THE BLACK CASTLE (1952)

The best sequence in this film is the opening, featuring Richard Greene in a coffin, apparently dead but actually alive but in a coma-like state, unable to communicate with the two men who are preparing him for burial. The bulk of the film is a flashback showing how Greene, an English nobleman, got in this predicament. Investigating the strange disappearance of two friends, he is put on the trail of the eye-patched Count Von Bruno (Stephen McNally). Greene, incognito, arrives at McNally's Austrian estate for a hunting vacation. He doesn't find his friends, but he falls for the Countess (Rita Corday) who was forced into a marriage she didn't want. As he vows to help her get away, he must also contend with a brutish mute manservant (Lon Chaney Jr.), an African panther, a pit of crocodiles, some sword-wielding henchmen, a spot of torture, and a doctor (Boris Karloff) who, when Greene and Corday get in a tight spot, agrees to give them a serum that will put them in a death-like state for twelve hours, theoretically allowing them to escape the grounds in their coffins. However, as we saw in the opening, that plan backfires. Will good (Greene) triumph over evil (McNally)? The first scene, set on a windy night in a spooky courtyard, with howling dogs in the background, sets the bar high, but the movie never again reaches this height of horrific atmosphere. In fact, it plays out more like a Gothic-tinged swashbuckling melodrama than a full-blooded horror film. Greene and Karloff (in a particularly small role) are good; McNally is OK but not as dreadfully imposing as he should be. John Hoyt and Michael Pate are the wicked henchmen. Henry Corden, later the voice of Fred Flintstone in the 80's and 90's, is a sympathetic servant. The sets are good, but overall the film is a bit too "off" in most departments to be a truly effective shocker. [DVD]

THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE (1972)

A newly married couple (Simon Andreu and Maribel Martin) go to a hotel for their honeymoon, but she has a scary vision of a man leaping out of a closet and raping her, so she talks her husband into going straight to his family’s estate. She's a virgin, and his deflowering of her is enacted rather like the dream rape; the next morning, they seem happy but she is clearly not up to his 2 or 3-times-a-day appetite. Meanwhile, Martin is disturbed to find that all the portraits of the family's women have been relegated to the basement, particularly one with its face cut out of the notorious Mircalla (the title figure) who stabbed her husband to death on their wedding night because he wanted her to do "unnatural things." A ghostly vision of Mircalla starts appearing to Martin, and she has a dream that Mircalla forces her to stab her husband repeatedly, rip out his heart, and castrate him (though this last act is referred to rather vaguely). The next day, Andreu finds a naked woman buried in the sand on the beach; she’s a dead ringer for the Mircalla figure—and, go figure, her name is Carmilla, an anagram of Mircalla. If you know Sheridan Le Fanu's story "Carmilla," on which this film is loosely based, you know that lesbian vampirism is right around the corner. This winds up being a fairly interesting variation on the Le Fanu story. The film is moody but not terribly gory (though there is some blood-spattering now and again, and the dream-killing of the husband is rather rough) and a little kinky, with an outdoor oral sex scene and a climax involving the two women, naked, inside a coffin, followed soon by the gushing of gallons of blood. Thematically, the movie is misogynistic, though I'd hate to try and cipher out any kind of coherent message about sex and gender, aside from, "If you don’t have sex with your husband whenever he wants it, you’re fated to become an undead lesbian." This Spanish movie appears to have been shot with actors speaking both English and Spanish, with everyone ultimately dubbed in English, probably by different actors, so the acting is difficult to critique. Both Martin and Alexandra Bastedo as Carmilla (both pictured above) are lovely and all three leads are adequate if not much more. [DVD]

THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964)

This film begins with a striking sequence: Dr. Frankenstein's assistant Hans (Sandor Eles) steals the freshly dead body of a young man; Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) cuts open the chest and rips the heart out, submerges it in a solution, cranks up the electricity, and gets it to start beating--until a priest arrives screaming of blasphemy and destroys the lab. Frankenstein and Hans return to his old village (where we get an extensive flashback of the doc's earlier adventures in restoring life to the dead) and hide in a glacier cave where they find a deaf-mute begger girl; she mumblingly communes with a figure encased in the ice which turns out to be Frankenstein's original monster. They bring him back to life and hire circus hypnotist Zoltan (Peter Woodthorpe) to get the brute's brain to work; Zoltan tries to control the monster, sending him on a robbery spree in the village, but when the monster kills, the villagers do their usual thing and try to storm the castle (without torches, since they go in broad daylight), leading to the usual ending of bleak destruction.

