SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF (1958)

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

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

HERE COME THE WAVES (1944)

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

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

STORMY WEATHER (1943)

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

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

MILLION DOLLAR WEEKEND (1948)

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

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

ASSIGNMENT: PARIS (1953)

In Budapest, an American named Anderson has been found guilty of spying and sentenced to twenty years of hard labor—supposedly he admitted it at his trial, but Nick (George Sanders), chief editor at the Paris office of the New York Herald-Tribune, thinks the whole thing is a set-up. He sends reporter Jeanne Moray (Marta Toren), who has connections in Budapest, to the Hungarian embassy to get a comment from the ambassador, but another reporter, the hot-headed American Jimmy Race (Dana Andrews) scoops her. We soon discover that Jeanne is Nick's mistress, taking the place of fashion editor Sandy Tate (Audrey Totter). Sandy's a good sport about it, but Jimmy starts sniffing after Jeanne; will a romantic rectangle develop? (No, these plot points are brought up but never developed, except for the budding romance between Jimmy and Jeanne.) Hungary announces that they will hang the next person guilty of spying, but Jeanne has been involved in her own bit of espionage—while in Budapest, she tried to get her hands on a photo of Odey, the Hungarian prime minister, at a secret meeting with Tito, the head of Yugoslavia, at which plans were being made to break away from the Soviets. Meanwhile, Borvitch, a Hungarian diplomat, is trying to find the underground leader Gabor Czeki, who has escaped to Paris, and he thinks Jeanne knows where he is—she doesn't but she suspects he's close by (and he is). Meanwhile, Barker, the Tribune's Budapest editor, has a heart attack and Jimmy is sent to help him out. While there, he discovers that Anderson is dead and manages to get the information out to Nick in a coded news broadcast. He also discovers the Ordy-Tito photo; naturally, Budapest doesn't want that news to get out and when they find out what Jimmy's been up to, he is arrested as a spy and tortured in an attempt to get him to make a fake confession. Will he escape? Can Jeanne and Nick help him, or is he on his own?

This is interesting primarily for the fact its heroes aren't spies or soldiers, but journalists. However, this also means that it’s a fairly talky movie and action scenes are absent—the somewhat anti-climactic conclusion plays out like the ending of Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies even down to the visuals, but Spielberg was more effective at sustaining tension. The film was publicized as having been shot on location in Europe, but since most of it plays out in Hollywood studio interiors, skimpy use is made of the real locations. Dana Andrews and Marta Toren (a Swedish actress who was being pushed as the new Ingrid Bergman—which she was not) are OK in the leads, though Andrews' obnoxiously pushy behavior toward Toren, which we are supposed to find charming, dates badly in the #metoo era. Two supporting players outshine the stars and are the reason to watch this. The wonderful noir bad girl Audrey Totter is a good girl here, playing a somewhat cynical, world-weary character who can still summon up the energy to help the heroes fight the Commies. George Sanders is also quite good as the editor who, after spending most of the movie in offices, ordering people around, gets to rescue Andrews, who is more or less incapacitated at the climax. See it for Totter and Sanders. Pictured are Totter and Toren. [DVD]

NIGHT WAITRESS (1936)

At Torre's Fish Palace on the San Francisco waterfront, waitress Helen Roberts (Margot Grahame) has just resumed her job after being put on probation (for vague involvement in an unspecified crime which we assume couldn't have been too bad because she has that put-upon, innocent, good-girl look). She's trying to avoid trouble, but trouble finds her in the person of Martin Rhodes (Gordon Jones), a handsome schooner captain who used to run bootleg booze but now stays within the law, more or less. He's waiting for a phone call about a job from a man named Rigo. The call comes, but it comes from the man's brother, Mario. Rigo was tortured to death by men trying to find a cargo of smuggled gold, and now Mario is trying to get that information to Martin. Mario says he'll meet Martin at the restaurant some evening, but the evening he arrives, he's too early. When Mario realizes that a couple of thugs have followed him, he draws a crude map on a napkin and asks Helen to give it to Martin. Mario is killed, and Helen is now sought by the crooks. When a thug breaks into Helen's apartment, he gets the napkin but in trying to escape, he falls to his death from the window. Now the cops want Helen as well, so she winds up hiding out with Martin on his schooner and together they try to figure out where the gold is.

