THE MARSHAL OF MESA CITY (1939)

Mesa City, Arizona, has become overrun by lawless scoundrels who are given free rein by their buddy, the sheriff (Leon Ames). Schoolteacher Virginia Vale, fed up with the chaos in the streets and with Ames's unwanted attentions, leaves for Yuma. When Ames's masked men hold up the stagecoach, George O'Brien, a retired marshal from Red Valley, intercedes. The stagecoach turns back for repairs, and O'Brien (who retired after cleaning up Red Valley) gets friendly with Vale and she decides to give Mesa City another chance. O'Brien plans to leave but Vale asks him to join her at a dance that night, and when Ames tries to make trouble, O'Brien stays and the mayor appoints him marshal to deal with the hooligans. His first move is to enact an ordinance banning guns in public places except for law officers. Ames, sensing trouble, sends for an old gunslinger pal (Henry Brandon) to help him get rid of O'Brien, but Brandon surprises everyone by taking the marshal's side. O'Brien deputizes Brandon so he can legally carry his gun. The bad guys start plotting in earnest to keep their status in town, but O'Brien and Brandon keep the heat on until a climactic gunfight. This efficient hour-long B-western from RKO is apparently an unofficial remake of an earlier RKO film, THE ARIZONIAN. I found this to be a notch above the norm for a couple of reasons. First, the (for me) unexpected twist of the villainous hired gun turning good (a plot point mirrored with Mongo in BLAZING SADDLES), and second, for the solid acting. O'Brien was a well-regarded silent film star, best known now for SUNRISE, who became a top western star in the talkies, and though he doesn't have a lot of personality, he's solid and commanding without being stiff and boring. Vale is fine and Ames is nicely slimy as the chief bad guy. Mary Gordon, who plays Vale's landlady, is best known as Mrs. Hudson, the landlady of Sherlock Holmes in the Basil Rathbone film series. The climax is a major gunfight but it plays out quickly and in a thick fog of smoke, maybe due to budget limitations. Still, enjoyable. Pictured are O'Brien and Brandon. [TCM]

CHINATOWN SQUAD (1935)

Import/export businessman Albert Raybold is working to help arm the Communists in China by sending them airplanes. He wears a jade ring that gives him cachet in Chinatown among important underworld figures, but the ring doesn't stop him from being murdered (with a fork in his chest) in a private booth at the Peking Café where he had just been given $70,000 dollars in cash for the airplanes. John Yee, owner of the café, finds him and steals the ring before the police arrive. Ted (Lyle Talbot) is an ex-cop who now drives a tourist bus around Chinatown, and he and a busload of folks are dining at the café when the murder occurs. He agrees to help Janet (Valerie Hobson), a woman who knew Raybold and was at the café; a day earlier, she had gotten a telegram saying Raybold had been murdered and was hoping to find some incriminating letters she had sent him. Ted includes her in his busload so she can leave the premises without police interference, but then Ted agrees to help his former cop buddies crack the case. When the cops stop the shipment of planes to China, it turns out that the planes were phony. Missing letters, missing money, and now fake weapons make this case rather sticky, but trust our cocky hero Ted to unravel all the knots and find the killer. I don't have much to say about this second-feature mystery. It's not exceptional in any way, but it satisfied my Saturday afternoon B-movie itch. Its exotic settings are used fairly well, though there are only a handful of Chinese characters and no Asian actors in the credited cast. I always like Talbot's breezy way as a B-lead and he's fine here. The British Hobson, best known as Dr. Frankenstein’s wife in Bride of Frankenstein, is OK, but Andy Devine, as Raybold's semi-comic relief secretary, got on my nerves. The cops bumble along, and Talbot outdoes them at each turn. Apparently in the 1960s this was part of Universal’s horror film package for TV but there is nothing even vaguely horrific about it; it's a light crime thriller all the way. Pictured are Talbot and Hobson. [YouTube]

UNDER THE YUM-YUM TREE (1963)

Edie Adams is a psychology professor; Carol Lynley, her niece, is in Adams' class on marriage. Lynley and her boyfriend (Dean Jones) are fighting their natural desires to have sex, and she is fighting his urge to get married—as they make out under a tree on campus, she says to him, "I won’t be lobbied into marriage by overstimulated glands!" So Lynley has an idea: she wants to move in with Jones on a strictly platonic basis to see how compatible they are before they jump into marriage. As it happens, Adams is moving out of her apartment complex where she has been involved in a casual affair with the scuzzy landlord (Jack Lemmon), who only rents to single beautiful girls. Lynley takes the place and Lemmon is ready for another conquest, but when he discovers Jones' presence, he becomes even more determined to have Lynley. What follows is a series of scenes alternating between Jones being horny and frustrated; Jones and Lynley arguing; and Lemmon trying to sneak a peek inside to make sure they're still platonic, encouraging Jones to do things like throw himself into athletic activity to channel his carnal desires. Finally, the stage is set for the climax, if you will, in which Jones brings home some mescal for a romantic dinner so he can get Lynley drunk and consummate their relationship—but not if Lemmon can stop it.

You may be able to tell from my summary that this is a one-note sex comedy with a laser focus on "will they or won’t they?" Actually, that's not quite accurate. Had it been only that situation, the movie might have been a little more bearable. But Jack Lemmon's sour, unsympathetic, reprehensible character sinks the movie for me. Lynley and Jones make for an attractive and likable pair of horny kids, though the teasing that Lynley does (in theory without realizing it) is a bit much. Adams is fine, and the comic pairing of Imogene Coca and Paul Lynde as a married couple who do work around the complex is fine. But Jack Lemmon's occasional tendency to chew the scenery is indulged constantly, and by 45 minutes in, I was tempted to bail. There is nothing sympathetic about his character, and had Jones killed him in cold blood, I would have called that a happy ending. Robert Lansing plays Adams' current beau, and a very young Bill Bixby has a one-minute part. The title, which is never spoken but may refer to the tree under which we see Lynley and Jones kissing in the beginning, comes from a one-time reference Lemmon makes to sex as "yum-yum." The sets are stagy but nice; I especially love the apartments of Lynley (spacious and modern and multi-level) and Lemmon (lurid and deep red). I realize that in a sex farce, character development is not primary, but I had a hard time buying the Adams and Lemmon relationship—she seems way too brainy to be attracted to him. I would recommend this as a 60s period piece, reflecting the changing morality of the times, and for the lively performances of Lynley and Jones (pictured). Also for the appearance of Orangey, the famous and well-trained movie cat known best for his important role in Breakfast at Tiffany's. [DVD]

TIME OUT FOR RHYTHM (1941)

Harvard educated Danny (Rudy Vallee) and small-time talent agent Mike (Richard Lane) are standing at the bar of the Zodiac Club critiquing singer Frances Lewis (Rosemary Lane). Danny thinks he can help her become a better singer and Mike, who has a crush on her, thinks he can build her into a headliner, so the two join forces and do exactly that, with Frances becoming the first name in the roster of the talent agency they form. Frances becomes a star and marries a millionaire, leaving lovesick Mike behind. Years later, Frances, now divorced and looking to make a comeback, looks Mike up and re-ignites their romance, hoping that she can be the star of a new TV extravaganza that Mike and Danny are producing. But Danny has promised up-and-coming singer Kitty Brown (Ann Miller, pictured at left), former maid to Frances, that the show, with a big Hollywood agent in attendance, will be a showcase for her. Danny, irritated by Frances' demands, tries to sabotage her chances, and when Mike finds out, they split up. Can anything get these two friends back together? And will Kitty get the break she deserves?

