VIOLENCE (1947)

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

THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF (1950)

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

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

OF LOVE AND DESIRE (1963)

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

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

KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR (1937)

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

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

THE CIRCLE (1925)

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

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

THE SILVER HORDE (1930)

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

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

PHAEDRA (1962)

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

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

DECOY (1946)

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

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

THE THING THAT COULDN'T DIE (1958)

One of the summer guests staying at Flavia's California ranch is Jessica, Flavia's young niece, who is a bit on the ethereal side; she insists that she can find water in the ground, as well as buried lost items, with her dowsing rod. Not all the other guests (who include Gordon, a handsome archeologist who remembers Jessica as a child, his artist buddy Hank, and Hank's girlfriend/model Linda) believe her, but when she finds Linda's lost watch buried in a squirrel hutch at the base of a tree, they wonder. Gordon gives her an elaborate crucifix he found nearby while digging and she promises to wear it always. Handyman Boyd and his doltish assistant Mike find a brass box that was buried in 1579 near the tree. Gordon plans to open it the next morning, but Boyd and Mike, assuming it contains treasure, break it open that night and find the head of devil worshipper Gideon Drew, buried 400 years ago but still alive. He was put to death, beheaded, and put under a curse that his head would remain living until it was reunited with its body. Though the head can't speak, it puts Mike under its hypnotic command and has him kill Boyd, then keeps putting others under its power and uses them to search for his body, which is buried nearby.

Interesting idea but executed blandly, shot like a particularly drab TV show. The characters are fleshed out slightly better than in most B-horror films; when Linda is taken over by Gideon's head, she turns cold toward Hank, leading him destroy her portrait and to turn to Jessica as his next model, and we actually care a bit about that situation. The shots of the head, either in a box, on rocks, or being held, are effectively creepy. The acting is adequate: William Reynolds makes a solid, handsome hero as Gordon; Carolyn Kearney is OK as the mildly strange Jessica, though when she falls under the head's influence, her personality shift is especially good; Andra Martin is fine as Linda; Robin Hughes (the writer O'Bannion in AUNTIE MAME) doesn’t have much to do as the head except for one nice moment in a flashback scene at Gideon's execution.  Mystery Science Theater 3000 roasted this movie—I haven't seen their version though I'm sure it’s funny—but generally it's not as bad a film as they usually take on. [TCM]

THE GAY DIPLOMAT (1931)

On the Russian front during World War I, Captain Orloff (Ivan Lebedeff) is ordered to retreat but he doesn't; he ends up injured but months later, his bravery gets him picked for a spy mission to Rumania. Ostensibly, he is to deliver a verbal message to a French agent, but his super-secret mission is to find the sexy female spy who keeps leaking their codes. He meets all kinds of suspects: the flirty blond Countess Diana (Genevieve Tobin), the Baroness Alma (Betty Compson), and the chatterbox Madame Blinis (Ilka Chase), and at a party thrown in his honor, all the women fuss and coo over him. A man is shot dead in the garden, someone breaks into Orloff's room, and Orloff finds himself falling for Diana. But could she be the spy? This early talkie has some nice visual touches but is otherwise a disappointment; it has a light tone but isn't quite a comedy, there is little tension and no real action, and the acting is only average all around, with the exception of Tobin (pictured with Lebedeff). Lebedeff is particularly weak as the romantic hero, seeming neither very romantic nor very heroic. [TCM]

JUNGLE SIREN (1942)

Buster Crabbe and Paul Bryar are American engineers working with the Free French during World War II on a mission is to do some land surveying near the African village of Carraby in anticipation of the Allies putting in a landing strip there. Their secondary mission is to try and subvert the influence of a native chief who is working with a German couple (Arno Frey and Evelyn Wahl) who are Nazi spies, bribing the natives with worthless trinkets to get them on their side when the armed conflict reaches Carraby. Living with the tribe as a native is an Anglo woman (Ann Corio), raised as an orphan by a doctor. She is initially suspicious of all the outsiders, but soon she and Crabbe are canoodling, even as the female Nazi also begins cozying up to him as well. The chief goes to extremes to get the natives on the Nazi side, poisoning several villagers so that they appear to be dead, blaming it on Crabbe and the doctor, and then bringing the "dead" back with apparently supernatural powers. Can Crabbe and Corio get the natives to see the truth about their leader before the Nazis arrive?