This B-film is a little rough around the edges but essentially likable, partly due to the male lead and partly to a good story that's not too simple and not too complicated. The twists and turns of the plot are easy to follow but not always predictable. I like Jones quite a bit, though here, I had to put aside some discomfort with the way his character harasses the waitress—he's not mean or crude, but he is jackassishly aggressive in the first half of the film as he flirts with this woman who is clearly vulnerable and would rather be left alone. But he strips down to his underwear near the end, and he sings a cute novelty song, "The Monkeys Have No Tails in Zamboanga," so all is forgiven. Margot Grahame (pictured with Jones) was a fairly big name in England but never quite made it in Hollywood—here, she's attractive but colorless. The familiar faces of Marc Lawrence, Billy Gilbert and Don Barry show up, as does Anthony Quinn in one of his first film roles as a violent thug. Solid if unremarkable B-crime film. [TCM]

WALK EAST ON BEACON! (1952)

An opening narration tells us that the FBI protects us from a "worldwide conspiracy which seeks, through subversion, to destroy established governments everywhere"—in other words, the Communists. This film, based on a story written for Reader's Digest by J. Edgar Hoover himself, is the story of one FBI operation that broke open a Russian sleeper cell, a group of spies living in the U.S waiting patiently for their signal to begin espionage activities. The case is triggered when the wife of a taxi driver writes an anonymous letter to the FBI office in Boston claiming that a man named Robert Martin has been forcing her husband to pass along messages in a spy ring. Agents tail Martin to a docked Polish freighter but a different man wearing his clothes leaves. Martin, considered not effective enough, is chastised by Laschenkov who has been sent to Boston to take over Martin's duties. His mission is to extort information from Prof. Kafer, a refugee scientist and the leader of a American military project called Falcon, something involving national defense and the possibility of space travel (though since it's a McGuffin, it doesn't really matter what it's about). The Russians make contact with Kafer and tell him they can get his son out of East Berlin in exchange for information on Project Falcon—their instruction to him to "walk east on Beacon Street" gives the movie its title. He turns to the FBI to help him, and they do, though the comings and goings of the spies and the G-men got a little confusing to me.

Most of this is shot documentary style on actual Boston locations which keeps the proceedings fairly low-key, until, of course, the filmmakers decide they need an action scene or two. George Murphy, as the main FBI agent, delivers an appropriately low-key performance, leaving more attention-getting moments to Finlay Currie as the professor and Virginia Gilmore and Karel Stepanek as two of the more important commie spies. It certainly makes it seem as though Boston was absolutely honeycombed with spies, though the screenplay heavily fictionalized the original Hoover story. The film is featured on DVD as part of a film noir set, though it most assuredly is not noir. As a period anti-Communist propaganda piece, however, it's worth seeing. Pictured are Jack Manning and Vilma Kurer as the taxi driver and his wife. [TCM]

INVITATION TO THE DANCE (1956)

Gene Kelly started shooting this ballet anthology film (think FANTASIA with live-action dancing instead of animation) in the glow of the success of his hit movie SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. It took him the better part of two years to shoot and edit it—while still working on movies like BRIGADOON and IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER—and release was delayed by a year or more while it was tinkered with by Kelly and MGM. Though it was treated with some grudging respect by critics, it was a commercial flop, and could be seen as the beginning of the slow decline of Kelly's career, though his past work never lost its luster. Today, it may still not be seen as a neglected masterpiece, but it does feel ahead of its time, and has weathered the years better than some of Kelly's later directorial efforts (like Tunnel of Love. Gigot or even Hello Dolly!).

Each of the three segments features Kelly and some renowned ballet dancers of the era in wordless stories acted out through dancing, sometimes balletic, sometimes more like Broadway dancing. They each feel a bit like the extended dance numbers he executed for AN AMERICAN IN PARIS and SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, but without vocals. The first, titled "Circus," features Kelly as a whiteface clown in a circus troupe who has an unrequited crush on a dancer who only has eyes for a handsome tightrope walker. This has a straightforward melodramatic narrative but it unfolds at a pace which I found a bit too leisurely. "Ring Around the Rosy," possibly inspired by the play and movie La Ronde, follows a flashy bracelet handed off from person to person as romantic trysts occur; a husband buys it for his wife who then gives it to a handsome artist who then gives it to a model who then gives it to her boyfriend, etc. until it winds up back in the husband's hands again. This is the most interesting section of the movie, and Kelly is just of one of the many dancers here. The final segment, "Sinbad the Sailor," was probably calculated to be the most commercial part of the film as it features Kelly dancing against and with cartoon backgrounds and characters, but for me it was slow going. Kelly is a modern-day sailor who rubs a lamp and conjures up a genie. The two enter a storybook (as the animation takes over) and they encounter Arabian Nights characters. It's a little weird that the genie is a 12-year-old kid (David Kasday), and their palling-around scenes feel a little unsavory. Though the animation is well done, the whole bit felt tired and ineffective. However, if my initial description of FANTASIA in dance piques your interest, you would enjoy this, as would most classic movie fans, if only for the novelty. [TCM]

THE TELL-TALE HEART (1941)

Edgar Allan Poe's definition of a short story has remained something of a standard even today: it should be able to be read in one sitting and everything in it should build toward "a single effect." His famous story "The Tell-Tale Heart" fulfills this proclamation well. It's short (usually 5-8 pages) and has no extraneous material (with virtually no character development) to get in the way of its singular effect, to tell a story of a man driven mad by guilt. The bulk of Poe's fiction is of the short form and, because the short film genre never took off commercially in Hollywood, most Poe film adaptations have been fleshed out into full-length films (such as the American International Poe movies of the 60s) using added material—or, in the case of THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, combining two stories—or in the cases of adapting Poe’s poetry, using just a title with little or none of the original work's content (see THE CONQUEROR WORM or THE HAUNTED PALACE which was actually based on a Lovecraft story despite the Poe title). I reviewed a full-length British version of this story last year, and it wasn't bad, but this 20-minute film is better at producing and maintaining that famous "single effect."