The third Hammer Films version of Frankenstein was the first one to use specific elements of the 1931 Universal film with Boris Karloff--Universal released the film in the U.S.--and is not well thought of by critics, but I quite liked it, or parts of it. Cushing cuts a fine, if gaunt, figure as the good/bad doc; Eles (pictured with Cushing) makes an unusual assistant--instead of the usual deformed idiot, he is relatively smart and handsome. Katy Wild as the mute girl is attractive but has little to do, though Woodthorpe adds some spice to the proceedings. As the monster, Kiwi Kingston is buried in thick make-up that looks like a cross between a golem and the Karloff creature, but he's not really very scary. The look of the film is superb; it's probably the best looking Hammer film ever, with excellent cinematography, good sets (Frankenstein's old mansion is especially effective), and fine use of color. Available in the Hammer Horrors Series boxed set. [DVD]

THE GIANT CLAW (1957)

Up at the top of the world, Air Force scientist and pilot Jeff Morrow sees a UFO, but because nothing shows up on radar, he is accused of pulling a prank until a commercial airline pilot also reports a sighting. One old Canadian trapper thinks he's seen it and believes it's a flying wolf-woman out of folklore, but eventually, it's revealed that the strange flying object which has begun attacking planes is a gigantic extraterrestrial bird, protected by an anti-matter barrier that prevents it from showing up on radar. Morrow and his squeeze (Mara Corday) theorize, based on the spiral pattern of its flights, that it's building a nest somewhere, and sure enough, it is. They find a giant egg and destroy it, but somehow the huge bird winds up in New York City, perched Kong-like on a skyscraper, where they buzz the thing in planes and manage to attack it with some invention of Morrow's that does indeed polish it off. From the summary, you might assume this is no worse than any other 50's kiddie-matinee monster flick, but you'd be wrong: what drags it down (or takes it soaring to the heights of bad-moviedom) is the monster bird, a terribly cheap special effect puppet. In my notes, I wrote, "Muppet vulture with visible strings." It just never looks very frightening, and it takes too much suspension of disbelief to think that it is. Morrow and Corday are veterans of such films and are OK, but they can't really make the movie worth watching. [DVD]

THE RETURN OF DRACULA (1958)

Dracula meets Gidget meets Shadow of a Doubt on a small budget in this film made by a director who apparently didn't care that most of his after-midnight scenes look like they’re taking place at high noon. A band of men arrive at a Transylvanian cemetery at dawn to stake a vampire (Francis Lederer), but his coffin is empty. Lederer kills a man who was on his way to California to stay with relatives and takes over his identity. When he arrives in suburban Carleton, he is viewed by his cousin and her teenage daughter (Norma Eberhardt) as a little stand-offish and eccentric (for example, he's never around in the daytime), but they, especially Eberhardt who finds him exotically fascinating, make an effort to get to know him. Lederer stalks a blind girl (Virginia Vincent) who tells Eberhardt that the nights seem to be getting darker. Sure enough, she winds up dead, or more to the point, undead. Enter John Wengraf, a European Van Helsing-figure on Lederer's trail, and we all know where the story goes from here. I wrote in my notes that this movie should be called Dracula Goes to Mayberry, and oddly enough, the name of the family he's visiting is Mayberry! The acting is strictly second-string except for Lederer, who is OK but adds nothing new to the Dracula routine. The handsome Ray Stricklyn, who was 30 but looks about 18 here, is Eberhardt's boyfriend, but doesn’t have much to do. Eberhardt's relationship with Lederer reminded me of the niece and uncle of Hitchcock's SHADOW OF A DOUBT. The bright nighttime scenes are truly distracting. The black and white film turns to color for five seconds during a climactic blood-gushing scene. [TCM]

MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS (1958)

College professor Arthur Franz is excited when student Troy Donahue delivers an ancient fossilized fish from Madagascar, a coelacanth, to his lab. No one notices that Donahue's dog laps up a little bit of bloody water from the crate, but moments later everyone notices that the dog has grown extra fangs and gone vicious. Franz declares it a "throwback" and cages it for the night, but the next day, it's just a sweet friendly pup again. The same thing happens to a dragonfly that sups on the fish; it becomes a gigantic buzzing prehistoric-looking creature. When Franz cuts his hand on a fish tooth, he too becomes a snarling "throwback" and kills a young woman, not realizing when he reverts to normal that he's done so. (Technically, that's a spoiler, as they don't reveal for sure who the monster is until the end, but there is virtually no one else it could be, not even a cheap red herring character.) Another violent attack happens after Franz has, get this, smoked some of the fish blood which came from the giant dragonfly and dripped into his pipe. The cops think there's a killer after Franz, but Franz soon realizes that he's the killer.

