PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE (1954)

In early 20th century Paris, there has been a string of horrific killings of women; their rooms are broken into and smashed up by someone or something with brute force, the women left dead and bloody, but no belongings are taken. The only link (which we notice long before the police do) is that each woman was wearing a charm bracelet with tinkling bells. At first Inspector Bonnard suspects two young college students, but they have alibis in professors Dupin and Marais. Dupin theorizes that the killer is a sadistic schizophrenic; Marais has a theory about the killer instinct which he has observed in animal rats which are deprived and frustrated. There are more murders, and eventually Dupin, who attempted to chase the killer across the rooftops, is arrested. We know it's not Dupin, but we also know that there is a one-eyed thug who is caretaker to a dangerous ape which is kept in the private zoo of Dr. Marais. Could the respectable doctor be behind the murder spree? And could Dupin's girlfriend Jeanette be the next victim?

This thriller, first released in 3D, is loosely based on Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," generally considered to be the first detective story ever published. A few elements of the story are here, such as the murderous ape, the street name Rue Morgue, and the detail that witnesses to the crimes report hearing someone speaking in a foreign tongue. But the detective aspect of the story is largely neglected for an emphasis on gore and psychology. The murders are all quite brutal with lots of screaming and destruction. There are two standout scenes: one involves an attack on an artist's model in which not blood but red paint is spattered across her portrait just before she is killed; in the other, the killer smashes his way through a shop window and tears apart a mannequin thinking it's a real woman. The movie is very colorful and it looks like the 3D effects would be effective. The acting is not top-notch: Steve Forrest, quirkily handsome with blond hair and a thin mustache (pictured above), is OK as Dupin, Karl Malden is a bit better as Marais, though Patricia Medina is a zero as Jeanette. A very young Merv Griffin (at right) has a small role as one of the student suspects. This ignored thriller is worth a look. [TCM]

THE LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944)
DONOVAN’S BRAIN (1953)

Curt Siodmak, writer of many classic-era horror films (THE WOLF MAN, SON OF DRACULA, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE) published a novel called Donovan's Brain in 1942. The basic story, about a disembodied brain that takes over a man's will, became a standard horror and sci-fi plot, and the novel was adapted for film twice in ten years. In the 1944 version, which takes several liberties with the novel, mad scientist Franz Muller (Erich von Stroheim, pictured) lives on the edge of an Arizona desert in a large house he calls a castle. With his Czech ward Janice (Vera Hruba Ralston) and a research scientist named Patrick (Richard Arlen), he's experimenting with keeping the brain alive after death. His work with monkeys has proved inconclusive, and when a small plane belonging to a rich financier named Donovan crashes in the desert and Donovan's dead body is brought to the castle, Muller cuts out the brain and manages to keep it alive—he knows it's alive because of the electrical pulses he records from it. Mrs. Donovan (Helen Vinson) and her lawyer/lover Eugene (Sidney Blackmer) find out what's going on, but they leave well enough alone; they know that Donovan's wealth was fake but suspect that he had a fortune stashed away somewhere and they hope that Muller will discover where. Soon Patrick discovers he can receive telepathic communications from the brain, falling into a kind of trance as Donovan's will takes over, and the plot thickens as Donovan's brain takes over Patrick's life.

In the second version, which sticks more closely to Siodmak's plot, Patrick (Lew Ayres) lives in suburbia, Janice (Nancy Davis, pictured with Ayres) is his wife, and Frank (Gene Evans) is an alcoholic but good-natured lug of an assistant. Patrick has managed to keep a monkey brain alive for a time, but when the body of a plane crash victim is brought to his house and he discovers the brain is still alive, he takes it out, puts it in a tank, and begins his experiments. It's all made almost wholesome here—largely due to the sunshiny setting and the bland niceness of all the three central characters. Soon, as in the earlier film, Patrick is doing Donovan's bidding, even to the point of turning into a version of Donovan, dressing, adopting a limp and ordering people around like the rich man did. It takes the combined will of all three characters to win out against the brain.

