LOS TALLOS AMARGOS (1956)

Gaspar is a frustrated journalist; he is in debt, is regularly reprimanded for his sloppy work habits, and doesn't get the adventurous assignments he wants. A friend tells him his problem is that he has a blind will for submission, always seeking to be on a mission for someone. We also learn, by his reaction while watching a war movie, that he has some kind of war-related trauma, exacerbated by his relationship with his stern, hawkish father. One night, after what seems to be unfulfilling sex with his girlfriend, he winds up at a bar chatting with a fellow reporter, and gets what looks like a come-hither cruising look from the bartender, Liudas. But what Liudas recognizes in Gaspar is a need for a better life. Liudas, a former editor (and smuggler), gets Gaspar to lend his expertise to a get-rich scheme involving the setting up of a correspondence journalism school; they'll mass-produce articles to sell to poor suckers who think they'll really get a usable education. When Liudas mentions that he is trying to raise money to bring his oldest son over from war-ravaged Europe, Gaspar, recalling his friend's words, decides that his mission should be to help the son, so he offers Liudas three-fourths of the firm's money until the son is brought over. Liudas is grateful, but one night, Gaspar overhears Liudas imply to a woman that there is no son, that he is bilking Gaspar. Acting on impulse, Gaspar plots to take Liudas on an overnight visit to Gaspar's mother’s home in the country and kill him. Complications ensue.

This long-lost Argentinian film noir, directed by Fernando Ayala and also known as BITTER STEMS, was brought back into circulation thanks to the efforts of Eddie Muller of Turner Classic Movies. It's a goodie, and it could serve as a dictionary definition of noir: moral ambiguity, a conflicted antihero, lots of shadowy nighttime scenes, some striking stylistic touches, and, of course, a murder that doesn't quite go as planned. Carlos Cores (pictured) is note-perfect as Gaspar; the character is a bit like Fred McMurray's character in Double Indemnity—he's attractive in a rumpled kind of way and, on the surface, likable (he's good to his mother and sister), but also weak and makes bad decisions. It's not a femme fatale that leads him to crime, but his own inner demons. (There are women in the movie, but they are strictly in support of the two leading men.) Vassili Lambrinos is just as good as Liudas; he does a nice job of keeping us a little off balance as far as his motivations--in real life, Lambrinos was a dancer and choreographer, though he had a featured role as a prince in The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Aida Luz and Pablo Moret are standouts in relatively small but important roles. There is a surreal dream sequence right out of Hitchcock's Spellbound and spectacularly discordant jazz music is an effective background for a disturbing nightclub scene. The noir atmosphere is beautifully conjured visually by cinematographer Ricardo Younis. Still difficult to see, I've heard that it's due for a Blu-Ray release soon. Catch it if you can, especially if you're a fan of genuine noir. [TCM]

HER MAN (1930)

Annie, a frowsy middle-aged woman of ill repute, has tried to leave Havana but has been sent back by the authorities. She goes back to the Thalia, a combination saloon and dancehall and whorehouse, where she is protected from the laughing scorn of other shady dames by young Frankie (Helen Twelvetrees), who works for the Thalia's owner Johnnie (Ricardo Cortez) as a "B-girl," someone who gloms onto visiting tourists or sailors, gets them to buy drinks, and sometimes steals their wallets. Annie feels similarly protective of Frankie, but when a drunk patron named Red catches Frankie trying to steal his money and makes a ruckus, it's Johnnie who takes care of things by staging a barfight as a distraction, then throwing a knife into the poor schlub's back when no one is paying attention. Frankie seems to want to leave her current life, but tells one man, "How far would I get? I ain't no man!" (though it turns out that this line is just part of the spiel she gives unsuspecting men before she picks their pockets). She sets her sights on a handsome young sailor named Dan (Phillips Holmes) as her next target, but softens and the two slowly develop a relationship which does not please Johnnie. Will Dan take Frankie with him when he leaves town, or will Johnnie’s plot to get rid of Dan pay off?

Director Tay Garnett makes this early talkie visually compelling all the way through with lots of panning or moving shots; especially notable is the scene in which Johnnie throws a knife clear across the bar to kill Red. The storyline, loosely based on the old ballad of Frankie and Johnny, is predictable—coming from the pre-Code era allows some sins to be forgiven in the end. The acting is all over the place. Helen Twelvetrees has the right look and attitude for a world-weary woman of loose morals, but too often she's either pouting or glowering. The reliable Ricardo Cortez is fine as the villainous Johnnie. Phillips Holmes, of lithe build and curly blond hair, has the right mixture of innocence and worldliness as Dan. One of my favorite character actors, James Gleason, is present, but he and Harry Sweet are around only for comic relief, and while their drunken antics with a slot machine and men's hats are funny the first couple of times, they're repeated way too often to remain effective. Marjorie Rambeau is fine but underused as wise old Annie. Franklin Pangborn, who usually plays effeminate parts, is amusing as part of the drunken comic bits. The recently restored print shown on TCM is stunning looking, though the clarity and freshness of the image bring an unfortunate focus to the occasional melodramatic overacting now and again. Still, recommended. Pictured are Holmes and Twelvetrees. [TCM]

APRIL IN PARIS (1952)

State Department bureaucrat Sam Putnam (Ray Bolger) sends an invitation to Ethel Barrymore to a prestigious arts festival in Paris, but the invitation winds up sent to chorus girl Ethel Jackson (Doris Day), stage name 'Dynamite.' Sam is mortified and tries to fix the situation but his boss (whose daughter Sam is engaged to) decides it's a good idea. On the ship to Paris, Ethel clashes with many of the stuffy men on board but delights Philippe (Claude Dauphin), an entertainer who is broke due to owing taxes in America and is working as a waiter on the ship. Philippe, realizing that Sam has rather improbably fallen for Ethel, hopes to egg him on at a big drunken party the night before landing. He succeeds too well—Sam and Ethel decide to get the ship's captain to marry them that night. The marriage occurs, but Philippe learns that the man they thought was the captain was actually a cabin boy, so he spends the night trying to stop them from enjoying conjugal bliss. The next day, in Paris, things get more complicated when Sam's boss arrives with his daughter in tow. But, of course, in Hollywood (or Hollywood's idea of Paris) love conquers all. This musical farce starts out well but wears out its welcome before the end. The biggest problem is the odd mismatch between Bolger and Day. I could buy them as best buddies, maybe, but not as a true love match. I kept expecting them to realize that it would never work out, but the plot doesn't go that way. The music is not terribly memorable, though "I’m Gonna Ring the Bell Tonight" is a very cute Day/Bolger dance number. Dauphin is charming as Philippe, and the rest of the cast is serviceable. This won’t make you a Doris Day fan, but it's a pleasant time-passer. [TCM]

