THE SPY IN THE GREEN HAT (1967)

The Man from UNCLE was a spy series that ran on network television for four seasons in the mid-1960s at the height of the spymania occasioned by the James Bond movies. It still has some currency in popular culture, having been made into a big-budget film in 2015. During its initial run, eight feature films were released, each combining two episodes of the show with some added footage. Though a few were released as drive-in double features in the US, most were intended for European audiences. In the past I have avoided watching these, assuming they wouldn't be up to snuff as movies, but this one proved to be quite fun. At an amusement park pier, Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum), secret agents for the spy organization UNCLE, chase agents from the evil organization THRUSH and wind up bruised and battered from a car chase. Their boss Waverly (Leo G. Carroll) sends them to Italy to infiltrate a winery owned by Louis Strago that is being used as a cover for a plan by Von Kronen, a Nazi scientist who has invented a way to alter the Gulf Stream which would turn Greenland into a tropical home for remaining Nazis and at the same time would bring crippling blizzards all year round to much of the United States. During a street festival, Solo and Ilya wind up in a gunfight with THRUSH men; Ilya escapes but Solo is wounded and is cared for by the lovely young Pia and her mother. Solo leaves but winds up back in Pia's bedroom, hiding under her bed for a night. Pia's mother considers this a disgrace and insists the two get married. Solo manages to leave, and he and Ilya follow Von Kronen and Strago back to the States where they have to deal with Pia's three elderly uncles, all former gangsters, who plan a literal shotgun wedding for Solo and Pia. Eventually the action moves to Strago's private island with Pia kidnapped and the gangsters joining the UNCLE agents to get her back, and to stop the Gulf Stream device from being set off.

Like most spy franchises of the era, the UNCLE show wound up being played mostly for campy laughs. This film, while often amusing, isn't quite campy, exactly. The closest it comes is the performance of Jack Palance as Strago; he plays the character as an outwardly butch but tightly wound and inwardly nervous villain, and perhaps sexually repressed as well—his comically negative reactions to the sexiness of Janet Leigh, playing his THRUSH assistant, suggest the 60s idea of a gay man burying his sexuality. Some viewers don't like him but I think he gives the movie a nice jolt, not quite serious but not quite campy. Leigh is also very good as the sexy agent who carries a knife under her miniskirt and turns against Strago when he threatens her future employment, telling her boss (the green-hatted man of the title) that she's no longer an asset. Watch for her mildly orgasmic reactions after she kills people. Vaughn, McCallum (both pictured) and Carroll, old hats at their characters, are fine. Classic movie fans will enjoy the presence of Eduardo Ciannelli, Allen Jenkins and Jack LaRue as the uncles, along with Maxie Rosenbloom, Joan Blondell, Elisha Cook, and Ludwig Donath. Much more entertaining than I had assumed it would be. [TCM]

PROJECT X (1968)

In the year 2118, an American spy (Christopher George) discovers the Sino-Asians have a plan to destroy the West in just fourteen days, but as a safeguard when he was about to be captured, he took a drug that gave him amnesia so he couldn't give up secrets under pressure. He made it back to the States and survived a plane crash to be put in suspended animation while scientists (led by Henry Jones and Phillip Pine) figure out how to make him remember. Their solution: install him in what they call a "matrix" by implanting a new identity in his brain, then have him live out this new existence in an elaborate ruse, "Mission Impossible" style until eventually his real memories surface. The world they create is a gangster's rural hideout in the 1960s, with the scientists playing the roles of other gangsters. They only have a few days to pull this off, but complications arise, primarily due to a female factory worker (Greta Baldwin) who is not in on the ruse, and a fellow spy (Monte Markham) who seems to want to help George but may actually have a sinister agenda.

The plot in summary sounds OK, but it's pulled off with all the panache of a cheap TV-movie—watching this, I kept having to remind myself that this was not a TV movie and had actually been released in (mostly empty, I imagine) theaters. William Castle, known mostly for B-horror and exploitation movies, directed, but was clearly past his prime here. The narrative is needlessly muddled and, as I imagine none of the actors know quite what was going on, the acting is uninspired at best. Christopher George (from the 60s TV show The Rat Patrol) is gruff and has the looks of an action hero, but he doesn't get to engage much in fisticuffs or heroics. Henry Jones (who had over 150 parts in TV shows from the 1950 to the early 90s, but is perhaps best known as the handyman in THE BAD SEED) sleepwalks through his role; Harold Gould (Rhoda’s father on TV) is given almost nothing to do except stroll through scenes glowering at people; Monte Markham is a cipher, and everyone else has thankless roles. The sets are cheesy looking and overly lit in a TV-movie way. The highlights, some viewers think, are the psychedelic scenes where George's brain is probed and we see flashbacks that fill in his story against pulsing animation courtesy Hanna-Barbera, the creators of the Jetsons, the Flintstones, and Scooby-Doo. I like Christopher George and would recommend this only to die-hard George fans, or fans of low-budget 60s sci-fi, though it rarely looks or feels like sci-fi. [DVD]

THE SYMBOL OF THE UNCONQUERED (1920)

Eve, a light-skinned Black woman from Alabama, inherits a plot of land in the Northwest city of Oristown from her grandfather. When she goes to claim it, she is forced to sleep in a barn by Jefferson Driscoll, a Black hotel owner who passes for white and has a pathological hatred of Blacks—we see him throttle his poor mother and push her to the ground when she stops by his house. The next morning, lost and a little dazed, Eve runs into Hugh, a Black prospector who owns land near hers. He helps her find her home and the two become friendly, though Hugh, thinking Eve is white, doesn't attempt a romantic connection. We are introduced to a rogue's gallery of townsfolk including August, a former preacher turned swindler; Tugi, an Indian fakir who is an associate of August's; Phil and Bill, a couple of horse rustlers; and the relatively innocent Peter, brother of August's wife Mary who is forced into helping with August's cons. Jefferson joins up with the bad guys, selling Hugh two stolen horses that he claims are fine-bred Arabians. When Hugh finds out the truth, he proceeds to kick Jefferson's ass in an (overlong) bar fight. When news arrives that Hugh's land has oil beneath it, Jefferson sends anonymous notes to Hugh, warning him to sell his land, or else. Hugh ignores the notes, so August's men and the local Ku Klux Klan ride out one night to terrorize him. 

This is one of only three silent films that still exist out of over twenty that Oscar Micheaux directed, and this print, which was found in a film archive in Belgium, is missing what might be a full reel of footage at the climax. We see some very effective shots of Klansmen riding at night with their torches held high, then we see the epilogue, set a couple of years later when Hugh, a wealthy oil tycoon, meets up again with Eve. Now, honest about her real racial background, the two wind up together. Micheaux is an important historical figure, as the first African-American filmmaker, but because he always worked with a limited budget, modern audiences may find his films difficult to enjoy, and his sound films, such as SWING, fare even worse than the average Hollywood Poverty Row films. But because fiction films with Black talent in front and especially behind the camera were so rare in the classic era, I try to take the opportunity to see his films when I can. His sound films can feel very awkward in staging and dialogue, but here, not worrying about sound engineering, Micheaux crafts a fairly compelling film. The acting is about average for the silent era, with Iris Hall and Walker Thompson (both pictured) fine in the lead roles. The bad guys, especially Lawrence Chenault as Jefferson, tend to go overboard in their villainy, but that was not unusual in the silent era. The scene in which Jefferson beats up his mom is still shocking. Though this could be seen as a propaganda movie about race, it doesn't feel didactic at all. I never figured out what the title refers to. Beware: the musical score that has been attached to this restored print is all percussion by famous jazz drummer Max Roach, and I found it quite irritating, rarely applying to what's happening on screen. [TCM]

QUAI DES ORFÈVRES (1947)

Music hall singer Jenny Lamour is married to her piano player Maurice who is hang-doggedly jealous of all the male attention she gets—Jenny's director calls him Othello. Dora is an old friend of Maurice's and a professional photographer who has her name embroidered in huge letters on all her blouses; she seems to harbor an unrequited crush on Jenny. Dora does work for the sleazy hunchbacked producer Brignon who brings a stream of pretty female hopefuls in to be photographed, mostly for his pleasure we assume. When Jenny meets Brignon for dinner, in theory to discuss a career opportunity, Maurice barges into the restaurant and makes a scene, threatening to kill Brignon. We're not sure if Jenny would resort to trading sex for career favors, but she does make plans behind Maurice's back to visit Brignon in his apartment, telling Maurice she is making an overnight visit to her sick grandmother. At the apartment, Brignon makes aggressive advances and Jenny conks him over the head with a champagne bottle, apparently killing him. She goes to Dora, tells her the whole story, and realizes she has left her fur coat behind, so Dora volunteers to go get it. Unknown to them, Maurice, who doesn’t believe Jenny's story about her grandma, heads over to Brignon's place, being careful to be seen by people at Jenny's theater so he will have an alibi. When he gets there, he finds Brignon already dead, and a shadowy figure steals Maurice's car. The next day, Inspector Antoine is on the case, suspecting everyone and realizing that all of them are hiding something.