THE LADY AND THE MONSTER has the edge between the two films. It's more anchored in the Gothic horror tradition, thanks to some wonderfully atmospheric sets, good cinematography, and the presence of Erich von Stroheim as Muller—though actually, the monster of the title is really a reference to Arlen, whose face becomes sinister and deeply creased in shadows when he's being controlled by the brain. The narrative gets a little convoluted in the last half, and occasionally a narrator has to break in to explain things. Arlen is fine, as are Vinson and Blackmer; Ralston, a Czech figure skater, is known for her mediocre performances and she gives one here, rarely striking a believable note. DONOVAN'S BRAIN has a good performance from Ayres—he has fun being obnoxious when he's under the brain's power—and is mostly a sci-fi film, with a bit of a mystery vibe as the motives of Donovan's brain are less clear in this one. The 50s film has a clearer narrative, but the 40s film is more fun and looks better. [Netflix streaming]

PHARAOH’S CURSE (1957)

Egypt, 1902. With unrest against the British mounting, Robert Quentin, who has taken an expedition to the Valley of the Kings, may run into trouble. Capt. Storm leads a small team, including Quentin's wife Sylvia, to find them and bring them back. On their way, they are joined by a mysterious native woman, Simira, dressed in a robe and wearing a cat god necklace, who is looking for her brother Numar, Quentin’s guide. Sylvia, it develops, is planning on leaving her husband and indulges in a little light flirtation with Storm. After they arrive at the dig, the men find the mummy of a high priest and as they make an incision into the mummy’s neck, Numar collapses. He begins aging rapidly, and we eventually discover that the spirit of the violated high priest has entered Numar's body, turning him into a vampire who begins feeding on the blood of members of Quentin's party. This hour-long cheapie is notable mostly for its unusual twist on the mummy theme; the monster's not a mummy but a wrinkle-skinned vampire doing the work of the mummy, trying to protect the tomb of the pharaoh from intruders. Everything else about it is so-so: the script, the sets, the atmosphere and the acting. Israeli actress Ziva Rodann is appropriately exotic as Simira, who is apparently supposed to be the embodiment of a cat goddess, though I was never clear about that. Mark Dana (pictured with Rodann) makes a decent B-movie hunk (and Captain Storm really should be the name of a superhero), and Ben Wright (the Nazi Herr Zeller in THE SOUND OF MUSIC) plays Quentin's translator. [Netflix streaming]

QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966)

In the far-future year of 1990, when we have established a base on the Moon, scientists at the Space Technology Institute have begun receiving signals indicating that an alien life form is sending emissaries to Earth. But when the aliens crash-land on Mars, Basil Rathbone, head of the institute, sends up a rescue crew, including Judi Meredith and Dennis Hopper; all they find is a crashed ship and a dead alien astronaut. It turns out that a surviving alien took a small craft to the moon Phobos, so John Saxon, Meredith's boyfriend, and Don Eitner take their own small rescue craft from the Moon base and find an unconscious female alien with green skin and tall, pointy silverish hair. Only two will fit in the craft, so Eitner is left behind to be picked up by a later craft (sadly, as Eitner was likeable, this plotpoint is dropped completely), and Saxon takes the alien to the Mars ship so they all can go back to Earth. Unfortunately, they soon discover that the mute alien is a vampiric creature, killing off the crew one by one to get nourishment. They try feeding her with stored plasma, but that only lasts so long. And what's up with those pulsating eggs that Saxon and Meredith find on the ship?

