THE FLEMISH FARM (1943)

In May of 1940, Belgium's air force is in tatters, their final holdouts operating from a farmhouse. With the Germans on their way to declare victory, the commanding officer (Clive Brook) is ordered to destroy as much equipment and burn as many records as he and his men can. They hold a midnight burial at sea for their regiment's flag, and the next morning as they prepare to fly their airworthy planes to England and join up with the RAF, pilot Philip Friend is taken to task by fellow officer Clifford Evans for not showing up at the ceremony, and instead canoodling with Jane Baxter, a local farm gal. But what Evans doesn't know is that Friend has secretly married Baxter, and that while the sea burial was going on with a decoy flag, Friend was burying the real flag somewhere on the farm in hopes that it could eventually be retrieved. Months later, Evans learns the truth about the flag from Friend, but Friend is killed in action the next day. Evans decides to take it upon himself to go back to Belgium and get the flag. Once in Ghent, he contacts Brook (now retired but secretly working with a resistance group), goes to the farm that was their headquarters, and finds the widowed Baxter and her child. She is reluctant to help, seeing the flag as not important enough for anyone to risk their life over, but as one character notes, "Strange the magic there is in symbols," and she soon helps him find it. But the return to England is dangerous; will the whole effort have been in vain?

This is an interesting and little-known propaganda film, a variation on the wartime spy film (there are no traditional combat scenes, though there is spy-style tension built up in the final third of the movie). Clive Brook is top-billed, but the real star of the film is Clifford Evans (pictured), and though he was mostly a B-movie lead, he acquits himself well here, as do Philip Friend (in his short time onscreen) and Jane Baxter. It's all very low-key which makes it feel a bit more realistic than the average wartime spy thriller. There’s a nice scene, also low-key, involving Evans having to meet secretly with his mother in a public park. I don't know how effective this would have been in its days as (literally) flag-waving propaganda; despite the stress on the importance of symbols, I'm not sure I felt that all the effort—involving the death of at least one person—was really worth it. But as a different take on the WWII film, it's worth seeing. [YouTube]

TO HELL AND BACK (1955)

Audie Murphy was the most decorated American soldier of World War II. After the war, he became an actor, mostly in westerns and adventure films, and wrote a war memoir, To Hell and Back. When that book was bought for the screen, he was talked into playing himself. The movie was a huge hit, becoming Universal's biggest moneymaker until JAWS in 1975. The kinds of movies in which Murphy starred aren't typically my cup of tea, but I was impressed with him in THE QUIET AMERICAN, and he's almost as impressive here. The film begins with a brief segment showing Murphy growing up poor in rural Texas, quitting school to work, and, after Pearl Harbor, joining the Army at the age of 16. Murphy is young, innocent and short but he fits in with his infantry division, proves to be brave, and is promoted quickly along the way, from North Africa to the invasion of Sicily, through Italy and France. Despite a number of courageous acts and smart decisions made during battle, he is not portrayed as a glory-chasing loner; rather, he is well-liked and respected, and bonds with his fellow soldiers, most notably Johnson (Marshall Thompson) and Brandon (Charles Drake), both fictionalized versions of real people. Many of his friends die in combat, hence his advice to some newcomers not to make new friends but to stick to the ones you already know, because it's hard to watch your friends die.

I suspect it's not easy for an actor to play himself, but Murphy makes it look easy; he seems completely natural, commanding the screen in an almost self-effacing way. His heroics, particularly near the end when he fends off a group of German tanks almost single-handedly, don't feel exaggerated. The battle scenes are generally effective, though there are times when outdoor footage and studio-shot footage don't quite mesh as well as they should. There's a scene in Naples where Audie's buddies go off to find some female companionship; he winds up having dinner with a young woman named Maria (Susan Kohner, pictured at right with Murphy) and, though he goes to her room later, it's made clear he's just interested in talking. That sounds corny, but Murphy and Kohner pull it off. It may be strange to compliment a war movie for being low-key, but in this case, it works. This is the second time Murphy has impressed me in a movie—he's also a handsome fellow—so maybe it's time for me to search for some of his westerns. [TCM]

SMASHING TIME (1967)

Carnaby Street, with its hip fashion boutiques, bars, and discotheques, was the epicenter of the "Swinging 60s" in London. Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham are two young women who have come to Carnaby from the North to make it to the big time, though their plans are rather vague. Lynn is the more outgoing of the two and tends to boss Rita around. When their money is stolen just after they arrive on the street, Lynn makes Rita do dishes to pay for a meal while Lynn goes prancing up and down Carnaby, showing off what she thinks of as her really gear fashion sense while actually hip photographer Michael York is snapping pictures of her to run in the paper to make fun of her. The rest of the movie is a mostly plotless collection of scenes showing their rise and fall in the world of 60s pop culture. They get jobs, lose jobs, cause trouble in a diner leading to a colorful food fight, cause trouble in a pie shop (named Sweenie Todd's) leading to a wild pie fight, go to parties, romance men, etc. Lynn winds up almost accidentally having a hit record with a song called "While I'm Still Young" ("I can’t sing but I'm young/Can't do a thing but I'm young/…I'm a fool but I'm cool"), but she becomes jealous when Rita finds success as a model and her face is everywhere. The somewhat apocalyptic climax occurs at a huge party when the girls wind up trashing a fancy building and blacking out much of London.