The basic plot of this B-musical is right out of the 1930s (42nd Street, the Gold Diggers movies) though the narrative is gossamer thin, with the emphasis here on music and comedy. On that level, this works pretty well. Ann Miller dances up her usual storm to "A-Twiddlin' My Thumbs," singer Joan Merrill (playing herself) does a nice rendition of the title tune, and the musical highlight is "The Boogie Woogie Man," a mini-Busby Berkeley number sung by Pee Wee Hunt. One of my favorite supporting players of the classic era, Allen Jenkins, plays a pianist and gets a rare chance to dance and sing (with Ann Miller), and does a fine job. Vallee is a little too low-key but Lane has some good energy and the two work together well. The Three Stooges are present, and though I do not count myself as a fan, they were enjoyable here in small doses. At one point as they're trying to pose as bad guys, someone asks, "These men are gangsters?" and Vallee replies, "They're not even men." I also quite enjoyed the comic duo of Cobina and Brenda, two wacky secretaries played by Elvia Allman (who had recurring roles on Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies) and Blanche Stewart. The character names come from two famous socialites of the day, and while their humor is not subtle, I found it quite funny, though others may not (lots of face-pulling and man-hungry attitude). In the land of 40s B-musicals, this is a nice standout. [DVD]

FACE OF THE FROG (1959)

Lord Farnsworth and his wife are awakened in the night by odd sounds. Lady Farnsworth thinks it's frogs croaking outside but when she investigates, she sees it's actually a man in a frog mask breaking into their safe and getting away with her jewels. Inspector Hedge of Scotland Yard is stymied so his cocky American nephew Richard Gordon (Joachim Fuchsberger) decides he might be of service, but Hedge is relying on one of his men, Higgins, who has infiltrated the large underworld gang that follows the orders of The Frog; unfortunately, Higgins is found out and disposed of. The Frog has ordered his men to keep an eye on the children of John Bennett, Ray and Ella, and they are told to kill anyone who hangs around Ella too much. Eventually, stray clues in the case bring Richard to visit the Bennetts and, sure enough, as he strolls with Ella, he gets shot at but escapes injury and kicks the attacker's ass. The would-be killer has the stamp of the Frog on his wrist, and is carted off to prison, though he feels certain that a Frog gang member on the inside that he identifies as Number Seven will spring him. Indeed, a trusted policeman turns out to be a Frog spy and frees him. The plot machinations are just beginning to churn: Ray Bennett, a useless would-be playboy, gets a job at the Lolita nightclub and cozies up to Lolita herself; a blind beggar just happens to be around when Frog gang events are happening; someone creeps into Ella's room and freaks her out; Richard suspects that Harry Lime is involved—yes, that seems to the villainous Harry Lime who is played by Orson Welles in the noir classic THE THIRD MAN; there's a death by gassing, a kidnapping, and a gun fight or two before the Frog is unmasked.

I've become a fan of these German krimi films despite (or maybe a little bit because of) their overstuffed and confusing plots, their large casts of characters, and the constant red herrings thrown in our path. Some viewers go so far as to call this film a bit surreal, though I wouldn't go that far. Unlike some other krimi films, this one is less like a gothic melodrama and more like an urban crime movie. Even when I got lost in the wild and wooly incidents, I could still keep some semblance of order in my head about the main plot. Usually considered the first in the krimi genre, this also established Joachim Fuchsberger as the reliable but unexciting hero. I like him very much, and though he plays different characters in each film, he has the same look and same traits in each movie, and as a fairly calm center in the storm of twists and turns, he helps ground the story a bit. Good old reliable Eddi Arent is the sidekick, and supporting cast standouts include Walter Wilz as Ray, Erwin Strahl as a cop named Barclay, and Eva Pflug as Lolita. The damsels in distress are pretty interchangeable in these movies, and Eva Anthese is a little colorless as Ella. Recommended because it's kooky fun. Pictured are Fuchsberger and Arent. Also known as Fellowship of the Frog. [YouTube]

THE SCREAMING SKULL (1958)

Eric brings his new wife Jenni to his family estate which has been shut up for a couple of years, though it has been kept up by the gardener, Mickey, a mentally handicapped young man. The newlyweds have both gone through rough times: Eric's first wife Marion died during a storm by slipping on a wet leaf, hitting her head and drowning in a pond on the estate; Jenni was a witness to both her parents drowning in a boating accident and she had a breakdown, winding up in an asylum for a time. Eric fears she's still a little fragile and enlists the help of his friend and neighbor the Reverend Snow and his wife to help keep an eye on her. A couple of complicating bits of backstory: Eric's first wife Marion was wealthy—the estate belonged to her—and Jenni also comes from money; Mickey the gardener was particularly close to Marion and has never really accepted that she's dead. Despite the best efforts of Eric and the Snows, Jenni starts freaking out pretty quickly: 1) she's certain that she hears Marion's ghost wandering the house at night; 2) she's disturbed by a huge portrait of Marion that still hangs in the house; 3) the unearthly cries of the peacocks who live on the estate startle her. Then a creepy skull, that others don't seem to see, starts cropping up in weird places.

This B-thriller will remind you at various times of movies like REBECCA (the possibly sinister influence of the first wife) and GASLIGHT (is Mickey, resentful of the new mistress of the house, trying to drive Jenni back to the asylum?). Though there is promise in the plot, the low budget, sloppy writing, and variable acting work against it. The big house has almost no furniture—it's all supposedly still in storage—which makes me think the producers just found a big empty house to use, but actually the sparse settings wind up working well. The character of Mickey (played by the film's director Alex Nicol) is poorly conceived and not terribly well acted. John Hudson (as Eric), Russ Conway (Rev. Snow) and Toni Johnson (Mrs. Snow; the actor's name is misspelled in the credits) are pretty good, but Peggy Webber as Jenni gives a disappointing two-note performance—she's either on the verge of going crazy or she's blandly passive. The title skull is not very scary. We expect there to be rational explanations for the haunting, and there are, but at the climax things take an odd turn toward the supernatural, which in a better written script might have worked well. This American International release opens with a William Castle-like gimmick, offering to pay for the coffin of any who dies of shock during the movie. Not gonna happen. Pictured are Hudson and Webber. [DVD]

LE MARIAGE DE CHIFFON (1942)

In 1904, on a dark Paris street, a 16-year old girl named Corysande, known as Chiffon by her family, loses a shoe while dashing about in the rain. The Duc d'Aubières, a colonel considerably older than Chiffon, is taken with her and, in a nod to the Cinderella story, grabs her shoe out of the street, apparently intending to return it and begin a relationship. He begins courting her, much to the delight of her mother, as he is an aristocrat, but Chiffon is taken with the younger De Bray, a head-in-the-clouds dreamer who is trying to build his own biplane, and who is her uncle (by marriage, as is constantly pointed out, as he is the brother of Chiffon's stepfather). This turns into a mildly risqué romantic comedy of manners where, despite the proto-feminist feelings of Chiffon and much talk of immorality (Chiffon playfully confesses to an "affair" with the Colonel, though nothing untoward actually happens between them), things remain fairly traditional and the ending is never in doubt. Directed by Claude Autant-Lara during the German occupation, this is high-class escapist fare, set in what was the recent past and untroubled by the shadows of the war. It's competently made with some mild stylistic touches here and there—perhaps inspired by the comedies of Ernst Lubitsch. Odette Joueux, who was almost 30, plays Chiffon and does a nice job, though perhaps thankfully she's nothing like a teenager; that might be too creepy for today's viewers. I enjoyed the performance of Jacques Dumesnil as De Bray—he comes off as clueless and sort of accidentally charming. André Luguet is fine as the Colonel. I saw this on a Saturday afternoon and by Sunday evening, it had largely left my mind, but that's what we sometimes want on a Saturday afternoon. Pictured are Joyeux and Dumesnil. [DVD]

LURE OF THE WILDERNESS (1952) / SWAMP WATER (1941)

Usually when I review an original film and a remake, I consider the original the basic beginning point and reference the remake from that film, but in this case, I saw LURE first and SWAMP a few days later, so since LURE feels like the base to me, I’ll start with that. In 1910 in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia, Ben (Jeffrey Hunter) and his father Zack (Tom Tully) are part of a search party looking for two trappers who disappeared into the dangerous swamp, full of alligators and cottonmouth snakes. Ben's hunting dog Careless jumps out of the canoe and into the swamp, and that night, against his father's orders, Ben takes off into the swamp to look for the dog. He finds it but is knocked unconscious. When Ben comes to, we see that he is being held prisoner by fugitive Jim Harper (Walter Brennan), who has been in hiding in the swamp because of a murder rap from years ago, and his daughter Laurie (Jean Peters). Laurie wants to kill Ben to prevent him from bringing the law in after them, but Ben promises he won't. Jim insists that one of the killings was in self-defense, but the other one was committed by the lowlife Longden brothers. Ben stays with them for a while and, despite Laurie's attitude, Jim can see that an attraction might develop. Taking their side, Ben decides to do some trapping with Jim, and sell the pelts in town to raise money for a lawyer for Jim. But when Ben gets back to town, things get complicated: Zack kicks him out of the house, and Ben winds up torn between his gal Noreen and his swamp gal Laurie. The Longden brothers figure out what's going on and pile on Ben, practically drowning him in the river until Zack saves him and son and father are reconciled. But when Jim and Laurie start to doubt Ben's intentions, it's unclear if justice will be done or if Ben and Laurie can make it together in civilization. Pictured are Peters and Hunter.