This B-sci-fi flick from American International, with its alien beast feeding off a spaceship crew, seems like the missing link between IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE in 1958 and ALIEN in 1979. The film was shot in under a week with a very low budget, but the director, Curtis Harrington, was able to use footage from a Russian sci-fi film to stand in for outer space and planet backgrounds, and that colorful footage is essential to making this movie interesting. As for the acting, the less said, the better. Saxon is stoic and hunky, and Florence Marly (pictured) makes the alien pretty creepy, especially when her eyes glow. Dennis Hopper seems distracted, like he didn't enjoy taking direction; Meredith is dull; Rathbone basically appears on screen, delivers his lines, glowers a bit (as if to say, "Damnit, I used to be Sherlock Holmes!") then exits—though to be fair, I should point out that he died the year after making this. Harrington generally does a good job matching the Russian footage to his own; a nice drinking game might be to have a sip every time you notice a shift from Russia to American International. [DVD]

BEAST FROM HAUNTED CAVE (1959)

ALIEN meets KEY LARGO in this ultra-cheapie horror film which was co-produced by an uncredited Roger Corman and directed by Monte Hellman, who went on to become a cult figure (TWO-LANE BLACKTOP). Some crooks show up at a ski lodge in South Dakota to pull off a gold bar robbery, planning to set off a mine explosion to cover up their deed. Turns out that a monster lives in a place the locals call Haunted Cave. It snatches a sexy local girl first and a witness, one of the crooks (Richard Sinatra—yes, a relative of Frank's), goes a little nutty over what he saw, though no one believes him, thinking instead that a rampaging cougar is the problem. The explosion goes off as planned, though a young couple is accidentally killed, and the gang's leader (Frank Woolf) gets a hunky ski instructor (Michael Forest) to take the group to a remote cabin where they plan to hide out until the gold is helicoptered in. However, Forest figures out what's going on, with some help from sexy moll Sheila Carol; the two fall in love (sort of) and she decides she'd like to stay behind with Forest when the gang splits. But the course of true love, as they say in The Philadelphia Story, gathers no moss, and when a blizzard approaches, everyone winds up in the haunted cave, lining up to be the monster's dinner.

The Key Largo part of the movie consists of the melodramatic interactions between the gang members and Forest at the isolated cabin; the more interesting Alien part has to do with how the beast kills its prey: it wraps the victims in a sticky web and leaves them in the cave so it can suck their blood later. The beast itself is just a guy in a laughably bad costume (occasionally effective when kept in the shadows), but the webbed folks in the cave are creepy--the picture above is of a victim in the midst of being webbed up. Because the characters are drawn with a little more depth than is usual for a sub-B horror film, the acting is not bad, with Forest and Carol working up some chemistry, and Woolf making a good stab at a love-to-hate villain. I miss the touches of humor than Corman often stuck in the films of this era that he directed; here, there is little to no comic relief. Watchable but not one of Corman’s classics. [TCM]

WITCHCRAFT (1964)

This is one of those cases where I ran across a movie on cable I'd never heard of, DVR'd it, didn't have high hopes for it and almost erased it, but ultimately watched it and enjoyed it quite a bit. Hooray for serendipity! For years, there has been bad blood between the Whitlocks and the Laniers. Now, the Laniers are digging up the old Whitlock family graveyard for a construction project. Lon Chaney Jr., the somewhat dissipated and maybe squirrely patriarch of the Whitlock family, leads a protest against the desecration of the graveyard, but Lanier's partner goes ahead with the bulldozing. Lanier (Jack Hedley) is sympathetic but can't undo what his partner did. It turns out that Chaney is the head of a devil-worshiping cult, and the bulldozing allows a 17th-century Whitlock witch (Yvette Rees), who was buried alive by the Laniers, to return to life. Lanier's partner dies via voodoo doll, in his bathtub, and an aunt and grandmother are soon targeted by the Satanists. This is, of course, disturbing to Lanier and his wife, but even more so to the Lanier son, who, shades of Romeo & Juliet, is in love with a Whitlock niece. Though the plot is predictable and the production hampered by a low-end budget, there are some creepy scenes throughout, mostly involving the witch popping up unexpectedly. Chaney is good, as he was in SPIDER BABY--he seemed to actually get better as he got older and, well, uglier. No masterpiece, but worth a shot on an October night. [FMC; also on DVD]

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE (1967)