I remember seeing ads for this movie when I was 11 and wanting to see it, but I never did, and I've only now tracked it down on DVD. I'm sure I wouldn't have known how to take it back then, but now it works best now as a colorful historical snapshot of mid-60s London as viewed through a lens of outrageous satire and slapstick. The duo of Redgrave and Tushingham must have been at least partial inspiration years later for the characters of Edina and Patsy on Absolutely Fabulous. After the first few minutes, the movie leaves reality behind completely. The names of some of the characters (Wabe, Brillig, Tove) clue us in as a guide to viewing: the names are words from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky from Alice in Wonderland, and this is a bit like Lynn and Rita in a fantasy London Wonderland. The comic bits are hit and miss, with the food fight and pie fight coming in tops for me, and the parody of a reality TV show less successful, although kudos to the scriptwriter George Melly for envisioning TV of the 21st century. Redgrave is fun, all bubbly and oblivious to everything around her. Tushingham is a little less enjoyable as the sad sack of the pair. A lot of supporting characters come and go, and Michael York, though third-billed, is just basically another one of those background people. The "Still Young" song is funny, and my favorite line echoes a small bit in A Hard Day’s Night: when throwing a huge party, Redgrave says, pretty much right to the camera, "Me coke bill alone is phenomenal," then after a beat, holds up a Coca-Cola bottle. Fun and fairly frothy, though by the end, it does wear out its welcome. Pictured are York and Redgrave. [DVD]

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE (1933)

Folks are converging on the International Hotel in the town of Wu Hu, China, to see and bid on the rights to a new invention by Dr. Wong: the Radioscope, an early version of television. And that, folks, is the entire plot of this movie which winds up being mostly a very hit-and-miss variety show with musicians performing and comedians doing their shtick in the service of what seems to be intended partly as a parody of the movie GRAND HOTEL. There are some characters with fairly stunted plotlines: Stuart Erwin is the mild-mannered hypochondriac representative of an American company hoping to buy the Radioscope, and when he complains of feeling ill, the hotel is put under quarantine; Peggy Hopkins Joyce plays herself, a stage actress famous for her riches and her divorces, in Wu Hu looking to hook up with a millionaire; Bela Lugosi is a Russian general and jealous former husband of Joyce's who is locked out of the hotel due to the quarantine; George Burns is the hotel doctor and Gracie Allen his nurse; Franklin Pangborn is the overwhelmed hotel manager; most importantly, W.C. Fields is a perpetually drunken eccentric who arrives in a autogyro (named the Spirit of South Brooklyn), having gotten lost on his way to Kansas City. 

But of course, the plot's not the thing here; the appeal is in the almost vaudeville-style comedy bits and songs. Fields is the star of the show and he's even funnier than usual, maybe because he doesn't have to worry about being a consistent character—he can just be mean and snarky all the time. I'd quote some of his lines, but that would take up the rest of this review. Lugosi is surprisingly good in a rare comic role. Viewers most likely to appreciate this film are those with at least a nodding acquaintance with 30s pop culture. Burns and Allen are Burns and Allen—if you like them (which I do), they don't disappoint. An odd radio comedy duo named Colonel Stoopnagle and Budd make a brief appearance; their slogan seems to have been, "Stoopnocracy is peachy." Rudy Vallee sings a love song to his megaphone and talks back to Fields through the TV set. Cab Calloway does a rather daring rendition of "Reefer Man," with lyrics like, "He smokes reefer, he gets high/And he flies to the sky." 10-year-old Baby Rose Marie (yes, the same Rose Marie who played Sally on The Dick Van Dyke Show) sings a song with a surprisingly adult snarl to her voice. Sterling Holloway dances in a surreal number (think Busby Berkeley) with the chorus, "She was a china tea cup and he was just a mug." The wild finale involves a car chase through the hotel. As I said earlier, it is a bit hit-and-miss, but the antic atmosphere will keep you going through the slower parts—usually those involving Stuart Erwin. Pictured are Joyce and Fields. [DVD]

DINOSAURUS! (1960)

On a Caribbean island, engineer Bart and his associate & best buddy Chuck are doing some blasting along a beach in preparation for building a new harbor that will being more tourists to the island. Mike Hacker, the island manager (whatever that means), is against the project and, as if that's not villainous enough, he mistreats Julio, his young ward, right out in public. Arriving in the middle of blasting is Betty, Bart's blond girlfriend. She and Bart frolic underwater until she passes out in fright when she sees a monstrous face in the water. Bart and Chuck harness their equipment (no double entendre intended) and drag out two gigantic perfectly preserved dinosaur bodies onto the beach: a T. Rex and a brontosaurus. At the same time, Mike discovers a third find ignored by the engineers—the mud-caked body of a caveman. He hides it under brush and plans to retrieve it that night and make a fortune selling it. 

Young Julio thinks the dinosaurs might be alive because the eyes of one of them are open, but no one pays attention to him—until that night during a storm when lighting hits them and they are both re-animated. Julio, in the woods having run away from Mike, befriends the "good" herbivore dinosaur, and when Mike returns to claim the caveman, he finds that he is gone, reanimated as well. There follows a comic sequence in which the caveman looks inside a house and locks eyes with a woman in curlers and cold cream—they both run screaming from each other, though the caveman eventually returns and has some slapstick run-ins with appliances, and even gets a Marx Brothers moment in reaction to a full-length mirror. With the T. Rex on the rampage—he crushes to death a trolley car full of people—the caveman helps both Julio and Betty escape death as Bart and Chuck rally the townspeople to take refuge at an old fortress surrounded by a dry moat which they set on fire, hoping to drive the T. Rex away. Sadly, the friendly brontosaurus succumbs to quicksand, but it takes Bart and a big construction truck to save the village.