This French film noir, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique), works best in its first half as it sets up the characters, the conflicts and the ensuing dramas. Once the cops get involved, much of the tension dissipates and it becomes a fairly traditional police melodrama. I'm in the minority of viewers here, most of whom seem to like this half, and the actor who plays Antoine, Louis Jouvet. He is a distinctive character, an unambitious detective who seems irritated to be on the case. He's also given a mixed-race adoptive son to round out his character and provide a nice final scene. But it's the other characters I found interesting. Suzy Delair, Clouzot's lover at the time, is Jenny; Simone Renant is Dora; Bernard Blier (pictured, who looks a bit like Bob Newhart) is Maurice. At various times, all three in the quasi-love triangle are likable or sympathetic, and at other times, less so, especially Jenny who, a day or two after Brignon's death, no longer seems to have a guilty conscience. (I like the scene in which she blithely announces after her number that she has to change her underwear due to "stage fright sweat.") Though set at Christmas, the holiday trappings are not obvious until the end. For all its seriousness in terms of murder and motives, the film has a surprisingly light feel. Recommended. BTW, the title refers to the address of the police station, comparable to a British crime movie being titled SCOTLAND YARD. [TCM]

DRIFTING (1923)

We are in Shanghai which is, we are told, "gateway to the land of the lotus and the poppy—the secret of the East which attracts white men like the yellow flame of a lamp attracts moths." Meeting at the Café de Paris, where anything can be bought and sold, are Cassie and Jules, rival opium dealers who have been forced to team up in hard times. The cops are on Cassie's trail and on top of that, because a big shipment of opium has been delayed, she owes people money, so she sells a bunch of new dresses she'd recently bought to some of Madame Polly Voo's "cabaret girls" (i.e., hookers). Another reason Molly is desperate for the opium is that she hopes to raise enough money from it to send her friend Molly, a barely-functioning addict, back to the United States. Hoping to accompany her, Cassie decides to make this her one last sale, and so goes off to Hangchow, a village near the poppy fields, to find out what’s going on. What's going on is that an American named Jarvis has arrived, ostensibly in charge of re-opening some mines, but actually he's an undercover agent trying to bust the opium ring. Cassie pretends to be a visiting novelist researching a book, and as she investigates, local girl Rose Li (whose father is running the dope enterprise), who has fallen in love with Jarvis, sees Cassie nosing around suspiciously. Cassie herself begins to feel warmly about Jarvis. There's also a potential native uprising brewing. When Jules shows up to see what Cassie has learned, all the elements are in place for an explosive climax.

There are two reasons this exotic silent melodrama still retains some interest among movie buffs: it's directed by Tod Browning (FREAKS and the Lugosi DRACULA) and it features Chinese-American actor Anna May Wong in the supporting role of Rose Li. Though I think excavating Wong's films is important cultural work, I have never been terribly impressed by her acting—she always seems stiff and unconvincing (except when she was paired with Marlene Dietrich in SHANGHAI EXPRESS). She's the same here, though her role is fairly limited. Priscilla Dean, a very prolific silent actor who quit the business not long after the advent of sound, is very good as Cassie, though Matt Moore makes for a rather weak hero as Jarvis. Jules is played by a relatively young (just under 40) Wallace Beery, who almost looks handsome, though he limits himself to two expressions: disinterested and irritated. The climax, involving a village on fire and a cavalry rescue, is quite exciting. The drug-addled character of Molly disappears from the movie by the halfway point, and her relationship with Cassie is never explained. The audio commentary on the Blu-ray by Anthony Slide is poor—I guess to get hired as a commentator today, all you have to do is be able to skim IMDb for information. I could have shed as much light on this movie after one viewing as Slide did. I appreciate that smaller companies like Kino Lorber are still including these extras, but they need to up their game to keep people like me buying their products. Pictured are Dean and Beery. [Blu-ray]

MALAYA (1949)

In January 1942, the U.S. is fighting World War II on two fronts, and one major problem is a shortage of much needed rubber for tanks and trucks. Manchester, editor of the L.A. Record, is heading a rubber scrap drive, and reporter John Royer (James Stewart) says he can get massive amounts of excess rubber from plantations in Malaya, despite a current blockade, with "the right kind of money and the wrong kind of man." The U.S. government provides the money to bribe the plantation owners, and provide Royer with a partner, Carnahan (Spencer Tracy), a smuggler whom they extract from Alcatraz for the job. Once in Malaya, they get help from a shady saloon keeper known as the Dutchman (Sydney Greenstreet) who gives them their required twelve men ("good honest riff-raff") to help move the rubber. They encounter other characters including a singer and old flame of Carnahan's (Valentina Cortese), a Japanese officer who becomes suspicious, and a German plantation owner who betrays the Americans at a crucial point. 

I found this to be an odd duck of a movie. It seems to have been an A-picture with two big stars (Tracy and Stewart), a popular character actor (Greenstreet), and an Italian actress at the beginning of a decent career in Hollywood (Cortese). But the script is mostly B-movie stuff that I think would have come off better with B-movie leads (Tom Neal, John Carroll, Lynn Bari, etc.). A B-movie length, maybe 75 minutes instead of 100, would have paid off, too, getting rid of the occasional doldrums. Stewart and Tracy both seem like they knew this and have tried to hide their star wattage, but not always successfully. Still, they're OK, especially Tracy. I like that the Cortese character is lively and attractive, not beaten down and world-weary as so many femmes of the exotic melodrama are. There is notable support from John Hodiak as a government man and the always reliable Gilbert Roland as one of the "riff-raff." The pop standard "Blue Moon" is used throughout. Not a waste of time, but not as enjoyably scruffy as it should have been. Pictured are Stewart, Tracy and Greenstreet. [TCM]

POINT BLANK (1967)

At a crowded dance party, hot-headed low-level crook Reese (John Vernon) wrestles his buddy Walker (Lee Marvin) to the ground, then climbs on top of him, practically dry-humping him, and begs him to help out with one last heist in which they will make off with a big bag of money being delivered by helicopter to the abandoned Alcatraz prison. On the island, Reese kills the couriers then double crosses Walker by shooting him and leaving him for dead, taking off with Walker's wife Lynne. But a year later, Walker shows up in San Francisco, intent on getting his share of the stolen money. A man named Yost (Keenan Wynn), who seems to be a government agent anxious to get his hands on Reese, gives Walker the address of his ex-wife who is living with Reese; when Walker gets there, he shoots up their bedroom before realizing that Reese is long gone, and Lynne is almost comatose with depression. Walker eventually makes contact with a series of folks with connections to Reese (and with Reese's bosses who are not traditional gangsters but supposedly respectable wealthy businessmen); most importantly, he winds sleeping with Chris (Angie Dickinson, pictured with Marvin), his sister-in-law, though no emotional connection can stop him from going after the money he's owed.