CLAUDELLE INGLISH (1961)

Claudelle is the teenage daughter of tenant farmer Clyde and his wife Jessie who work for property owner S.T. Crawford. Crawford, a widower, leers nastily at Claudelle and hints to her parents that he would take good care of her if she would be his wife, but Claudelle isn't interested in a man thirty years older than her. Clyde refuses to consider Crawford's wishes, but Jessie, a sexually frustrated woman worn beyond her years and tired of Clyde's promises of better times, is ready to pimp her daughter out to a rich man, and if Claudelle isn't interested, Jessie might like a little Crawford on the side. Meanwhile, Claudelle falls hard for high school senior Linn Varner who heads off to the Army but tells Claudelle he wants to marry her when his stint is over. To clinch the deal, they have sex under the night sky and the rustling tree branches. But months later, Linn writes with the news that he's getting married to someone else. This leads Claudelle to tramp herself up and sleep with a string of men. Dennis, the grocer's son, is first; young Charles, an assistant at the grocery store, is next, with studly, slightly older Rip not far behind. Even Dennis’ dad wants his turn. Jessie eventually leaves her husband to stay with Crawford, and melodrama turns to tragedy when two of the studs fight, leaving one dead. Claudelle and her dad decide to try and pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, but fate may have other plans.

In its day, I imagine this was seen as racy and serious, but now it's easier to appreciate either as a period piece or high camp. Romantic teen melodramas were all the rage in the late 50s and early 60s, from the cheap B-films of American International to the high gloss productions of Warner Bros., which is what this film is. Diane McBain had a supporting role in an earlier Warners melodrama, PARRISH and was given the lead here. She's actually pretty good, giving some weight to her character who becomes promiscuous because of her rejection by Linn (a very young and handsome Chad Everett). Her bevy of studs were pulled from the ranks of the young Warner Bros. contract players, most of whom would become better known on TV: Will Hutchins (from the western series Sugarfoot) as Dennis, Robert Logan (briefly Edd Byrne's replacement on 77 Sunset Strip) as Charles, and Robert Colbert (The Time Tunnel). All of them are attractive and convey various tones of rural boy horniness with conviction. Arthur Kennedy brings some gravitas to the role of the beleaguered father, but Constance Ford is awfully one-note as the mother. Claude Akins is Crawford. To reinforce the glossy teen romance connection, the main theme of the movie recalls the famous hit theme to A SUMMER PLACE from a couple of years earlier—Kennedy and Ford were also in that movie. Approached on a camp level, and with appreciation for male eye candy, this was quite watchable. Pictured are McBain and Hutchins. [TCM]

LOVERS COURAGEOUS (1932)

As a boy, Willie Smith is always in trouble with his parents and his teachers, and as he grows up, he continues to chafe against society, wanting to be someone different or special. He holds a string of jobs, winding up in a tobacco shop in South Africa where he meets Mary Blayne, a British admiral's daughter who is set to marry an older, rather stuffy nobleman named Jimmy. Willie has become an aspiring playwright and soon Mary is reading a draft of his play as the two begin spending intimate time together. A friend of her family, an officer named Jeffrey, intuits what's going on and warns Mary's parents. Their solution is to have her mother spirit her away to England on the pretext of visiting a sick relative, where she will, they hope, be happy to settle down with Jimmy. Jeffrey, despite being responsible for their parting, soon feels sorry for Mary and even goes so far to suggest that, after a couple years of marriage, she could pursue an extramarital affair. But before the wedding can happen, Willie moves to London, living a pauper's existence as he works on his play. Soon, Mary finds him and, despite Mary being cut off from any money by her father, they marry. The "courageous" part of the title, I guess, comes as they try to make it together in the cold hard world of London.

This is a fairly average romantic melodrama, perhaps pulled off with a lighter touch than most, but it's also very predictable, especially in its last third as she pawns her belongings and he steals food to stay alive. Eventually, Willie goes to the Admiral and asks him to take her back, by herself; Mary lies in bed and begins to waste away until, voila, Willie's play is accepted for production and a happy ending is finally in store. I run hot and cold on Robert Montgomery (Willie), but I do tend to like his earlier movies, and he's in pretty charming form here. Madge Evans (pictured with Montgomery), star of the 30s who married a playwright and left the business, is fine as Mary. Roland Young is excellent in one of his typical sympathetic uncle roles (the epitome of which is Uncle Willie in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY) and Reginald Owen is Jimmy, who is a little likable even though we're not supposed to like him-—the character is drab, not evil. At times, especially when the two lovers say farewell before Mary leaves for England, the dialogue sounds quite stagy, perhaps because the screenplay is by playwright Frederick Lonsdale. [TCM]

MANHUNT OF MYSTERY ISLAND (1945 serial)

Prof. Forrest is working on a device that, when finished, will be able to generate power on land that can be transferred to planes in the air and ships at sea to use in addition to traditional fuel. While scouting off the coast of California for a new element needed for the invention, Forrest and his assistant have disappeared. His daughter Claire and famed criminologist Lance Reardon go searching for him and wind up tracing him to Mystery Island, a small private island co-owned by four businessmen. (What they do on the island is never made clear-—I assumed it was a private resort but we never see anyone else there except servants.) We soon discover that a villain named Captain Mephisto, supposedly the ghost or descendant of a pirate who used the island for his piratical ways, is holding Forrest and demanding that he finish his device so Mephisto can use it in some world domination scheme. Lance and Claire obtain the help of the island owners in looking for Forrest, but it soon becomes clear that Mephisto is a flesh-and-blood being, most likely one of four owners. To become the spitting image of the historical pirate, the man sits down in a transformation machine which changes "the molecular arrangement of blood corpuscles" to make him look exactly like the pirate. Over 15 chapters, Lance and Claire survive fistfights, gunfights, floods, the collapse of a rope bridge, and an exploding speedboat to eventually find her father and figure out who Captain Mephisto really is.