This feels a bit schizophrenic—sometimes, when it's focused on the caveman and the herbivore dinosaur, it's a kiddie matinee (believe it or not, the bad guy even gets a pie in the face!), and sometimes, when the carnivore takes the spotlight, it's a horror thriller. It’s not as bad as its reputation would have it, as long as you're up for the differing moods and the inconsistent special effects. In the scenes using stop-motion clay figures, the dinosaurs are brought to life fairly well. In some close-ups, they substitute large puppets, or perhaps people in costumes, that are much less effective. The climax, involving what is clearly a toy truck on a miniature cliff, is a little disappointing. Some viewers may enjoy the B-movie beefcakiness of Ward Ramsey (Bart) and Paul Lukather (Chuck) who have a nice, casual rapport with each other (both pictured at right), and Gregg Martell as the caveman. Fred Engleberg is appropriately slimy as Mike, the under-motivated bad guy (he's mostly bad because there needs to be a bad guy in a movie like this). Kristina Hanson and Alan Roberts are fine as the heroine and the kid, both of whom are mostly around to be saved from danger by the beefcake men. There's a character affectionately named Dumpy, another less affectionately named Mousey, and an outrageously stereotyped Irish guy named O'Leary who becomes the dinosaur's first casualty, sparing us from hearing his terrible accent for long. The movie looks nice and colorful, though the day-for-night sequences are not good. Enjoyable for those with appropriate expectations. [YouTube]

A YANK IN LIBYA (1942)

This WWII adventure starts as an American dressed in Arabian clothing races through the streets of a town in Libya and enters a woman's room. She's startled but he begs her to hide a rifle he is carrying; he swiped it from Sheik David as proof that the Nazis are running guns in order to bring about unrest among the local tribes. She reluctantly agrees; he escapes through a window just before Sheik David enters. As the Sheik is friendly with the woman, Nancy Brooks (Joan Woodbury), he believes her when she claims that no one entered her room. The American, reporter Mike Malone (Walter Woolf King), goes to the British embassy to report what he knows to diplomat Phillip Graham, but is stonewalled by an older employee named Forbes (H.B. Warner). Mike drags Forbes to Nancy's apartment, but she denies the entire incident. In short order, we meet the rest of the characters: the diplomat Graham who in fact knows about the gunrunning and resents Mike's amateur attempts at spying; Sheik Ibrahim, second in command to Sheik David—while David has close ties to the British, Ibrahim is anxious to do the Nazis' bidding; a Czech businessman named Streyer; and an Arab street vendor named Parkyarkarkus (pronounced "park your carcass"—he befriends Mike and serves mostly as comic relief). As situations develop, we learn that not all these folks are quite what they seem, and the question is, will Mike be a help or a hindrance in quashing the local uprising aimed at destabilizing the region?

This Poverty Row film plays out a little more competently than others of its kind, partly due to lots of use of stock footage of crowds and action. However, the footage is mostly from the silent movie era—the movements are unnaturally sped up.  I didn't find it all that bothersome, but your mileage may vary. Otherwise, it's an average low-budget wartime thriller without much in the way of actual thrills, but packed with plot (and the requisite plot holes that come with a low budget). Walter Woolf King plays the mostly unlikable hero and Joan Woodbury fades into the woodwork as Nancy, who turns out to be a British agent. Warner, a big star in silent movies, is top-billed though he doesn't get all that much screen time, and he seems like he's sleepwalking through the role—though a few years later he gives a strong performance as the druggist in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. In an odd turn, Parkyarkarkus, the character, is played by Parkyarkarkus, the actor. He is an acquired taste; I don't find him all that funny but he doesn't offend or irritate me, either. In real life, he was Harry Parke, father to comic actors Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein. William Vaughn chews the scenery ineffectively as the Nazi villain. The best performances, partly due to their subtlety, are given by Duncan Renaldo as Sheik David and Howard Banks as Graham. Fans of Poverty Row films will enjoy this, but others can give this a pass. Pictured are King and Banks. [YouTube]

MURDER IS MY BUSINESS (1946)

The rich Mrs. Eleanor Ramsey is stuck in an unhappy marriage with two grown stepchildren who don't like her; her lover Carl has left her for young Dorothy, one of the stepchildren, but is willing to leave the girl alone if Eleanor will pay him off. Now she's getting threatening letters which she suspects are from Carl, but she doesn't want to go to the police for fear of public scandal, so she calls private eye Michael Shayne to investigate. Shayne is smarting from a public spanking (verbal) from police chief Rafferty who uses him as a prime example of the unscrupulous detective, but he takes the job, with some help from his secretary Phyllis. Shayne immediately gets thrown a curve when Mr. Ramsey, in deep financial trouble, asks for Shayne's help to stage a robbery of his wife's jewels so he can get the insurance money on them. Joe, an ex-con pal of Shayne's, gets wind of the plan and, against Shayne's wishes, heads to the Ramsey mansion to pull off the fake robbery. Next morning, both Joe and Eleanor are dead; Mr. Ramsey shot Joe when it appeared he was attacking Eleanor. Rafferty assumes that Joe was working with Shayne and threatens to pin something on Shayne. Meanwhile, two sideline characters, ex-con Duell Renslow, now a night club manager, and Mona, a hostess at the club, become suspects (Duell is revealed as Eleanor's brother) as do the nasty stepkids, Dorothy and Ernest. When Phyllis insists on helping out more directly by working her way into the affections of the slimy playboy Carl (still a suspect), all hell breaks loose until Shayne gathers the suspects in one room for the unmasking of the killer.

Michael Shayne had been played in a series of B-mysteries by stalwart supporting actor Lloyd Nolan. When the series went to Poverty Row studio PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation, not Poverty Row Company, though that name would fit, too), Hugh Beaumont, who had been appearing in mostly uncredited roles in films since 1940, took over for a short run in the role and, though it didn’t raise his profile much in movies, he did go on to fame as the dad in TV's Leave It to Beaver. He doesn't really set Shayne apart from other B-movie detectives, but he is breezy and pleasant, and knows how to take a beating—he gets his ass kicked about four times in the movie but never gives up. The overall tone is light, not noir, and the one hour running time keeps things moving. The supporting cast is undistinguished but not without its high points. Cheryl Walker, who had only a few credited roles in 40s B-movies, retired not long after this, though she's fine as the buttinsky secretary. Well-established character actor Lyle Talbot isn't given enough to do in the red herring role of Eleanor's brother. George Meeker makes Carl nicely slimy, and Julia McMilan and David Reed are promising as the stepchildren but don't get enough screen time to develop their characters beyond their initial impression as unlikeable. Not exactly a buried gem, but I'll probably watch more of these now that they are available on DVD as a set from Classic Flix. [DVD]

WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (1950)