A bunch of glowing orbs, apparently meteorites flying in formation from the direction of the moon, land on a farm in rural England, and a bunch of scientists doing research on extraterrestrial life head out there to see what's up. When the scientists look at the orbs, alien forces stream out at them and possess their bodies. They take over the farm and spread a deadly sickness, dubbed the Crimson Plague by the press. It turns out that the plague doesn't exactly kill people, but puts them into a death-like state so the aliens can collect them and force them into slave labor to build a rocketship. One scientist (Robert Hutton) who had to stay behind for health reasons winds up being the only one who can approach the orbs intact because he has a metal plate in his head. He and his buddy Zia Moyheddin, who gets outfitted in a goofy tin hat to protect his brain, infiltrate the farm to free Hutton's girlfriend (Jennifer Jayne) and try to figure out what the aliens want. The low budget hurts this film, which is really just a long Twilight Zone episode, as it turns out the aliens, who wear clashing colorful capes, are just misunderstood fellows trying to find a way for their race to survive. There are occasional good moments, and Jayne and Moyheddin are good enough, though Hutton is a colossal deadweight.  [TCM]

THE GAMMA PEOPLE (1956)

American reporter Paul Douglas and his British photographer pal Leslie Phillips are on a train heading for Salzburg so they can cover a music festival (insert your own SOUND OF MUSIC joke/pun/reference here) when their car becomes uncoupled and winds up the small country of Gudavia, which Douglas can't find on any map. The place doesn't get many visitors, so the townspeople are a little wary—at first, Douglas and Phillips are assumed to be spies—but also excited that the hotel finally has guests. After some suspicious events, the two discover that the land is ruled with an iron hand from a castle by mad scientist Walter Rilla who has been experimenting with exposing the country's children to gamma ray radiation (some of the subjects are pictured at right). Some become geniuses; some become dull-eyed zombie-types who are recruited to become Rilla's thugs. Douglas and Phillips, with some help from scientist Eva Bartok, rile the people up and a Frankenstein-like ending is in store for Rilla. This is a very strange genre mix; a sci-fi VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED plot with a light, at times comic, LADY VANISHES atmosphere. The burly Douglas doesn't seem a good fit for leading action man, but the rest of the cast is fine. It's worth seeing just because it’s so one-of-a-kind, but approach with low expectations.  [TCM]

FROM HELL IT CAME (1957)

The second tree monster movie of the month—and I hope I’ve exhausted the genre. This one is set on a Pacific island. Kimo, shirtless and tied to the ground, has been sentenced to death by the chief of his tribe, apparently for being too chummy with the white scientists who are studying nuclear fallout on the island. As the witch doctor Tano prepares his death, Kimo vows to return and get revenge against Tano, the chief, and, for the hell of it, his wife. He is then stabbed in the chest and buried standing up in a wooden box. A woman with the craziest Cockney accent I've ever heard watches the proceedings and reports back to the scientists. There is some folderol about a plague among the natives that may have been caused by fallout from atom bomb experiments, but eventually the supernatural trumps science when a misshapen tree suddenly sprouts out of the ground, right above Kimo’s burial pit. The natives believe that Kimo has been reincarnated as Tabonga, a legendary tree monster. The scientists dig up the tree, which has markings that look like a scary, evil face, and find a pulse in the thing. The next morning, it's gone from the lab and begins shuffling slowly around the village, seeking its/his revenge. Mainly because of the title, this movie has a reputation as a must-see B-movie, and it does begin promisingly with the native death sentence ceremony, but as soon as the white folks become the focus of the film, it starts to fall apart. The actors, including Tod Andrews and Tina Carver, are drab, though Gregg Palmer as Kimo makes the most of his few minutes of screen time. The monster has potential—I know its face struck me as fairly horrific when I was 10—but because it lumbers along like Kharis of the later Mummy movies, it just doesn't seem all that dangerous, even though it does manage to kill at least three people.  Better than Monday's tree-monster movie, but no great shakes. [DVD]

THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS (1966)

It's October which means horror and sci-fi movies. If this film is any indication, I'll be scraping the bottom of the barrel all month long. A plane carrying rare plant specimens from Antarctica crash-lands at a Navy Base on Gow Island; the pilot survives but is catatonic; the specimens, large chunks of trees, have survived, but some penguin crates are mysteriously empty and the co-pilot is missing. Soon, the pilot is going on angry rampages and a sticky acidic goo is found all over the place. It turns out that the "trees" are more like animals than plants, and they begin growing, moving, and reaching out to kill and absorb people. It's left to the lieutenant in charge (Anthony Eisley), his hotsy nurse (Mamie Van Doren), and a civilian meteorologist (Edward Faulkner) to battle this menace before it can threaten the rest of the world.