Though no masterpiece, this is an enjoyable backwoods melodrama, with nice use of Technicolor and effective location shooting in and around the swamp. The outrageously handsome Jeffrey Hunter, who might seem too lightweight for the lead, is quite good, and given that he is in almost every scene, carries the film well. Brennan doesn't stray far from his rural persona, Peters is a bit on the bland side but works well with Hunter, and the rest of the cast more or less fades into the background, with Jack Elam recognizable as one of the brutal Longden brothers. The 1941 version, from acclaimed director Jean Renoir, is visually more artfully done, in moody black & white, and features Walter Brennan as the same character (named Tom here). A young Dana Andrews is Ben—he's not as good-looking or as confident as Hunter but he's fine. Anne Baxter bests Jean Peters as the daughter (named Julie), though the character is presented differently; here, she has not gone into the swamp with her father, but instead lives in town, taken care of by the general store owner. Walter Huston delivers his usual commanding performance as Ben's father, with their reconciliation scene carrying a bit more emotional weight here. Ward Bond and Guinn Williams are effective as the villainous brothers. There was apparently some location shooting in the Okefenokee for this version. Here, the dog's name is Trouble, and there is a melodramatic subplot involving John Carradine as a slimy fellow who is out to court Huston's wife. Parts of LURE are shot-for-shot reproductions of scenes in SWAMP WATER, and SWAMP is definitely the more atmospheric film, but LURE has its considerable pleasures. Pictured at left is Andrews entering the swamp. [Criterion Channel]

FIND THE BLACKMAILER (1943)

Rhodes, the reform-minded candidate for mayor (Gene Lockhart) comes to see private eye D.L Trees (Jerome Cowan), partly because he's not well-known (and consequently not busy). Rhodes wants Trees to track down a talking crow—great hook for the plot, huh? Here goes: Rhodes is engaged to Dorothy, sister to ex-con Fred Molnar, but she doesn't know that he spent time in jail, and Rhodes helped hide that from her. Now, Molnar is trying to blackmail Rhodes or else he'll spill the beans about his own past. Apparently worried that Rhodes might try to have him killed (because Rhodes, in a moment of anger, threatened exactly that), Molnar has trained his pet crow to say "Don’t kill me, Rhodes!" Rhodes knows that Molnar has plenty of enemies and if he winds up dead, Rhodes will be fingered. Trees takes the goofy case, and when he goes to see Molnar, Molnar is already dead, in a room with a camera on a tripod and a broken flash bulb near the body. A small cast of suspicious characters soon presents itself: a bookie named Page whom Molnar cheated out of $30,000; Hickey, Molnar's bodyguard, who was found unconscious in the kitchen; Molnar's hotsy-totsy mistress who may have been involved with the blackmail scheme; Molnar's lawyer who may be awfully cozy with the mistress. There's also the cops and Trees' secretary who is desperate for her back pay, and let's not forget Jimmy the Crow, who has his own little secret.

Like most Warner Bros. B-movies of the era, this has good production values, a fairly strong cast, and a short running time. It also has an overstuffed plot that starts to fall apart as soon as you give it any thought, though I must admit I liked the final reveal about the crow. But the fast pace doesn't give you much time to reflect on the plotting, and the light tone allows you to sit back and enjoy the shenanigans. Cowan, the short-lived Miles Archer in THE MALTESE FALCON and the unpopular prosecutor in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, didn't get many leads but he's fine here and he has a good rapport with Lockhart, one of Hollywood's best character actors (and who played the judge opposite Cowan's lawyer in MIRACLE). Faye Emerson gets second billing as the mistress, but Marjorie Hoshelle as Pandora, Trees' secretary and possible love interest, should have had second billing. John Harmon and Robert Kent deserve mention as the bodyguard and the lawyer. Pictured are Cowan, Kent and Lockhart. [DVD]

THUNDER ON THE HILL (1951)

In rural England, a storm has caused dangerous flooding, and people are trudging uphill to take refuge at Our Lady of Rheims hospital and convent. Sister Mary Bonaventure (Claudette Colbert) is in charge and, though generally well-respected, at least one woman, Nurse Phillips, feels she is too rule-bound, and holds her responsible for the suicide of Sister Mary's sister (a plot point that is never really clarified). Among the refugees is Isabel Jeffreys, the fragile wife of Dr. Edward Jeffreys, and Valerie Carns, a prisoner being transported to her execution after being found guilty of killing her brother. She is alternately sad and bitter and her complicated backstory comes out. Her brother Jason led a dissolute life and suffered a stroke at a young age. Under the care of Dr. Jeffreys, he lingered for some time before his death when poison was administered to him in his medicine. Valerie had access to his medicine and had voiced the opinion that Jason would be better off dead. With everyone stuck on the hill until the flood waters recede, Sister Mary, feeling a certain empathy with Valerie (blamed for the death of a loved one), discovers newspaper articles about the case and begins to think that Valerie might indeed be innocent. Over the course of the night, hidden secrets are revealed and Sister Mary finds herself targeted by someone who might be the guilty party.

An early Dougas Sirk movie, this is an enjoyable melodrama with a nice Gothic feel. Colbert is not my favorite classic-era actress—she always strikes me as a bit of a cold fish. Here, that feeling could work for the character, but she seems to fight it, as though unwilling to have Sister Mary come off as too unsympathetic. Ann Blyth is a bit too shallow as Valerie, trying on a variety of actorly styles to keep us uncertain as to how we should feel about the character. But neither performance detracts too much from the film, partly because there are several very good supporting performances here. The fabulous Gladys Cooper is the Mother Superior; Phyllis Stanley is bracing as the unpleasant Nurse Phillips; Robert Douglas is very good as Dr. Jeffreys, and Anne Crawford is suitably nervous (and unreadable) as his wife. The always welcome Connie Gilchrist has a small but important role, and Norma Varden, Michael Pate, Philip Friend and John Abbott fill out other small roles nicely. The film's visual style definitely conjures up a Gothic atmosphere, and William Daniels' cinematography is splendid. Things build slowly to a dramatic climax and a satisfying ending. Pictured are Blyth and Colbert. [Criterion Channel]

THE DAUGHTER OF DAWN (1920)

This western, filmed in Oklahoma, is the only known silent movie made with an all Native American cast, featuring members of the Comanche and Kiowa tribes. It centers on a traditional love triangle (actually involving four people) The title character is the daughter of the Kiowa chief. It's time for her to marry, and Black Wolf, a bit of a shady character but considered a good catch as he has many horses, asks the chief for her hand. But the chief wants to allow her to pick her own husband and she is in love with White Eagle, less well off but more wholesome. The fourth figure is Red Wing who has a thing for Black Wolf, even though he ignores her. White Eagle clearly has the inside track, as we see when he and Daughter of Dawn take a romantic moonlight canoe ride, watched jealously by both Black Wolf and Red Wing. The chief soon sets up a courage test: to win Daughter of Dawn, the two men must jump from the top of a hill with the survivor winning. White Eagle leaps and is injured but survives; Black Wolf chickens out of the jump and is expelled from the tribe. Meanwhile, a group of Comanches is plotting to steal Kiowa horses and to eventually raid the Kiowa village. Guess who betrays his people by helping in the raid? Direction by Norbert A. Myles (who later settled into a career as a Hollywood make-up artist) is serviceable, as is the acting, with White Parker the standout as White Eagle. What was interesting to me was how much the actors used their fingers and hands in addition to speech in communicating with each other, which I assume was a hallmark of the way the tribes actually communicated. The actors provided their own costumes and settings. I don’t know how realistic the storyline was, but the ending is nicely melodramatic in a traditional Hollywood fashion. At 80 minutes, the pace drags occasionally but this is worth a viewing. Pictured are White Parker (White Eagle) and Esther LeBarre (Daughter of Dawn). [Criterion Channel]