The Earl is returning to his home after several years away, having been stationed in the tropics as governor of the Coconut Islands. The servants, happy to have him back, have put up a big "Welcome Home" banner, but stuffy Lady Mary, the Earl's sister, and the even stuffier Gerald, the Earl's grandson, think it’s just too vulgar and make them take it down. When the Earl arrives, with his faithful butler Bembridge, he is sad that there is no banner. Right off the bat, we know how the alliances will go here: the relatively down-to-earth Earl and his butler will stand opposed to the sister and the grandson, with Elaine, the pleasant granddaughter, trying to bridge the gap. The Earl tells the family stories of his adventures which they are quite bored by, but one of them involves a native girl named Lapis, daughter of a tribal king, who fell in love with the butler. That night, Bembridge discovers that Lapis packed herself in one of the Earl's trunks and has accompanied them home. He tries to keep her scantily-clad presence secret, but when she is caught taking a bath in the kitchen sink, the secret is out. That night, at a welcome home party, Lapis is introduced to the guests, but she enters the room stark naked, scandalizing and pleasing people in equal measure. When reports reach the Earl that Lapis' father thinks she’s been kidnapped and has started a local war, he realizes something must be done.

This British B-comedy from the pre-horror Hammer studios is fun enough, though the acting and direction are just about par for this kind of lower-budget film. Edward Rigby as the Earl is fine if colorless; Henry Mollison as the butler is a bit better, keeping a stoic face while hinting at hidden depths that might attract the uninhibited Lapis; the most fun seems to be had by the actors playing the villains—Eleanor Hallam as Lady Mary and, especially, Michael Ward as Gerald, whose strained and high-pitched voice is hilariously obnoxious. Mercy Haystead as Lapis is sexy and whimsical but not very exotic, looking as pale as the Earl's family. Good support is offered by Peter Burton as a reporter who falls for Elaine, and Tonie MacMillan as Mrs. Thimble, the cook. The dialogue is amusing without really being witty, so its effectiveness is mostly due to the delivery (the strengths of Hallam and Ward). The ending is particularly satisfying. Pictured are Haystead and Mollison. [YouTube]

STORM WARNING (1951)

Model Marsha Mitchell (Ginger Rogers) has taken a detour on her way to her latest job to the small town of Rock Point to visit her sister Lucy (Doris Day) whom she hasn't seen since Lucy got married more than a year ago. She arrives in the evening and finds it unusual that most of the town near the bus depot has already shut down; even the taxi driver claims he can't take another fare. As Marsha walks to Lucy's house, she witnesses a gang of men dressed in robes and hoods bring a tied-up prisoner out of the courthouse and beat him. As the prisoner runs away, one of the hooded men shoots him dead. He pulls off his hood and Marsha, hiding in the shadows, gets a good look at him. In a daze, Marsha walks to Lucy's home where their happy reunion is short-circuited when Lucy's husband Hank (Steve Cochran) comes home and Marsha recognizes him as the killer. She can't hide her knowledge and Hank breaks down and admits it, claiming it was a terrible accident—the reporter had been snooping around writing an exposé of the town as a center of Ku Klux Klan activity, and the Klansmen had just wanted to scare him away, but things got out of hand. Marsha buys his story—though we see that Cochran actually feels no remorse—and plans to leave the next morning, but when prosecutor Burt Rainey (Ronald Reagan) finds out she was a witness, he tries to convince her to stay and speak out at the inquest. Marsha is put under pressure and pulled in different directions by the law, the KKK, and Lucy and Hank; with the very real danger of revenge weighing on her mind, she feels trapped.

This is a somewhat unusual social issue movie in that we are never shown exactly why the Klansmen are bad people. Of course, an audience in 1951 would know (as would an audience of today), but the viewer has to make assumptions about the Klan to imagine that they aren't just some small-fry bullying hooligans—no activity against African-Americans or Jews is shown here, and the biggest worry of the Klan leader (played by Hugh Sanders), aside from the murder charge, is that a reporter might find out that he has been funneling dues money from Klan members into his own pocket, and could be brought up on charges of income tax evasion. The leads, Rogers and Reagan, both seem unwilling to commit fully to their parts: Reagan more or less sleepwalks through the movie, and Rogers usually looks more irritated than scared or outraged. Cochran and Day, however, are quite good as they enact a "Streetcar Named Desire" dynamic, with Cochran as the sexy but brutal animalistic husband and Day as the peppy new wife who blissfully ignores any problems. Day is especially good playing against type—this was her first non-musical comedy role. The movie has a noir feel to it, right through to the downbeat ending, and fans of film noir will enjoy this. Pictured are Day, Rogers and Cochran. [DVD]

THE STRANGLER OF BLACKMOOR CASTLE (1963)

At a fancy dinner party at Blackmoor Castle, Lucius Clark announces that he is soon to be knighted by the Queen. Outside the castle, the dogs are barking up a storm, unnoticed by the partygoers but raising an alarm among the groundskeepers and the (possibly sinister) butler, Anthony. Tom, the handsome gardener, is attacked and killed by a masked figure who leaves the letter "M" branded on his forehead, though his body isn't found until the next morning. After the guests leave, the killer enters the house and confronts Clark, saying, "A thief and a murderer shall never be a knight of the realm"; he claims he will avenge the death of Clark's old friend Charles Manning and demands that Clark give up six million pounds worth of diamonds that (he says) Clark stole from Manning. Clark very coolly refuses to give in, even at gunpoint, so the masked man warns he will make Clark's life a living hell until he gives in. We are soon introduced to the other characters: Clark's niece Claridge who is trying to make a name for herself as a local reporter; Mike, a fellow reporter and friend who agrees to work with Claridge on the story of the Blackmoor killer; Inspector Mitchell and his assistant Watson who keep finding more castle staff strangled; the lavishly mustachioed Edgar (a Scot in a kilt) who actually owns the castle but rents it to Clark; and a young boy named Flip who knows his way around the various caves and secret passages underneath the Blackmoor estate. We soon discover that Clark is trying surreptitiously to sell the diamonds to Tavish, the owner of the Old Homestead Inn; a lawyer named Tromby is in some partnership with him; and Judy, a sexy blond barmaid at the inn, may be a key to the mysteries that pile up, along with the bodies—more than one of which is killed not by strangulation but by decapitation.