This is about par for the course for a late 50's sci-fi horror flick: pedestrian story, acting, sets, and direction, and just enough juice now and then to keep you from falling asleep. The coelacanth is a pretty good prop, grotesque and a little scary, though the monster insect is fairly laughable (pictured above, you can kinda see the wires). There is a startling shot showing Franz's first victim hanging by her hair from a tree, but as far as shocks and thrills, it's mostly downhill from there. Donahue is a large wooden pole, though an attractive one; Franz is OK, as is Joanna Moore as his main squeeze. The movie's lesson: "Man is only one generation from savagery!" Or maybe it's something about the beast triumphing over the seeker; I was in a popcorn/Coke coma by the end. [DVD]

THE AZTEC MUMMY (1957)

First, we hear about a dangerous bandit known as The Bat, a masked villain right out of a 1940's serial, who has been vivisecting animals (and "society is duly alarmed," according to the subtitles). Next, we're at a "neuropsychiatric investigations" conference where we hear from a Dr. Almada who is working on past-life regression through hypnosis. His girlfriend Flora goes under in a scene which involves a big spinning spiral, discordant music, and bug eyes. In her past life, she was Xochi, an Aztec virgin who was caught with a man just before she was to be sacrificed. Her lover is given a potion to drive him mad and she is put to death. With information given to him by Flora, Almada heads off to find Xochi's tomb to recover a breastplate to prove that his regression technique works. The Bat follows along, believing that the breastplate is the key to finding hidden Aztec treasure. Finally, once they all get to the pyramid, there’s the Mummy of the title, Xochi's lover, who kidnaps Flora and is fought, like Dracula, with the power of the cross. This was the first in a series of Aztec Mummy movies (surely you've seen Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy?); I remember these films being shown on Chiller Theater, in badly dubbed versions. It was nice to see this in its original state, though I can’t say it made me want to rush out and catch the sequels. The bizarre plot threads ultimately aren't connected very well, the acting is sub-B level, and it looks rather cheap. Still, if you must see it, get the recent DVD release which is about as good as this film is likely to look. [DVD]

THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE (1921)

Despite the title, this isn’t a horror movie so much as a kind of New Year's Eve-take on A Christmas Carol. Edit, a Salvation Army sister, is on her deathbed and her only wish is to see David, an unrepentant drunkard and general low-life whom she had tried to help over the past year. David, drunk and sitting in a gutter, ignores her call and tells his two buddies a story he heard from his late friend Georges that the last person to die each year has to drive Death’s carriage for the next year. As it happens, after David refuses to see Edit, he is beaten up by his companions and, near death, sees Death’s carriage approach with Georges at the helm. Feeling partly responsible for having led David into his life of waste, Georges acts as Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Past and we get an extended flashback showing how David started drinking, mistreated his wife and child, and even may have been indirectly responsible for Edit’s illness (she mended his germ-ridden coat for him, and her thanks was to have him tear it up in front of her). He's even driven his wife to attempt to poison herself and their child. Will David repent, and even if he does, will Death's carriage leave without him?

This was an important film in the history of Swedish cinema; the director, Victor Sjostrom, went on to make the great Hollywood silent movie THE WIND, and years later starred in Ingmar Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES—he also stars here as David. The double-exposure special effects used for the carriage and the ghostly figures are well done, and the atmosphere of creepiness and gloom is sustained throughout; there is no humor or whimsy to lighten the mood. The narrative, even within the flashback, skips around in time but remains easy to follow. Not really a horror movie, but still a good October viewing choice. Aka Korkarlen and The Stroke of Midnight. [TCM]

I SAW WHAT YOU DID (1965)

Libby, babysitting for her little sister, invites Kit over to her isolated house while her parents take an overnight trip. Bored after dinner, they start playing phone pranks, picking names at random out of the phone book, calling people and saying things like, "I saw what you did and I know who you are!" They happen upon a man (John Ireland) who in fact has just murdered his wife (in a scene that slavishly copies the shower scene in PSYCHO); of course, he thinks he’s dealing with an adult voyeur who’s out to blackmail him, and as one thing leads to another, Ireland winds up outside Libby's house in the middle of the night, ready to take care of the snoop.