In its day, the neo-noir directed by John Boorman (Deliverance, Excalibur) had a reputation as hip and new-wavish, mostly for its fractured timeline and its postmodern approach to narrative and visuals. At its heart, it's a straightforward story of betrayal and revenge, based on a traditional crime novel by prolific author Donald Westlake who wrote several more books with Walker as the main character. But as was happening in the late 60s, style was becoming more important than substance, and this has style to burn. Scenes of people getting shot or attacked (or dry-humped) are jaggedly repeated, often in slow-motion. Quick flashbacks of previous scenes pop up throughout. A shot of spilled perfumes and tonics in a bathroom sink is downright psychedelic. A physical fight between Marvin and Dickinson suddenly turns into a shot of them making love. Marvin walks into a kitchen in which every appliance is running at full tilt. But the story is another matter. There are gigantic plot holes and gaps in logic; in some reviewers' minds, the biggest plot problem is whether or not Walker is actually alive or perhaps a ghost. One viewer posits an "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" explanation for narrative problems: the whole movie is just a moment-of-death dream that Walker has. For myself, I had no problem believing that Walker was not fatally shot—the shooting, though it does take place at close to point-blank range, is not shown clearly and we see no obvious sign of a fatal wound. My bigger problem is that plotpoint connections are blurred or erased, so the movie is a series of episodes, almost in the style of a graphic novel. Marvin and Dickinson are good, as are John Vernon, Michael Strong (as a car salesman), and Carroll O'Connor (as a high-level bad guy). Worth seeing for sure, if only as a mid-60s period piece, or as a signpost to a new Hollywood style that didn't last long. [TCM]

PANAMA LADY (1938)

This is a classic-era B-movie exotic melodrama, so we know right off the bat that the Lady of the title is going to be a lady of the evening, in Production Code disguise as a down-on-her-luck chorus girl stranded in the Tropics somewhere. Sure enough chorus girl Lucy (Lucille Ball) is working in a dive in Panama when her boss Lenore has to let all the girls go. She pushes for marriage to her no-good boyfriend Roy but says he's too busy right now, and immediately takes off in his plane for business. She stows away and finds out he's actually involved in a smuggling ring, and he has her sent back to the city. Lenore gives Lucy a job as a hostess and when a charming roughneck oilman named McTeague refuses to pay his tab, Lucy and Lenore get him drunk and steal a wad of cash from him. When he's sobered up, he blames Lucy for his loss and takes her away to South America to be his housekeeper (or under the Production Code layer, mistress). She leaves a note for Roy to come and get her, but soon she develops some feelings for McTeague, although she has to deal with the jealousy of his other housekeeper (mistress) Cheema. Soon Roy arrives, assuming that Lucy ratted out his smuggling business and wanting revenge against her, but he also decides he might be able to steal McTeague's claim on some oil land, and the tensions between Lucy, McTeague, Roy and Cheema come to a boil. This is a B-movie remake of an early 30s B-movie, PANAMA FLO and it follows that film's plot slavishly. This is an improvement only in the casting. Lucille Ball does a nice job of fleshing out the main character, making her a little more lively than Helen Twelvetrees does in the original. We know Allan Lane (McTeague) will ultimately be a good guy, but he is good at keeping us a little off-balance about his intentions. I like Lane in his B-leads (see NIGHT SPOT made the year before and one of fourteen movies he made in 1938 and 1939) and he went on to achieve some fame in westerns under the name Rocky Lane. An actor named Donald Briggs, with whom I am not familiar, is fine as Roy. Steffi Duna is a little stiff as Cheema. I'd say this is mostly for fans of exotic melodrama (me) or fans of Lucille Ball. Pictured are Ball and Lane [TCM]

WOMEN IN THE NIGHT (1948)

It's the last days of World War II, after the defeat of Nazi Germany and the dropping of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki. In a Shanghai hospital which has been converted into a Japanese officers club, Nazi colonel Von Meyer leads a small group of Germans working with the Japanese on a "cosmic death ray" more powerful than the A-bomb. He is waiting for the arrival of Professor Kunioshi and Colonel Noyama to hand over to them the plans for the death ray, but with Japan's defeat all but final, Von Meyer is ordered to withhold the plans. He brings a group of female prisoners to the building to use them as "entertainment" for the officers, German and Japanese. Among the women: the French Yvette (who is only too glad to flirt with anyone and is resented by the others), the American reporter Claire, the Australian Sheila, the Chinese Li Ling (who is secretly a member of the underground, as is her boyfriend, a delivery boy who smuggles things in for the women), the shy religious virgin Helen (whose mother works as a laundress at the club), and the mysterious Eurasian Maya. Over the course of the next few nights, the women are dolled up and paraded and pimped before the officers. Some oblige, some use their wiles to engage in subversion, and one would rather die than engage in forced sex. One of the officers, Von Arnheim, is actually an American OSS agent (and husband of Claire's) and helps oversee a plan to blow the club and its officers up. But will their secret plans be betrayed? 

This B-film is introduced explicitly as a postwar propaganda tale, to raise outrage against the treatment of female prisoners who were treated as prostitutes, and to propose that such acts be considered war crimes. But that element of the film is ultimately downplayed in favor of war melodrama, and as such, it works fairly well. There are perhaps a few too many characters and plotlines crammed in, though its running time of 100 minutes is unusually generous for a B-movie of the era, and I was unsure of some details—the character of Maya (Jean Brooks) was an enigma to me the whole time. The film is not really gritty enough for its subject matter, but it’s well paced and interesting. Performances are par for the B-film course. Best are Brooks, Virginia Christine (Claire), Philip Ahn (Kunioshi), Richard Loo (Noyama) and William Henry (Arnheim). Occupying an unusual place in wartime films, I recommend this. Pictured are Virginia Christine as Claire and Gordon Richards as the chief Nazi. [YouTube]

COME SEPTEMBER (1961)

Wealthy American businessman Rock Hudson has a mistress (Gina Lollobrigida) in Italy with whom he spends every September. This year, however, he gets the urge to go visit in July. He calls Gina to let her know. Unbeknownst to Rock, Gina, tired of her arrangement with Rock, was about to marry a drab Brit (Ronald Howard), but his call revives old feelings so she cancels her wedding and heads off with Rock to his lush villa. But the caretaker of the house (Walter Slezak) is also in for a surprise: without telling Rock, he's been running the house as a small luxury hotel between October and August. Despite trying to hide the evidence (including a front desk and a plaque out front for the Hotel La Dolce Vista), Slezak can't hide the current guests, a group of sightseeing teenage girls and their adult chaperone. Rock blows up when he finds out, at least partly because, since he and Gina aren't married, they can't indulge in any romantic interludes while the guests are present. He tries to get them all to another hotel, but the chaperone falls and hurts herself and they must all stay put for a few more days. In the meantime, a group of somewhat obnoxious American teenage boys end up camping out on the villa's front lawn, and the boys and girls get along—and cocky Bobby Darin and innocent Sandra Dee in particular get along well—so Rock tries his best to stop any canoodling between the groups. Eventually, Gina gets fed up with Rock's moral hypocrisy and decides to go back to her Brit, so Rock makes one last attempt to patch things up permanently.

If you just go with it, this is a cute and colorful romantic/sex comedy. Because coitus interruptus farce can get tired fast, I tried fighting it for a while. Logically, Rock and Gina should have just pretended to be married, but of course, then there'd be no conflict, or not as much conflict. The problem for me is that the plothole seemed so huge, I couldn't get past it. But I eventually quit fighting and enjoyed the light comedy skills of Hudson and Lollobrigida, who work well together, as well as Hudson and Doris Day. Walter Slezak does some nifty scene-stealing as the caretaker who keeps getting fired and rehired. Darin and Dee, who married in real life not long after filming, are so-so, but they pretty much remain secondary characters. A young Joel Gray is one of Darin's buddies. The location shooting in Italy is lovely, as is the villa. This was probably considered sophisticated in 1961 (the fact that Rock and Gina are sleeping together out of wedlock is a given and not punished). Now it's a little threadbare in plotting, but it's nice to see the lead actors have fun with the fizzy comedy. [TCM]

HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959)

A French actress from the town of Nevers is in Hiroshima in the last days of filming a movie that seems to be at least partly an anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons story. She meets a local Japanese architect and the two have a torrid affair despite both claiming to be happily married. Each is still dealing with past traumas: he lost his family in the bombing of Hiroshima; she took a German soldier as her lover during the war and was punished as a collaborator after the soldier was killed. Sex is had, as are philosophical post-coital conversations; he wants her to stay, and for a time it seems like she might, but in the end, they part at the Café Casablanca, her calling him Hiroshima and he calling her Nevers.