This is a pretty shoddy sub-B film; its main attraction was probably the presence of Buster Crabbe, best known in the 30s first as an Olympic swimming champ and later for playing heroes like Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. By this time, he was working for Poverty Row studio PRC, mostly doing cheapie westerns and adventure movies. He must have been considered a success because between 1940 and 1945 alone, he made nearly 40 such films. He's one of the few bright spots here; he treats his role seriously and his beefcake appeal is still obvious. The comic sidekick in movies like this is sometimes dreadful, but Bryar does a decent job; one of the better jokes is a special effects shot of Bryar asleep in bed having nightmares as footage of dangerous animals appears above his head. Corio (pictured with Crabbe) was best known as a stripper; unfortunately, she's a drab, flat actress, and even her buxom charms are, oddly enough, downplayed here. There is very little action until the end. I did enjoy some of the dialogue: the Nazi, aware that his wife is falling for Crabbe and maybe becoming sympathetic to him, says, "The Third Reich is more important that your swinish love affair!" And while Crabbe's sidekick does his morning exercises, he says, "Another ten days of this and I’ll have a physique like Buster Crabbe!" [Amazon Instant]

DANGER—LOVE AT WORK (1937)

Screwball comedies of any kind are difficult to pull off; the writing, acting and direction have to be top-notch or else it just becomes a shrill, irritating mess. B-level screwball comedies, usually with lesser talent behind and on the screen, rarely work for me. This one has promise but goes off the rails by the halfway point. It starts out as a re-working of the nutty-family classic YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU. The eccentric Pemberton family from South Carolina owns property in New York that a country club wants. One lawyer who tried to get signatures from all the family members quit in frustration so Henry MacMarrow (Jack Haley), a junior partner at the law firm, is sent to complete the job. The patriarch is an elderly scientist who has a life-sized teddy bear robot (pictured), son Herbert (John Carradine) fancies himself an abstract artist, Uncle Alan (Walter Catlett) is a stamp collector, genius ten-year-old Junior is already a college graduate, pixilated maiden aunts Pitty and Patty keep a rigged-up loaded shotgun aimed at their door in case of burglary, and Uncle Goliath owns a mansion but lives outside on its grounds dressed like a caveman. The only "normal" person is the young vivacious Toni (Ann Sothern), who falls for Henry—though it takes a while for him to reciprocate.

This has an interesting cast, but no matter how hard they try, by halfway through the almost 90 minute running time, they've all worn out their welcome. The two leads are OK: Jack Haley (OZ's Tin Man) actually does a good job managing to remain relatively unflustered by all the zaniness around him. He's also a kind of anti-romantic leading man, not acting terribly interested in Sothern, which is a nice change of pace for this kind of film. For her part, Sothern mostly remains charming in the middle of the whirlwind of crazy relatives. The two have an awkward musical number out of nowhere. Mary Boland is Sothern's mom, and child actor Benny Bartlett is fun as the obnoxious Junior. Edward Everett Horton plays against type a bit as the villain, Sothern's fiancé and the author of a self-help book on how to be masterful, who is trying to get his hands on the property, and Elisha Cook Jr., looking like a juvenile, has a small role as a chemist. The first half is fun, but the shenanigans get more and more ludicrous and I was chomping at the bit for the end. This may have influenced the makers of the later MURDER HE SAYS. [TCM]

HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN (1964)

Aliens plummet to earth from the moon and force the people of Samar to sacrifice groups of young men and women every three months at the Mountain of Death. Gladius, advisor to Samar's Queen Samara, begs her to find a way to stop the sacrifices, but it turns out she's in cahoots with the moon men (or man, as I think we only ever see one of them, usually in the form of a transparent hologram); they have promised her that when they take over the world, she can rule with them. Gladius asks Hercules to help stop the slaughter. Complicating matters is Princess Billis, she of the fabulous 60s hairdo, who is about to be sacrificed—her blood will revive her look-alike, the dead moon queen Selene. Billis's boyfriend Darax fights for her, even taking an arrow in the chest and surviving, as do a band of rebels. Hercules joins in, escaping drowning in a pit, killing a monster, facing a small army of huge stone creatures, and surviving torture in which he is slowly pressed between two large spiked slabs. Then, of course, there's the alien's prediction that a cosmic cataclysm is about to strike the earth.