This German movie is based on a book by Bryan Edgar Wallace, son of the famous thriller writer Edgar Wallace (who was a co-creator of King Kong). Nearly 200 movies have been made based on books by Wallace the father—most of them, for some reason, made by German film companies, which became a genre of their own, called krimi—and Bryan himself has twenty film credits for film writing or adaptations. A lot of plot is crammed into this, and I got a bit lost in the twists and turns of the story—there's a character who is decapitated while riding a motorcycle and I had no idea who he was—but things mostly get sorted out in the end. The explanation of the revenge plot is interesting and I must admit that the identity of the killer came as a complete surprise to me. It's always difficult for me to judge acting in movies which are dubbed into English, but the German actors all do their jobs well. Karin Dor (Claridge) made a number of German Edgar Wallace thrillers but is probably better known by cult movie fans for her appearance in The Face of Fu Manchu and as a Bond Girl in You Only Live Twice. Harry Riebauer (Mitchell) and Walter Giller (Edgar) had long careers in German movies and TV. The print of this I saw on YouTube is rather murky, but that goes along with its "old dark house" atmosphere. Not really a horror movie, but good spooky-evening viewing. [YouTube]

PHANTOM PATROL (1936)

There's a nationwide manhunt going on for killer "Dapper Dan" Geary who is hiding out in a hotel room doing crossword puzzles. His underling Jojo tells him he's "hotter than jailhouse coffee," and suggests they take it on the lam. Geary sees a picture of famous crime writer Stephen Morris in the paper and realizes he's a dead ringer for Morris except for the author's goatee, so the two take off for the backwoods of Manitoba, Canada, where Morris is vacationing. Geary, with a goatee, ties Morris up and hides him away, and takes on Morris' identity. Meanwhile, handsome Mountie Jim McGregor (Kermit Maynard) is on the trail of the Frenchie Le Farge gang. He captures two of them, but Frenchie and the others get away and take refuge at Morris's isolated cabin. They recognize Geary in disguise and he lets them stay. As Morris, Geary goes into town and becomes friendly with Jim, Inspector McCloud, and McCloud's daughter Doris, who is Jim's girlfriend. When Geary is talked into hiring Doris to be his secretary, he improvises by dictating a story by famous French author Guy de Maupassant as though it were his own. Doris doesn’t catch on, but later, Jim does. Eventually, when lumberjack payroll money and jewels flaunted at a masked ball become targets for Geary and the Le Farge gang, can Jim and the Mounties foil their nefarious plans?

I know of no earthly reason this is called PHANTOM PATROL. Those words are never used in the movie, and no one even acts in a phantomly fashion. Still, this is good fun: an hour-long Canadian Western with a handsome hero, a lovely lady who eventually becomes a damsel in distress, fisticuffs and shootouts, and even a song which Jim and his Mountie buddies sing in their undershirts! (See the picture at right.) Kermit Maynard has a classic all-American athletic hero look (even though Jim is apparently Canadian) and is quite good here. He appeared in 300 movies, mostly in small uncredited roles in westerns, and was never as big a star as his brother Ken who headlined several B-westerns in the 30s and 40s, though on the evidence of this film, Kermit should have been just as big a star. Joan Barclay (Doris) also had a steady career in B-westerns. Paul Fix, another western stalwart, is amusing as Jojo, and British actor Harry Worth does a nice job in the dual role of bad guy Geary and hostage Morris. One of the charms of this film is its sense of humor—it manages to be light and amusing without turning slapstick or using heavy-handed comic relief. Some IMDb viewers call it "goofy" (I'm assuming they are mostly referring to the undershirt song) but to me, it all seemed charming. I'd like to search out more Kermit Maynard movies. The print on YouTube is awfully choppy and splicy but the image quality is clear and sharp. [YouTube]

THE BRIDGE (1959)

This is less a narrative-driven movie than an impressionistic slice-of-life story that plays out over a couple of days in April 1945, during the last days of the Second World War. In a small German village, several teenage boys are excited about being called up to serve in the army (since by this time, the military was decimated, and younger recruits were being sought after). We get to know them on their last day of school before they head off for training. Karl has a crush on his dad's housekeeper, but he is devastated to discover that she is sleeping with his father; Hans is a handsome romantic; Walter has conflicts with his father, who, despite being a Nazi party representative, is likely to clear out of town when the Allies get too close; Sigi, the youngest, has an overprotective mother; Jurgen comes from a military family and his mother gives him his late father's pistol to take with him to war. After we follow them through their last day in town, we see them next in basic training. But the troops are disorganized, with many ready to retreat, and the boys get assigned the task of guarding a bridge, which, as it happens is just outside of their village. That night, the boys do their duty, unaware that the bridge is going to be blown up by the German army when the Allies approach.