This William Castle thriller isn't a very good movie but it could be argued that it is the real granddaddy of the slasher film. Of course, today's horror movie fans will laugh at this one; except for the shower murder, which is rather brutal, the violence is minimal and the gore non-existent. Though Ireland does a nice job as a figure of menace, it never feels like the girls are in real danger, even at the climax. The plot machinations that allow Ireland to discover his caller's identity are somewhat clever, and the film has the added though dubious attraction of Joan Crawford in what amounts to a cameo role as Ireland’s mistress who also meets a bad end. It all feels like an episode of The Brady Bunch, down to the inappropriately jaunty music and the fancy suburban house set--rather artificial but nicely shadowy. None of the three girls went on to have an acting career. This came out when I was 9, and I remember the ads vividly; I suppose if I had seen it then, it would have given me nightmares. [TCM]

IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (1955)

This early Ray Harryhausen monster movie is surprisingly fun, despite the low budget and the silly romance plot. Kenneth Tobey is the commander of an atomic submarine which gets rammed by a large, mysterious, radioactive Something that shows up on the sonar. When they surface, a chunk of animal flesh is found and two top marine biologists, Donald Curtis and Faith Domergue, are called in to help Tobey investigate. While a rather mild romantic triangle develops between the three, they discover that this thing is a giant octopus; they theorize that it resided deep in the Pacific until it was disturbed by H-bomb blasts. The marine life forms that would be its natural prey can sense its radioactivity and make them themselves scarce, so the beast heads to the American West Coast to feed. It shows up again on the Oregon coast, heads south where it wraps itself around the Golden Gate bridge, and winds up wrecking havoc in the San Francisco Bay. Tobey and Curtis go down in a sub to make one last effort at killing it; will one have to sacrifice his life for the other (and for Domergue, and, I guess, for mankind)? The plot is nothing you haven't seen before--some critics have noted in particular that it seems like a seaside version of the earlier THEM (giant radioactive ants in Los Angeles), and it does, but it's still fun. Harryhausen's stop-motion octopus is notorious for only having six tentacles (all the budget would allow), but honestly I've seen this movie three times and I've always found the creature so effective that I've never noticed this flaw. All three lead actors are just fine, with the understated Curtis especially good in the secondary male lead. The film would seem to partake of the same atomic-age paranoia which informed GODZILLA, THEM, and countless other 50's SF films, but that aspect of the plot is downplayed practically out of existence, and the final scene is all about the romance. [TCM]

THE SKULL (1965)

Peter Cushing, a collector of arcane occult memorabilia, buys an antique book, bound in human flesh, about the Marquis de Sade from shady dealer Patrick Wymark. The next night, Wymark brings him a human skull reputed to be Sade’s. It turns out Wymark stole the skull from fellow collector Christopher Lee, who is glad to be rid of it as he believes the skull is possessed by evil spirits that make its owner do terrible things by the light of the full moon. Sure enough, one night Cushing has a freaky nightmare and wakes up in Wymark’s apartment and finds Wymark dead, with his throat looking like it was chewed through. Yes, the spirit in the skull is apparently possessing Cushing, causing him to murder by the full moon. As most critics note, the idea here is OK, but the execution leaves something to be desired. It was based on a short story by Robert Bloch and might have worked better as a Night Gallery episode. There are some good atmospheric subjective shots through the eyes of the skull as it floats about a room, but then the shots actually showing the skull floating are rather silly. The opening graveyard scene, with some poor schmoe (Maurice Good) digging up the skull in the first place, and the price he pays, is nicely done. Some good supporting actors, like Patrick Macnee, George Coulouris, and Michael Gough have thankless roles. Not a disaster, but not as much fun as it sounds like it might be, with virtually no Sadean kinkiness at all. [DVD]

TOWER OF EVIL (1972)

An old fisherman and his son make their way through the fog and the spiders on Snape Island to discover a bloody human hand and the dead naked man it belonged to sprawled out on the rocks. Next up: a dead girl whose head has been cut off, a dead boy speared to the wall of a lighthouse, and finally a crazed, naked girl who stabs one of the fishermen to death before being subdued. A doctor tries hypnotizing the traumatized girl to get the full story, and that story, told in fragmented flashbacks, is a mini-“Friday the 13th” slasher movie of its own: horny pot-smoking teenagers have sex and are murdered by an unseen figure. A detective (Bryant Haliday) agrees to visit the island to find out what really happened. Meanwhile, a group of archeologists is planning a trip to the island to look for the remains of an ancient Phoenician burial site dedicated to the god Baal, now viewed as a devil figure. Haliday joins the group, composed primarily of bickering husbands, wives, and lovers, and one beefy, long-haired, dimbulb "stud," son of the surviving fisherman from the first scene. The group hears the story of a miserable family who once lived on the island but are now all presumed dead. So we now have all the pieces in place for a second, more prolonged slasher narrative: how will these sober but horny adults die, and in what order?