This is not a movie that a plot summary can do justice to. Not that I am all that enamored of Alain Resnais’s new wave film: I saw this many years ago and remembered little about when I sat down to watch it again, and I suspect not much of it will stay with me this time, either. The movie is known for its fragmented narrative and its often lovely and sensuous visual imagery. The first thing we see is entangled naked bodies with glittering ash falling on them, surely intended to refer to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; later, we see more graphic and upsetting footage of the bombing’s aftermath (though most of the very graphic things we see are actually from a fictional recreation of the bombing for a 1950s Japanese movie). The first ten minutes or so of the movie consists mostly of our naked lovers embracing and engaging in an odd conversation: she insists she has seen a number of sights in Hiroshima and he insists she could not have. We get footage of the town and the bombing museum; I took it that she did “sightsee” but that he insists that such behavior is not the same as having truly engaged with the horrors and tragedies of Hiroshima. We also get flashbacks of her affair and its aftermath—the villagers shave her head and she is exiled to her parents’ basement until she just leaves one day. The presentation of past and present events is not strictly chronological, though the end of the movie is also the end of their fling. The most interesting insight (to me) was her proclamation that, despite being married with children, she feels that by telling her story to the architect, she has betrayed her past soldier lover. Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada do the best they can with their amorphous characters. Interesting as one of the earlier new wave films. [TCM]

THE UNHOLY FOUR (1954)

Philip Vickers, whom everyone calls Vic, walks into his big country home where his wife is throwing a party. He causes quite a sensation because he's been missing, presumed dead, for four years. He'd been with three business partners (Bill, Job and Harry) on a fishing trip in Portugal when he apparently slipped over the side of the boat and was never seen again. He remembers a voice threatening him, a blow to the head from behind, then blackness, then amnesia. His memory back, his return indeed proves a disruption to the friends and to his wife Angie, who appears to have taken Harry as a lover; in fact, she faints when she sees Vic. As Vic hopes his memory will clear even more so he can identify his would-be killer, Harry is found dead, and Vic thinks his wife did it to get him out of the way, and even wonders if she was involved with the initial attack on him. Meanwhile, we discover that Joan, Angie's secretary who lives in the house, resents Vic because her father killed himself years ago after some financial problems which were laid at Vic's feet. Vic sends Joan away to isolate himself with Angie in an attempt to reestablish their relationship. When a company accountant named Sessions is found dead, pressure increases on the police to straighten out the tangled motives and secrets of Vic and Angie and friends.

Frankly, my attention wandered a bit during the running time of this sluggish melodrama so I may have a few of the details off. I blame lackluster direction; the script is promising and most of the acting is adequate, with William Sylvester (Dr. Floyd in 2001) as Vic and Alvys Maben as Joan especially good. Unfortunately, Paulette Goddard, in one of her last screen roles, is atrocious as Angie. Her first few scenes are fine (she pulls off her faint convincingly) but after that, she's all downhill, with her big eyes and her squeaky little-girl voice that does not fit the character. Though I was interested enough to care about Vic's fate, most of the other characters didn't engage me, and by the time the solution was presented, I didn't care. I liked seeing this other side of William Sylvester (pictured at right); we wonder for a while how far he might go in seeking revenge, and though this isn't really a film noir, his character would have made a good noir lead. Based on a crime novel by actor George Sanders (actually ghostwritten by sci-fi author Leigh Brackett who went on to contribute to the script for The Empire Strikes Back). The YouTube print I saw is in the wrong aspect ratio—it looks like a more or less full screen movie that got stretched to widescreen. Also released as The Stranger Came Home. [YouTube]

THE COUNT OF THE OLD TOWN (1935)

In the Old Town section of Stockholm, the person everyone calls the Count is a cheerful older man whose sole support is as a newspaper delivery man. Business is good lately because of the headline-making actions of a daring diamond thief. The Count and his buddy Gurken (named for the pickle) mostly saunter about town trying to get a few drinks, which is difficult to do as the country has begun rationing alcohol to cut down on alcoholism. We meet other denizens of the Old Town including the chief policeman, Goransson, who is generally disliked and referred to as "the Lord," a blind man named Karlsson who helps a widow write a personals ad for the "joint happiness' section of the paper, and Berglund, a slick suitor to the widow. When a stranger named Ake arrives in town and takes a room at the local hotel, some suspect he may be the thief, especially when he seems anxious to avoid the police. But the Count comes to like him because he lets the Count use his liquor ration card. The hotel keeper's wholesome young maid Elsa has a meet-cute moment with Ake and they begin a flirtation. Still, we wonder what he’s up to with his comings and goings. And why does the blind man leave a light on in his apartment at night? This cute character-driven comedy occasionally spins its wheels a bit but is overall a pleasant viewing experience. The conflicts here never get too serious and the mystery of who might be the jewel thief does become fairly engrossing. This is the movie that introduced Ingrid Bergman to the silver screen, in the role of Elsa; she is fine in the role but she hasn't quite yet come into her own. One problem might be Edvin Adolphson (pictured with Bergman at left) who plays Ake in a rather gruff and uninvolving way (he also directed the film), so their chemistry never really sets off sparks. Waldemar Dalquist is fun as the Count as is Sigurd Wallen as his buddy who has a distinctive chuckle. Its Swedish title is Munkbrogreven, and it crops up sometimes as The Count of the Old Monk’s Bridge. This doesn't seem to have gotten any kind of major theatrical release in the United States in its day. [TCM]

UNDER MILK WOOD (1972)

This is an adaptation of a "play for voices" by Dylan Thomas, originally produced on radio. Two men, identified in the play as First Voice and Second Voice, narrate the occurrences over one day's time in the Welsh village of Llareggub. There is not a traditional plot, just windows into the lives of the villagers, some happy, some sad, though none tragic. Here, Richard Burton (pictured) does the bulk of reading as First Voice (or First Man as the movie credits him) as he and an older companion (Ryan Davies as Second Man) wander through town, mostly unseen by others (except for their rather odd threesome with a woman in a barn, apparently not part of the original play), reading the lovely poetic descriptions of Thomas' play as we see vignettes involving the townsfolk. Myfanwy (Glynis Johns) and Mog (Victor Spinetti) are merchants who send each other love letters but only see each other in their dreams. Mr. Pugh is a henpecked husband who waits on his wife hand and foot, but every day dreams of putting poison in her tea (thriller movie music plays during his dreams). Lord Cut-Glass lives in a small house filled with clocks all set to different times. The bartender is madly in love with a young woman named Gossamer, but never tells her, though when he's pumping the beer taps he imagines himself having sex with her. Mr. Owen spends most evenings getting dead drunk at the pub, and sometimes knocks his wife around a bit, but she always forgives him, and the two seem like the happiest couple in town. The mailman steams open everyone's letters and tells them exactly what's in each message (and the townsfolk don't seem to care). The town prostitute keeps having babies and complains that nothing seems to grow in her garden by the shore except laundry. A twice-widowed woman is visited by the ghosts of her dead husbands whom she orders around as if they were still alive. And the old blind sailor Capt. Tom Cat (Peter O'Toole), who knows what's going on in town despite his blindness, dreams of his late lover, the buxom Rosie (Elizabeth Taylor).

This film is often criticized for being too pedestrian, for lazily showing us the images and actions that Thomas's poetry presents in words. It's true that the procession of images becomes predictable, and the characters remain mostly one-dimensional, more symbols than people, especially a minister who preaches to no one out on the steps of his church. But between Burton's fine handling of the poetic narration and the sometimes amusing, sometimes touching situations depicted, this eventually had me fairly engrossed, though I can't say I ever cared about any of the townspeople. The star billing of Taylor is a tease; she's on screen for maybe four minutes. O'Toole is a bit of a ham in his old man make-up and blind eye contact lenses. But honestly, with the exception of Burton, this is not a showcase for acting as much as direction and cinematography, and on those levels, it's fairly interesting throughout, though certainly not for all tastes. The beginning and end seem to hint that the villagers might be selkies, mythological creatures who can transform from seal to human, but nothing is done with that. However, for a kick, try spelling the town's name backwards. [YouTube; this print was stuttery and a bit murky]

THEY ALL COME OUT (1939)

Calm down, this is not a 30s movie about gay liberation; the "all" in the title refers to prisoners. The assumption given at the beginning of the movie by the real-life director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons is that all prisoners eventually come out and rejoin the world. This film follows the story of two of those prisoners. Joe (Tom Neal, pictured), a down-on-his-luck guy having a hard time finding a job, eats a meal at a diner and then says he can't pay for it. Just as the owner is set to call the sheriff, Kitty (Rita Johnson) pays for it, then offers him a job as a getaway driver for a crook named Reno and his small gang. They pull off a big bank vault robbery, and Reno and Joe hide the money until the heat is off. Unfortunately, they get involved in a shoot-out at an auto court. When Kitty is wounded, Joe stays behind to take care of her and they're both arrested. Reno and the others also wind up behind bars. We are then made privy to the discussions of prison officials. Kitty is sent to a women's prison, and because Joe is new to the life of crime, he is sent to a men's reformatory to keep him from being influenced by other hardened criminals. Both get early releases, with Kitty getting a job at a beauty salon and Joe being trained as a welder. Groper, one of the gang members, is diagnosed as paranoid and gets medical treatment. Bugs is tempted to go straight by the possibility of reclaiming his role as husband and father. But Reno has none of it and gets involved in a prison breakout attempt. Winding up at Alcatraz, he hears that Joe has gotten paroled and has gotten a job, and he sends Vonnie, a former cellmate, off to check up on Joe and make sure he doesn't give up the hidden money, and to try and tempt him back into a life of crime. Can Joe and Kitty beat the odds and stay in the straight life?