Though not strong in narrative, this is an emotionally powerful anti-war film. We know the boys have been given a useless task because their former schoolteacher wants to keep them away from the deteriorating front, hoping to spare their lives, but the boys are proud of having what seems an important mission and their enthusiasm blinds them to the real situation around them. As the night goes on, the film takes on a kind of Twilight Zone atmosphere with fog all around and a slow parade of wounded and deserters passing by. We are used to movies which promulgate a message of the terrible waste of war, so the ending is fairly predictable, but the director, Bernard Wikci, keeps the atmosphere tense. The actors, most not much older than their characters, are uniformly excellent. The only actor I’m familiar with is Fritz Wepper who went on to play Michael York’s German buddy Fritz in CABARET. But all of them are fine, not overdoing either bravado or fear. I'd never heard of this but TCM aired it recently and it’s available on a Criterion DVD. It definitely deserves a bigger audience. [TCM]

IS MY FACE RED? (1932)

Bill Poster (Ricardo Cortez) writes a popular Manhattan gossip column, Keyhole to the City, and he's made a lot of enemies by reporting private scandals (think Walter Winchell, who is mentioned in the movie as one of Poster's rivals). He's got Bee, his trusty secretary; Peggy, his long-suffering girlfriend; Horatio, his in-office valet; and a water cooler full of gin. He's also in a relatively friendly rivalry with reporter Ed Maloney. When Peggy gives him a tip that notorious socialite (and pickle heiress) Mildred Huntington has broken her engagement and is boarding an ocean liner at midnight for Europe, Bill gets on the ship and, hoping for an exclusive story, talks her into leaving the ship with him for a madcap tour of the seedier side of the city. She does, they do, and they do some more as well, and soon they're lovers which doesn't sit well with Peggy. Nor, eventually, does Bill's plan to spill the beans about Mildred's high-class friends sit well with Mildred. Meanwhile, while Bill is in a dive bar one night, he witnesses the bartender Tony accidentally kill a mobster. Bill publishes the story before the police find out about the killing, leaving out Tony's name but making it clear who was responsible. So eventually, everyone (Peggy, Mildred, Tony and the police) is angry with Bill. Even his secretary is a little irritated. Will there be anyone to stand by him when it all falls apart and he comes face to face with the business end of a pistol?

This a sprightly-paced pre-Code film with a light tone and some witty writing. Backstage at the Follies, we see a sign that says, "Through these doors pass the most beautiful girls in the world"; then we see two slovenly washerwomen enter. A man uses a "Positively No Smoking" sign to strike a match to light his cigarette. When Mildred decides she's had enough of Bill, she tells him, "You amused me—like going to the flea circus" (and he totally deserves that). Cortez does a nice job making an essentially unlikable character at least somewhat sympathetic. Helen Twelvetrees makes little impression as Peggy; she is outshone by Jill Esmond, who was married to Laurence Olivier at the time, as Mildred. Arline Judge is her usual low-key, passive presence as the secretary and ZaSu Pitts is amusing as a telephone operator at the newspaper. Robert Armstrong is Ed, Clarence Muse is Horatio, and Sidney Toler is quite good as the killer Tony. It's all fairly predictable, but at just a smidge over an hour, it doesn't outlast its welcome and it's enjoyable for pre-Code buffs. And I loved the gin water cooler. Pictured are Cortez and Esmond. [TCM]

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX (1942)

At a high-class gentlemen's club, a man is found dead in his room, tied to a bedpost with a piece of paper pinned to him that says "Rx 5." He is the fifth victim of the mysterious killer known in the press as Dr. Rx. All the victims are men who have been defendants in high-profile court cases and all were found not guilty, despite much evidence that they were guilty. A lawyer named Crispin (Samuel S. Hinds), who defended all these men, is naturally upset, so he hires playboy detective Jerry Church (Patric Knowles) to track down the killer. Church is planning on moving to Boston and becoming a bond salesman, but he is present when Crispin's next freed defendant is killed right in the courtroom, possibly by poison or strangulation, or both. So Church, with some unwanted help from his brand new wife and mystery writer Kit (Anne Gwynne), his valet Fitz (Mantan Moreland), and a couple of relatively inept cops, takes the case. There aren't many obvious suspects, though something odd seems to be going on between Crispin's wife (Mona Barrie) and his brother (Paul Cavanagh). And what’s with the sinister looking Dr. Fish (Lionel Atwill in Coke-bottle glasses) who keeps popping up on Church's trail?

Despite getting frequent airings on Chiller Theater throughout the 60s, and despite its presence in a DVD boxed set of Universal Cult Horror films, this is not a horror movie, and will inevitably disappoint anyone hoping for a creepy little B-movie chiller. But if you'd like a fun, well-paced mystery in the vein of the Thin Man movies, this will be more than satisfying. I'm always up for seeing the handsome, personable Patric Knowles (pictured) and he is in almost every scene of this movie looking alternately smooth and befuddled—and even sweaty and scared in the odd climax involving the threat of him having his brain transplanted into a gorilla (the only scene that comes close to a horror movie feel). Mantan Moreland, stuck in the stereotypical black servant role, is actually pretty funny, especially in an early scene in which he banters with a telegram boy. I was left cold by the unfunny antics of Shemp Howard (yes, that Shemp from the Three Stooges) as a cop, though I liked Edmund MacDonald as his boss. Supposedly much of the movie was written (or improvised) as they filmed which would explain the number of plotholes and loose ends—the storyline with Crispin's brother never takes off, and the explanation for the menacing gorilla is particularly goofy. Favorite line: Church to Lily, a woman he's never met: "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage." Lily, smiling sexily: "That's the way to have any man!" It’s not a chiller, but it is amusing and kinda gonzo in a 40s B-movie way. [DVD]

DAUGHTER OF THE TONG (1939)

After an off-screen narrator tells us about the important and sometimes deadly work of the FBI, we see an old Chinese man watching some crates being unloaded. He also watches an FBI agent getting nosy and discovering that the crates contain Chinese people being smuggled in to the United States. In an awkwardly staged scene, the agent is shot and killed, and when word gets back to Washington, FBI agent Dickson (Grant Withers) is asked to impersonate a captured thug named Gallagher and infiltrate the gang; Dickson happens to be a dead ringer for Gallagher and all that's needed is a fake scar on his face. His main job is to find Carney, the ringleader of the gang, though no one knows what he looks like. But Dickson takes on a secondary job when he meets perky young Marion (Dorothy Short) who asks him to help her brother Jerry (Dave O'Brien) get out of the Carney gang. We rather anti-climactically discover that Carney is actually a lovely but sinister-looking Chinese woman known as The Illustrious One (Evelyn Brent). After some captures and escapes and poorly-staged fisticuffs, the FBI wins the day.