Ah, it's October, which means it's time for me to watch a month's worth of horror and sci-fi movies. This horror film, which I’d never heard of until it aired on Turner Classic’s Underground, is no gem, but it’s not bad. The island and the lighthouse (the tower of the title) give good atmosphere, the gore is plentiful, the nudity gratuitous, and at least one sex scene is surprisingly vigorous. The look of the actors keeps the film mired in the 70’s: the men wear tight pants and turtlenecks, and one woman in a shiny brown jumpsuit looks like an Abba reject. The Baal plotline is a red herring, though the sacrifice room that is uncovered is creepy (though my partner noticed that the gigantic statue of the fearsome god looked a little like the muppet Gonzo). Jill Haworth, the original Sally Bowles on Broadway in Cabaret, is the "good" (i.e., least horny) archeologist who does, of course, survive, and though none of the actors stand out talentwise, Mark Edwards (pictured), with his very 70's hair and mustache, is easy on the eyes, and classic-era character actor George Coulouris has a small role as the doomed fisherman in the opening. The TCM print, taken I assume from the Elite Entertainment DVD, is sharp, clear, and colorful. [TCM]

MEET ME TONIGHT (1952)
aka TONIGHT AT 8:30

An adaptation of three short plays by Noel Coward (at right), each presented with the opening of red stage curtains, even though they are not performed on a stage--though they might as well be, as all three are rather stagy in presentation and acting. The first, "Red Peppers," is about a second-rate, husband-and-wife music hall duo, a spat they have one evening between shows, and the surprising outcome onstage when a drunken conductor, upset with their insults, tries to sabotage their act. This sets the tone for the rest of the film: witty dialogue, generally well handled, but given shrill, sometimes obnoxiously so, delivery. Ted Ray and Kay Walsh are OK as the husband and wife; I give them points for being bad (deliberately, I assume) while performing their musty old stage act. It's a fine line to walk, being good actors while trying to pull off a bad act, and it's something that Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor didn't even try to do in the flashback scenes early in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (they're way too good for the audience to think that they were "bad").

The second play, "Fumed Oak," is about a horrible little suburban family in which the wife, daughter, and wife's mother spend all their time whining and fussing until one evening, the husband (Stanley Holloway) unleashes his pent-up anger and frustration against them. It's the funniest one of the three, due to Holloway's fine low-simmer performance, though it feels a little uncomfortable these days as much of the bile seems to be aimed at the women just for being women. The last, "Ways and Means," concerns a broke couple who are about to be kicked out of a French villa at which they've been staying, and the plan they hastily concoct with their wealthy hostess's chauffeur, whom they discover is also a burglar. I enjoyed the acting in this one the most: the chemistry between the husband and wife (Nigel Patrick and Valerie Hobson), the low-key playing of Jack Warner as the burglar, and the silly frippery of Jesse Royce Landis as the hostess, though as the longest of the three, it feels a little dragged out with a couple of characters who seem to exist just to pad out the running time. The print shown on TCM was in Technicolor but a bit washed out and very heavy on the reds. All in all, worth seeing if only as a novelty. [TCM]

A NOTORIOUS AFFAIR (1930)

Rather drab pre-Code romantic melodrama which is spiced up by a fabulous supporting performance from Kay Francis. The first scene of the film focuses on Francis, playing a renowned horsewoman who is also constantly on the prowl for men, especially working class men--we first see her making out with a stableboy who briefly becomes her butler before getting sent back to the stables. At a high society party being held to celebrate the engagement of Billie Dove to the titled Philip Strange, Dove arrives with rather high-strung, struggling violinist Basil Rathbone in tow and announces that the two have just been married. Her friends disapprove (except for Francis) and her father is pissed: "When you were a child," he says, "it was stray cats you brought home." "But," she replies, "I'm older now." The two make a go of things for a while until Francis takes a hand in boosting Rathbone's career; soon, he's a famous musician and in the middle of an affair with Francis, but he’s also in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Dove is pursued by an old friend (Kenneth Thomson), a doctor who is tending to Rathbone. Francis soon grows tired of Rathbone and starts tossing flowers at the chauffeur, which aggravates Rathbone's condition so much that he has a crippling attack on stage one night, and finds his playing arm is paralyzed.