A young man (Joseph Schildkraut, pictured) lives with an old man (Roman Bohnen) as his general caretaker, but the old man, who has a creepy looking milky eye, is cranky and abusive, and one night, the young man plots the old man's murder. He carries it out, burying the body beneath some floorboards in the living room, but the next day when two policemen come looking for the old man, the young man is suddenly aware of the loud beating of a heart under the floor and can't figure out why the police don't seem to hear it. When I read this story as a kid, I imagined the ending to be quite literal, with [Spoiler] the young man ripping open the floor and tearing a beating heart out of the old man's body. Of course, it's actually the story of a killer caught by his own guilty conscience. This film is practically nothing but atmosphere—there is little dialogue and no character details except the old man's foul personality (which incidentally is the opposite of the story in which the narrator admits that the old man was harmless and claims it was that milky eye than unnerved him so). Close-ups of water dripping, a clock ticking, and footsteps are used to indicate the young man’s sudden sensitivity to sound, and the dead man's heartbeat is accentuated by thumping musical chords that get louder and louder. Because there is no narration, we lose practically all of the young man's motivation, so a deeper psychological reading is impossible to do here, but Schildkraut is quite good as the central character, getting across his madness with his eyes. I saw this on TCM, which shows older short films quite a bit, but it's also available as an extra on the DVD of Shadow of the Thin Man. [TCM]

MR. WONG IN CHINATOWN (1939)

A Chinese woman who refuses to give her name comes to see renowned San Francisco detective James Lee Wong (Boris Karloff) at his home, but before he can meet with her, she is shot in the neck by a poisoned dart, dying instantly, leaving only the name "Captain J" scrawled on a piece of paper as a clue. The police arrive, trailed by pesky reporter Bobbi Logan (Marjorie Reynolds) who sneaks in through a window and is eventually handcuffed to a chair by Inspector Street (Grant Withers), her rather half-hearted boyfriend. The dead woman is identified as Princess Lin Hwa, who recently arrived in the States on board the ship The Maid of the Orient on a secret mission to purchase arms for a rebel group in China. A bank account she had for the purchase has been drained, and Wong and Street try to track down the culprit. The Mr. Wong movies are mostly second-rate rip-offs of the Charlie Chan movies, but that doesn't mean they can’t be fun. This one, however, is a bit of a chore to sit through. As usual, Karloff is fine, and Withers and Reynolds are OK. But the plot becomes a bit convoluted and the pacing is slack. At one point near the end, some wild fisticuffs threaten to break out, but they peter out quickly. In the supporting cast, the only standout is Angelo Rossito (who had a long career in movies from 1932's Freaks to 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) as a mute dwarf who Street keeps calling, "the little fella." With the comic shenanigans of Street and Logan pushing Wong himself into almost a supporting role, this is one of the lesser entries in the series. The plot was reused in a later Charlie Chan film, THE CHINESE RING. Pictured are Withers, Reynolds and Karloff. [DVD]

WAR OF THE SATELLITES (1958)

A U.N.-backed project headed by scientist Van Ponder (Richard Devon) is attempting to put a manned satellite into orbit, but on the first eight attempts, the satellite has hit something called the Sigma Barrier—shown as a wavy blur in outer space—and exploded, killing the crew. After the ninth flight meets the same fate, the U.N. calls for the project's termination, but when a necking teenage couple sees a small capsule zoom through the sky and crash in the woods, they investigate, find the capsule and take it to the authorities. It contains a message (in Latin!) from aliens warning us to abandon space exploration. As you can imagine, Americans don’t take kindly to that and the American ambassador manages to get the U.N. to support one more flight. This time, Ponder himself decides to go up in the satellite. However, when he is reported killed in a car crash, support wavers until Ponder shows up, claiming that he survived and is still game to go. What's actually happened is that an alien force has taken on his form and plans on sabotaging the flight. When alien intervention causes a series of natural disasters around the world, Ponder says they should stop, but his associate Dave (Dick Miller, pictured) is still gung-ho. Just before the satellite is to take off, Dave discovers Ponder's wrecked car and begins to suspect that something's not right. Still, Ponder and Dave and Sybil Harrington (Susan Cabot) and a small crew head up to try and break though the Sigma Barrier. When Dave sees Ponder split into two people, he's sure something's not right, and it's up to him to try and save the satellite and the crew.

