagonist [Spoiler] ultimately fails in his quest, even failing to save his own associates from the fury of the uprising. In real life, Gordon was held up as a heroic figure, but the movie's end is pretty much just tragic and dispiriting. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but it does seem like a bad way to end a movie that wants to be a blockbuster. The acting is also not quite on a par with LAWRENCE. Heston is his usual stoic self, not boring but not especially compelling. Olivier, in distracting brownface (or as I like say, duskyface) is unrecognizable and a bit hammy. Much better are Richard Johnson as Stewart, who provides the emotional key to the movie, and old reliable Ralph Richardson as Gladstone. Standouts in smaller roles include Peter Arne and Alexander Knox. The battle scenes are well-staged, but the overuse of obvious wire-tripping of horses becomes unsettling. According to IMDb trivia, many horses had to be killed after suffering stunt injuries. If not a movie I'm eager to re-watch, it is certainly worth a viewing. [TCM]

SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF (1958)

After the love theme to She Gods of Shark Reef plays ("Nearer My Love to You"), we see a hunky young guy named Lee and his older companion Jim (with scraggly beard and turban, so I presume Indian) sneaking out of the water in the dark and climbing up on a dock, apparently intent on engaging in some criminal activity. They grab a guard and Jim uses a machete to kill him, though Jim winds up getting killed by another guard. Lee escapes into the sea and gets his brother Chris to help him get away. Their small boat winds up wrecked on the reefs of a South Seas island during a fierce storm, and they are saved by the all-female population of the island. Despite the title of the movie, they are not "she gods," but pearl gatherers working for The Company. An elder named Pua seems to be the boss of the women, and the group accepts the men at least until they can leave with a company ship in ten days. Just as Chris is making some flirtatious headway with young Mahia, he accidentally tears a lei given to him, and suddenly the women become very upset and label Chris "taboo." Pua's women worship Tangaroa, a shark god represented by an underwater tiki head, and between the recent storms, the arrival of the male intruders, and the growing danger of the sharks in the water, Pua decides that a human sacrifice is in order, and it might as well be Mahia who gets thrown to the sharks—but not if Chris has anything to say about it.

I'm hesitant to be too rough on this early Roger Corman B-movie because the print I saw on YouTube was in terrible shape, like a dupe of a dupe of a bootleg VHS tape. The images are colorful but full of blur and shimmer, and the incoherence of the narrative might have been due to a chopped-up print. Still, if you read online critical comments on the film, you’ll find disagreement over what is going on in the opening scene, and even what the name of the criminal brother is, so I think it's safe to say that this is is one of Corman's more muddled efforts. For example, there are no she-gods, but there is a shark reef. Still, there is some fun to be had, especially for lovers of beefcake, as both well-built brothers are shirtless for the entire movie. Bill Cord is handsome and heroic enough as the good brother and Don Durant suffices as the bad brother, but neither is particularly memorable. Lisa Montell is a big zero as Mahia, which leaves Jeanne Gerson the cast standout as Pua—she's amateurish but effective. The shark footage is poor but the island landscapes are nice to look at. As is Bill Cord (or did I say that already?). I’d be willing to re-watch this if a good print turned up. Pictured are Cord and Durant. [YouTube]

HERE COME THE WAVES (1944)

During World War II, a big drive to get homefront women to help the war effort by enlisting in the WAVES (the Women's Naval Reserve) makes the Alison twins, Rosemary and Susie (both played by Betty Hutton, pictured at left), leave—temporarily—their nightclub singing gig to join up. Rosemary, a brunette and 12 minutes older than her sister, is the quieter, more sensible twin; Susie is blond and rambunctious and acts like a teenager. She also has a huge crush on Johnny Cabot (Bing Crosby), a Sinatra-like crooner who makes young girls scream when he sings. Meanwhile, Johnny, turned down for service due to being colorblind, and his buddy Windy (Sonny Tufts), a sailor on leave, meet up with the Alison sisters (Windy knows them already) and Susie becomes even more determined to become Johnny's one and only—though Johnny finds himself falling for the more demure Rosemary. Soon, the Navy loosens its restrictions and allows Johnny in, which is important to him as he comes from a Navy family. He's excited about getting ship duty, but when Susie sees a sign asking for ideas to help recruitment, she sends in an anonymous suggestion that Johnny put together a big show (in order to keep him in port and near her). The big shots like the idea and soon, Johnny is reluctantly facing life away from active service. Rosemary, who was getting sweet on him, thinks that Johnny made the suggestion himself to avoid ship duty. The four of them keep playing tricks on each other to either advance or impede romances until all is cleared up at the last minute, just before Johnny's ship is ready to sail.