This B-thriller has very few thrills and little else to recommend it. I generally like Grant Withers as a B-movie tough guy but he's hemmed in by a rote script and lazy direction. Evelyn Brent (pictured) is sexy but doesn't appear to have a drop of Chinese blood in her—I suppose one might argue that it's a positive thing that she's not made up in yellowface like so many actors were in the classic era to play Asian characters, but it's a little distracting to see her looking so very Anglo—she is much more effective with a similar sinister look in Val Lewton's THE SEVENTH VICTIM. The use of the Tong in the title is misleading; virtually no one else in the gang is Chinese except for a hotel clerk, played by Chinese actor Richard Loo, who spends most of his time standing at the front desk and warning Carney when someone suspicious crops up. I always enjoy seeing Dave O'Brien (best known now as the cackling pot smoker in REEFER MADNESS) and he's fine here in a thankless role. His real-life wife, Dorothy Short, is OK but unmemorable as Withers' love interest. The fight scenes really are awful—in a fight near the end, they don't even bother to dub in the sounds of a fist hitting a chin, so what you get is men throwing these wild punches that are clearly not connecting with flesh. It's fairly laughable. A climactic car chase with Withers and O'Brien being chased along twisty roads shows promise put peters out. This one can be skipped unless you're a fan of Withers or O'Brien. [YouTube]

THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN (1944)

In 1923, young Jim Hetherton is target shooting when he accidentally shoots his dog. The event is so traumatic that even as an adult, Jim (Franchot Tone) remains adamantly against killing, so in 1938, when war comes to England, Jim registers as a conscientious objector to avoid being forced to take a life. His grandfather respects his decision, though he warns Jim that he may have a tough time of it, and indeed, he is forced to stop teaching and must find work helping out on local farms, replacing the young men who are off at war. Jim's brother Roger and his wife May have brought a young Austrian refugee named Dora (Veronica Lake) to live at the Hetherton country estate, and Jim has fallen in love with her. What none of them know is that she is actually a Nazi spy who travels to town periodically to pass information on to her handlers. When, as a German, she is threatened with detention in an internment camp for the duration of the war, Jim marries her. Eventually, Dora discovers that there is a small hidden airfield near the Hethertons and she attempts to light a fire one night in order to draw German planes to the area, but her plans are foiled. Before long, she gets another chance; this time, she plans on setting a fire in the house, but when May's young son discovers her, will she resort to murder to accomplish her mission? The other question: if Jim discovers her sabotage, will he give up his pacifism and become an executioner?

For some reason, this Paramount film (not quite glossy enough—or long enough—to be an A-film, but a little too classy to be a B-film) never seems to have gotten a home video release so I watched a less-than-ideal YouTube print. When I first realized that sultry Veronica Lake was playing the villain, I thought she'd give a laughable performance, but she's really quite good, as good as anyone else in the cast. Her hair is up and braided so she no longer has the peek-a-boo style that made her famous, and it took me a few minutes to recognize her. I've always found Tone to be a fairly bland actor, and he remains so here, but I suppose that fits the stereotype of the wartime pacifist. Binnie Barnes has a couple of good moments as the big city sister-in-law. She gets my favorite line: "Give me a whisky—and don’t drown in it in soda or I’ll murder you!" John Sutton is fine as Roger (I sort of wish he and Tone had switched roles), as is Henry Stephenson as the grandfather. Nils Asther has a small role as one of Dora's handlers. Coming out in 1944, it was a bit late in the game to be an effective propaganda piece, but it works well enough as a spy thriller, with a satisfying, if predictable, ending. Pictured is Lake in a studio publicity shot. [YouTube]

WHISTLING IN THE DARK (1941)

The Silver Haven estate is the home of a health and spirituality cult led by Joseph Jones (Conrad Veidt), a con man who bilks rich folks out of their money. A follower who has recently died left a chunk of money to the cult but the interest on the money goes to her nephew Harvey until his death, so Jones and his cohorts decide they need to get rid of the nephew. But how to do it? Jones is inspired by listening to a radio detective show featuring The Fox, aka Wally Benton (Red Skelton), who solves seemingly perfect crimes every show. Wally is about to leave on vacation to marry his long-time girlfriend Carol (Anne Rutherford), but to keep his radio sponsor satisfied, he agrees to one last night on the town to entertain the sponsor's wild daughter Fran (Virginia Grey). But Jones's men kidnap Wally, take him to Silver Haven, and demand that he work out the perfect way to get rid of Harvey. When he refuses to cooperate, they kidnap both Carol and Fran. Wally comes up with a plan involving putting a poison in Harvey's toothpaste that will be untraceable after he gargles. Jones and his men set out on the murder mission—Harvey is traveling on a plane—and Wally and his gals try to figure out a way to rig up a radio so that they can use an impromptu broadcast to warn Harvey about the danger of brushing his teeth.

I’m not a fan of Red Skelton—he is second only to Phil Silvers as my least favorite comic actor. But in this film, his first starring role, he's quite tolerable. Perhaps because of the plotline, involving some secret passages and a little bit of spookiness, he reminded me of Bob Hope in something like The Cat and the Canary or The Ghost Breakers. His outsized clowning and facial contortions are nowhere to be seen here. I enjoyed both leading ladies, and Eve Arden and Rags Ragland in supporting roles. But what I most enjoyed about the movie was Conrad Veidt, normally a villain (best known as the Nazi Major Strasser in Casablanca); he's still a villain here but he does a nice job keeping things fairly light and almost stealing scenes from his comic co-stars. There were two more "Whistling" movies with Skelton and Rutherford; though I'm not sure I need to see those, this was a surprisingly breezy and pleasant comedy. Pictured are Veidt and Skelton. {TCM]

OUR MAN IN HAVANA (1960)