This B-movie started life as a documentary about the prison system, hence the opening segment as two federal officials discuss the positive aspects of prison. A handful of shots were taken in actual federal prisons. It winds up being largely a propaganda movie about the wisdom of prison officials, which detracts a bit from the character study of Kitty and Joe, who, thanks to the acting of Johnson and Neal, are interesting, and it's disappointing that their stories don't get fleshed out a bit more, instead getting squeezed to make room for the other gang members. Reno (Bernard Nedell) is strictly a clichéd and uninteresting thug; Edward Gargan is OK as the frustrated family man, and John Gallaudet has some good moments as the screwy Groper. Overall, this movie is best treated as a novelty, as an early model perhaps for a docudrama, and it's short enough that it doesn’t wear out its welcome. [TCM]

THE WOMAN IN WHITE (1948)

Walking through a gloomy woods at night on the way to Limmeridge House where he is to be the drawing instructor for the young and wealthy Laura Fairlie, handsome Walter Hartwright runs across a pale woman dressed all in white, looking a bit like an apparition. She is flesh and blood, and also shy and skittish, and claims to be running from folks out to get her. When a carriage stops on the road and the driver asks if Walter has seen a woman in the woods who has escaped from an asylum, he says no. What he doesn't see is a large, threatening looking man sitting in the carriage. When the carriage leaves, the woman has gone as well. At the house, Walter meets Marian, friend and companion to Laura; Laura's uncle Frederick who is almost as nervous and impaired as Poe's Roderick Usher; and Count Fosco, the large man from the carriage who is alternately jolly and sinister. When Walter eventually meets Laura, he is shocked that she is a dead ringer for the mysterious woman in white. There are a number of plotlines that get spun out from here: Fosco has talked Fredrick into arranging a marriage for Laura to Sir Percival Glyde; Walter hits it off well with Marian, but then also strikes romantic sparks with Laura. We discover that Fosco and Glyde have plotted Laura's wedding so they can get their hands on the money she will soon come into, but their plans seem to hinge on the woman in white staying out the picture. Walter and Marian, sensing that things aren't right, try to stop the marriage, but aren't successful, and Walter and Marian both leave the house while Laura goes on a long honeymoon. Months later, Marian returns to find Laura changed (for one thing, gasp, she's taken up smoking!). As their devious plotting threatens to fall apart, Fosco and Glyde may have to resort to murder.

This is based on a famous gothic mystery novel by Wilkie Collins. It's been at least 30 years since I read it, but this seems to be fairly faithful to the book, as much as a 110 minute movie can be to a 500 page novel. There are some complications involving who's related to whom that get a bit tricky-—I'm still not sure if Marian is related to Laura or not. But if you keep your attention on Fosco, you won't stray far. The acting all around is quite good. Sydney Greenstreet (billed third but really the star of the show) makes a wonderfully malevolent Fosco, truly a villain you love to hate. He goes through all his mannerisms here—the wicked chuckle, the intense stare, the brisk stride—but we'd be disappointed if he didn't. A very young Eleanor Parker (this was her 18th movie in five years) is lovely as Laura, though the character's effectiveness is limited by her role being a bit underwritten. First billed, and almost more important to the plot than Laura, is Alexis Smith as Marian and she's excellent. Some critics find Gig Young miscast as the romantic hero Walter, but to my eyes, he's fine. He disappears from the middle third of the movie and is missed. John Emery is nicely slimy as Glyde and John Abbott is convincingly neurasthenic as Fredrick. Agnes Moorehead drops in late in the film (as the plotting kicks into overdrive) for an important role as Fosco's wife. The sets evoke a Gothic atmosphere without going overboard. The book's famous spooky opening scene of Walter meeting the title character isn't done justice by the movie, but otherwise, it's an enjoyable watch. Pictured are Greenstreet and Smith. [TCM]

FITZWILLY (1967)

Or, what exactly is a Christmas movie?

I'm sure I've mentioned in the past my obsessive concern with what makes something a Christmas movie. Years ago, I read an article that said it wasn't enough for a movie to be primarily set at Christmas; it should also have some element of magic. Think of movies like Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life, or any version of A Christmas Carol. I like this criterion, though it’s not a foolproof test; A Christmas Story, The Holly and the Ivy, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and its ilk (stories of suburban holiday antics) may not have any magic or fantasy, but they are laser-focused on Christmas. For some viewers, any movie which features a Christmas scene or setting is a Christmas movie (see Die Hard fans); for me, defining a Christmas movie is like defining pornography: I know it when I see it. When I wrote my review of BEYOND TOMORROW, I realized that there are, more or less, two kinds of Christmas movies: those that are clearly striving for Christmas movie status, and those that have that status thrust upon them. This, like BEYOND, has become a Christmas movie by default for two reasons: the climax takes place in Gimbels department store on Christmas Eve, and the film is currently in the Turner Classic Movies library so they show it every December as a holiday classic. However, there really is little else about this that deserves the Christmas movie label.

Fitzwilly (Dick Van Dyke) is butler and head of household to the rich, elderly and philanthropic Victoria Woodworth (Edith Evans), but as we discover, she is no longer rich. Fitzwilly and his staff have been acting as Robin Hood and his merry men, engaging in theft and con games in order to support Woodworth in her charitable ways. Their well-intentioned larceny goes off smoothly until Victoria hires Juliet (Barbara Feldon) as a secretary to help her with a dictionary of misspelled words that she hopes to get published. After a prickly initial encounter, Juliet and Fitzwilly slowly warm up to each other. Juliet, without realizing it, begins throwing monkey wrenches into the plans for the staff's criminal behavior. When she discovers what they've been doing, Fitzwilly agrees to stop, but he has to pull one last big heist: steal all the cash in Gimbels department store at 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Parts of this are fun, but overall it should be fizzier and looser than it is. One problem is Van Dyke; much as I love him on TV, he just doesn't have what it takes to come alive on the big screen (Bye Bye Birdie excepted). He feels pent up, like he wants to let loose with some slapstick but can't. He has more chemistry with the staff (including John McGiver, Noam Pitlik and a young Sam Waterston) than he does with Feldon, who herself comes off as absolutely charming. I'm not sure why Feldon didn’t have a bigger movie career—maybe because it seemed like she was always playing variations on her Agent 99 character on the 60s TV comedy Get Smart. The big Gimbels climax is lots of fun, but getting there is sometimes a bit trying. As for whether or not it's a Christmas movie, I don't think so, but I guess that really depends on the viewer. [TCM]

CHRISTMAS SHORT TAKES 2

HOMETOWN CHRISTMAS (2019)

The week before Christmas, Noelle (Beverley Mitchell) moves from Chicago back to her small hometown in Louisiana to work at a medical clinic with her widowed father Pete. She is happy to be back with her brother Will (and his fiancée Jen) and pleased to meet up with old friends, but less happy to run into her high school boyfriend Nick (Stephen Colletti, pictured); they broke up ten years ago when he went off to a career in professional baseball and old wounds still fester. Before she starts working in the new year, she decides to restage the beloved nativity that her late mother used to hold every Christmas. Noelle slowly warms to Nick's presence, especially when she finds out that Nick's baseball career is on hold until he recovers from a serious shoulder injury and he's donating his time to running an after-school baseball camp for some adorable children. Just as it seems like Noelle and Nick are getting back in their old groove, she finds out that he plans on leaving town and going back to his career as soon as he's recovered, despite the fact that the local high school has offered him a coaching job. This Lifetime Christmas romance is pretty much par for the course: attractive leads, moderately interesting side characters, and lots and lots of Christmas visuals, despite being set in Louisiana which doesn't get much snow. Mitchell and Colletti have good chemistry, but so do Erin Cahill (Jen) and Donny Boaz (Will), so it's a little disappointing that their story is handled rather sloppily. Somewhat surprisingly, the plot conflicts never get too melodramatic. The word "pleasant" describes it well, and if you're looking for something edgier or more dramatic, look elsewhere. 3 Christmas trees out of 5 [Lifetime]