The question we’re supposed to ask is, which woman will wind up helping the poor violinist recover? But what I wanted to know was, who will be the next target of Francis' raw sexual insatiability? Sadly, it's only the first question that gets answered, and in a predictable way. Dove was a star of silent films, but retired from the screen at the age of 29 just a couple of years after this film. She's OK here, but Francis is so much more interesting (both the actress and her character) that she wipes Dove off the screen. Rathbone is meant to be passive and "artistic," but he's so unappealing that I couldn't see what either woman saw in him, and his Italianish accent is ludicrous, reminding me of Erik Rhodes' deliberately comic accent in THE GAY DIVORCEE. There is a nice Christmas scene with snow and carolers. This is a must for Kay Francis fans, but others may not get as much enjoyment out of it. [TCM]

LA RONDE (1950)

This is a frothy, charming, spicy little confection about love and sex with virtually no overarching narrative and, as far as I can tell, no real lesson or moral to impart, aside from the observation that love is a game of deception, pleasure and pain. The film, set in Vienna, begins with our narrator (Anton Walbrook, at right) strolling out of the fog and through the streets, telling us he is the personification of our desire to know everything; he sees life "in the round." As he walks he sings a song about everyone taking their turn on love’s carousel, and winds up at an actual carousel where he begins to narrate the short story cycle that makes up the rest of the film.

A young prostitute picks up Franz, a soldier and gives him a free ride, so to speak, down by the river. The next night, Franz makes out with Marie, a housemaid, on a park bench and almost loses his sword (swords are everywhere here in turn-of-the-century Vienna and, yes, they are metaphors). Marie has a tryst with Alfred, a son of the family she works for, and Alfred is soon renting an apartment so he can meet Emma, a married woman. We see Emma and her husband Charles have a bedroom discussion about extramarital affairs, and soon Charles takes his mistress Anna to a fancy restaurant where they have a private room for dinner and sex—in that order. He sets her up in an apartment (I think the same one where Alfred has his rendezvous) which she uses to meet with Robert, a writer, who is seeing an actress starring in one of his plays, who is sleeping with a count (who is scandalized at her suggestion that they have sex in the morning, though not scandalized enough not to go through with it), who goes out and gets drunk and spends the night with, surprise, the prostitute from the first episode.

The film espouses a fairly cynical view of love, and given the emphasis on extramarital affairs, I was expecting some unhappiness or even tragedy eventually, but aside from some hurt feelings, things remain light throughout. Based on a play, the movie highlights its artifice constantly, usually through the character of Walbrook: in his first stroll (shot in one long take), we see him walk past studio lights on the street set; later, he uses a clapboard as a transition between stories; when a character has a spell of impotency, he brings the carousel to a grinding halt; as a particularly randy pair of lovers begin to go at it, Walbrook actually censors the film, cutting and splicing in front of us. Despite the artifice (or maybe because of it), the film is a feast for the eyes and is shot beautifully, with lots of long takes filled with fluid movement through elaborately appointed sets. For some reason, the actors in the first half make the strongest impression, including a young Simone Signoret as the prostitute, Daniel Gelin (pictured) as Alfred, Simon Simon (of CAT PEOPLE) as the maid, and Danielle Darrieux as Emma. The song that Walbrook sings is quite lovely and memorable. A treat all around, and available from Criterion in a gorgeous restored print. [TCM]

BREWSTER'S MILLIONS (1945)

Dennis O'Keefe comes home from the war to find out that a rich uncle has left him a lot of money, with an odd stipulation: he gets a million dollars right away but has to spend it all in two months’ time and have no assets left. If he does that, he gets another seven million. The whole point is supposedly to make O'Keefe understand the value of money by making him sick of spending it. He can only give 5% to charity. And, oh yeah, he can't tell anyone what’s going on. And, oh yeah, he can't get married during that time. Naturally, his fiancée (Helen Walker) isn’t happy because they were supposed to get married right away. And his family and friends are worried when O'Keefe sets up a company and starts to spend money wastefully. Unfortunately, his crazy business decisions start making him more money so he has to start spending even more wastefully.