There are some things I like quite a bit about this serial. For the most part, the action is confined to one setting, the island, big enough for some variety—the main house, various cliffs and fields—while avoiding the sometimes numbing repetition of industries around a city being targeted by the bad guys. The fistfights, averaging 2 per chapter, are excellent, full of stuntmen leaping across the room at each other, smashing lots of furniture and throwing breakable items of all kinds. The idea, planted in the beginning, that the villain might be supernatural in origin, is fun, and there is a great weapon, a "radium vapor" ray, though it's only used once. Much of the rest, however, I’m not so crazy about. The transformation device is cool at the beginning as we watch a man strap himself into a chair and throw a switch that causes much electrification behind him and results in him becoming Captain Mephisto. But we see this same footage repeated in almost every chapter (except for one 'clip show' episode, Chapter 10, which is used as a catch-up summary) and it becomes tedious. I couldn't bring myself to care about the central mystery (who is Captain Mephisto?) because the suspects are not well differentiated; the owners are just four well-dressed middle-aged men who are basically interchangeable. The acting all around is bland. Richard Bailey, as Lance, has no charisma, bland looks, and just isn’t hero material. Linda Stirling (Claire) is slightly better, and even manages to pop into a couple of the room-wrecking frays. Roy Barcroft as Mephisto, is disappointing as he often seems tired and cranky rather than evil. Kenne Duncan is more effective as Mephisto's chief henchman. The serial lasts for fifteen chapters, which is about three too many, but despite all its faults, it remained watchable, mostly for those great fisticuff scenes. Pictured are Bailey and Barcroft. [DVD]

DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRIDE (1959)

On a desert road on the way to Los Angeles, a young couple is stopped for speeding. Steve, a law student, is calm and collected but Judy, clutching a teddy bear, is almost hysterical. It turns out that they are returning home after having a Las Vegas wedding, and, as she's 17 and still in high school, she's nervous about how her parents will take the news. The cop lets them go with a warning, but at home, her mother insists that they get an annulment. Her father wants to let her juggle school and married life, and maybe learn firsthand what she's gotten into. Steve can't wait to hit the sack with his new wife, but as Judy is a nervous virgin, Steve first takes her to the beatnik coffeehouse where he tries to calm her down, but while there she runs into her ex-boyfriend Chuck, son of a studio boss, who, even though he seems to have another girlfriend, is unreasonably jealous. Back at Steve's apartment, the first conjugal experience goes well enough, but soon Judy realizes, like her father hoped, how hard it is to balance school and marriage, especially when Steve doesn't seem inclined to help out in shopping, cooking or cleaning at all. The two travel a rocky road, not helped by her parents, until Chuck starts making trouble, at school and at Judy's home. One night, Chuck lures Judy to an empty soundstage at his dad's studio with the promise of a reconciliation, but instead he tries to assault her. Will Steve be her white knight, arriving in time to stop the attack?

Like HIGH SCHOOL HELLCATS, this is another American International teen appeal movie. It more or less masquerades as a social problem film—teen marriage, pro or con?—but with an ending very similar to that of HELLCATS, it becomes a thriller, in this case with a potential rapist character taking center stage. Up to that point, it's a rather boring melodrama filled with lackluster characters and actors. Anita Sands (Judy) never made another movie, though she did go on to appear in TV shows of the early 1960s. Ron Foster (Steve) had a much longer career, but neither one looks their character's age--Foster was almost 30 and Sands looks more like a college student than a high school student. Neither one is particularly appealing in looks or character, which leaves Chris Robinson (Chuck, pictured) as the standout, and he is very good as the creepy ex, and even looks roughly age-appropriate (he was 20 when he shot the film). It's fun to see one minor character, a friend of Chuck's, always plugged into his transistor radio in anticipation of today's earbud mania. OK as a novelty movie, but never as fun or titillating as its title promises. [TCM]

LAFAYETTE ESCADRILLE (1958)

Rich boy Thad Walker keeps getting in trouble through his reckless ways, and when his car hits a child on a bike, his father has had enough. Dad slaps him around and Thad takes off for Europe. He and some buddies wind up in the Lafayette Escadrille, a brigade of American fliers fighting for France in the early days of World War I before the U.S. was officially involved. On his last night in Paris before taking off for flight training, Thad meets a fairly wholesome prostitute named Renée and falls head over heels for her, promising to come back for her when he can. During training, the hot-headed Thad punches a drill sergeant in the face and is thrown in the brig. With a penalty of several years in jail hanging over him, Thad's friends start a brawl that draws attention away from the brig, helping Thad to escape. On his way to Paris, he gets in a fight with a soldier and winds up with a big, vivid scar across one eye. However, Renee still loves him and they have a symbolic marriage ceremony in her room. Though she has given up her previous profession, she gets him work for a pimp as a shill, bringing soldiers in for the whores. By this time, the U.S. has entered the war, and when Thad takes an American officer to the brothel, he tells his sad story so well that the general agrees to let him fly with the Americans. In a rushed ending, we are told (not shown) that Thad wins his wings, has a great career as a pilot, and eventually invites his old buddies to Paris to witness his church wedding to Renée.

Director William Wellman based this movie on his WWI experiences; his son William Wellman Jr. plays him in the movie (though the reference to his name is a 'blink and you’ll miss it' moment). Apparently, this was not a pleasant experience for Wellman, and ultimately, the studio took the movie away from him and did some re-cutting and re-shoots; in the original version, Thad dies in battle and Renée kills herself, but the released version has a much happier ending. Tab Hunter acquits himself nicely as Thad, and his band of buddies (Wellman Jr., Clint Eastwood, David Janssen, Will Hutchins and Jody McCrea—son of Joel McCrea) are all fine. I was a little surprised that, despite some ominous narration at the beginning about how many members of the Escadrille died in action, most of the main characters here make it to the end. The focus overall is more on character and romance rather than war, with only one battle sequence included near the end, so war film buffs may not find this to their liking. Marcel Dalio plays the drill sergeant in scenes of weak and fairly excruciating comedy, as Dalio only speaks French and the boys only speak English. I found all of these scenes unbearable. Otherwise, passable melodrama with some good-looking young actors. Pictured from left are McCrea, Janssen, Wellman and Hunter. [TCM]

THE MIRACLE KID (1941)

Madame Gloria runs the Academy of Mental Science which is in competition with J. Hamilton Gibbs (her ex-husband) and his branded business of selling healthy living through vegetables, fruits and nuts (the movie gets some comic mileage out of emphasizing the word "nuts," and also out of the fact that Gibbs himself doesn’t follow his own diet suggestions). Unknown to them, PR man Al Bolger is working for both of them, and his current job is doing a photo shoot for Gibbs' Physical Culture Girl of the Year contest at a gym where boxer Jimmy Conley works as an instructor. Jimmy is dating Pat, Madame Gloria's assistant, and he talks Pat into entering the contest which she wins, to the joy of Gibbs who sees this as a way to needle his ex-wife. Pat owns some land which, after they marry, she and Jimmy plan to turn into a health camp for boys. Jimmy takes part in one last boxing match, and he unexpectedly knocks out Tiger O'Brien; Tiger claims that Jimmy put a hex on him, but actually Tiger had been flirting with a beautiful blonde in the audience and not paying attention. Even though Jimmy has told Pat that he'll quit, Bolger decides to push Jimmy as the "miracle kid," and works to break up Jimmy and Pat's relationship. Pat leaves, Jimmy goes back to the ring, and his manager arranges in secret for Jimmy's opponents to lose. Meanwhile, Pat goes on a national tour as the Physical Culture Girl, and through various machinations on the parts of various people, Jimmy and Pat reconcile, and Bolger is exposed as pitting Gloria against her ex.