Roger Corman was inspired to make this low-budget quickie by the news of the Russian launch of the Sputnik satellite. Supposedly this went from an idea in Corman's head to a released movie in eight weeks, and it shows, not so much in the acting or the sets (both of which are of variable quality as they are in most B-movies) as in the writing. Why would we keep sending up manned satellites that keep getting destroyed, over and over? How would this tenth flight be any different? (We're not made privy to any plans they have to overcome the barrier.) Why does the alien Ponder keep splitting in two for no particular purpose that I could see? Devon is a rather sinister looking fellow with an odd accent from the get-go, which somewhat undermines his transformation to sabotaging alien. Dick Miller, a Corman mainstay, plays it straighter here than I've ever seen him and he's quite good. Corman himself has a cameo as a mission control guy. The spaceship effects and sets, though laughable today (they strap themselves into lounge chairs), are not bad considering, but the U.N. set is ridiculously sparse. On balance, this is still B-movie-fun enough to recommend, especially for fans of Miller, who passed away last week at the age of 90. [DVD]

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1955)

aka Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge

I don't guess anyone needs a summary of the Snow White story. This German version plays out much like the famous Disney cartoon of 1937, except this is live action, with children wearing beards playing the dwarfs. Where the action differs from the Disney film, it does so in a way that makes it hew more closely to the original Grimm Brothers version. The Queen visits Snow White at the dwarfs' home three times. The first time, she appears as a peddler and when she talks Snow White into trying on a belt, the Queen tightens it so much that Snow White collapses. When the dwarfs return home, they cut the belt off and she recovers. The next day, the Queen returns selling decorative combs and when she plunges a poisoned one into Snow White's hair, Snow White collapses. Again, the dwarfs save her by simply removing the comb. Finally, the Queen disguises herself as an older peddler and manages to talk a reluctant Snow White into eating a poisoned apple which causes her (temporary) death and her placement in a glass coffin. The prince is a somewhat problematic character here. In the cartoon, he meets her early on and they fall for each other. Here, he comes to the castle, glimpses her from a tower window, becomes enraptured, and sends her a necklace and a promise to help her if she ever needs it. Later, he exclaims, "I love Snow White and I cannot live without her"—even though he's never even met her! The Hunter goes to him for help to save her, but they are rather ineffective—it takes them several months to find her, which we know because we see the seasons change with leaves and then snow falling on her coffin. And (spoiler) what saves her isn't the prince, but the dwarfs dropping the coffin which revives Snow White.

The 1960s was the golden age of the Kiddie Matinee, when suburban theaters would routinely show movies based on fairy tales on Saturday and Sunday mornings, sometimes accompanied by cartoons or a second film. But typically, these weren't big Hollywood movies or even old Hollywood movies, but B-budget films made in Mexico or Spain or Germany and dubbed (rather badly) into English. Sometimes the results were practically surreal, as with K. Gordon Murray's infamous Santa Claus, a Mexican import which features Santa teaming up with Merlin to battle the Devil. This dubbed German film was made in 1955 but didn't hit the American kiddie show trail until 1965. I'm not 100% sure I saw this in a theater, but I think I saw it on TV a couple of years later.

The sets are artificial and the costumes somewhat threadbare, but for me as a kid, that added to the appeal of the movie: it seemed like something my friends and I could have put together in someone's basement. Oddly, the occasional outdoor Bavarian location shot (including Neuschwanstein Castle) actually works against the movie, breaking the spell of the artificial fantasy. The actors are, well, present and accounted for, if not much else. Snow White is pretty but not beautiful; the Prince looks like a worn-out blond Nelson Eddy; the Queen (pictured above left) doesn't look as menacing (or as attractive) as she should. The child dwarfs are fine, and the Hunter is the best actor of all. I realize that some of my plot critiques above are probably more critiques of the original story, but still, those plotholes should have been at least papered over. There are a few songs, the most memorable being a "Whistle While You Work" sort of thing that goes, "Think la-la-la, sing la-la-la," and got stuck in my head for a couple of hours. For nostalgia lovers only. [YouTube]

THE NAKED AND THE DEAD (1958)

In a Honolulu bar in 1943, Sgt. Croft (Aldo Ray), the leader of a U.S Army platoon, sits apart from his men as a strip show is about to start. Croft is talked about as a good soldier but not an easy man to know or like. As it happens, the stripper is the object of the lust of the manic (and probably horny) Lt. Wilson—they "knew" each other back in the States—but just as the show starts, it's raided and the military men all quickly leave. The platoon ships out as part of an effort headed by General Cummings (Raymond Massey) to reverse a deadly trend and start taking back some important Pacific islands from the Japanese. We see the apparently unfeeling Croft kill a Japanese prisoner after he's taken important papers from him; then he sets out to gun down a group of stripped-down Japanese prisoners until Cummings's assistant Lt. Hearn (Cliff Robertson) stops him. The stage is now set for the main personal conflicts: Cummings, who is proud of the fact that he can usually predict how many soldiers will be killed in any one mission, is a believer is instilling fear in his men as a way of using power; Hearn, younger and greener, thinks that gaining respect is more important than using fear; Croft is a near-psychopathic sadist whose men have a measure of respect for his battleground skills but don't respect him as a man.