This is a bad movie, though it has a fabulous poster (at right). In its way, it's worse than even PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, because this has a cast and crew of professionals with credentials (including an uncredited Roger Corman as a producer) who should have been able to turn out a better film in their sleep. Eisely, star of the 60s crime show Hawaiian Eye, tries his best as the hero but everyone else around him is pretty terrible. Particularly disappointing is Van Doren who was so campy-good in the 50s juvenile delinquent movie GIRLS TOWN—here she's remarkably wooden with zero personality, and even her curvaceous body isn't presented effectively. Bobby Van, a supporting actor/dancer for MGM in the 50s, is pathetically stuck in a minor comic relief sidekick role. Billy Gray, child actor from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and TV’s Father Knows Best, playing a radar operator, gets to display very little acting range until he gets his arm ripped off by one of the tree monsters and winds up with the best scene in the movie. The attempts at character backstory are ludicrous, and indeed at times threaten to derail the monster plot. This film has all the atmosphere and production value of an episode of Gilligan’s Island—and indeed a comic scene early on involving a nerdy sailor trying to inflate a weather balloon (pictured at left) seems like an outtake from that show. The DVD I watched from Cheezy Films was in terrible shape, obviously taken from a bad VHS dub. [DVD]

THE INTRUDER (1933)

The SS Intruder is negotiating rough waters when a passenger is found murdered in his stateroom. The captain is told by police detective William B. Davidson that the dead man was a jewel thief he'd been tailing, but the jewels he was carrying are missing.  Just as Davidson collects a group of suspects, all of whom had been in or near the dead man's room, the ship founders.  The cop gets all the suspects, the captain, and some crew members on one lifeboat, and they wind up on a deserted island—well, deserted except for a gorilla and a wild man, apparently a survivor of a previous wreck, who runs around doing a Tarzan yell. Tensions build in the group which includes the dead man's valet, a comic relief drunkard, two lovely young women, and the sort-of strapping hero (Monte Blue) who seems to do a better job of detecting than the detective. Eventually, a ship comes along and rescues them, and in the last five minutes, the mystery is solved. Though this ultra-low-budget mystery is included in a DVD set of "Forgotten Horrors," this is in no way a horror film.  True, the best parts of the movie are those that feature the wild man and a cave full of skeletons that he talks to, and there are a couple of murders, but this is simply a Poverty Row "old dark house" mystery, set instead on an isolated island. Lila Lee (pictured), a silent movie starlet and the mother of James Kirkwood who co-wrote the musical A Chorus Line, is the heroine, and film buffs may recognize Russian actor Mischa Auer (the dance teacher in YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU) as the wild man and Arthur Housman (who specialized in drunk roles) as the drunkard. Housman gets the best line, shouted in the middle of a heated group argument: "Hurray! We've gone primitive!" Short, under an hour, and nothing special. [DVD]

ONE HEAVENLY NIGHT (1931)

A fluffy romantic musical set in European high society in the manner that was popular at the time, though this one from Samuel Goldwyn feels a bit second-rate compared to the higher-toned productions being turned out by Ernst Lubitsch and others at Paramount (ONE HOUR WITH YOU, LOVE ME TONIGHT). Lilyan Tashman, an exotic performer in Budapest, incites fights so often at the nightclub where she performs that the police force her to "take a rest" by kicking her out of the city and putting her in the care of a count (John Boles) in the nearby village of Zuppa—everyone acts like just saying the name "Zuppa" is a hysterically funny bit of humor. Tashman realizes that flower girl Evelyn Laye looks like her, so she gets Laye to take on her identity and go to Zuppa in her place. Boles is excited that a woman with such a naughty reputation is staying with him, but Laye isn't quite so naughty, though eventually, they fall in love. Their budding romance is threatened when the authorities in Budapest discover Tashman's trick and send her to Zuppa.