This old chestnut seems to have a clever plot device, but it's one of those you can’t think too much about because the loopholes become too obvious: Why can't he tell anyone? Why can't he get married? Hell, why doesn't he just admit failure, especially when the business starts making money, and keep the million? Happily, the film plays out at a breakneck speed and O'Keefe makes a very likable hero. The supporting cast of this independent B-movie is fairly lackluster, except for Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson as O'Keefe’s valet. There's Gail Patrick as a socialite who makes Walker jealous, June Havoc as a chorus girl, and Mischa Auer as a Broadway producer in whose show O'Keefe puts money; other familiar faces include John Litel, Neil Hamilton, and Joe Sawyer. This was remade in the 80's with Richard Pryor and John Candy, but I don't think I could sit through another go-round of this silly plot. [TCM]

THE HELLFIRE CLUB (1961)

Though routinely treated as a horror film (especially by Dark Sky, the company that has issued this on DVD), this is really a period-piece swashbuckler, and as such it's enjoyable, but horror fans will certainly be disappointed, as will anyone hoping for the naughty decadence that title implies. The Hellfire Club was an actual underground social group of the 1700's which mocked religion in a rather tame manner but was known for supposedly indulging in black masses and orgies. In the opening scene, two boys spy on a meeting of the club, during which it appears as if a Satanic human sacrifice is occurring, but it turns out to be an elaborate jest leading off a mass orgy. When discovered, one of the boys is whipped by his father, the club's leader, and when he and his mother try to escape, their carriage goes over a hill. Both are presumed dead, but the boy survives. Years later, the boy has become an acrobat in a traveling circus; when he (Keith Michell) finds out his father has died and the estate has passed into the hands of his cousin (Peter Arne), the second boy from the opening scene, Michell decides to go claim what is rightfully his. He poses as a groom, gets a job with Arne, has an affair with Adrienne Corri, Arne's lover, and attempts to find a missing document which will back up his claim on the estate. He is helped out by members of his circus troupe, including his longtime love, the buxom Kai Fischer, and by a lawyer (Peter Cushing, in what amounts to a cameo) who has been trying to get evidence against Arne on charges of espionage. At heart, this is a throwback to an old revenge melodrama, which in the classic movie era might have starred Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn. The closest this film comes to that kind of talent is Arne who does a nice job reveling in his villainy without going into camp. Michell is handsome but colorless, though he's quite good in a brief scene in which he masquerades as a foppish French nobleman. The plotting is satisfactory and the fight scenes are carried off nicely. If only there was a little more blood and a few more orgies... [DVD]

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1931)

I suspect this is a film more known of than seen these days; it was the first British movie to be a substantial hit in America, and it won Charles Laughton an Oscar, but it plays out in a jerky, tableaux-like style and it's a fairly low-budget affair compared to the kind of "pomp and circumstance" production values we're used to for historical films about royalty. But Laughton's wonderful performance almost single-handedly makes it worth seeing. The film mostly stays true to its title which allows it to skimp on scenes of big crowds and affairs of state; most of the action takes place offstage, as it were, at the palace. The film might be better called "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" (like the pompous but fondly-remembered 70's instrumental album by Rick Wakeman) as the choppy narrative focuses on the relationships between Henry and his wives. The first wife is left out altogether (a title card says she was "too respectable" to be of interest), and the action starts on the day that his second wife, Anne Boleyn, is to be executed for adultery, though the fact that she did not bear Henry a male heir was a strike against her, too. We're caught up to speed by overhearing court gossip, and introduced to Katharine Howard (Binnie Barnes), a scheming lady-in-waiting who aspires to work her way to be Queen. Merle Oberon, in one of her first credited roles as Anne, gets to look sad and lovely for a minute or two, and then is gone. As soon as the execution bells are rung, Henry marries Jane Seymour (Wendy Barrie) who does have a son, but dies in childbirth. The fourth wife, the German Anne of Cleaves (Elsa Lanchester) is fluttery but smart, and though Henry takes a liking to her, she refuses to sleep with him, apparently because she's having an affair with the man Henry sent to bring her to England (John Loder); they wind up playing cards on their wedding night and their marriage is annulled, though they remain friendly.