Though there a few battle sequences, the bulk of this movie, based on Norman Mailer's well-regarded novel, is devoted to the clash of the American soldiers. In the way of 1950s movies, we are given some simplistic psychological backgrounds to help explain the men: Croft married the woman he was in love with, but caught her cheating on him, a trauma he has never gotten over; Cummings may have a sexual dysfunction involving impotence or possibly homosexuality; Hearn, the least damaged of the three, was a bit of a playboy but is otherwise a thoughtful and humane man who respectfully disagrees with Cummings' outlook on power. The other characters who get caught in the psychological crossfire are played by Richard Jaeckel, James Best, William Campbell, Robert Gist, L.Q. Jones (as the aforementioned Wilson) and the unlikely duo of Jerry Paris (next-door neighbor Jerry Helper on The Dick Van Dyke Show) and comedian Joey Bishop as the new guys, both Jewish. Many critics were disappointed in this movie because it couldn't match up to the novel, infamous for its obscene language (and for Mailer's euphemistic use of "fug" for another obscenity starting with "F"), but I haven't read the book, and taken on its own terms, it's a fairly average war film. Ray (pictured with Robertson) gives the best performance, with Jones and Gist leading the support. Robertson is fine but colorless, and Massey is a bit over-the-top. It's way too long; the first 45 minutes, getting to know the men and their conflicts, are engrossing, but doldrums set in as the men go to battle, and the last half-hour, despite some good moments, drags. Still, it doesn't deserve to be forgotten just because it's not as powerful as its source material. [TCM]

FLIGHT TO NOWHERE (1946)

In Honolulu, a man who has just attended a party is shot, and we see the killer remove some paper from his pocket. The man was an agent and that paper was a secret map of uranium deposits which foreign spies want badly, and which federal agent Bob Donovan is determined to get back. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, pilot Hobie Carrington (Alan Curtis) is hired by the Countess de Fresca to fly her and some friends to Death Valley for a weekend stay at a resort. Hobie is initially reluctant to do so, but after some half-hearted flirting and the promise of a free dinner, he accepts the charter. The motley crew includes the lovely Catherine Forrest (Evelyn Ankers); her brother Claude, a former POW; Jan Van Bush, who is sweet on Catherine; and the somewhat mysterious Gerald Porter (Jerome Cowan). Before the plane takes off, Donovan tells Hobie, a former wartime spy, that all his passengers were at the party in Hawaii where the agent was shot, and asks for Hobie's help to find out if any of them have the map. In Death Valley, the group meets up with a mining executive named Walker, and Hobie runs into his ex-wife Irene. Soon the question becomes who doesn’t have the map. Hobie sees an envelope with Japanese characters on it in the Countess' purse. He steals it, but the Countess retrieves it. Irene agrees to steal it back, and it turns out that Claude has been trying to sell it to Walker. Meanwhile Jan tries to force himself on Kathy and Hobie comes to her rescue. Porter is revealed to be a G-man, but is he really? Walker is murdered, and everyone—including agent Donovan—winds up in Las Vegas where a ring with an encoded secret about one of the group turns up. More deaths occur (someone is killed by a horse, another person blown up in a plane) before all is cleared up.

Typical for a B-action film, there is more narrative than the filmmakers can handle, leading to plot holes and unmotivated action. I was even confused about the moral status of Claude, the former POW turned traitor—he seems more weak and confused than evil, though he does get punished for his sins. There's a stray plotpoint involving the fact that the Countess is recognized by Irene as a fake—she's a former chorus girl—that comes to nothing. The fight scenes are awkward, and some dialogue glitches were left in (a fairly common B-movie happening). Still, at around 70 minutes, this is entertaining enough for B-movie fans. I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that leading man Alan Curtis is charmless, but he tends to fade into the background, especially with such a large cast of characters surrounding him. Ankers (pictured with Curtis) is fine, though Cowan, usually an asset, is not used well here until the climax. The rest of the supporting cast is OK. It appears that actual location shooting was done in Las Vegas (before it was a bustling town), so that's kind of fun to see. [YouTube]

DAMON AND PYTHIAS (1962)