CITY OF FEAR (1959)

Vince Ryker (Vince Edwards, pictured) and a fellow prisoner have just pulled off an escape from San Quentin. As Ryker speeds down the road in a stolen car, his friend has a heart attack and dies in the front seat. Vince ditches the car, steals another one after killing the driver (events we don't see), and on the way to Los Angeles to meet up with his lover June (Patricia Blair), picks up a hitchhiking sailor to help him get past any suspicious cops. Dropping the sailor off, Vince has his rendezvous with June in a cheap motel and shows her the canister full of raw heroin, used in a prison experiment, that he has stolen from the prison. His plan is to sell it and get far away, but what he doesn't know, and the cops do, is that the canister is actually filled with highly radioactive Cobalt-60. The narrative shifts to the police as they send out cops with Geiger counters, hoping to track down Ryker. Even though the canister remains closed (despite Ryker trying to open it), trace amounts of the Cobalt are picked up by the Geiger counters, and he winds up potentially sickening those around him. The rest of the film is a tense cat-and-mouse chase around town with Ryker getting sweaty, sick, and weak, still not knowing what he's carrying. I’ll watch Vince Edwards in any of his 50s film noirs—he's handsome and broody and dark and sexy and hairy and…well, you get the picture. He's got the antihero persona down pat (HIT AND RUN and MURDER BY CONTRACT to name two) and he holds the screen well—you know he's going to come to no good, but it's fun to see how far he'll fall. He's definitely the main attraction here in terms of the cast; the few other supporting players fade into the background. B-movie character actors Lyle Talbot and John Archer are fine as the main cops, and Patricia Blair is as good as she needs to be as the girlfriend. The effective score, an early work by the legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith (eventually nominated for 18 Oscars for score or song) is alternately jazzy and tense. The film's low budget works against any large-scale sense of danger for the city, despite the cops calling for a city-wide evacuation plan, but overall this is a solid B-noir. [TCM]

NABONGA (1944)

T.F. Stockwell, wanted on charges of bank embezzlement of securities and jewels, flees Cairo with his young daughter Doreen in a small chartered plane. During a storm, the plane crashes in a jungle. When the pilot sees the riches Stockwell has with him, Stockwell shoots him dead, then realizes that Doreen has wandered off. The last we see of Doreen, she is standing next to a wounded ape. Several years later, Ray Gorman (Buster Crabbe) arrives at a jungle village near where Stockwell's plane went down. Gorman's father wound up getting blamed for Stockwell's crimes and committed suicide, and Gorman is seeking either revenge or the jewels. He has heard rumors of a white jungle witch who lives alone in the jungle and, thinking it may be Stockwell's daughter, he tries to find her. Following him is unscrupulous treasure hunter Carl Hurst (Barton MacLane) and his lover Marie (Fifi D'Orsay). Gorman eventually meets the sarong-wearing Doreen (Julie London) who lives alone quite comfortably in a jungle cave with Samson, the ape she befriended as a child. She and Gorman hit it off, but when he tries to talk her into giving him her late father's riches, she understandably says no, they belong to her. Gorman can't be too aggressive because Samson's instinct is to be very protective of Doreen. Eventually, Carl and Marie appear, causing trouble for all. A rather abrupt ending leaves the bad guys taken care of and Doreen apparently ready to head to civilization with Gorman and the jewels..

This is an average low-budget jungle melodrama, made watchable mostly by Buster Crabbe's likable performance and the presence of Julie London in her first film. Though she continued acting (including a seven season stint on the 70s show Emergency), she became better known as a torch singer ("Cry Me a River," a strangely sexy version of the bubblegum song "Yummy Yummy Yummy" that was prominently featured in an episode of Six Feet Under). At the tender age of 18, she's a bit uncertain in the role of a jungle goddess, though to be fair, we never see her acting as a traditional jungle goddess (like Sheena) would—she seems happy to live alone with her ape and have little to do with any humans. Crabbe almost veers into comic relief with his somewhat exaggerated reactions to Samson, but otherwise he's the perfect stoic B-movie jungle hero. MacLane and D'Orsay are serviceable villains. Busy B-actor Ray 'Crash' Corrigan, who made dozens of westerns, plays the gorilla, something he did in several movies; the title is apparently the ineffable name of the gorilla, though in the movie I only heard it called Samson. The jungle animal stock footage is not especially well integrated into the movie, but that's par for the course. [YouTube]

THE SINISTER MONK (1965)

It's night, it's raining, and in Darkwood Hall, an old man on his deathbed calls in a notary and changes his will. He still leaves the house and grounds as a girls' boarding school, run by his daughter Patricia, but he otherwise cuts his other children off and leaves all his money to his granddaughter Gwendoline, whose father is in prison for murder. As the notary drives away, someone throws a rock at his car, causing it to veer off the road and catch fire. That someone, we learn later, is brother Richard, a lawyer, who then steals the will. He tells Patricia and brother William that he's willing to destroy the will so they can all share the money, except leaving them each only 10% with Richard getting the rest. There's also Patricia’s odd son Ronny who wants to marry Gwendoline even though she can barely stand the sight of him. During a school holiday, with only a few students remaining, Patricia invites Gwendoline to the house, ostensibly to protect her from the family's scheming. But Darkwood Hall may not be so safe. An eccentric artist who keeps pigeons and specializes in death masks is renting a room in the attic, and he has a yen to make a mask of Gwendoline. The new French teacher seems off-putting and tends to skulk. The caretaker Eddie seems likable enough, but could he have secrets of his own?  Finally, as the title implies, there is the ghost of a monk that supposedly haunts the grounds, and the girls start seeing him around. But as dead bodies start to pile up (a couple of the girls, a Scotland yard inspector), we discover the monk is no ghost—we see the hooded figure use a bullwhip to strangle his victims from a distance. But who is he and what is his goal?

This is my first 'krimi' film, which I have learned from Diabolique magazine "is a genre of West German crime thrillers typically based on the works of British mystery and crime novelist Edgar Wallace." They tend to involve murder, masked criminals, revenge plots, and often blur genre lines to mix fantasy or horror in with crime movie elements. They also influenced the later giallo genre. Actually, this isn't quite my first krimi, as Diabolique says that movies based on works by Wallace’s son are considered krimi, which means THE STRANGLER OF BLACKMOOR CASTLE counts. Another film blogger recommended this, and I found it to be a lot of fun. The first thing you should know, however, is the blaring, jazzy score is wildly inappropriate for almost every scene in which it appears. It's catchy, but I found that it often took me out of the atmosphere of the scene. In the last half, when the film takes on the feel of a spy thriller, the music feels more organic. The movie is certainly overplotted—exposition keeps building up right through to the last half-hour—but it's fairly easy to follow. With all the plotpoints and atmosphere (Darkwood Hall, which seems to be an actual mansion, is a great setting), the acting is mostly beside the point. Karin Dor, who did many krimi films, is quite good as Gwendoline, Hartmut Reck overacts shamelessly as Ronny (as does his English dialogue dubber), and everyone else is satisfactory. The whip murders are very effective, with good staging and editing. I’ll be looking for some more krimi soon. [Amazon Prime]

NiGHT GAMES (1966)