A vacuum cleaner salesman (Alec Guinness) who lives a placid life in Havana with his teenage daughter is recruited by a British secret agent (Noel Coward). Guinness is tasked with recruiting his own network of agents to pass on intelligence, but, egged on by a suggestion from his friend (Burl Ives), Guinness instead makes up a list of agents using names he has heard in conversation. He even goes so far as to make up a sketch of a secret Cuban military invention which he bases on his most recent vacuum cleaner model. His bosses, believing him to be useful and important, send him a secretary (Maureen O'Hara) for whom Guinness must keep making up more and bigger lies until the situation threatens to spiral out of control. This spy satire, based on a Graham Greene novel, is difficult to get a handle on—it ambles along like a shaggy dog story for about 20 minutes until the gears start meshing, loses its way again but has a satisfying conclusion. But it's worth watching mostly for the performances of Guinness, Coward and Ralph Richardson. O'Hara is fine but overshadowed, and Ernie Kovacs is wasted as a Cuban military officer who is romancing Guinness' daughter (Jo Morrow, possibly best known for William Castle's 13 GHOSTS). The first contact between Coward and Guinness plays out like a gay men's room pickup and is quite amusing. Pictured are Richardson and Guinness. [Criterion Channel]

DOCTOR BLOOD’S COFFIN (1961)

In Vienna, young intern Peter Blood (Kieron Moore, at left) is furtively carrying out an experiment on a corpse when he is discovered by a furious older doctor and is booted out of the prestigious clinic where he has been studying biochemistry. He heads home to a small village in Cornwall to stay with his father Robert (Ian Hunter), the town doctor, under the guise of taking a well-deserved break from his studies. However, what he's really doing there is continuing his experiments which involve taking people he deems to be worthless, injecting them with a poison that simulates death, spiriting them away to the abandoned tin mines in the hills, and attempting to take out their living hearts which would eventually be transplanted into more worthy people who are ill or near death. Villagers are disappearing and some of Robert's medical supplies go missing, but Peter, who is squiring his dad's lovely widowed nurse Linda (Hazel Court), keeps up a good façade and no one suspects him—until the local undertaker catches him doing a postmortem on a body that is still alive. Soon, Linda figures out what's going on and Peter decides the best way to win her over is to dig up her dead and decaying husband to give him a living heart.

This low budget horror film was shot in 10 days, and shows, though the location shooting in Cornwall helps. It follows the Frankenstein template predictably: a young hothead is tampering in God's domain, is shot down by traditional scientists and continues his work in secret only to face a tragic ending. What's a little different here is that the scientist is young and attractive and, for a time, escapes suspicion from the villagers. The "God’s domain" cliché is emphasized here when, after Linda finds out what he's doing, she invokes God several times, as in, only God can create life, so only God should be allowed to end life. She also says that Peter is exhibiting "the pride of Lucifer" in his unholy dabbling. None of this matters to him, of course, so the film ends the way many of these tales do, with the scientist destroyed by one of his own creations. Moore (one of the heroes of DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS), Court (a horror movie scream queen in the 60s), and Hunter (a busy and respected character actor from the mid-30s on) are all fine, but the script and the budget let them down. This was considered quite gory in its day for a couple of scenes involving the handling of human hearts, and some critics have tried to claim this as an early entry in the zombie genre, though locomotion of the undead is limited to the climax. It is a bit slow and repetitious (there's a gruelingly slow chase involving Peter and one of his almost-dead victims) but the ending isn't bad. [DVD]

THE I DON'T CARE GIRL (1953)

Entertainer George Jessel (playing himself) is producing a movie at Twentieth Century Fox about the early 20th century vaudeville performer Eva Tanguay. An elderly man keeps coming to Jessel's office to talk about Eva but Jessel, assuming he's just an old fan, keeps sending him away, instead having his screenwriters find people who knew her to flesh out their story. First they find Eddie McCoy (David Wayne), the man who gave Eva her start. In his flashback, we see Eddie, at odds in his career, finding Eva (Mitzi Gaynor), an energetic waitress who loves to sing and dance while she works. On the night Eddie meets her, she accidently breaks some dishes while dancing and is fired, but Eddie goes after her and asks her to partner with him in his act. They are successful, but soon cocky songwriter Larry Woods (Bob Graham) puts the moves on her and an on-and-off relationship begins, hindered by the fact that he's married. Eddie says his weak heart caused him to leave the act, which allowed her to go solo, but the next person the writers talk to, Larry's former songwriting partner Charles Bennett (Oscar Levant) tells a different story: Eddie had a strong heart but a debilitating alcohol problem. Despite a few bumps, Eva's career goes upward and soon she is a star of the Ziegfeld Follies. Larry is in the midst of finally getting a divorce, but Eva becomes jealous when he makes plans to work with Stella, a rival singer who has hurt Eva's career in the past. When she finds out that Larry and Stella will be on stage together at a benefit show, she arranges to have a big, juicy tomato thrown at Larry, but when it happens, he's wearing an army uniform—the U.S. has joined World War I and he's about to ship out. She's mortified and makes a sudden decision to retire from show biz. The story is finished by the old man who's been visiting Jessel, who turns out to be Larry who gives Eva's story a happy, if nebulous, ending.

Based on a glance at a Wikipedia page, this musical biopic has little to do with the real Eva Tanguay, and generally it's not a particular standout in the genre. It's colorful, and Gaynor is fun and energetic, even if the character of Eva never really comes to life. Money was spent on the sets and costumes, though the supporting cast is mostly B-range talent: Wayne and Graham are fine, but neither is known for song-and-dance talents—in fact, Graham only made four movies before apparently leaving Hollywood—and Wayne is particularly underwhelming in his musical numbers. Craig Hill and Warren Stevens are appealing as the screenwriters. The one thing that makes this movie unique is the frame story with the real George Jessel, who was producing movies at Fox at the time, and who was the actual producer of this film. For a mind-spinning meta-topper at the conclusion, in the 1920s final scene, a production number with Eva, the 1953 Jessel shows up backstage saying he wanted to see how the movie turned out. Worth watching for the elaborate musical numbers. Gaynor is pictured above with background dancers. [TCM]