Crosby was on a hot streak in the movies in the 40s: the Road movies with Bob Hope, Holiday Inn, Going My Way (for which he won an Oscar). But between classics, he made some films that have not stood the test of time so well, and this is one. The strong propaganda element is just one of the reasons this has dated. Another is Bing's relatively lazy performance—he seems to know that this is second-rate material and glides through it, waiting to get back to his radio show, or his next classic (which would be The Bells of St. Mary's). But there are some pleasures to be had. I was impressed with Betty Hutton (top left), an actress I've never taken to. Here, she does a nice job of playing two completely different personalities. As Susie, she plays up her usual persona of a feisty, in-your-face attention getter, but she's even better as Rosemary, dialing down her energy and her quirks to create such a different kind of character, you almost wonder if that really is Betty Hutton. Crosby's scenes with Tufts, who comes off a little like a dopey second-string John Wayne, play well. The two of them (pictured at right) sing "Accentuate the Positive," which was nominated for an Oscar and went on to become a standard; unfortunately, they perform it in blackface, for no plot-driven reason, so it's uncomfortable to watch. I was sure that Tufts was lip-synching to someone else, but it turns that he started in show business as a singer. Crosby also has some fun portraying a Sinatra knock-off, even doing a little Sinatra parody when he sings "That Old Black Magic." I enjoyed seeing Noel Neill, TV's Lois Lane on the 1950s Superman series, get a slice of the spotlight during a musical comedy sequence, "If Waves Acted Like Soldiers"—during which Crosby gets to do some effeminate mincing as he did from time to time. Not one of Crosby's best, but interesting as period propaganda. [DVD]

STORMY WEATHER (1943)

Legendary tap dancer Bill Williamson (played by legendary tap dancer Bill Robinson) has retired but when he sees that he is the subject of a tribute in Theatre World magazine, he begins reminiscing about his early days. In WWI, he was a member of a military band, and one night at a servicemen's club, just after returning from overseas, he meets the lovely singer Selina Rogers (Lena Horne). They dance together and she suggests that he stay in New York to become a professional dancer, but he plans to head back to Memphis so they part ways. In Memphis, he winds up waiting tables and one night, Selina and her manager & boyfriend Chick come into the club looking to hire some new talent. Selina suggests Bill, but jealous Chick has noticed the sparks between Selina and Bill and only reluctantly hires him as essentially a chorus boy. Soon, however, Bill has taken the spotlight, left Chick, and with help from Selina and his old friend Gabe (Dooley Wilson), becomes a famous performer. But when Bill decides he wants to leave the business and settle down, Selina says she loves her career and refuses to join him. Years pass and, back in the present, at the start of WWII, they meet up again. Will they be able to patch things up and be together again?

Like many big studio musical revues of the era, this film's thin plot is just an excuse for a parade of production numbers, the only difference being that this has an all African-American cast. Thanks largely to Lena Horne, this is worth sitting through despite narrative problems, the biggest one being that Horne doesn't age a day between WWI and WWII, though Robinson does. But you can't argue about that when Horne is singing, especially "I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby" and her signature tune, "Stormy Weather," which here becomes a very elaborate production number. Happily, there's also Fats Waller doing his hit, "Ain’t Misbehavin'," a zoot-suited Cab Calloway having fun with "Geechy Joe," Mae Johnson singing "Left My Sugar in Salt Lake City," Robinson highlighting a show-stopping African dance number, and the always amazing Nicholas Brothers doing one of their athletic dances to "Jumpin' Jive." I wish there was more of Dooley Wilson (Sam in Casablanca) who mostly provides comic relief. The Blu-ray disc from Twilight Time is sharp and sparkling. [Blu-Ray]

MILLION DOLLAR WEEKEND (1948)

Saturday morning, successful stockbroker Gene Raymond steals a million dollars from his firm's safe, leaves his routine life in San Francisco, and books a flight to Shanghai with a stopover in Honolulu. Meanwhile, Osa Massen leaves her husband's funeral, followed closely by the suspicious-looking Francis Lederer, and heads to the airport to buy a ticket on the same plane. On the flight, Lederer surprises Massen, telling her that he knows that she killed her husband to get a big insurance payoff, and he wants half of it to keep the secret. The upset Massen enlists Raymond to pretend to be an old friend so she can keep Lederer away from her. In Honolulu, all three wind up at the same hotel. Massen and Raymond get to know each other while Lederer, suspecting that Raymond is not what he seems, sneaks into his room and steals his briefcase (which, unknown to Lederer, contains the stolen million dollars). Raymond and Massen, now knowing each other's secrets (Massen accidently pushed her husband off a balcony when he got drunk and tried to assault her) follow Lederer, who has gotten on a plane to San Francisco. Back in the city, Lederer manages to give them both the slip. Raymond vows to get the money back, Massen vows to confess her part in her husband's death, and they agree to meet again in a month in Honolulu if they can rid themselves of their past mistakes.

This is a somewhat convoluted B-noir (sort of; despite the conflicted hero, it lacks the look and feel of a noir), the sole directorial effort of its star, Gene Raymond, an attractive leading man whose heyday was in the 30s, though he was quite active in 50s television as well. It looks low-budget, but it does include some Hawaiian location footage, mostly as background. The biggest problem I had was with character motivations. The backgrounds of the three leads are not filled in very well, a particular problem with Massen. I also have no idea why Lederer steals Raymond's briefcase since he doesn't seem to suspect that it's full of money. The wrap-up (Spoiler: they do meet back in Honolulu at the end) is a little too neat—we see how Raymond gets out of his jam, but not how Massen does, nor what happens to Lederer. Raymond is a little too tired looking to be an effective romantic hero; he was only 40 but looks older. Massen (acting under the name Stephanie Paull for this one picture) is fine. Lederer is sinister, and his thin, creepy voice is used to good effect. There are a couple of musical numbers used in the background, one, "You Are My Destiny" sung by a very handsome young man at a restaurant (couldn't dig up his name on the Internet, but he's pictured at top left), and the Royal Hawaiian Serenaders are given special credit in the cast list. A better script and a more solid noir atmosphere would have helped this immensely. Raymond and Massen are pictured at right. [YouTube]