Katharine Howard finally gets her wish, after carrying on an affair with Henry (a high comic point is a scene in which Henry tries to sneak away to her chambers while his royal guardsmen keep snapping to attention and shouting "King's Guard" when he passes by); she becomes wife #5 and he's happy for a time until he discovers she's having an affair with one of his men-at-arms (Robert Donat), and it's off with her head. In old age, he marries his children's maid (Everley Gregg) who becomes a nag trying to keep Henry healthy. Laughton seems a natural for the part: rotund yet spry, strutting around every inch a king yet carrying on like an overgrown child. A scene of Henry talking about refinement and manners as he eats like a pig, tosses bones on the floor, and belches is certainly a highlight of Laughton's early career. A modern audience would probably expect an epic and would be disappointed, but as a light character study, this remains worth seeing. [TCM]

THE GOOD EARTH (1937)

This is a classic movie I've avoided seeing for years for two reasons: 1) its reputation as a glossy piece of big-studio "yellowface" (a movie about Asians cast with mostly Caucasian actors); 2) it stars Paul Muni, an actor considered one of the greats whom I've never liked. Though the movie's not terrible, I should have followed my instincts. Muni is the farmer Wang who marries the passive house slave O-Lan (Luise Rainer). Much-needed rains arrive on their wedding night, which is seen as a good omen. O-Lan gives birth to their first child during a storm (a well-done sequence), and soon they have three children, five fields, and are considered prosperous until a terrible famine hits. Rather than sell their lands, they head to the city where they live by begging until, during the turmoil of a revolution, O-Lan winds up with a bag of jewels. The family return home rich, Wang takes a second wife (his uncle says, "Why not? You have two oxen!"), who becomes a bad influence, even having an affair with Wang's second son. The climax occurs during a huge locust attack, which Wang manages to defeat with the help of his college-educated eldest son (Keye Luke). Production-wise, the film is top-notch, but I find Muni and Rainer to be weak, with Muni overplaying and Rainer underplaying, though her character is the backbone of the story. Charley Grapewin channels Walter Brennan as Wang's father, and Walter Connelley is a shade too much to take as an obnoxious uncle. Luke, one of the few Asian actors in a major role, is fine, as is Tilly Losch as the naughty second wife. [TCM]

DE SADE (1969)

Crazy weird bad movie which gets off to an interesting beginning with some postmodern narrative trickery, but soon becomes boring as hell. Kier Dullea is the Marquis De Sade, whom we first meet as a decrepit old man returning to his uncle’s seemingly abandoned mansion. However, once we're inside, his uncle (John Huston) and a troupe of actors, all of whom may or may not be figments of Sade's imagination, use a large ballroom to stage a number of scenes enacting incidents from Sade's past, which then become flashback memories. The very young Sade witnesses Huston fooling around with a servant girl in a stable and is whipped; his uncle tells him that an individual’s deeds don't matter as long as a face of virtue is shown to the world. Later Sade is forced into a marriage contract with the plain and frigid Renee (Anna Massey), but is actually in love with her sister Anne (Senta Berger). These two things seem to be the seeds of the violent sexual behaviors that obsess Sade for the rest of his life and get him into trouble with his powerful relatives and the law. Eventually, he does have an interlude with Anna (who, if I read it right, is also bedded by Huston at least once), but they are parted when she contracts the plague and dies. We last see Sade as a dying man attended by nuns, trying to discover a "special moment of reality."

The convoluted and theatrical narrative structure is probably easier to parse now than it was for mainstream audiences in 1969, though I think some last-minute cutting (not to mention occasional random orgy scenes in slow-motion with purple tinting) muddied the already murky waters, especially toward the end of the film. I figure Huston is a vision of death, like Jessica Lange was for Roy Scheider in ALL THAT JAZZ, so virtually the entire movie plays out as Sade lies on his deathbed. The controversial nature of Sade's life and philosophy is completely neutered here, with the most transgressive act pictured being some mild whipping of women's bare butts. Anyone with no previous knowledge of Sade would wonder why the hell he was considered such a threat to society that he had to be locked up in prisons and asylums for much of his life. Dullea is out-and-out terrible in the lead role--the handsome blandness and mild demeanor which made him perfect as astronaut Dave in 2001 make him absolutely wrong to play a raving sadist. His old age make-up, however, is very good. Massey is fine in a small role, and Huston's grandstanding is fun in the beginning but begins to wear after a while. Screenwriter Richard Matheson insists his material was badly handled, and indeed as I've noted, the story structure is the most interesting thing about the movie. MGM Home Entertainment has marketed this DVD as a cult film, but its following must consist solely of people who haven't actually seen it yet. [DVD]