Jan brings his fiancée to his childhood mansion in an attempt to exorcise some psychological demons, mostly involving his late mother with whom he had an unusual and intense relationship. Jan and his fiancée Mariana walk through the house as Jan relives painful memories from the past. The film jolts back and forth between the present day, with Jan apparently struggling with sexual and emotional blockages, and the past, as we see the much younger Jan growing up with his mother Irene in a house full of bizarre hangers-on. The movie opens with a freakish gang of partygoers celebrating Irene's delivery of a stillborn child, and things get weirder from there. Many of the scenes feel inspired by the films of Bergman and Fellini, but the proceedings are empty and I never felt much of anything for Jan and his struggles. The movie, directed by Mai Zetterling, was presented at Cannes and shown in private for the judges; later when it was entered in the San Francisco film festival, Shirley Temple, who was on the festival's board, resigned, protesting that it was "pornography for profit." (Isn’t all pornography produced for profit? And most non-pornographic movies as well?) Contemporary reviews mention "orgies," though most of those scenes are just of busy, debauched parties. But one sequence that did make me a bit queasy involves the 12-year-old Jan (played by the 15-year-old Jorgen Lindstrom, also the young boy in Bergman's PERSONA) lying in bed in a nightshirt with his mother; he begins masturbating under the covers and when his mother pulls the covers down to punish him, we see his genitals. Making the scene that explicit actually worked against its effectiveness by pulling me out of the narrative, startled to see what I saw. Ingrid Thulin gives a good performance as the overbearing mother, but Keve Hjelm is listless and uninteresting as the adult Jan. If you stick with it, the ending is satisfying, even if I don’t actually believe that the final event would be effective in the long term as an exorcism. Pictured are Hjelm as Jan and Lena Brundin as Mariana. [Criterion Channel]

THE ARGYLE SECRETS (1948)

Washington newspaper columnist Allen Pierce has been working on a promised post-war exposé involving some important people. His primary document is a huge book he calls the Argyle Album. When he winds up in a hospital with heart troubles, he calls just one journalist in, Harry Mitchell (William Gargan), and in obvious distress, gives him a photocopy of the front cover of the book and promptly dies. Harry leaves to call his story in and lets his photographer Pinky into the room to take a picture. When Harry returns, the doctor discovers that Pierce is indeed dead, but he has a scalpel stuck in his heart. Then Pinky is found dead behind a screen. Realizing he is now a murder suspect, Harry goes on the run and tries to find the book. At Pierce's hotel room, he finds Pierce's secretary and promptly knocks her out so he can ransack the room. But soon a rotund Southern gentleman in a Panama hat (Jack Reitzen) shows up, being greasily ingratiating and threatening, looking for the Argyle Album himself. Harry disarms him, but later is visited by Marla (Marjorie Lord) who is trying to find the book for her boss, the German-accented Mr. Winter (John Banner). Harry finds out that the book contains information on some big American industrialists who collaborated with the Nazis during the war. He wants to find the book to finish Pierce’s exposé, but others want the book for themselves.

As a classic movie buff, as soon as Panama appeared, I was reminded of Sydney Greenstreet (large, mannered but menacing, photographed from below). Then Marla and Winter showed up as rivals for the book and I realized this was inspired by The Maltese Falcon. Gargan is Bogart, Reitzen is Greenstreet, Lord is Mary Astor (she even calls herself "utterly rotten," echoing a line of Astor's), Ralph Byrd, who played Dick Tracy in the movies, is a cop on Harry's trail like Barton MacLane is on Bogart, and the Argyle Album is the Falcon. In this case, only some of the bad guys want money; the others want to keep their Nazi secrets out of the newspapers. There’s more violence here than in Falcon, involving not just guns and fists but an acetylene torch. Robert Kellard, a favored B-actor of mine, most notable in a Fu Manchu serial, has what amounts to a cameo in a cute scene involving a cop, his mom, and a kid practicing on his violin. Gargan, a B-actor whom I usually like, is a bit colorless here, as are most of the supporting players, but maybe I'm being unfair because my reaction is colored by my love of The Maltese Falcon. I liked seeing Marjorie Lord (pictured with Gargan) from the Danny Thomas TV show in a role besides dutiful wife, and another sitcom wife, Barbara Billingsly (Leave It to Beaver) has a small role as Pierce's secretary, the one who gets punched in the face. The movie’s B-atmosphere is limiting but I enjoyed this overall. [TCM]

PORT OF SHADOWS (1938)

On a foggy night, Jean, an army deserter, hitches a ride to the port city of Le Havre; he talks of the fog of battlefields and of killing a man face to face, and hopes to start a new life by getting out of France altogether. When he grabs the steering wheel to stop the driver from hitting a stray dog in the road, Jean is forced to get out, with the dog following him, and eventually winds up in a shadowy bar, not much more than a shack, near the docks. Assuming that the military police are after him, Jean seeks a change of clothing. In the meantime he spends the night there, chatting with young Nelly; her boyfriend Maurice has recently vanished and she is on the run from her guardian Zabel, who himself is being hunted by the thuggish Lucien—and later we learn that Zabel has killed Maurice out of jealousy. An artist talks about painting "things hidden behind other things," and leaves Jean his civilian clothes before he commits suicide by walking into the ocean. As Jean makes plans to hop a ship to Venezuela, life keeps getting in his way. Zabel offers him money to kill Lucien, but Jean keeps getting on Lucien's bad side by slapping him in public, and soon Lucien may be planning to kill Jean. Jean and Nelly become lovers, and just as he is about to sail, he saves Nelly from the brutal Zabel by killing him. And then Lucien shows up…

Often called a work of poetic realism (and a forerunner of film noir), this is a beautiful movie to look at, and has a gloomily fatalistic feel. From the moment we see Jean (Jean Gabin, pictured on a noir style street), we know he is doomed, as are most of the other characters we meet. That doesn’t stop us from getting caught up in their stories; in some movies, these people might just be symbols, but here they are fleshed out enough for us to develop some feelings for them. We even worry about the dog, who Jean takes on the ship with him. He ties him up in his room before he gets off the ship to save Nelly, and the dog makes an effective appearance in the final scene. Michele Morgan, who became very popular, is perfect as the abused Nelly, and the great character actor Michel Simon brings to life the slimy Zabel. Frankly, it feels like the suicidal artist is the only one who gets an easy way out of this foggy, shadowy life we often feel stuck in. In French and available in a great print from Criterion. French title: LE QUAI DES BRUMES. [DVD]

ILLEGAL (1932)

Gambling addict Franklyn Dean has spent his wife Evelyn's inheritance (from her first husband), and, as she has two children from her first marriage to raise, she has finally had enough. She pays off one last debt and sends him off to exile in Cape Town. Her kindly neighbor Albert, a former headwaiter, commiserates with her until winnings from that last gambling debt are delivered. With that windfall, she buys the restaurant where Albert used to work, updates it to include a secret gambling room and illegal after-hours booze availability (though she kicks the hookers out), calls it the Scarecrow Club, and with Albert at her side, makes a huge success. A few years later, thinking that gambling and drink had threatened to cheat her daughters out of their place in life, she uses her profits to send the kids to a good boarding school, while keeping her living secret from them. More years later, as the daughters are ready to graduate, the cops bust the Scarecrow Club for gambling and Evelyn is sentenced to three months in jail. When the girls discover this, they come home and decide to keep the club running, legally. As the same time as Evelyn is about to be released, their stepfather arrives in London and puts the moves on one of the daughters. Tragedy ensues. This melodrama from a British unit of Warner Brothers, like many other films from the early 30s, is stagy and static in the dialogue scenes, though the nightclub sequences have some energy in performance and in camera movement. Isobel Elsom, who played high society ladies throughout the 40s and 50s, is a bit of a drab stick as Evelyn; the character has our sympathies but I never really cared that much about her situation. But Ivor Barnard as Albert pretty much saves the show; he's funny and appealing, and as no romance develops between him and Evelyn, I read him as a gay-coded character, which made things a bit more interesting. The last ten minutes or so cram a lot of plot and detail in, as though they suddenly realized that they only had one more day on the studio lot. Not a bad movie but not easy to recommend. Pictured are Elsom and Barnard. [TCM]

THEY MET IN THE DARK (1943)

During WWII, commander Richard Heritage (James Mason) is discharged from the British navy for negligence of duty when a ship he was supposed to be protecting was destroyed by the Nazis. His defense is that Nazi spies stole his genuine orders and replaced them with fake ones, and he sets out to prove it. His first visit is to a manicurist named Mary who would have had the chance to pull the switch. A mind reader and hypnotist named the Great Riccardo is setting up a date with her, but she agrees to meet Richard later. He winds up tracking her down that night at a cottage on the outskirts of town where a young woman named Laura (Joyce Howard) has also arrived, ostensibly to visit her uncle. Laura finds Mary dead, clutching a piece of paper with the name of a theatrical agency on it—the same, as it happens, that the Great Riccardo is attached to. Laura and Richard meet in the dark, in passing as she's leaving and he’s arriving. The next day, when the police arrive, the dead girl has vanished. As Richard and Mary investigate separately, they wind up meeting up often and soon joining forces. What’s going on at the theatrical agency, and how is Riccardo involved?