Cute B-romantic comedy with a sports backdrop, though there are only two boxing scenes in the movie, filmed mostly in little detail from several rows back in the auditorium. Tom Neal (pictured), who plays Jimmy, had been a boxer in college but he doesn't really get a chance to show off his moves—still, he's handsome and charming in a B-movie way, as he usually is, and he's the main reason I stuck with this. As is the case in many classic-era B-movies, the plot, especially in the last half-hour, gets a little too muddled for its own good. It's never really confusing, but it would be a breezier film if it lost one of its plotlines. Carol Hughes, busy B-actress of the 40s (she played Dale Arden in a 1940 Flash Gordon serial) is fine as Pat. I wasn't familiar with most of the other supporting players, including Betty Blythe as Gloria and Ben Taggert as Gibbs, but they're all mostly OK. B-comedy fluff for those inclined. [YouTube]

AND GOD CREATED WOMAN (1956)

In St. Tropez, beautiful young Juliete (Brigitte Bardot) is an 18-year-old orphan who works lackadaisically at a bookstore but would rather flirt and sunbathe in the nude (she is described by one person as "shameless, impolite and lazy"); her frustrated adoptive mother is ready to send her back to the orphanage. Older businessman Eric Carradine, who ogles her but seems to realize that a romance would be out of the question, is trying to buy up land to build a casino, but is being blocked by the refusal of the Tardieu family to sell their shipyard. Antoine, the oldest son, returns to town to engage in discussions with Carradine but is against selling. Carrdine keeps upping his offer, and also suggests that Antoine marry Juliete to keep her in town. Though there are sparks between the two, Antoine suspects she would "put horns" on him fairly quickly. His brother Michel has been harboring a crush on Juliete for some time, and later, when the father dies, the sons agree to sell to Carradine in exchange for a stake in another shipyard, and Michel marries Juliete. They are happy for a short time until Antoine returns to St. Tropez to work at the shipyard. When Michel leaves for a day on business, Antoine and Juliete have sex on the beach. Both feel guilty, and when Michel returns, his mother (of all people!) tells him what happened. Juliete goes out to a bar and loses herself in orgiastic dancing; Michel follows with a gun. Against all odds, there is a happy ending.

This French film is known for being Bardot's big breakthrough in the United States—though she was 22 when she made this film for her husband, director Roger Vadim, she had already made some fifteen films. It is often derided as a bad movie, best appreciated as a mild piece of titillation which shows off the charms of both Bardot and St. Tropez, but actually as a sex melodrama, it's not that much different from such Hollywood films of the 40s and 50s, and seen now, many years after the initial brouhaha, it's still entertaining. Bardot is sexy and earthy and pouty, the very definition of a sex kitten. Her big nude scene, at the very beginning, will disappoint today's viewers; she is lying down on a towel, and when she rises, she is hidden behind a sheet on a laundry line. But she acts well, creating a character we are alternately drawn to and repelled by. Overlooked by most straight male critics is the fact that the movie also has some nice male eye candy. The comely full-lipped Jean-Louis Trintignant (Michel, pictured with Bardot) who gets a shirtless scene, and the slightly older, sleekly handsome Christian Marquand (Antoine) who gets a wet tank top scene, are both quite sexy and give solid performances. All three are basically playing stereotypes but they make the characters rounded and easy to identify with. Curt Jurgens (Carradine), whom I associate with sinister roles (sometimes Nazis), is less dangerous here; we may not like his character, but he's not a villain. There really aren't any villains except maybe the adoptive mother, and the social worker who wants Juliete examined by a doctor for a "virginity certificate" (Juliete's reply: "Don’t worry, you’ve had your vaccine"). 16-year-old Georges Poujouly plays the youngest Tardieu brother, the one misstep in the movie; Poujouly is fine, but nothing is done with the character. Best line, spoken about Bardot: "Her ass is a song!" [TCM]

TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON (1970)

Three people who think of themselves as misfits have shared a hospital recovery ward and are about to be released. Junie Moon (Liza Minnelli) is a chipper young woman who had battery acid thrown at her by a psycho date and is now heavily scarred on half of her face; Warren (Robert Moore) is a gay man who was shot at by a guy he was flirting with and is now confined to a wheelchair; Arthur (Ken Howard), a epileptic loner who spent most of his life being made fun of in a orphanage, is recovering from a serious seizure. Their prospects in the outside world seem dicey, so the three decide to move in together. They rent a small house from Mrs. Gregory, an eccentric rich lady, and they all experience ups and downs as they acclimate to their conditions. Arthur gets a job at a nearby fish market run by Mario (James Coco), though he loses it after a jealous next-door neighbor tells Mario that Arthur is a "sodomite"; later, Mario, who has an unrequited crush on Junie, sends the three off on a beach resort vacation. Warren has an interlude with a hunky Black social director who carries him around from place to place on his shoulder; Junie and Arthur take tentative stabs at becoming a couple. By the end, there has been comedy, melodrama, romance, redemption and tragedy.

In her third movie, just after her breakout role in THE STERILE CUCKOO, Liza Minnelli continues to build the perky, flighty persona she would polish to an Oscar-winning sheen in CABARET two years later, and she is the reason to watch this movie. As a narrative, it's kind of a mess. Junie's background is given in a reasonably straightforward, if relentlessly creepy, flashback; we get Arthur's story through a series of dreamlike fragments in which the adult Arthur appears surrounded by the children that mocked him; Warren relates his background involving a gay father figure (with a brief appearance by Leonard Frey) but dismisses his fateful shooting in just a sentence or two. For all the flashbacks, the central three are not terribly well fleshed out—their "misfit" problems pretty much stand in for their characters. It's also a little odd that Warren's "happy ending" consists of him having sex on a beach, all night long, with a woman! Emily Yancy makes that character, Solana, quite appealing, but still I'm sorry that Beach Boy (the possibly bisexual social director, well played against type by Fred Williamson, later a star of Blaxploitation action movies) isn't the one whom Warren spends the night with. Robert Moore (who later directed the classic mystery spoof MURDER BY DEATH) and a young Ken Howard are quite believable in their roles, thin as the writing is. Kay Thompson, author of the classic Eloise books, and Minnelli's godmother, does well in the small role of the strange Mrs. Gregory who starts out as rude, then becomes interesting, and ends as somewhat cruel. Not a film for all tastes, as it's definitely a quirky period piece, but a must for Liza fans. Pictured, from left: Moore, Howard, Minnelli. [TCM]

LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960)

Harold Gern is a rich guy who is on the run from a major indictment. He and his wife Evelyn are in Puerto Rico with their lawyer Martin, trying to ride out the scandal, though Martin keeps trying to get Harold to take the situation seriously. They attend a cockfight which sickens Evelyn, and back at the hotel, Evelyn vents to Martin about her frustrations with Harold, then comes on to him, moves which he rejects, though clearly he’s interested. The next day, the three take a boat out for a diving trip. When Martin is stung by a ray, they come back to the surface but none of them can breathe. Leaving their air tanks on, they find the boat captain dead and no one answering on the radio. Soon, they realize that there has been some kind of incident and all the oxygen was sucked out of the atmosphere, though by the time they reach land, the oxygen has returned. Dead bodies and crashed cars are all they find in town, and Martin notes that they may be the last three people alive on the planet. Thus ends any real plot that a sci-fi movie fan might enjoy, and any real excitement that a B-movie fan might enjoy. From here, it basically turns into a stagy melodrama about the squabbling and posturing between three members of a love triangle. Earlier movies in this mold like FIVE or THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED also focused on romantic tensions but didn’t neglect the sci-fi apocalypse elements of the plot. 

Like those other films, the action here moves to an abandoned, isolated house. Harold and Evelyn head to the empty vacation home of a friend of theirs and Harold rather grudgingly allows Martin to tag along. Tensions rise among the three, with Evelyn shifting her desires back and forth between the men. There’s a fight that begins as the men slap each other with fish. The bland dialogue sometimes tries to pass as philosophical; when Evelyn tells Martin she wants to have a child with him, he replies, “All that’s left is fear for us to live with our pain” (whatever that means). Of course, having them decide to live as a threesome would have been too subversive for the time, so [Spoiler!] in the end, a blinded Martin dies in a church in Evelyn’s arms declaring there is no god, and Evelyn and Harold walk off together into an uncertain future. Given the title and the situation, this had promise, but it’s one of Roger Corman’s quickies, shot in about a week at the tail-end of another Puerto Rican production, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA. The script was unfinished so the writer, Robert Towne (who later wrote CHINATOWN) kept writing even as he was acting—he plays Martin, rather ineffectively. The other two actors, Betsy Jones-Morland and Anthony Carbone, aren’t that much better; they seem like understudies waiting for the real stars who never showed up. As rough as I’ve been on this film, it’s not unwatchable, since the apocalyptic aspect does manage to hold some interest throughout—the brief scenes of them walking through the deserted town are effective. Pictured are Carbone, Jones-Morland and Towne. [DVD]

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970)

Kelly, Casey and Pet make up an all-girl rock band who are less into feel-good rock & roll and more into somewhat artsy, gloomy music--the chorus of one song refers to "Lunatic skies of red destruction." Their manager Harris is Kelly's boyfriend, in that loose, free-love Sixties way, and in search of fame and fortune, the four head out to Los Angeles where Kelly's rich, eccentric Aunt Susan takes them in and changes her will to give Kelly a big share of her inheritance--against the advice of her square lawyer Porter. Susan takes them to a huge party (which is shot like the "Laugh-In" party sequence) thrown by record producer Z-Man, a flamboyant, neurotic fellow who signs them to a contract and gets them some hits under the name the Carrie Nations. This pushes Harris out of the picture; he becomes estranged and bitter, especially when Kelly starts dating a pretty-boy gigolo named Lance, so Harris has a desultory affair with porn star Ashley. Pet couples up with Emerson, a law student, who gets jealous when he walks in on Pet having a one-night stand with a famous boxer. Harris becomes drug-addled to the point where he can't get it up with Ashley who implies that he must be gay. Casey, in the meantime, has a one-night stand with Harris which leads to pregnancy, which leads to her getting involved in a lesbian relationship in which she seems to find happiness. When the band performs on national television, a distraught Harris tries to kill himself by jumping from a catwalk above the stage. He survives but is confined to a wheelchair for life, and Kelly decides to devote herself to him. When Pet and Emerson get back together, everyone seems to be settled until Z-Man invites the gang to another more private party. The drugged-out Z-Man tries to seduce Lance (pictured below); when he is spurned, he rapes Lance and reveals that he is halfway to becoming a transgender woman, then goes on a rampage which threatens everyone in the house.

I'm not going to rehash the complex history of this non-sequel to Valley of the Dolls, written by Roger Ebert and directed by hard-R filmmaker Russ Meyer--you can find that on Wikipedia or IMDb. Suffice to say that this film has a reputation as king of the bad camp movies, and the first time I saw it, probably 20 years ago, I could barely finish it, I thought it was such a piece of junk. But time has been kind to it and on this watching, I found it to be more interesting and fun than bad, though potentially offensive to viewers on a number of levels. There is still a lot wrong with it. For starters, the music of the Carrie Nations is not catchy enough for commercial success, except for one song, "Come With the Gentle People" which has a nice Mamas and Papas sound. The acting generally feels amateurish, though in some cases, that adds to the effect--in particular, John Lazar as Z-Man is all over the map (is he gay? Straight? Asexual? Friendly? Boorish? Psychotic?) to the point where the character loses any center, so when he flashes his boobs at the end, you just kind of shrug and say, OK. He also has to contend with lines like, "This is my happening and it freaks me out!" and "You will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!" The central women are all fine, with Dolly Read coming off the best as Kelly (she was married to comedian Dick Martin and retired from the screen by the early 80s). David Gurian is quite appealing as Harris, though he never made another movie. Edy Williams, wife of Russ Meyer, is appropriately sexy as Ashley, and she gives a delicious reading to the line, "You're a groovy boy—I'd like to strap you on sometime"; Michael Blodgett is appropriately sleazy as Lance. 