Of all the 60s peplum musclemen, I think Alan Steel is the most appealing—he's seems happy and excited doing what he's doing (not bored like Reg Park in HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN), has an open and friendly face, is quite well built without being grotesquely bulbous, and does a great job sweating and straining under torture. This film has the added attraction of a science-fiction element spicing up the usual storyline. The special effects are not great, consisting mostly of a sickly green tinting of any scenes on and in the Mountain of Death; the alien is a tall robed figure wearing an owl-face mask, and the final disaster is very disappointing. But the stone men are kinda cool, and the typical sword-and-sandal action scenes are carried off well, especially the spiked torture of Hercules. Many critics (and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 gang) make fun of the lengthy sandstorm scene near the end, but though it definitely does go on too long—"Deep hurting!!" to quote the MST3K robots—I enjoyed the shifting color washes and the swirling sands. Had I seen this movie when I was fourteen, the long torture scene, with lingering close-ups of Hercules's sweaty arms and chest, would have been like gay porn for me. Not the best of peplums, but not quite as bad as its reputation, though it must be seen in widescreen. [DVD]

MISS ROBIN CRUSOE (1954)

This adaptation of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe changes the sex of the main character (and of his companion Friday) and adds a romantic interest, but retains several details of the original story—which I admit here that I've never read. In 1659, a hurricane hits a ship traveling to Brazil and two survivors are washed up on an isolated island: Robin, the cabin boy who is actually a girl in disguise (Amanda Blake, Miss Kitty from the TV classic Gunsmoke), and an old salt named Sykes. When Sykes assaults Robin, she fights back and he winds up falling off a cliff. In a few months time, after she has built herself a treehouse for shelter, she discovers a cannibal tribe on the island and interrupts a ritual which involves splitting two women in half as sacrifices. Robin manages to save one of them and takes her back to the treehouse, naming her Friday; together, they manage to thrive until, after a huge storm hits, another sailor is washed up on shore. At first, Robin is wary of Jonathan (George Nader) and refuses his help, but soon realizes that the three of them working together is not such a bad thing. She even starts to fall for him, but a major bone of contention remains: he wants to patch up a small 2-person canoe and go out to find help nearer to the shipping lanes, but Robin won't leave Friday behind. When Jonathan sneaks away in the canoe by himself, Robin feels betrayed. Soon, Jonathan returns but so does the cannibal tribe.

This definitely counts as a novelty. In addition to the gender switch, there's the somewhat schizophrenic style: some of it looks like Gilligan's Island, having been filmed on soundstages, but some of it was shot, if not on location in the South Pacific, at least outside on an actual beach. Most sequences end with an very abrupt blackout; I thought at first it was a film splice problem but it happened throughout the movie. The color palate is quite bright which makes it fairly pleasing to the eye. Given the small number of characters, we don't get to know Robin very much at all, and Blake's performance is rather two-note: either suspicious/fearful or arrogant/aloof. Nader is OK but again his character is completely flat. The fact that these two get involved is much more about lust than love; I imagine that after they're rescued, they'll realize they are both boring people with nothing in common. There's a strange scene of Friday (Rosalind Hayes) stroking Robin's arm and hair while she sleeps, but nothing comes of it. An odd little film. [Warner Archive Instant]

RHAPSODY IN BLUE (1945)