In 400 B.C., the city-state of Syracuse is under control of the dictator Dionysius. Currently, he is hunting down members of the Pythagorean cult, who believe in pacifism and the unity of all men as brothers, a view Dionysius sees as dangerous to his rule. When one fawning informer tells the nobleman Cariso that he is a friend, Cariso has him killed, saying "When a slave can call a master a friend, this world has ended." The roguish Damon (Guy Williams) plays both sides, accepting money to inform on the whereabouts of Arcanos, a Pythagorean leader, then going to Arcanos and telling his group to flee. In Athens, the leader of the Pythagoreans has died and Pythias (Don Burnett) is sent to bring Arconos back to replace him, though his pregnant wife Nerissa is upset to the point of illness about him leaving. In Syracuse, Damon robs Pythias, but then Pythias hires him to track down Arcanos. Though the two become friendly, Damon betrays Pythias to Cariso, but when Pythias gets the best of him in a fight, he refuses to kill Damon because of his pacifist beliefs, and Damon ultimately offers himself as a potential sacrifice. When Damon asks to be released briefly to visit his wife, Damon offers to be kept prisoner in his place, to be killed if Pythias doesn't return. Has Damon become a Pythagorean? Will Pythias keep his word? And if he does, will Cariso be able to delay his return long enough to have Damon killed?

Though based on an Greek legend, this movie is clearly comparing the Pythagoreans to early Christians, presenting them as a persecuted group preaching peace and love, hiding in the shadows and using a symbol to identify themselves to each other (not the cross, but a five-pointed star in a circle). The film was marketed as a sword-and-sandal adventure movie but, though there are some chases and fights (and sandals), this works more as a movie about religious persecution, like SIGN OF THE CROSS without nudity or sadism. The fabled friendship of the title characters could use some beefing up. There's a scene early on in which it looks like Damon is going to invite his new friend to be part of a threesome with his girlfriend—but no, they just all go to sleep—but their friendship is portrayed as rather shallow, and it comes as something of a surprise when Damon makes his offer to be a potential sacrifice for Pythias. Guy Williams (TV's Zorro, though I know him best as the dad on Lost in Space) does a nice job as the rogue who converts to a believer in brotherhood; Don Burnett is less effective, a little wooden and passive. If you come to this looking for beefcake, you'll be disappointed; though tunics are worn, there are no bare chests and not much in the way of muscle—Williams would be better described as a little on the beefy side rather than muscular. Still, a nice change of pace for the genre. I was disappointed that TCM showed a pan-and-scanned print even though a widescreen version is available on DVD from Warner Archive. [TCM]

OPERATION EICHMANN (1961)

In a series of shorts scenes set between 1941 and 1945, narrated by a concentration camp inmate named David, we see Adolf Eichmann (Werner Klemperer, at left) set the machinery in motion for a "final solution" to the Jewish problem. His plan is to destroy all six million Jews in the lands under the Reich's control in order to divert food to German soldiers. At Auschwitz, already a prison camp, workmen wonder why they are installing shower heads not connected to water, but we know that they will be connected to containers of Zyklon B, an industrial-strength pesticide that will be used to gas Jews to death. When the Nazis realize that disposal of bodies will be a problem, they install crematoria to turn the bodies to untraceable ash. In 1945, with the Reich collapsing, Eichmann, under an assumed identity, escapes with his mistress Anna (Ruta Lee) to Spain but soon realizes that he is being followed by Israeli agents—including a grown-up David (Donald Buka)—and makes his way to Kuwait and then Argentina. Some of the agents on his trail, notably David's friend Jacob, who managed to survive Auschwitz with David, want to assassinate Eichmann, but David spoils their plans because he argues for bringing him to justice. It's not really a spoiler to note that eventually, he is caught and tried in Jerusalem.

This B-film was rushed into production after Eichmann's arrival in Israel in May of 1960 and was released in March of 1961, a month before Eichmann's trial would begin, though the movie opens with an abstract shot of Eichmann in darkness except for a spotlight, making a belligerent statement in a courtroom. Unfortunately, the rush resulted in a rather static and undramatic picture. The acting is generally fine. There is the risk that baby boomer audiences will associate Werner Klemperer too closely to the comic Col. Klink on Hogan’s Heroes, but his solid performance carries no trace of Klink. John Banner, who was Klink's bumbling assistant Schultz, plays the relatively small role of Rudolf Hess, Commandant of Auschwitz. Donald Buka (ar right), as the grown-up Davis, is mostly just called upon to look stoic and solemn. Though I chuckled when I saw Ruta Lee's name in the opening credits, thinking she lacked the chops for role of the mistress, she gives maybe the best performance in the movie after Klemperer. Eric Braeden (of The Young & the Restless and The Rat Patrol) has a small but crucial role in the last half-hour.