Things get a bit complicated from here on, but this B-mystery never really gets confusing. Mason and Howard work well together—in the first couple of scenes, Mason wears a patently false beard that's supposed to be real but he shaves it off before too long. We know who the spies are from early on, so the suspense is in how Mason and Howard will expose them. At times, this has the spirit of a Hitchcock movie like THE 39 STEPS, particularly when it comes down to showing exactly how the spies get their information out to their fellow Nazi, a clever bit that I won't spoil. The supporting cast is fine, especially David Farrar (BLACK NARCISSUS) who, though seventh billed, has a big role in the outcome of the film. This tends to be damned with faint praise by critics, but I quite enjoyed it. Once again, I must note that this is misleadingly included in a boxed set of British noir films, and it is most certainly not noir. Pictured are Farrar and Mason. [DVD]

THE BREAKING POINT (1950)

Harry Morgan (John Garfield) runs a charter boat business along the California coast with his associate Wesley (Juano Hernandez). They've been a bit down on their luck lately. Both men have families, and Harry's wife (Phyllis Thaxter) has been trying to talk him into selling the boat and getting a job on her father's lettuce ranch, but Harry wants his freedom. His latest client is an obnoxious businessman named Hannigan who charters the boat for a fishing trip in the waters of Mexico. Hannigan brings along a companion, a sexy blond named Leona (Patricia Neal) who flirts a bit with Harry. In Mexico, Harry's lawyer (Wallace Ford) talks him into taking Mr. Sing (Victor Sen Yung) and a group of several Chinese refugees back to California. It's illegal, but when Hannigan abandons Harry (and Leona) without paying, he decides to take on the job. It all goes to hell and Harry winds up in trouble with the border patrol. Harry's troubles pile up: his boat is impounded, his wife suspects he's sweet on Leona (and she dyes her hair brassy blond like Leona in an attempt to keep her husband's interest); when he gets his boat back, he is threatened with foreclosure on it. Finally, the lawyer offers him one last big job, but it means getting involved in a racetrack heist and with armed men who won't hesitate to use their guns if they suspect betrayal.

It's tempting to make that summary longer by spilling all the beans, but in this case, I think spoilers might really make the movie less interesting. Suffice to say that there's a nice shoot-out finale on the boat, and that, though Garfield survives, the final shot is one of the most heart-wrenching ones of classic-era films. Sadly, this is one of Garfield's last movies before a heart attack cut his life short at the age of 39. It's the second Hollywood movie based on Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not, and this one is apparently more faithful than the first version, famous for its pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It's a solid seafaring melodrama with good acting all the way around. Wallace Ford, as the shyster lawyer, seems to be filling in for Sydney Greenstreet, both in his looks and his attitude, but he's fine. Hernandez (pictured with Garfield at left) is excellent in a role that allows a Black man to be something other than servile or scared or comic relief. Neal is good as the hotsy totsy bad news. Garfield's character is not totally sympathetic but we root for him nevertheless. [TCM]

THE LOVE MACHINE (1971)

When we first see John Phillip Law, he's doing a human interest news story on the New York affiliate for TV network IBC. Dyan Cannon, the young wife of the head of the network (Robert Ryan), is impressed by him—more so his looks than his talent, it seems—and she talks her husband into making him the national news anchor, over the objections of Jackie Cooper, the network president. (I was constantly confused by people's titles and therefore the power relationships that are in play.) In six months, Law, who lives alone with a caged sparrow he rescued, is the head of the news department and is juggling relationships with several women. Jodi Wexler, an up-and-coming model, falls in love with him and gives him an ankh ring, which means nothing to him as he sleeps with whomever he fancies and isn't about to be tied down. This even applies to Dyan Cannon, who, while cheating on her husband with Law, becomes unreasonably jealous when she catches Law in a threesome. Law's closest, perhaps only, friend is gay fashion photographer David Hemmings. Law tells Hemmings, "The thing I like about you is you never make a pass"; Hemmings' reply is "I'm biding my time." Cooper sells a variety show to IBC with second-rate comic Shecky Greene, partly to stick it to Law, who hates the idea. The show's a hit, leading to tense relations between Cooper and Law, with Ryan trying to keep the peace but also realizing that Law is more important to the network than Cooper. Eventually, Jodi commits suicide, and a kinky joke on the part of Hemmings involving a slave bracelet threatens to bring Law down on a morals clause charge.

I took almost three pages of plot summary notes on this movie, so I've left a lot out. But the bloated narrative serves the soap opera tone of the movie perfectly. Based on a Jacqueline Susann novel, audiences expected trashy, sexy melodrama, and they got it, though the movie did not do nearly as well financially as the earlier VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. In some ways, this is a slightly better movie than DOLLS; it's a little glossier and in general better acted. But it's not as fun as DOLLS. There is no Patty Duke yelling, "Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!" and no one's wig gets flushed down a toilet. There's also a big hole in the center of the film in the form of the title character (actually, Law calls television "the love machine," but we all know it's really him). Law was never a very demonstrative actor, and his plastic performances as the hunky angel in BARBARELLA and anti-hero of DANGER: DIABOLIK may well be his career peaks. His glossy looks serve him well here as a face onto which his various admirers can read whatever they want, but his plastic performance gives us not one iota of insight into the character's inner life or motivations—granted that's partly due to the script, and may well be intentional, but it makes it difficult to care about him, even during his final downfall, which is more or less played for laughs (in fact, the ambiguous ending suggests that he escapes a downfall altogether). 

Old pros Ryan and Cooper are fine, though Cooper has to suffer the indignity of a weirdly stand-alone camp-comic scene of the Hallelujah Chorus playing as he comes out of a meeting. Cannon acquits herself well, though Shecky Greene seems miscast and uncomfortable in a role that could have been based on him. In smaller roles, I liked Maureen Arthur as a PR worker known as the "Celebrity Banger," and William Roerick as a network assistant who is present for most of the big blowups. Greg Mullavey (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman) pops up in a couple of scenes, and Jodi Wexler, a model who never made another movie, is fine as the model and tragic figure all melodramas need. David Hemmings is saddled with the part of the stereotyped gay man, but he seems to be trying to make it a little subtler than the norm in those days, and he largely succeeds. He's the only character I thought might actually be fun to spend time with. We know that Law's character, Robin Stone, has deep-seeded problems, and for a time it's suggested he might hiding gay tendencies. In one scene when he declines to sleep with a hooker, she calls him a fag and he smacks the shit out of her; in another scene, when an executive wonders out loud if Stone is AC/DC, Cannon replies, "Balls." A gay smear is behind the final scene, but Stone remains steely straight all the way through. It might have been fun if a little real ambiguity crept in about his sexual proclivities. This is far from a great film, but as a chic 70s melodrama, it's fairly watchable. Pictured are Cannon and Law. [DVD]

MURDER IN HARLEM (1935)

Arthur Vance, a security guard at a chemical laboratory, makes his midnight rounds and finds a dead woman, Myrtle Stanfield, on the floor of a small storeroom. When the police arrive, they find two oddly worded crumpled-up notes near her body that seem to implicate the watchman (one says, "The tall Negro did it"). Suddenly, we cut to a flashback from three years earlier which involves none of these characters. Henry Glory is trying to raise money for law school by selling his self-published romance novel door to door. One of his customers sends him to The Catbird, a good-time girl who lives in an apartment building across the street, but he rings the wrong doorbell and winds up selling his book to the sweet and innocent Claudia. Over time, sparks fly until The Catbird's thugs mistake him for someone else and knock him out and drag him into the Catbird's rooms. He assumes Claudia was in cahoots with the Catbird, and he ends his relationship with Claudia. Back in the present time, Glory is now a lawyer (and still writing novels), Arthur the watchman is Claudia's brother, and Claudia visits Glory at his office and asks him to take Arthur's case, which he does. Eventually, it comes out that Brisbane, Arthur's boss, claims he saw Arthur and Myrtle sneak off to the storeroom together that afternoon and his story is corroborated by his assistant Lem Hawkins, but when Claudia meets up with Hawkins at a party, she gets him drunk and another story emerges, one that could clear Arthur.