Random observations: During Z-Man’s first party, we overhear someone say, "Plastics, Benjamin," a reference to The Graduate, and later there's a Midnight Cowboy reference ("Up yours, Ratso!"). During a funny sex scene in a Rolls-Royce, Ashley climaxes screaming the name of another luxury car, "Bentley! Bentley!!" Z-Man's butler wears a Nazi uniform. The character of the lawyer is named Porter Hall, after a ubiquitous 1940s supporting actor. Pet tells someone, "Don’t bogart that joint!" (apparently a steal from Easy Rider). The song "Stranger in Paradise," based on a classical tune by Borodin, plays while Z-Man is trying to give Lance a handjob. In the over-the-top violence of the climax, the 20th Century Fox fanfare theme plays during a decapitation. This is a crazy-ass movie that manages just barely to work, mostly on a camp level. And honestly, even though it has no direct connection to the original Valley of the Dolls, and Jacqueline Susann was well within her rights to sue Fox for pushing it as a sequel (the movie begins with a note that it is not a sequel, but with that title, the damage was already done), it does almost work as a Dolls update set in the music industry. Pictured at top left are two random partygoers. [Criterion streaming]

NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN (1972)

During World War II, two nurses in a Philippines jungle are looking for a legendary "long life" herb. One of them, Francisca, is raped and shot by a Japanese soldier. Exploring in a cave, the other nurse, Lena, is bitten by a rare firebrand cobra. She doesn't die but instead goes through a transformation in which her face briefly becomes snake-like before she turns back to normal. She uses the snake venom to heal Francisca. Some 30 years later, the two live together on the edge of a jungle in Manila. Francisca has aged normally; Lena, thanks to being a cobra woman, hasn't aged a bit. But periodically her skin becomes scaly and she has to shed it. Also, to keep her youth, she has to have sex with young, virile men, after which the men are left pretty much dried out corpses. Joanna, a young biology intern doing anti-snake venom research, hears that Lena has one of the last firebrand cobras in the wild and heads out to investigate. She is chased away by a mutant-looking man named Lopé who turns out to be the adult son of Francisca; as Joanna notes, he looks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Back home, Joanna masturbates to thoughts of her boyfriend Duff whom she picks up at the airport later that day. After hearing about Joanna's research, Duff immediately heads out to Lena's place where he is bitten by her snake. Lena saves him by sucking the venom out, but she then keeps him around as a kind of sex slave to keep her young and uses him as her pimp, bringing her new victims from town. Joanna returns to Lena's and steals some venom which, after Lena's snake is killed, may put an end to Lena's eternal youth. But it might not...

This is one of those crazy-ass Filipino horror films that is not really very good but is oddly watchable, if only to see what bizarre thing will happen next. I haven’t mentioned that Lopé and the soldier rapist are played by the same actor. Nor that for some reason, Duff is compelled to buy an eagle (which eventually kills Lena's snake, which is named Movini, the same one from the WWII prologue). Nor that Joanna and her mentor test an anti-venom serum on a monkey, with bad results. Nor that Lopé's strange physical and mental condition came about after Lena seduced him. Nor that Lena eventually turns into Movini (I think) and back again. Nor that Lena is driven to instant lust at one point by seeing the butt crack of a young man on the street. The rules about snake transformation and skin shedding and humping to keep her youth are very unclear, as though the movie had been mostly improvised along the way. The acting is about as bad as sub-B-movie acting gets, but even that makes for some interesting watching. Joy Bang (Joanna) seems like a 17-year old who was suddenly shoved before the cameras with no experience, or even much desire to act, and tries to make the best of her situation—she was actually 27 at the time and made several movies including, the same year, Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam. Maybe the Philippine setting addled her. Or maybe, given the equally bad performance of Roger Garrett as Duff, the director, Andrew Meyer, was at fault. Marlene Clark (Lena, pictured above) is actually pretty good; she sustained a career well into the 1980s and is known for her starring role in the Black vampire cult classic Ganja and Hess. The nicely dreamy score music by Restie Umali is pretty good, giving some of the movie a dark fairy tale feel. But make no mistake, this is only for fans of bad horror movies. [Amazon Prime]

TARZAN AND THE GREEN GODDESS (1938)

Deep in the jungles of Guatemala, the residents of a "lost city" worship an ancient Mayan statue of the Green Goddess, unaware that inside it is a formula for a super-explosive that any number of governments might want to get their hands on. The idol has been stolen but recovered by the British archeologist Martling, working with his buddy Tarzan, but it gets stolen again by the nefarious Raglan whose boss wants to offer it to the highest bidding government. Unfortunately, the Goddess cannot be safely opened without a code—otherwise, it will explode—so Raglan has to try and steal the code book from Martling even as Martling's group is trying to take the Goddess back from Raglan. Because this is a feature film version of a serial, we get a series of short scenes in which our good guys (Martling, Tarzan, an exotic woman named Ula Vale and a comic-relief doofus named George) tangle with the bad guys, getting into and out of some tight scrapes involving a lion, a tiger, a crocodile, a raging waterfall, and a small boat in the middle of a typhoon. The most impressive escape involves a bound Tarzan bursting out of binding ropes by the power of his chest muscles alone (pictured). Of course, the idol is rescued and the explosive formula kept out of the hands of evildoers.

This movie has a complicated history. In 1935, a 12-chapter serial called THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, co-produced by Tarzan's author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, was released to compete with the MGM Tarzan series. Most serial chapters run about 20 minutes, but this one had a first chapter that ran an hour, which contained most of the backstory about the idol and the lost city. A version of the first couple of chapters was made available as its own movie, but three years later, this film, an edited version of chapters 4-12 of the serial, was released. Nothing from the first chapter is included—what we need to know is given as exposition—and what is kept is mostly the beginnings and ends of the chapters, in order to keep as many cliffhanger situations as possible. Cutting out the less exciting scenes certainly moves the action along, though I was surprised to hear no background music, which usually heightens our experience of the fisticuffs. Herman Brix (later known as Bruce Bennett) is good as Tarzan; he’s not as muscly as most Tarzans, more slim and lithe like TV’s Ron Ely, and he also speaks perfect English and occasionally wears clothes. 