An almost completely fictional biopic about George Gershwin, one of the great composers of the 20th century. Once you've accepted that little in this film is based on fact (despite the presence in the film of several real-life friends of Gershwin), you can settle back and more or less enjoy this as a fictional film with some great music—though considering they had the Gershwin catalog to choose from, the renditions of most of the songs leave much to be desired. We begin with the working-class Gershwin family, and young brothers George and Ira excited to see that a piano is being delivered to their humble Bronx apartment. George (played as an adult by Robert Alda) takes to it immediately and soon works his way up to become a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley. On the side, he begins writing his own songs and taking lessons from Prof. Franck (Albert Bassermann) who feels Gershwin is wasting his talent on creating disposable pop music. Next thing you know, he's writing for singer Julie Adams (a fictitious character played by Joan Leslie) and he becomes the toast of Broadway, turning out songs like "Swanee" and "I Got Rhythm." Still pursuing serious music, his jazz-inflected "Rhapsody in Blue" is a smash success played in a concert hall by Paul Whiteman's orchestra. George and Julie get friendly though remaining chaste, but when George goes to Paris for musical inspiration (and eventually writes another serious piece, "An American in Paris"), he meets Christine (Alexis Smith), a well-connected woman-about-town, and a love triangle is set that ultimately goes nowhere. When he starts fretting about not having enough time to do everything he wants, and then begins getting debilitating headaches, we know the end (a brain tumor) is near.

There's no use pointing out the inaccuracies here because there are so many. Even when they get something right, like the success of "Rhapsody in Blue," not enough attention is given to it; it's just one more step on the ladder to the top. This is largely a missed opportunity for a colorful Gershwin revue; had this been done by Arthur Freed's unit at MGM, it would have been filled with stars performing the songs as splashy production numbers, but here at Warner Bros. we're stuck with lukewarm renditions, mostly by the bland Joan Leslie (voice dubbed by Sally Sweetland). Anne Brown, who actually played Bess in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, sings a bit of "Summertime," and Hazel Scott and Al Jolson sing some songs as themselves.  And very few of the 20+ songs are done in their entirety. Alda is unremarkable in the central role, but a handful of other actors do nice work, including Morris Carnovsky as George's father, Herbert Rudley as Ira (pictured at right with Alda), Albert Bassermann as the music professor, and Alexis Smith as one of the two (totally fictitious) love interests—in real life, Gershwin apparently played the field. Best of all is Oscar Levant playing himself; the hangdog, snarky Levant (pictured top left with Alda) is always welcome in a sidekick role, and he actually knew and worked with Gershwin. In fact, it's Levant’s playing that we hear whenever we see Alda at the piano. The highlight of the film is the playing of the Rhapsody; it's well-played and well-shot, and as it comes about an hour into the movie, you can shut it off when it's over and miss the last draggy 75 minutes. [Warner Archive Instant]

THE FLORENTINE DAGGER (1935)

In a nicely atmospheric opening sequence which would not be out of place in a Universal horror film of the era, three men who don't know each other get off a train at the small, largely unvisited Italian town of Rossanu, which is dominated the deserted castle of the Borgias nearby. Two of men seem to vacationing: Victor Ballau (Henry O'Neill), a play producer, and Gerard Lytton (C. Aubrey Smith), a doctor. The third, Juan Cesare (Donald Woods), keeps to himself and seems a bit haunted. It turns out that he is a descendent of the Borgias and is convinced that bad Borgia blood will eventually lead him to murder so he's decided to kill himself. Lytton manages to stop him, and suggests creating art as a way of achieving catharsis. So Juan does just that: he writes a play about Lucretia Borgia and, back in Vienna, Ballau agrees to stage it with his daughter Florence (Margaret Lindsay) starring as Lucretia. Juan falls intensely for Florence and even though she seems a bit reticent, he asks her father for her hand. Ballau won't allow them to marry, afraid that Juan's potential homicidal drive may not quite be cured. One night, Florence leaves the theater in the middle of a performance without explanation, and later her father is found dead, stabbed with a Borgia dagger. Was it Florence? Juan? Dr. Lytton? Ballau's strange housekeeper? The police captain (Robert Barrat) is determined to find out, and he uncovers several unsavory secrets before the killer is revealed.