CHRISTMAS CRUSH (2019)

Addie and her best friend Drea work at a high-powered party-planning company. They have one week to plan a holiday party for a demanding client, the Donner Legacy Foundation—the one thing that works in this movie is the running gag of people calling it "the Donner party." Addie has been nursing a crush on Sam, the guy in the next apartment. We see her literally run into him in the hallway, and though he seems approachable, Addie gets tongue tied in his presence. Her chummy neighbor Mrs. Motley notices Addie's predicament and gets Addie to wish on a falling star, telling her all Christmas wishes come true. Addie wishes that her neighbor would fall in love with her. But she's not quite precise enough with the wish. The next day, just as Addie is starting to make some headway with Sam, she discovers that a high school friend, Pete, has moved in across the hall from her, and Pete is the one who falls head over heels in love with her. He's a sweet-natured goof but he proves to be an obsessed nuisance, messing up a date with Sam and even threatening the smoothness of her party-planning activities. Drea and Mrs. Motley try to help her, but she's convinced that only another Christmas wish can right this wrong. I appreciate the attempt at an element of magic here (the falling star wish), but that’s about all I appreciate. Cindy Sampson is fine as Addie, though her performance is part of the problem with the story—she seems way too well-adjusted not to be able to fix this problem in a hurry: tell off Pete without mincing words and be honest with Sam about her feelings. Of course, then the movie would be about 45 minutes long. Robin Dunne (Sam), normally a charming Christmas movie lead, comes off as drab and unappealing. In a different Christmas romance, Sam would be the loser boyfriend. Chris Violette (Pete) has the quirky frat boy thing down, but his performance is pretty one-note, again due as much to the writing (and direction) as to his acting. 2 Christmas trees out of 5. [Ion TV]

GINGERBREAD MIRACLE (2021)

Maya grew up in a small town in Colorado, had a high-school crush on Alex, and, unable to tell him about her feelings, wrote him a long letter, stuck it in his jacket pocket, and then left for a lengthy European vacation. He doesn't respond so when she gets back, in order to make him jealous, she exaggerates a relationship she had with a French boy. The stunt doesn't work and the two go off to separate colleges, both becoming lawyers. Now, some ten years later, Maya has gotten burned out on the fast pace of a big law firm and is in her hometown living with her parents and freelancing via Zoom. Meanwhile, Alex, with a law firm in New York City, is home for the holidays (and also working remotely) to be with Luis, the uncle who raised him, as he goes through the process of selling his Mexican bakery. Alex is a bit miffed when he finds out that Luis has hired Maya to help him with the sale, but that's because Alex is always insanely busy in New York. Of course, she warms up to him and he to her, but their unresolved past still stands between them (it turns out the letter she left in the jacket got lost for a while, but he did eventually read it). There’s a legend that the gingerbread cookies Luis bakes can cause wishes to come true--that could happen here, if these two mixed-up kids ever discover what it is they really wish for. This Hallmark Christmas movie hits all the usual beats at the usual times, including the complicating factor in the romance at the 90-minute mark and the long-delayed kiss in the fadeout (and, as in the above movie, a magical power of a wish). What puts it a slight notch above the norm is the main setting, the Mexican bakery, and the legit Latino actors—Jon Ecker as Alex and Jorge Montesi as Luis. Honestly, those two have as good if not better chemistry as nephew and uncle than Ecker and Merritt Patterson (Maya) have as romantic leads. Ecker is kinda smolderingly handsome but also a little too broody throughout. Patterson is fine as are Patch May as Jacques, the French baker who wants to buy Luis's bakery (and maybe play kissy-face with Maya), and Preston Vanderslice as a subplot boyfriend of a subplot character. Likable and harmless. 4 Christmas trees out of 5. [Hallmark]

CHRISTMAS SHORT TAKES 1

THE CHRISTMAS EDITION (2020)

Carly Hughes is a newspaper journalist jonesing for a promotion to head of the newsroom, but when a digital media conglomerate (represented by the brittle Marie Osmond) buys the paper with plans for it to go online only, Hughes decides to leave her job and take on the responsibility of getting a small town Alaska paper back on its feet after its owner passed away and his son (Rob Mayes, pictured at right), who works as a glassblower, has been unable to stop it from turning into a once-a-month shadow of its former self. She turns it into a town sensation by focusing on Christmas doings and local businesses, and she becomes a beloved local figure. Having struck some sparks with Mayes, Hughes plans to stick with the job and the challenges of post-Christmas existence, but when Osmond gets wind of the paper's success, she heads up to Alaska with an offer to buy the paper–and make it online only. She also offers Hughes her newsroom job at her old paper. Will Mayes sell? Will Hughes leave? Will Osmond, who seems to have had lots of face work, be able to express any emotion beyond dismissive haughtiness? My mini-crush on Mayes, good at playing unpolished average guys, kept me watching this painfully predictable movie. Mayes and Hughes are both fine, though their chemistry is lacking—a scene at an observatory, which should be the romantic highpoint, fizzles. Osmond seems uncomfortable, though she loosens up a bit near the end. 3 Christmas trees out of 5. [Lifetime/Amazon Prime]

SENSE, SENSIBILITY & SNOWMEN (2019)

Erin Krakow and Kimberly Sustad are sisters (the Dashwoods, as in Jane Austen's novel from which this takes its inspiration) who run a Chicago party-planning business. There is tension between the two: Sustad, the more serious sister, thinks that Krakow isn’t carrying her weight. Luke Macfarlane is the new head of a toy company built by his father, but Dad is unwilling to fade into retirement and still bosses Macfarlane around. When Krakow meets Macfarlane, they don’t hit it off, but they agree to work together when he hires her to throw a big toy company holiday party. She sees this as her chance to impress her sister with her skills, and he sees this as a chance to show dad that he can stand alone. Meanwhile, Sustad hits it off with Jason McKinnon, Macfarlane's cousin. In the end, the party goes off perfectly, Dad decides his son is OK on his own, and the couples couple up. Fairly bland overall. Krakow has a nice loosey-goosey approach to her role, unlike the predictable approaches of most Hallmark leads, but I sort of wished that Sustad, the more interesting actor, had Krakow's role. Macfarlane is handsome but seems to be (almost literally) gritting his teeth to get through the role—to be fair, his character is supposed to be uptight so maybe this was an acting choice but I found it distracting. The supporting cast is practically invisible and not given much to do. 2 Christmas trees out of 5. [Hallmark]

CHRISTMAS INHERITANCE (2017)

Eliza Taylor is about to inherit her father's business but she has a reputation in the tabloids as the "playgirl heiress" so her dad wants her to prove her mettle by carrying out the relatively simple task of heading to the small New England town of Snow Falls a few days before Christmas to deliver some letters to her dad's former business partner Zeke. But as in a fairy tale, there are requirements: she can't take her credit cards, she can only have $100 in cash, she has to go by bus, and she can’t tell anyone who she is. Her high-powered fiancé is not happy as he wants her on his arm at a big Christmas Eve party, but she assures him she'll be back in plenty of time. In town, she meets the handsome Jake Lacy (pictured at left), taxi driver and manager of the inn she is booked into for the night. Of course, there is friction between them at first, but as she sees what an all-around nice guy he is, and he sees a more humble side of her, they soften toward each other. Will Eliza fulfill her duty? Will she and Jake be more than friends? This one has a few strikes against it. The delivery of the Christmas letters is a strange plot device that is never fully explored. The fiancé is no more than the usual stock bad-guy boyfriend with zero personality. Snowstorms (with barely a covering of snow on the streets) and spotty cell phone reception play roles in the intrigue. Andie McDowell is a local who becomes a friend and confidante to Eliza, but she remains just a convenient plot device. The saving grace here is the chemistry of the lead actors. Australian actor Eliza Taylor does a nice job as Ellen—her playgirl behavior is absolutely vanilla—and Jake Lacy (the rich and hateful husband in HBO's The White Lotus) is frat-boy handsome and generally charming. The plot's one interesting quirk is his negative reaction to hearing "Silent Night" because a former girlfriend broke up with him years ago with that song playing in the background. Overall, pleasant but a bit lame. 2.5 Christmas trees out of 5. [Netflix]

BEYOND TOMORROW (1940)

As the song "Silver Bells" says (and a brief opening montage makes clear) it's Christmastime in the city and three wealthy older men, partners in an engineering firm who live together in a big house, are waiting for their invited guests for Christmas Eve dinner. The household consists of Harry Carey (cantankerous and cynical), C. Aubrey Smith (pleasant but still haunted by the death of his young son in the war) and Charles Winninger (always jolly and optimistic), and their maid (Maria Ouspenskaya), a former Russian countess. When their guests have to cancel, they become gloomy until Winninger suggests a way to share their dinner: they each toss a wallet with $10 and a business card out on the sidewalk and wait to see if any honest people turn up to return the money. Despite Carey's insistence that no one will show up, two people do: Richard Carlson, a Texas rodeo rider stranded in New York City and Jean Parker, a young woman who works as a children's health clinic. They all hit off that evening and soon the three men are spending time socializing with Carlson and Parker as the two become romantically involved. Sadly, a plane crash takes the lives of the three older men who, in their will, leave the house and some money to Carlson. When Carlson is interviewed on the radio, he gets a shot at singing on the air and becomes a success, but his relationship with Parker is strained when radio star Helen Vinson puts the moves on him. However, the three dead men return to earth as ghosts (only Ouspenskaya can sense their presence) and take it upon themselves to try and bring Carlson and Parker together before they get called back to the hereafter.