Most movie viewers, whether they are aware of it or not, adjust their expectations for a film based on genre. People hold Marvel superhero movies to a different standard than they would a low budget horror movie on Shudder. Similarly, classic movie buffs don't judge a B-movie from the 40s by the same standards as an A-movie like Casablanca. This film is an example of a race movie, a film made by Black performers and filmmakers, usually with very low budgets and outside of the studio system, so anyone watching this film needs to adjust to the at-times amateurish feel of the onscreen proceedings. This one, from director and writer Oscar Micheaux, has narrative problems, including the odd positioning of the three-year flashback, and some wooden performances, but taking those limitations into account, this is a fairly entertaining example of the race movie genre. The lead actor, Clarence Books (as Henry) is not terribly charismatic; I was assuming he was delivering some extra afternoon delight to his female readers, as there is an odd fade-out and fade-in during his first sale, but that seems not to be the case. Dorothy Van Engle is a bit better as Claudia, as is Bee Freeman as The Catbird. Despite some plotholes, the story is easy to follow and has a satisfying ending. In the opening scene, Arthur acts very suspiciously as though he is expecting to find a body in the storeroom, but this seems to just be the result of awkward acting. Out of the blue, there are a couple of musical numbers that have nothing to do with anything, including a delightful soft-shoe tap number (pictured above). At 90 minutes, it feels a big dragged out at times, but it's watchable and interesting from a historical perspective. [Criterion Channel]

LYDIA (1941)

The elderly, wealthy Lydia MacMillan is being honored for her life's work with children, culminating in the opening of an orphanage for the blind and crippled. Her old friend Michael Fitzpatrick is honoring her in a more private way, hosting a small gathering of the four most important men in her life, though only three have shown up. As they chat, they all reminisce about their relationships via flashbacks. Michael, son of the family butler, was the doctor to Lydia's grandmother Sarah, and the only one of the four to be a constant presence in Lydia's life. As a young woman, Lydia was a bit rebellious—Sarah berates her for wearing a dress with bare shoulders to her first ball, complaining that she's going out "in the nude." When Lydia recalls that ball, she remembers hundreds of harpists, a huge orchestra, and dozens of chandeliers (and her flashback is presented in slow motion), but Michael corrects her, bringing her memory down to earth a bit, with a small band of musicians and a couple of chandeliers. There, she meets Bob, a beefy football player with a tendency toward drunkenness. The two try to elope but things don't work out. After an encounter with a blind child, she devotes her life to working with children, and at a school for the blind that she opens, she meets the third man, Frank, a blind pianist who teaches there, and who eventually writes her a concerto. Despite the love of Frank and Michael, Lydia proclaims that she will remain a spinster, that her work is her life. But soon, she meets the fourth man, Richard, a handsome and earthy sailor (and the only man not currently present), and the two take off to live together at MacMillan Point, an isolated family home on a windswept coast. Their days together end when Richard leaves to fulfill an obligation to another woman (we assume it involves a child) and despite a promise to return, he never does. Lydia claims that Richard was the love of her life, but when Richard finally arrives, he doesn't even remember her, an outcome that she accepts as punishment for her "sins."

This is French director Julien Duvivier's reworking of his 1937 Un Carnet de Bal (which I have not seen) and though it's an American film, produced by the British Alexander Korda, it has the feel of a French film, especially in its direct presentation of Lydia and Richard living "in sin," something that one would not likely see in the typical Hollywood movie of the time. It has great sets, a hazy nostalgic feel, and the old age makeup on all the actors in the present-time scenes is very good (see Oberon as an old woman above). Merle Oberon is Lydia, and this is her movie all the way. I'm not a big Oberon fan, but she is quite good in this, being believable as a headstrong young debutante, a social reformer, a passionate lover, and an old lady. Joseph Cotten is equally good as Michael, who pines away for her, though not in a self-pitying way. Alan Marshal makes a very likable character out of the carefree Richard. The other two men, George Reeves as Bob and Hans Jaray as Frank, don't have much time to make their impressions. But the film is frequently stolen by the fabulous Edna May Oliver as the grandmother—it's a grand Oliver performance through and through, as she plays an irascible but ultimately loving woman, and seems to be having fun doing so. Sadly, this was her last film as she died the next year. Critics aren't crazy about this movie, but I found it fun and compelling. [TCM]

MELODY TIME (1948)

This collection of short musical cartoons, introduced by a gigantic paint brush, feels very much like a reboot of FANTASIA, except with pop songs rather than classical pieces. Like FANTASIA, there is no real overarching connection between the segments, and some of the cartoons are fairly abstract, though the two longest films—both about 20 minutes—have strong narratives. "The Story of Johnny Appleseed," sung and voiced by Dennis Day, tells the folkloric story of John Chapman, who planted trees throughout early 1800s America. The short subtly stresses religious faith with the constant presence of a Bible in his (non-seed throwing) hand and the finale where Johnny falls asleep under an apple tree and an angel escorts him to heaven so he can keep planting trees. The other, "Pecos Bill," combines live action footage of Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers with the animated adventures of the fictional cowboy. Both of these were released as stand-alone short subjects. Another shorter segment, "Little Toot," sung by the Andrews Sisters, is a story about a brave little tugboat and was the inspiration for a character later featured in some Disney comic books. 

But for me, the more interesting segments are the abstract ones, presented at the beginning of the film. "Once Upon a Wintertime" looks and feels the most like a Fantasia short, with its focus on a season and its telling of a story that juxtaposes nature and humans, complete with a threatening storm like the Bacchus section of Fantasia. "Bumble Boogie" is a jazzy, surreal bit with a bee being chased by giant piano keys, scored to Rimsky-Korsakov’s "Flight of the Bumblebee." Joyce Kilmer's famous poem "Trees" is read out loud with more lovely pastel scenes of nature (and a storm)."Blame it on the Samba" is reminiscent of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in that it features a popular Disney character, Donald Duck. He interacts with a live-action organist, Ethel Smith, and an animated South American parrot named José Carioca, to not much effect. Overall, I couldn’t help but see this as a dumbing-down of Fantasia. The animation is great, as one expects from Disney, and the print playing on Disney+ is beautiful. Apparently, in an earlier DVD rendition of this, the Pecos Bill segment was edited to remove multiple instances of the character smoking, but this version includes the cigarettes. There were other cartoon compilations between Fantasia and this (Make Mine Music, for instance) which I haven't seen, but if they are like this one, I'm not sure I need to. [Disney+]

ALPHAVILLE (1965)

A movie buff's guilty admission: I've never had much use for Jean-Luc Godard. I understand his importance in the advent of the New Wave cinema of the early 60s and I can see how he influenced other filmmakers in terms of cinematography, editing, and presentation of narrative, but aside from a couple of early films (BREATHLESS, CONTEMPT), I never cared much for anything else of his, and eventually I quit trying. But after his death last year at the age of 91, I decided to go back and revisit one of his early films that was a crushing disappointment to me when I first saw it. ALPHAVILLE was marketed, in part, as a science-fiction film, and I remember seeing stills from it in the SF-horror movie magazines I read as a kid. The plot description involved a detective in a dystopian future who travels through space to find a missing person and subvert the supercomputer that runs the city of Alphaville. When I finally saw it on cable in the early 80s, it was nothing like I had imagined it would be: grungy looking black & white, no space travel visuals, no special effects, and an old, worn-out looking hero instead of a handsome spaceman. I definitely appreciated the movie more in my second viewing. Eddie Constantine plays Lemmy Caution, a craggy-faced Bogart type of agent who gets back and forth to Alphaville not via spaceship but in a plain Ford Galaxie (get it, galaxy?) along a nighttime freeway. The city is run by a computer called Alpha 60 (which also sort of narrates in an irritatingly phlegmy voice). Examples of how people are programmed to think in Alphaville come from a number of expressions we hear or read: "Silence = logic, safety = prudence"; "No one has lived in the past and no one will live in the future"; "There is no 'why,' only 'because.'" The Institute of General Semantics is an important arm of the government, dictionaries are referred to as bibles, and words like "conscience" and "tenderness" keep dropping out of the dictionaries. Lemmy is tended to by a "level three seductress" (I’m not sure if that's a high or low rating). Lemmy is trying to see a man named Von Braun (original name, Leonard Nosferatu), inventor of Alpha 60, and his daughter Natacha (Anna Karina) ends up helping him. Lemmy kills Von Braun, essentially destroys the city, and takes Natacha back across space (the freeway) to the Outer Countries.