One problem is in the staginess of the movie, confined almost completely as it is to studio shots on sets that range from adequate to cheap, and the tone which comes close to exploitation. The film is well shot but lacks tension or gravitas. In a startling scene early on, we follow the first batch of Jews into the gas chamber and watch as they begin dying, a moment that even Spielberg couldn't quite bring himself to include in SCHINDLER'S LIST. The most effective scene in the movie is in the middle, when Eichmann is trying to get one last load of prisoners (including the young David and Jacob) transferred to Dachau before he flees Germany. His driver rebels, saying, "To call you insane is a generosity" and Eichmann orders a slaughter of the prisoners with soldiers shooting through the slats on the trucks. Afterward, a handful of survivors slowly exit the trucks, all of them children. The ending, as the agents chase Eichmann on the streets, is rushed and ineffective. But the movie itself is worth seeing as an interesting novelty. The same historical incidents are dramatized in the 2018 movie Operation Finale. [TCM]

ANOTHER FACE (1935)

Infamous gangster Broken Nose Dawson, a rather ugly chap, is wanted for murder but he arranges with a plastic surgeon to have his looks altered and comes out looking downright handsome. But once a gangster, always a gangster, and Dawson kills everyone who knows he had the surgery, even the doctor, except for Mary, the nurse, who, disgusted that she was forced to be a part of the whole thing, leaves town before the killing starts and heads out to California to be with cowboy star Tex Williams, who fell in love with her when she treated him after a fall from a horse during a show in New York. Coincidentally, Dawson also heads west, under the identity of playboy Spencer Dutro, with plans to become an actor. Arriving at Zenith Studios, he tries out for a gangster part only to be told he's not the gangster type. But PR man Joe Haynes thinks he can make a success of Dutro by marketing his playboy background. Soon, Dutro is treated as a rising star, but one day, Mary recognizes Dutro as Dawson and troubles ensue.

This is an uneasy blend of comedy and drama, unusual for its day, and it doesn't quite come together successfully, partly due to the character of Dawson, played by Brian Donlevy. Had we seen Dawson become more civilized and more sympathetic, the mix might have been more palatable. Or if someone like James Cagney had played Dawson, he probably could have had us rooting, to some degree, for the bad guy. But the characterization is flat, as is Donlevy's performance. The de facto good guy is Wallace Ford as PR man Joe and he's fine, but again his character is fuzzy and occasionally unpleasant, as in the long sequence in which Joe keeps Mary locked up in his office closet to protect her from Dawson while he tries to work a PR angle around the situation. He's wooing an actress, played by Phyllis Brooks, but she's another bland and unfocused character. This leaves Mary, the put-upon nurse (Molly Lamont) and her cowboy Tex (Jack Randall) as the two most sympathetic characters, but they don't really have all that much screen time, so the upshot is that we spend most of the movie with folks we don't really care about. What I enjoyed most about this movie was seeing Erik Rhodes; he's mostly known for playing comically exotic foreigners (THE GAY DIVORCEE, TOP HAT) but here, he's as American vanilla as they come, and it's fun to see him playing against type. Best line delivery: Hattie McDaniel, maid to Phyllis Brooks, hears Brooks tell someone on the phone about her upcoming marriage to a "publicity director," and she disgustedly mumbles, "Press agent." [TCM]

LAZY RIVER (1934)

Bill (Robert Young), Tiny, Gabby, and Armand are prison buddies. Armand, a Cajun, implies that his family runs one of the biggest shrimp fishing businesses in New Orleans, and his mother knows nothing about his current circumstances. When a breakout goes bad, Armand is killed and the other three are given early release for not participating in the action. The three head down the Bayou, hoping to connect with Armand's family and make some easy money, but the reality is that Armand's mom, known as Miss Minnie, is widowed and is just days away from losing her choice dock property (and therefore her business) to a shady Chinese man named Sam Kee. Ambrose, an old moneyed friend of the family, arrives in the nick of time, the night before her dock is to be auctioned off, and promises to give her the money she needs to hang on to her land, but Kee and his men kill Ambrose that night and the auction goes on. Suspecting foul play, Tiny sneaks onto Sam's boat, breaks into his safe, and steals enough cash to allow Miss Minnie to keep her dock. Things seem to sort themselves out nicely: Bill is sweet on Armand's sister Sarah (Jean Parker), and he and his friends help get the family business back on its feet. But let's not forget slimy Sam Kee who needs the land for his illegal smuggling of immigrants and is plotting his revenge. And, oh yeah, it turns out that Bill has a wife…

Robert Young (way before Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby M.D.) was a comely youth and his fresh-faced appeal is the main reason for watching this predictable melodrama. But his buddies, played by the stalwart character actors Nat Pendleton (Tiny) and Ted Healy (Gabby), are fun, and I ended up feeling like I knew them as well as I knew Bill. Parker's character is not especially memorable, but I enjoyed the support of C. Henry Gordon (as the villainous Sam), Maude Eburne as Miss Minnie, and Irene Franklin as a fun-loving cook who flirts with Gabby. There is a very cute scene of Young and Parker floating up, yes, a lazy river, while she serenades him. Watchable for those in the mood for an old-fashioned romantic drama. [TCM]

CHRISTMAS BELLS ARE RINGING (2018)