Like the glossier Lubitsch films, this one has a fairytale operetta feel to it, but the talents both behind and on the screen seem more B-level. Boles and Laye (pictured) are OK but don't have much chemistry. Even the supporting cast is a little off. Leon Errol provides some OK comic relief as Laye's platonic companion, but I kept thinking Charles Butterworth or Edward Everett Horton would be funnier. The only other player to make any impression is Hugh Cameron as the overseer of Boles' estate; his relationship with Errol almost plays out like a parallel romance. The best scene is a duet that Boles and Laye have in the pouring rain. Not essential by any means, but as a relative rarity, I was glad to see it. [TCM]

THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF UNCLE HARRY (1945)

In the New England town of Corinth, lifelong bachelor Harry Quincey is known affectionately as Uncle Harry by all; his once-wealthy family lost everything in the Depression except their mansion. He works as the head clothes designer at the Warren Mill and supports his two sisters:  Hester, a cranky childless widow, and Lettie, a sickly old maid who is certainly not as sick as she acts. Life goes along uneventfully for Uncle Harry until the arrival in town of Deborah Brown, a company executive from New York. She and Harry hit it off and she decides to stay in Corinth indefinitely. This upsets Lettie who has barely-hidden incestuous feelings for Harry; she claims she never married because she knew her brother needed her, and now she doesn't want to give him up. Harry and Deborah decide to marry as soon as living arrangements can be made for his sisters, but Lettie refuses to find any of the possibilities satisfying. When this stalling tactic has gone on long enough, Deborah gives up and marries Mr. Warren, her boss. A bitter Harry then concocts a plan to finally get free of Lettie: he decides to poison her cocoa. Unfortunately, it's Hester who ends up drinking the cocoa. However, since the two sisters had been quarreling publicly in recent days (over Lettie's behavior), it is Lettie who is charged with murder.  Who will hang for the crime?

This psychological melodrama, directed by Robert Siodmak (THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE, THE KILLERS) has a dark noir look and good performances by George Sanders as Harry and Geraldine Fitzgerald (pictured) as Lettie, and the mansion provides a nice Gothic atmosphere. The script is clever until the end when, due to Production Code morality, the bottom drops out and things are resolved in a ridiculously unbelievable fashion, undercutting the well-developed tension of the last half. Ella Raines, as Deborah, looks good but has no chemistry with Sanders (of course, he's not exactly the traditional romantic hero type). Moyna MacGill, who is fine as Hester, was the real-life mother of Angela Lansbury. Sara Allgood gives her usual reliable performance as the family maid, who knows everything that's going on. Even though the ending nearly ruins the film, it's still a fun little dysfunctional family story.  [Netflix streaming]

MURDERER’S ROW (1966)

Matt Helm (Dean Martin) is a playmate photographer who is also a secret agent, and Miss January seems to have killed him in his own bed with a death ray—leading to a funeral with many shapely ladies in attendance. But actually Helm has faked his death in order to go after archvillain Julian Wall (Karl Malden) who has kidnapped Dr. Solaris, inventor of the Helio-Beam which has the potential to destroy the earth using the rays of the sun. On the French Riviera, his sexy contact is killed but he meets up with Suzie (Ann-Margaret), Solaris' daughter and together they head off to Wall's private island and into his palatial house with tons of secret panels, strange weapons and torture chambers to save Suzie's dad and the world. This is the only Matt Helm movie I've seen and I'm not inclined to search out others. I know it's supposed to be a parody of the Bond films—and Mike Myers seems to have found some inspiration for Austin Powers from this film—but Martin is kind of a buzz kill, sleepwalking through his role even when others, like Ann-Margaret, are trying hard. There's an amusing scene with the band Dino, Desi & Billy in which Dino (Martin's real son) leans over and says, "Hey, now you’re swingin, dad!" I liked a What's My Line reference: "I deal in services and I'm bigger than a breadbox." There is also a thuggish bad guy with a nifty mirrored plate on the top of his head. Other than that, a disappointment, for die-hard 60s movie fans only. [TCM]