The first half-hour or so of this movie is set on Christmas Eve and has a strong holiday atmosphere, but by the time the fantasy element sets in, Christmas has been long forgotten. But television's appetite for movies that can be run every year, and even better, movies which have fallen into the public domain and can be run free of charge, has turned this into a minor Christmas "classic." (A colorized version has been released under the title Beyond Christmas.) The prints I have seen of this are dark and murky, and give it a film noir look. It's got a B-movie feel to it that is accentuated by the split in the acting. Winninger, Smith and Ouspenskaya are very good; Carlson are Vinson are OK; Carey and Parker are a little weak. The ghost "rules" are not well explained. The three seem to have been sent back to Earth in a kind of purgatory state, perhaps specifically to help Carlson and Parker, though that is never made plain. They are called back to the afterworld one by one: Carey by thunder and lightning, perhaps being sent to Hell; Smith by his dead soldier son; Winninger chooses to stay to finish up his matchmaking, though he is told by a booming supernatural voice that if he stays, he will "linger in the shadows of earth for all time." Despite this, Winninger and Carey are reunited and taken to Heaven in the end. A better screenplay would have helped. This is interesting and watchable, but whether it deserves the label "classic," I'm not sure. Pictured: Winninger, Smith and Carey as ghosts with Ouspenskaya in the middle. [DVD]

A DICKENS OF A HOLIDAY! (2021)

The small town of Dickens, Ohio is about to stage their 100th anniversary production of A Christmas Carol, but the older actor who usually plays Scrooge has a problem with vocal nodules and can't speak for an entire month. Brooke D'Orsay, who is directing the show, is encouraged by the mayor to contact Hollywood actor Kristoffer Polaha, the star of an action movie franchise; his catchphrase is "Do the right thing or it's the last thing you'll do!" Polaha grew up in Dickens, still has a brother there from whom he is estranged, and more importantly, he and D'Orsay had a brief attachment in high school. Desperate to get hired for a serious dramatic role (in a movie based on his late mother's favorite book), Polaha turns her down, but when he discovers that he's not up for the role, he decides to head to Dickens and take the role of Scrooge. While he's at it, he manages to patch things up with his brother, become a doting uncle to his young nephew (who's playing Tiny Tim in the play), and get close to D'Orsay. Suddenly a complication rears its ugly head: he might be up for the film role after all, but he has to attend a Christmas Eve party at the director's house back in Hollywood and will have to skip out on the show. In addition to jeopardizing the play, and his relationship with D'Orsay, will this also jeopardize Polaha's personal growth? 

This one is a delight, due largely to the performance of the charming Polaha. There's a fun scene in the beginning showing Polaha filming an action scene against a green screen that portends more unpredictable fun scenes. Unfortunately, this is not to be–except for Polaha's entrance in the small town theater as he booms out "Bah, humbug!," there are few other deviations from the Hallmark norm. Still, the lightness of touch that Polaha has and the committed performance of D'Orsay combine to set this at the top of the recent Hallmark film stack. The problematic relationship with the brother (Chad Willett) is fleshed out just enough to make us care about its outcome. Nerdy-cute Nathan Lynn is good as Polaha's personal assistant who genuinely wants good things for his boss, and their relationship is also delved into a bit. It's fun to see Polaha overact in his first rehearsal scenes, and fun to see D'Orsay try to steer him in a different direction. This is one of the few Hallmark films I would feel comfortable recommending to friends who aren't Hallmark fans. [Hallmark]

SINGLE ALL THE WAY (2021)

In this year's gay Hallmark Christmas movie that isn't actually on Hallmark, Peter (Michael Urie) is ready to fly from Los Angeles to small-town New Hampshire to spend Christmas with his family and introduce them to his new boyfriend Tim. But when Nick, Peter's roommate and best friend of eight years (Philemon Chambers), discovers that Tim is married with kids, Peter is devastated. He begs Nick to accompany him to New Hampshire with the story that the two have finally become romantically involved, something Peter's family has been hoping would happen. But in New Hampshire, Peter's mom Carole (Kathy Najimy) has already set up a blind date for Peter, with the handsome and hunky James (Luke Macfarlane), a trainer at the gym, so the charade collapses immediately. Peter and James hit it off, but his family begins actively pushing for Peter and Nick to get together. Eventually, we learn that both have had feelings for the other in the past but they were never acted on. Now, Peter worries that if they become a couple and things don't work out, he'll lose his best friend. Peter decides to stay in New Hampshire, which Nick takes as a sign that he's staying for James, so Nick decides to head back to L.A before Christmas Day. Can Peter's family meddle enough to get Peter and Nick to realize they love each other?

Being that this is in every way except the genders of the main couple a Hallmark romance, that answer is not in doubt. I am happy that the Christmas romance movie genre has expanded a bit to let in sexual and racial minorities, but I also wish that the types of plotlines and tropes and characters could be more creatively expanded. Having said that, this is a cute and frothy rom-com which benefits from a good cast. Urie is delightful and Chambers has good chemistry with him. Macfarlane, who regularly plays leads in Hallmark romances, is fine as the blind date, though he and Urie never work up much chemistry, so even though in the beginning I wanted them to get together, there's never really any danger of that happening. The great supporting cast includes Kathy Najimy as the mom and Barry Bostwick as the dad. The two nieces who become the biggest meddlers are nicely played by Madison Brydges and Alexandra Beaton. Jennifer Coolidge steals every scene she's in as the eccentric aunt who is putting on a kids' Christmas pageant, the title of which I can't mention as it would give away the single funniest moment in the movie. Harmless fun I sort of wish was a little less harmless. Pictured are Chambers and Urie. [Netflix]

MERRY KISSMAS (2015)

Carlton is a director and choreographer who has come to Palo Alto at Christmas to stage The Nutcracker. Secondarily, he is also throwing a big party celebrating his engagement to his business manager Kayla, who grew up in Palo Alto. But two seconds into their first scene together, we know this relationship won't last. Carlton is driven and obnoxious, and the only reason for the party is for the press it will get him. Kayla loved him once, but now realizes that his career will always be his first priority. Meanwhile, her hometown friend Jana is planning the party and working with her friend Dustin, a caterer and baker. The meet-cute is elaborately presented: Dustin needs a nutcracker as a model for the nutcracker cookies he is making and sees one in the window of a knick-knacks shop; Kayla, looking for a nutcracker herself, sees the same one. Dustin gets it first, and as he carts it home, Kayla is being chased down by the shop owner, a fan of Carlton's. In escaping, she winds up in an elevator with Dustin and to get rid of the woman, she gives Dustin a passionate kiss. The ruse works, Dustin is amused, and Kayla looks a little dazed. One thing leads to another and soon, egged on by their friends (Jana and Dustin's cousin Kim), Dustin and Kayla are falling in love. However, the jealous Carlton begs for another chance and Kayla says OK. Right away, we see Carlton flirting with one of his dancers but it takes another forty minutes or so of movie time for Kayla to finally come to her senses, break things off with the wrong man, and start kissing, for real, the right man.