I guess I have time for one more Hallmark Christmas movie. This one manages to be thoroughly average in general while being below average in at least one area and above in another. Emilie Ullerup works as a freelance photographer, but she is hoping to get a regular gig at a Boston newspaper by winning a competition for best Christmas photo spread. It is suggested that she "find something we've never seen" and since she's heading to Cape Cod for her widowed father's marriage, she decides to make a Cape Christmas her theme. Though she is 100% behind her dad's new relationship, she is still dealing with grief over her mother’s death, especially when Mom was a gifted photographer and several of her photos still line the walls of a local gallery. She also comes to realize that she is conflicted about the promise of the Boston job—she would be settling down but might find herself creatively stifled. And finally, one last problem arises: the presence of a former summertime boyfriend (Josh Kelly) who lives on the Cape working in his family's real estate business but is considering a move to London for a new career.

This pretty much embodies the Hallmark template: successful woman facing a life change leaves big city at Christmas, goes to small town and finds guidance with family, new friends, and hunky down-to-earth guy. But this also illustrates how tired the conventions get, especially when Hallmark has produced 37 new movies this year—technically new, but mostly very familiar re-workings of the same old plot and character beats. Everything feels just a little too tired (yet another unrealistic Christmastime business competition rears its ugly head) and undeveloped, and the writer and director can't find anything new here except the Cape Cod setting—and already some viewers have expressed dismay that the movie was obviously shot in Canada and not the very recognizable real Cape Cod (though this didn't bother me). There is one new Hallmark aspect: an interracial couple is featured briefly, but not long enough to really register as an important plot point. I am of two minds about another problem: the lack of any real melodramatic conflict. On the one hand, it's a bit refreshing that the conflicts that exist are fairly low-key and there's no last-minute romantic obstacle in the form of a former boyfriend or girlfriend. On the other hand, the lack of tension makes the last half-hour go by awfully slowly to the inevitable happy ending. The main pluses here are the two leads. I'll watch Josh Kelly in almost anything—he has the sweet, non-threatening masculinity thing down pat. I'd never seen Emilie Ullerop before but she is right in the mold of the blond Hallmark heroine and she and Kelly have good chemistry. It's an odd note on which to end the holiday season: I feel lukewarm about this movie but I'd recommend it as a good intro into the Hallmark Christmas movie mindset. And, you know, Josh Kelly. [Hallmark]

THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN (2017)

Tom (Dermot Mulroney) used to be a war correspondent but now has settled down and writes human interest stories—on topics like he-and-she closets. Four days before Christmas, he is taking a train from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles to be with his girlfriend Lelia. She's pissed that he isn't flying, but he's hoping to get a good story out of observing the people on the train. It's also clear that he isn't all that excited about seeing Lelia again. Also on the train: Max Powers (Danny Glover), a famous film director, and his faithful assistant and script doctor Eleanor (Kimberly Williams-Paisley); Misty, a friendly psychic; Agnes (Joan Cusack), an eccentric and occasionally nosy woman who is a regular train rider; young couple Steve and Julie who are planning a wedding on the train, despite Steve's parents objections; Higgins, an older, laid-off railroad worker; Kenny, a friendly bartender; and Kelly, a man still grieving his wife's death, trying to force himself to read Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." On the train, Max introduces Tom to Eleanor, hoping he can help her with a script about train travel, but it turns out that the two had a long-term relationship while they were both reporters; according to Tom, she left him in Jerusalem with no notice, and both still have scars from their shared past. Soon they seem to be striking sparks again, but the haughty and unlikeable Lelia joins the train at one of its stops, with marriage on her mind. Of course, other complications set in. Among them: a petty thief steals small but important items, like Julie's wedding ring, Kenny's railroad car model, and Tom's favorite pen; the minister who was supposed to marry Steve and Julie can't make it, and worse, Steve's parents are threatening to disown him; Agnes seems to be keeping a secret about her past. Then, on Christmas Eve, the train gets stuck in snow in the mountains, ruining everyone's hopes for a happy holiday. But can this delay actually help the passengers and their dilemmas?

This Hallmark Christmas movie is a little different from the usual. It's based on a book by best-selling author David Baldacci and it has slightly higher star power with the presence of Mulroney, Glover, and Cusack. Of course, the plot doesn't diverge too much from the Hallmark template: we still have the white upper-middle class couple who have to overcome their problems by Christmas day, the ethnic sidekicks (in addition to Glover, there's the African American psychic and the Chinese bartender), and plenty of snow and Christmas decorations. The plot is a bit quirkier than usual, with a twist ending that I liked at first, but later came to see as outlandish and a bit shoddy. The performances are good all around: the leading couple has good chemistry, Joan Cusack is amusing as Agnes, Anthony Konechny as Steve is a handsome All-American blond type, and Nelson Wong as Kenny is charming. Overall, a welcome deviation from formula, even if the formula reinstates itself by the end. Pictured from left are Williams-Paisley, Mulroney and Glover. [Hallmark]