This is one of a short series of Clue Club films that Warner Bros. made in the mid-30s, and it begins very well, with the first few minutes conjuring up the opening the 1931 DRACULA (in fact, one character says that Juan is "something of a Dracula type"), but when the action moves to Vienna, it reverts to something more like an average B-mystery. Woods (pictured with O'Neill) is good, and Barrat is even better, being amusing without resorting to bumbling comic-relief shtick. Florence Fair is the housekeeper and Eily Malyon has a nice brief bit near the end as a mysterious wig and mask maker. The story, with its attempts at psychological depth, is interesting, but there is too much plot crammed into the 70-minute running time. The ending is unusual in that it seems to go against the Production Code, as the killer is basically let go. [TCM]

THE COSSACKS (1928)

The Cossacks consider themselves a tribe of "free men and warrior kings" and they are locked into traditional roles: the men go off to fight the Turks and the women stay home and work the land. But Lukashka (John Gilbert, pictured) is a lover, not a fighter, and though he has a very masculine manner, he prefers to stay home, lollygagging in the fields, and work at getting Maryana (Renée Adorée) into the sack. Despite her fond memories of him from childhood, she doesn't like what the villagers perceive as laziness or cowardice in him and rebuffs his advances. The worst aspect of Lukashka's attitude is that his father Ivan (Ernest Torrence) is the bloodthirsty leader of the Cossack men. After fellow Cossacks trap Lukashka one night and humiliate him by tying him up and making his stomp grapes (women's work), he retaliates and bests his father in a fight. When Turkish prisoners escape, Lukashka joins his fellow Cossacks and tracks them down, and once he draws blood—and suffers his first battle wound—there's no going back: he is now a warrior. But now Maryana finds that he has perhaps gone too far in the "fighter" direction, especially when he dallies with a gypsy whore. The arrival of Prince Olenin (Nils Asther), a messenger from the Tsar, complicates matters: the Tsar wants peace between the Cossacks and the Turks, and the prince has been ordered to marry Maryana as a way to mix the blood of the civilized and the savage.

This silent movie, based on a novel by Leo Tolstoy, is usually summarized as being about a young man who refuses to follow his fellow villagers to war, and his eventual turnaround. But that is actually less than half the story; Lukashka is "reformed" in the first half-hour of this 90 minute film, and the rest is taken up with the Lukashka/Maryana/Olenin triangle, and the attempts of the Cossacks to get back legitimately to their warrior ways. This is generally a dandy action film, with some surprisingly brutal scenes of battle and torture. Gilbert is very good, as usual; I particularly like the fact that the peace-loving Gilbert of the first part of the film doesn't behave in stereotypical "sissy" fashion—he just thinks there's more to life than war. His rather sudden change of heart doesn't seem realistic, but the fighter Gilbert is just as compelling as the lover Gilbert. Adorée is fine, and Asther, though not around for long, makes his character memorable. A grand physical production adds to the film's appeal. [TCM]

THE HARVEY GIRLS (1946)

This musical has Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, and Virginia O'Brien, three people I usually like to see, and a very young and sexy Angela Lansbury (pictured), not to mention the epic musical number "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe," so as a card-carrying lover of musicals, especially the ones that Arthur Freed's unit turned out at MGM, I should love this movie, but I don't.  However, on a second viewing recently, I discovered that I don't dislike it as much as I thought I did—faint and ambiguous praise, I know. The plot's background is based on the real life restaurant chain called Harvey's, from the late 19th century, which expanded by opening new locations in small frontier towns, helping to give those towns a veneer of respectability to attract travelers. Judy Garland is a city girl who has come out to a small Old West town to marry a man she's been corresponding with; arriving on the same train are a number of Harvey Girls, young women who will work as waitresses at the new Harvey House opening in town. Garland's sweetheart (Chill Wills) is a tad too old for her, and it turns out that the letters he sent were actually ghostwritten by another fella (John Hodiak). They call off the wedding but Garland decides to stay and join the Harvey Girls, and an attraction slowly builds between her and Hodiak. The conflict: Hodiak runs a popular saloon (and, it's implied, whorehouse) that may lose a great deal of business to the new restaurant, and though Hodiak tries to keep the battle clean, some of his men resort to underhanded methods to stop people from patronizing Harvey's, culminating in a fire being set by the bad guys.