I don't quite understand the hate for this movie on IMDb. It generally has most of the pluses and minuses of the average Christmas TV-movie. It may not quite have the glossy Hallmark sheen—it originally aired on Ion TV—but that alone is not necessarily a minus. I admit to one big prejudice in favor of this film: Brant Daugherty (Dustin) is handsome and charming and can do no wrong in my eyes. He's an expert at what I call 'whimsical masculinity,' the ability to balance, well, being whimsical and masculine, a good talent for Christmas romances. He has nice chemistry with his leading lady Karissa Lee Staples (Kayla) who is quite good in her own right. Ion Overman (Jana) and Brittany Underwood (Kim) are fine in support, and I liked the fact that Dustin has two female buddies instead of the traditional male buddy or parental figure. There are some weak points. I agree with the critics who point out that the movie basically wraps up at the halfway mark when Kayla breaks it off with Carlton (David O'Donnell, who hams it up a bit too much as the bad boyfriend), and then it’s a case of 'wash, rinse, repeat' as we go through the same story again with little variation, except for the addition of a scene at a dog shelter in which cute puppies climb all over our cute leads. (Dustin winds up with one of the puppies, mostly in support of a cute joke in which Kim, frustrated that Dustin isn’t doing enough to fight for Kayla, tells him that she’s going to get him some cats because he’s on his way to being the male version of a crazy cat lady.) Carlton’s production of the Nutcracker looks awfully low-rent from the little glimpses we see of rehearsal. Doris Roberts, the year before she passed away, has a tiny throwaway cameo as an irritating old lady who keeps trying to catch Dustin in the elevator under some mistletoe—I guess it was daring to make the sweet lovable Roberts unlikable. Don’t trust the negative viewer comments on IMDb; I’d recommend it, especially if you’ve never seen Brant Daugherty—pictured above left with Staples and alone at right. [Amazon Prime]

YOU, ME & THE CHRISTMAS TREES (2021)

Olivia (Danica McKellar) is the University of Connecticut's star arborist (didn't know Star Arborist was a thing), known by some as the Christmas Tree Whisperer for her ability to tend to sickly pine trees. She's about to take off to spend Christmas with her mom, though she's never comfortable with her mother's focus on socializing, especially this year when Olivia has called off what was supposed to be a Christmas wedding to her longtime boyfriend Justin. But an emergency call from Jack Connor (Benjamin Ayres), of Connor's Christmas Tree farm in the nearby small town of Avon, gives her an out: his cut trees are turning brown and losing needles at an alarming rate, and this is hurting his business, not to mention putting in jeopardy his ability to supply a giant tree for the Christmas Eve tree lighting in the town square, a hundred-year tradition which his grandfather started. She heads to Avon for what she expects to be an overnight visit, and the two meet cute when they have a fender bender in a roundabout. Eventually, Olivia sees what a warm and good-hearted person Jack is—he's always willing to help families in need. She runs some tests that are inconclusive and winds up staying in town for several days; romantic feelings develop, egged on by Jack's best friend Elliott and Jack's gal pal Lisa. But when Olivia suggests that Jack diversify his crops (better for the soil and would avoid having all his business hurt in the situation he is in now), he responds with negativity, insisting he would be betraying his late father by doing so. At almost the last minute, Olivia has a breakthrough on how to save the trees, but 1) will it work? and 2) will the two overcome their growing animosity over Jack's stubbornness?

A slightly above-average Hallmark Christmas movie, mostly due to the unusual circumstance of having a woman with a degree in forestry be the heroine. (The title is cute, but The Christmas Tree Whisperer would have been better.) McKellar comes off as intelligent and charming; Ayres is nice-looking but sometimes there seems to be some menace hiding behind his eyes—he has a squint that is just a degree away from being an evil leer. The supporting cast, except for Linda Darlow as Jack's mom, is underdeveloped and lackluster. The friends never become important to the story. Jason Hervey (the older brother in the original Wonder Years) has a couple of scenes as Jack's rather shady competitor. I appreciate that the usual romantic complications involving previous loves are absent--we never meet Justin or even know why Olivia left him. Some odd cutaway shots indicate rushed post-production; apparently this was shot in Canada in August during a 100 degree heatwave, though the snow settings generally look convincing. Reference is made to a glass ornament containing sand from Normandy that a relative brought back from D-Day, but nothing comes of this, and that adds to the somewhat unfinished feel the movie has. But it's certainly watchable, mostly due to good chemistry between the leads (pictured above). [Hallmark]

EIGHT GIFTS OF HANUKKAH (2021)

Sarah is an optometrist who is having her office renovated by her childhood best friend Daniel, with whom she has remained friends. Four months after a breakup, she is getting into the online dating scene, and amid the losers, including a guy in a Santa suit who tugs down his beard and gives her a sexy "Ho, ho ho" leer, she finds a couple of possibilities including Adam, a shy but rich tech genius, and Nigel, a local celebrity chef with a charming English accent. Even her ex-boyfriend Paul is making noises about getting back together. On the first night of Hanukkah, as she gathers with her family and friends (including Daniel), someone leaves an anonymous gift for her on the front porch. Over the next few nights, a new gift appears, always anonymous and always a perfect gift from someone who obviously knows quite a bit about her. Observant viewers, or anyone above the age of 10, will realize immediately that Daniel is the mysterious gift giver; there was a moment in high school when the two could have hooked up romantically, but the moment passed. Now Daniel, still smitten with Sarah, wants her to figure out that the giver, who knows so much about her, is him. He admits to his buddy Jimmy that it's kind of a test and she's failing—even after she gets a pair of glasses she's wanted that reminded her of her beloved grandmother's glasses, she can’t quite figure out that Daniel, one of the only people she told about the glasses, is her secret admirer. As Sarah works hard on holding the annual Matzoh Ball for the community (and gets all her would-be suitors to help out), will she finally realize that her true love is right there working away in her office?

Though this is set at Hanukkah and features Jewish leads (and an optometrist heroine!), this Hallmark holiday romance still follows the template of their Christmas romances. So yes, there will be conflicts and misunderstandings and jealousies, but Sarah and Daniel will finally kiss in the last two minutes. Sarah's inability to even come close to guessing that Daniel is the gift giver is frustrating, but the two lead actors carry the show here. Israeli actor Inbar Lavi is appealing as Sarah, and Jake Epstein is quite charming (and quirkily handsome) as Daniel. I especially liked the fact that he never acts snarky or petty toward the other men Sarah is dating. His passivity may go a bit too far—finally, on the seventh evening, he has to break down and tell her his secret, something that should have happened long before. But the final scene is satisfying. Notable in supporting roles are Andrew Zacher (Adam), Oliver Rice (Nigel), and Doron Bell (Jimmy). Despite the Hanukkah trappings, you will never forget that you're really watching a Christmas romance. [Hallmark]

THREE LIVE GHOSTS (1936)

London, 1918, at the end of the First World War. Mrs. Gibbins (Beryl Mercer) regularly holds séances to communicate with Jimmie, her son who was declared dead in the war. An American detective named Bolton visits, looking for information about Bill, a buddy of Jimmy's who is also presumed dead, and tells her there is a thousand dollar reward for verifiable information on Bill. Soon, who should come strolling down the street than Jimmie (Charles MacNaughten) and Bill (Richard Arlen), alive as can be, with their shell-shocked buddy Spoofy (Claude Allister) whose primary activity is stealing things--mostly grabbing hats off of people's heads and putting them on. Ma is happy to see her son, but even happier to see Bill since she can now contact the detective for a big payoff, but when she realizes she has lost his phone number (Spoofy innocently stole the newspaper it was written on), she becomes frantic. Meanwhile, Peg, Jimmie's girl, and Ann, Bill's girl, are living in the same building and happy to see their men alive, but Bill, uncertain of why he is being tracked down and hence unsure about his future, acts like he's no longer interested in her. When he finds out she is about to be kicked out the building due to late rent, he allows Mrs. Gibbins to turn him in if she gives half the reward money to Ann. One night, Spoofy leaves the building, enters a strange house, and steals some jewels—and a baby. The presence of police is not so welcome now, but eventually everything gets cleared up, with happy endings all around. This mild comedy is the third film version of a successful Broadway comedy from 1920. It can't quite escape its stage origins, as most of the film takes place in one setting, the Gibbins' apartment, with an occasional street scene and the memorable nighttime walk taken by Spoofy. It's competently made and acted, with the standouts being Mercer as the conniving mother and Allister as the goofy Spoofy—because his shellshock is played for laughs, we know he's going to get a happy ending like all the others. Harmless fun. Pictured from left: Arlen, McNaughten and Allister. [TCM]