Because of the slam-bang pace, most of the other actors don’t get to make an impression except for Lew Sargent as the comic relief. You can sense him wanting to be funny, but his material falls flat except for an amusing bit where he chases a monkey that has stolen his yo-yo. Don Castello, who plays Raglan, is actually Ashton Dearholt who co-produced the movie with Burroughs. Ula Holt (playing Ula Vale) was Dearholt's wife. Some location shooting in Guatemala helps dispel the somewhat claustrophobic feel of most jungle melodramas that shoot on sets, though there are plenty of studio sets here. It is claimed that this version of the film has some added footage not in the original serial, but no one seems to know which scenes those might be. Favorite line: Raglan yelling, "Get your hands off that goddess!" [TCM]

RUN FOR THE SUN (1956)

Mike Latimer (Richard Widmark), a famous author and man's man—think Hemingway—has vanished, on purpose. Magazine reporter Katie Connors (Jane Greer) has traced him to San Marcos, a small Mexican village and, posing as a tourist, engineers a meet-cute in an attempt to get a good story. Over several days, he spills his guts to her about his ex-wife's infidelity, and his depression over his writer's block. An attraction grows, and Katie decides to head back to New York but not turn in her story. Mike offers to fly her to Mexico City but a compass malfunction causes them to get lost. When their fuel runs out, they crash land on the wooded, isolated property of an Englishman named Browne (Trevor Howard) and his Dutch brother-in-law Anders (Peter van Eyck) who claim to be archeologists studying nearby ruins. But really, they are Nazis in hiding: Browne was a notorious anti-British radio propagandist and Anders was responsible for the massacre of an entire village. Mike finds out that Katie was writing a story on him and feels betrayed, not quite believing that she had given it up, but when it becomes clear that the two men will not let them rejoin civilization, they join forces to make a run through the jungle to escape. With the two Nazis hot on their trail, how far will they get?

This is billed as an adaptation of Richard Connell's famous short story "The Most Dangerous Game" in which a madman hunts humans for sport, but that plotline is non-existent here—more faithful adaptations were done in 1932 and 1945. This is basically a decent romantic melodrama that turns into an action thriller in its latter half. The characters are much more rounded and interesting than those in the other Dangerous Game movies, and the splitting of the sinister hunter into two people is interesting as some tension develops between them concerning their differing hopes for the future. Widmark isn't my idea of Hemingway but he grew on me; Greer, pictured with Widmark, is attractive but her character is the least developed of the four; Howard and van Eyck take the acting honors here, managing to portray the Nazis as human and not just cardboard villains. The setting is appropriately menacing, though some bad day-for-night photography spoils the tension at times. As a version of the Connell story, not so much, but on its own terms as a melodrama potboiler, not bad. [TCM]

THE SHADOW (1940 serial)

The mysterious Black Tiger is striking fear into the hearts of the city's wealthy businessmen by using sabotage against their industries (transportation, communications). Criminologist Lamont Cranston (Victor Jory) is called upon by the police to help out, and he becomes a regular presence at the meetings of the industrialists at the Cobalt Club. No one knows, however, that Cranston is also The Shadow, a caped and masked crimefighter whom the police assume is actually a criminal himself. When he wants to get reliable underworld information, Cranston disguises himself as the Chinese merchant Lin Chang. Aided by his faithful assistant Margo Lane and cab driver Harry Vincent, Cranston flits here and there on the trail of the Black Tiger, usually managing to foil his evil schemes. Soon, it becomes obvious that the Black Tiger must be a member of the Cobalt Club group, and Cranston works to narrow the field down to catch the right man.

The Shadow is a legendary pop culture figure who began on the radio and moved into pulp fiction and movies. He had an ominous chuckle, could "cloud men’s minds" so he would seem to be invisible, and was said to "know what evil lurks in the hearts of men." There is a short series of traditional mysteries done by Monogram in the late 40s in which Cranston is just a variation on the gentleman crimefighter (Philo Vance, The Saint, etc.), and James Patterson has just begun a series of books that "reimagine" Cranston, but this serial sticks closer to the original character. Jory is the perfect type to play The Shadow; he’s got a nicely sinister laugh and a distinctive profile, and he often played bad guys—I know him best as the nasty carpetbagger who drives Scarlett O’Hara to make a dress out of curtains in GONE WITH THE WIND. As Cranston, he exudes calm confidence (needed to counter the nervous industrialists) and as The Shadow, he looks like he might strike fear into people, but unfortunately this movie has terrible day-for-night effects, and every dark and mysterious nighttime scene winds up looking like high noon, making the Shadow’s appearance less effective. He’s even compelling as Lin Chang if you can get past the racist yellowface and dialect. 

After starting off well in the first three chapters, this falls into the usual serial chapter monotony of cliffhangers, escapes, and new villainous activity. These cliffhangers are notorious for their lazy escapes—usually a room collapses around The Shadow, burying him in wood and plaster, and in the next chapter, he simply stands up, shakes off the dust and goes on his merry way. The same cheap sets are reused, and the henchmen are largely indistinguishable from each other (and sometimes from the good guys). Margo gets a little more action in than the average serial gal pal, but she also has an irritating high-pitched scream. The Black Tiger walks through a beam of foggy light which turns him invisible and he speaks to his thugs through a tiger head speaker that is sometimes attached to a phonograph which plays pre-recorded speeches. His voice, guttural and peevish—he's constantly berating his underlings for their failures—eventually grows irritating as well. Ultimately the industrialists are not differentiated well enough to make us care about the identity of the Tiger, but the ruse that Cranston uses to expose him in the penultimate chapter is clever. As serials go, I'd rank this a notch above average for Jory's performance and look (at least when he’s shown in shadows as the bright daylight works against him) and also for some effective comic relief there and there. Pictured at top is Jory with the Black Tiger's speaker. [DVD]

THE PENTHOUSE (1967)

We watch what appears to be the usual morning ritual of young British couple Barbara and Bruce in their penthouse apartment: Barbara, who has a job at a dress shop, gets up first to make coffee while Bruce, a real estate agent, lingers in bed. But we soon discover the truth: the two are having an affair, with Bruce making empty promises that he will ask his wife for a divorce, and the fancy apartment they're in belongs to a client of Bruce's who is out of town. The building itself is still under construction and the elevator to the penthouse isn't operational. Soon, Barbara answers a knock at the door to find two men who say they have come to read the meter. She lets them in but their behavior is strange as they dawdle and make the occasional cryptic comment. Sure enough, after a few minutes, it's clear that the two men, named Tom and Dick (who refer to a third named Harry who will be arriving soon), are staging a home invasion. Bruce gets tied up and made fun of (one of the men taunts him by saying, "Sleeping in his underwear—not very civilized, not very hygienic") and Barbara is plied with liquor until she is willing to have sex with Tom, and later Dick. However, despite the hovering threat of physical violence—and the question of how consensual the sex with Barbara really is—most of the pain dealt out is psychological as Tom and Dick seem to enjoy playing mind games and brandishing their potentially threatening presences more than their weapons (at one point, one does pull out a switchblade). Eventually, they leave on their own accord and a horny Barbara starts to flirt with the still-tied-up Bruce until another knock on the door announces the arrival of Harry, a professionally dressed woman who says she is the parole officer of Tom and Dick, and she wants permission to bring the two men in to apologize—or is this just another mind game?