The movie actually has a number of pluses, beginning with the ten-minute "Atchison" number performed on and around the trains. Even Marjorie Main gets a verse which she brays out in that ragged voice of hers. Many of the supporting players are fine: on the male side, Wills, Bolger, and Preston Foster (the chief baddie); on the distaff side, the seductive Lansbury (tarted out in some fabulous colorful and shiny outfits), and O'Brien (who vanishes halfway through because her pregnancy began to show) and Cyd Charisse as Harvey girls. The sets and costumes are first-rate and the songs are fine. Disappointingly, it's the leads that let the movie down. Garland seems distracted or unwilling to commit her all, except in her songs, and Hodiak is unattractive and charmless.  Among the songs, only "Atchison" stands out. Worth a viewing, but I will never consider this one of MGM's musical gems. [Warner Archive Instant]

MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955)

Good cop Bert (Robert Shayne) goes after bad cop Ray (Paul Langton) who has been holed up in a roadside motel after running off with convicted murderess Eden Lane (Barbara Payton). When Bert finds Ray, Eden's not there, but Ray begs Bert to give him 24 hours to try and clear up the mess his life has become. In an extended flashback, we see Ray investigating the murder of businessman Frank Dean, found in his home, his head and hands burned beyond recognition in his fireplace. Eden, his mistress, works at a cheap nightclub with her roomie Patsy, but Eden is already on the run, having hopped a bus to an isolated and snowbound mountain cabin. Ray catches up with her and takes her back to L.A. where she is found guilty of murder. When Ray escorts her on a train to prison, she looks out the window at a small-town stop and insists she sees the supposedly dead Frank Dean, alive and well. Ray believes her; the two of them jump off the train and go back to the small town to figure out what's up. Eventually Ray and Eden become romantically involved, but one day she vanishes. When Bert hears this story, he agrees to give Ray one day, and helps him to track down the truth.

This B-noir from director Edgar G. Ulmer is more accomplished in terms of script, production and acting than his classic no-budget film DETOUR but it doesn't pack the punch of that earlier movie. Still, this is worth seeing as a classic noir narrative. Langton (pictured with Payton) is just about perfect as the weary, dogged cop who may or may not be truly out for justice—or maybe he's just blinded by lust. Payton's real-life story—abuse, public fights, drugs, an arrest for shoplifting—could have come out of a noir movie, but she's very good here, basically at the end of her career. The low budget does have some liabilities—there are many scenes of people dialing phones, and dialogue-heavy scenes that convey information rather than action shots. But the sequence of Langton trudging through a snowstorm to get to Payton's cabin was clearly filmed during a real snowstorm, resulting in perhaps the most realistic snow scene ever outside of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. Recommended for noir fans. [Warner Archive Instant]

INSIDE THE LINES (1930)

As World War I is breaking out, Eric (Ralph Forbes) and Jane (Betty Compson), two British citizens in Berlin, meet and fall in love in one week's time, but one morning she announces that she must leave immediately and is mysterious about the reason. We discover that she's actually a German spy and a coded message sends her on a mission to Gibraltar to obtain British war plans: she is set up to be a houseguest at the governor's house and is given the combination to an electrified safe which houses the plans, and also instructions on how to get around being electrocuted and how to pass off the plans to a contact. She is also given a new identity, that of young Ellen who hasn’t visited in fifteen years, and is coached in the details of the family that Ellen would be expected to know. Things go smoothly until Eric shows up; he's confused, of course, and she doesn’t offer a very convincing explanation. But when she goes the steal the plans, Eric appears, apparently her contact, so they're both German spies. Or are they?

An early talkie, things don’t start out promisingly as the opening farewell scene is played out in a static fashion with over-the-top melodramatic line readings—at one point, Eric even says that their situation sounds like something out of an old melodrama. But things improve a bit once the scene moves to Gibraltar, or maybe I just got used to the style. Compson (pictured above with Forbes) had a long career, mostly in silent films, and she's OK here, though her co-star Forbes is more at ease; Compson sometimes feels a little blank, as though she's not sure herself if she's a spy or a double agent, or something else altogether. Ivan Simpson is amusing as a British underling who is quite taken with Compson, though his acting style suggests a character who is a little light in his loafers. Mischa Auer is a Indian servant who plays an important role in the climax. I wasn't sure about this one at first, but I ended up enjoying it. [TCM]