Obviously, a coherent plot was not foremost in Godard's mind. What enjoyment I got came strictly from interesting visuals, bits of politics and philosophy, and some fun dialogue. When Lemmy finds the agent he's been looking for (Hollywood character actor Akim Tamiroff, pictured above with Constantine), seemingly forlorn and defeated, he tries to pep him up by asking, "Is Dick Tracy dead? How about Flash Gordon?" My favorite scene is of Lemmy getting interrogated by Alpha 60 in a small dark room with a number of large microphones hanging from the ceiling, doing a kind of elaborate dance around his head as he responds. In a movie with little action, a car stunt on an icy street near the end is exciting. I liked Constantine, but to talk about acting in this movie is beside the point—the characters are really just symbols or placeholders for opinions. I'm glad to have given this a second chance with different expectations, but it didn't change my mind much about Godard. [Criterion Channel]

THE IRON DUKE (1934)

Here I go, learning more history from Hollywood, or in this case, from London. It's 1815 and with Napoleon imprisoned at Elba, Europe is at peace, but with the drawing up of treaties, Prussia, Russia and Austria are plotting to keep France weak, partly by restoring Louis XVIII as King, so French unrest may stir. The Duke of Wellington (George Arliss) is sent from England to the Congress of Vienna to press the case for fair treatment for France, but soon Napoleon escapes. Wellington advises the King to leave, but the King's advisor Marie Thérèse (daughter of Marie Antoinette, known as Madame) doesn't trust Wellington, and indeed is still seeking revenge against, well, practically everyone. In the meantime, the Duchess of Richmond introduces Wellington to Lady Frances, a young woman who has a big case of hero worship for him, which frequently seems on the verge of becoming a romantic obsession even though she's married. At the battle of Waterloo, Wellington sees Napoleon ("Boney" as he calls him) from afar but won't let his men aim for him: "Not sporting—generals don't kill generals in cold blood." But even after Boney's final defeat, Wellington has problems in his relations with the French. Madame refuses to return art that Napoleon had stolen, and Wellington's friend Marshal Ney is threatened with execution for treason. A bigger worry, at least as far as public relations go, is that Madame spreads the rumor that the married Wellington is having an affair with the married Lady Frances. The latter part of the film centers on how Wellington rises above all this. Arliss can do no wrong in my eyes, though I don't necessarily like all his movies equally. But this is a strong entry in his series of biographical films, though like most of them, I wouldn't trust this to be terribly accurate. Arliss gives a fine performance, and he is matched well by the wonderful Gladys Cooper (pictured with Arliss) as Madame; her part is not large, but she makes every scene count.  Other cast standouts include Emlyn Wiliams as a reporter and Norma Varden as the Duchess of Richmond. A good one for Arliss fans. [DVD]

AMERICAN MATCHMAKER (1940)

This Yiddish-language film directed by notable B-moviemaker Edgar G. Ulmer begins by showing wealthy young garment factory boss Nat Silver (Leo Fuchs) throwing yet another bachelor party as his friends comment that he is forever celebrating other people's marriages but never getting married himself. He's come close several times but he always discovers that his fiancées only want him for his money. Nat proceeds to sing an anti-female song to the assembled "gluttons and hooch hounds"—so-called by his butler Morris—and Nat's misogyny only solidifies when one of his clerks bursts in and threatens him with a gun for trying to steal his girl Shirley, who, the clerk informs him, only wants his money. This makes Nat give up on the idea of marriage for good until he hears a family story about his late Uncle Shya who, back in the old country, felt he was under a marriage curse and so, somewhat counter-intuitively, became a successful matchmaker. Inspired by this, Nat tells his mother and sister that he's decided to head back to Europe to contemplate his life. Instead, using the name Nat Gold, he gets an office in the Bronx and opens a modern matchmaking business. It's so successful that other more traditional matchmakers protest, though Nat deals with that by hiring Simon, one of the leading protesters, as his assistant. But when Nat tries to find a match for Judith Aarons (Judith Abarbanel), he slowly comes to realize that her best match might actually be him. This is an amusing romantic comedy with a good central performances by Fuchs (pictured)—often referred to as the Yiddish Fred Astaire, he's given a couple of songs, though I wouldn't go so far as to call this a musical which some critics do. He also briefly has a second role as Uncle Shya in a dream flashback. Celia Brodkin is Nat's old-fashioned mother and Anna Guskin is Nat's more modern sister. There's a funny running gag in which Nat refers to himself as an "advisor in human relations" and his assistant thinks the phrase is "human relishes." Minor but fun enough. Available on the Jewish Soul boxed set from Kino Lorber. (Also released as Amerikaner Schadchen.) [Blu-ray]

CYNARA (1932)

Jim Warlock (Ronald Colman) is meeting his wife Clemency (Kay Francis, at left) before he heads off alone to South Africa, his career and his marriage in shambles. We flashback to months earlier as Jim, a successful London barrister, is about to celebrate his seventh wedding anniversary. His old friend John eggs him on about having a colorless life, and in fact, Jim is a little put out that Clemency is taking off for a trip to Venice with her younger sister who is trying to avoid a boyfriend scandal. Jim and John go out to dinner that night where a young girl named Doris (Phyllis Barry), on a bet with her friend, flirts with Jim. He takes her to see a Charlie Chaplin movie and is obviously enchanted by her, but balks at anything more. However, John finagles an invitation for Jim to judge a swimsuit contest at a town gathering where he knows Doris will be a contestant. Jim picks her as the winner, and when she falls and hurts her ankle, he takes her back to her flat where one thing leads to another, but only after she assures him that he is not her first lover, and that she will not be a nuisance in his marriage. By now, we know where this is going: she does become a nuisance, going as far as, at the end of a countryside interlude, threatening suicide when he has to go back to meet his returning wife. He tries to keep his relationship with her going, but finally writes a "Dear Doris" letter breaking it off. [Spoilers follow:] Doris does kill herself and when Jim's letter is found, he is called to testify at the inquest. To protect her reputation, Jim lets the coroner believe that he was her first lover. He is not legally responsible for her death (the coroner says dramatically that she "ended her own life preferring the judgment of the infinite to the opinions of her fellow men") but his own reputation is now soiled and he decides to leave England alone. Back in the present timeline, is it possible that Clemency will live up to her name and forgive Jim?

Current day viewers may be surprised at the answer. In general it's only in the pre-Code days that a movie could end with reconciliation and forgiveness for an adulterer, especially where such sordid circumstances as the suicide of a mistress were involved. The ending feels a bit rushed, and the character of Clemency is not fleshed out as much as she should have been, but it's a bit refreshing to have the wronged wife forgive the cheating bastard. Given the melodramatic plot elements, the acting here is a little underplayed, which is also refreshing. Colman is a little less stoic than he would be later in his career, Francis a little less tortured than she sometimes came off. Barry, with whom I was not familiar, is good as the mistress who doesn't so much scheme as hope. The likable Henry Stephenson is fine as John. The title comes from an ode by Horace: "I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion." The Irving Berlin standard "Blue Skies" becomes theme music for the illicit lovers. [TCM]