I'm not really a fan of home invasion movies, though this one is perhaps a notch above the average. The situation, the dialogue, and the performances all make this feel like a Harold Pinter play. If that sounds appealing, I can recommend this to you; otherwise, this probably won't be your cup of tea. No character is particularly appealing, so when the two thugs start going through their predictable home invasion tactics, I found it difficult to work up much identification with the adulterous couple. Suzy Kendall (Barbara) is lovely; she began her career as a model and later was married for a time to Dudley Moore. Her character is the center of the story more or less by default since we know little about any of them, and she's the most vulnerable. Most reviews of this movie mention the two rape scenes, but they (especially the first one) don't play out as rape so much as drunken seduction scenes, though it's clear that, even if physical brutality isn't used, the threat of such is never far from the surface. Terence Morgan as Bruce is a beta male who seems to have lucked into his affair with Barbara. The thugs (Tony Beckley and Norman Rodway, pictured) are physically intimidating, but also seem to function more as symbols in this psychological drama rather than as three-dimensional characters. Most interesting of all, if just for the sheer ambiguity of her character, is Martine Beswick as Harry, though she only has about ten minutes of screen time. As in a Pinter play, don't expect any clearing up of ambiguities or loose ends, though I did find the ending satisfying enough. [YouTube]

VACATION FROM LOVE (1938)

Bill (Dennis O'Keefe) is a saxophone player at the Club Bolero who has fallen head over heels in love with Pat (Florence Rice), a wealthy socialite he sees in the audience. Even though he's never met her, and she's about to marry T. Ames Piermont III (with that name, you know he's as rich as she is), he still thinks he has a chance to sweep her off her feet. Bill finagles his way into her wedding and when the minister asks if there are any objections to the marriage, Bill objects loudly, saying the groom's eyes are too close together. This being a screwball comedy, Pat agrees and the two run off together. Her father, John Lawson (Reginald Owen) is not happy, but Bill and Pat decide to marry, with their vow being, "Love, honor, obey, and always have fun!" Two years later, Bill is an advertising executive with Lawson's company--he's making lots of money, but it seems like the "having fun" of their vow has been forgotten. The breaking point comes when Bill forgets to attend their anniversary party, instead getting a little drunk with his former bandleader and the girl singer from the band. Soon enough, Pat files for divorce, but, this being a screwball comedy, a madcap adventure in Paris soon shows that the couple can still have fun. 

It took me a while to start enjoying this B-comedy, as neither O'Keefe nor Rice (both pictured at right) is charming enough to carry off the improbabilities of the opening sequences. O'Keefe just seems a little simple and Rice is not quite attractive enough to warrant the kind of instant and intense crush that O'Keefe has for her. But by the anniversary party, I went with the flow, and the final Paris scenes, partly played with no dialogue and at a slightly sped-up speed, are fun indeed. Still, I had to take their love for granted, as the two never really develop much chemistry and we don't see them interact as a couple very much. A decent supporting cast helps: Reginald Owen as Lawson, the epitome of befuddled irritation in the beginning until he comes around to appreciate Bill's whimsey; June Knight as the band singer; Edward Brophy as the band leader; J.M. Kerrigan as a Hansom cab driver; George Zucco in a small role as a psychiatrist—when he tells Owen early on that Bill is mentally fit, Owen shouts, "He’s sane? You must be mad!" Mild fun. [TCM]

ESKIMO (1933)

Mala, member of a Northern Alaskan Eskimo tribe, is a husband and father, and the best hunter in the tribe. When a stranger with two wives shows up, having lost contact with his tribe, Mala takes him in. One of the wives is constantly grinning and chuckling, but the other one, Iva, is younger and sexier, and looks longingly at Mala. Numaka returns from a visit to Tjaranak, an inlet where trading ships dock, in possession of a gun. Mala decides to take his family there to trade for goods. Along the way, they run into Urajak, who lost his wife in a bear attack, and Mala offers him his wife Aba for a night of intimate company. At Tjaranak, trading occurs, and the captain talks Mala into leaving Aba in the ship overnight; he then gets Aba drunk and sleeps with her. The next day, while Mala participates in a whale hunt, Aba is dragged back on ship by drunken sailors and the captain rapes her. When she stumbles out onto the ice, she is shot and killed by a hunter who mistakes her for a seal. In revenge, Mala impales the captain with a harpoon and leaves. Back home with no wife, the stranger offers Mala his wife Iva as a wife and mother to his children. During a caribou hunt, Mala has a vision of the dead captain and is advised to pray to the gods to give him a new name so the captain's ghost cannot find him. He takes the name Kripik. Meanwhile, a couple of Canadian Mounties go after Mala for the captain's murder. They wind up almost dead in the snow and Mala (as Kripik) nurses them back to health. The men form a bond, but when the Mounties discover he is really Mala, they reluctantly do their duty and arrest him. That night, bound in handcuffs, Mala struggles mightily and painfully (and bloodily) to escape and sets off on a grueling journey back to his tribe, forced to slaughter and eat all of his sled dogs. Knowing he's being pursued, he and Iva leave the village via an ice floe just as the Mounties arrive. Sgt. Hunt is torn between his admiration for Mala and his duty as upholder of the white man's laws. Will he shoot Mala or let him float off to an uncertain future?

This was mostly shot on location, using footage of an actual Alaskan tribe as the backdrop for the story (fiction but based on two adventure travel books by Peter Freuchen, who also plays the captain). All the dialog delivered by the Alaskans is in their native language, translated by title cards. The film was touted as a partial documentary, probably the reason they got away with a brief shot of a native woman breastfeeding. Scenes of real seal, whale, and caribou hunts are interesting, though there is some obvious use of rear projection shots for some of the more exciting moments. An onscreen note at the beginning of the film says that the cast is all native and the only actors in the movie are the Mounties, but that’s not quite true. The man playing Mala, also named Mala (pictured), was born in Alaska, but had been involved in the film business in Hollywood since 1925. He went on to a fairly long acting career (see LAST OF THE PAGANS). Similarly, Lotus Long, who played Iva, was of Japanese and Hawaiian background but was born in New Jersey and went on to a solid career in B-movies. The film's director, W.S. Van Dyke, has a small part as the chief Mountie inspector. The actor with the most English dialog is Joe Sawyer as Hunt; Sawyer made almost 200 movies, always in support, usually as a cop or a henchman or a comic relief sidekick, and he's fine here as the conflicted Mountie. At 2 hours, it's a bit too long in its middle sections, but it remains watchable after all these years, both as a novelty and as a unique adventure film. [TCM]