 

SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON (1964)

Myra and Billy Savage are eking out a middle-class existence in an old Victorian house which Myra inherited from her mother. Myra is a psychic who holds afternoon seances for a small circle of clients; her spirit guide is someone named Martin (whom we later discover was her son who died in childbirth). The meek, passive (and apparently unemployed) Billy genuinely loves Myra and is at her beck and call, but struggles with her unbalanced mental state: it's unclear if she has accepted that Martin is dead because she talks about him as though he's just away temporarily. It's also unclear how much of her psychic talent is theoretically genuine and how much is chicanery. Wanting to beef up business, Myra plans to "borrow" Amanda, the daughter of a local businessman, hold her for ransom, then hold a seance to reveal her whereabouts and prove her psychic powers. She doesn't want the money, just the publicity. Billy goes along reluctantly: he grabs the girl after school and they put her in a prepared room in their house, set up to look like a hospital room, and convince her that she is recovering from a serious illness. Myra goes to the girl's mother and tells her she's had dreams about the girl; she is initially rebuffed but later the mother comes to a seance at which Myra gets worked up and faints. She later tells Billy that Martin wants a playmate, leading Billy to realize that she may not be so willing to give Amanda up. Finally, he decides to take matters into his own hands, even if it means exposing their plan to the police.

Despite the title and some of the near-Gothic trappings, this is not a drama of the supernatural but a bleakly compelling psychological thriller and character drama, beautifully directed (by Bryan Forbes), photographed (by Gerry Turpin), scored (by multiple Oscar winner John Barry) and acted. Even though it's mostly set in a somewhat cluttered old house and there's a claustrophobic feel for much of the film, it needs to be seen widescreen for the stunning shot compositions. Kim Stanley steals the show with her powerful performance as a woman who has been nearly driven mad by unresolved grief over the death of her child—not to mention the question of how much she believes in her psychic powers—but Richard Attenborough (pictured with Stanley) is just as good, if quieter and more subtle, as a man who truly loves and wants to understand his wife who is slowly drifting away from reality and into her own world of delusion. Much of this feels like a filmed play, with the two of them in intense conversation; add the fact that it's in black & white, and that a non-existent child is at the center of the couple's anguish, and it can be compared to WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, though without the wit or psychological violence. The only other actor to make much of an impression is Patrick McGee (husband of the rape victim in CLOCKWORK ORANGE) as a police inspector. The DVD is out of print, but this is worth tracking down on cable or Netflix.  [TCM]

VOLTAIRE (1933)

Here's another historical figure I know nothing about except what this movie has told me, so Voltaire buffs, beware. In 1762, so we're told, France, under Louis XV, is corrupt and the people unsettled. The writings of the philosopher Voltaire whip up the poor against the King and the policies of the state, but because of Madame Pompadour, he remains a favored figure at court. However, the royal advisors, led by Count de Sarnac, lead the King to believe that Voltaire is planning on betraying French secrets to Russia. Voltaire champions the case of the unjustly imprisoned Jean Calas, but Calas is executed anyway. His daughter Nanette, who has a price on her head, escapes and finds refuge with the sympathetic Voltaire who, despite being out of Louis' favor, is still allowed to put on a play for the royals. Voltaire pulls a Hamlet move and presents a play that is a thinly veiled account of the Calas affair, but before the play can be finished, Sarnac accuses Voltaire of treason and he is sentenced to the Bastille. Disillusioned and sick, Voltaire seems ready to give up, but when he finds evidence that Sarnac is working with the Russians behind the King's back, his spirit returns and with the help of Mme. Pompadour, he manages to trap Sarnac and save Nanette. 

I do love George Arliss, who is mannered and predictable and occasionally a scenery-chewer, but always fun to watch, and he's at his best here. His characters, whether historical or fictional, always have a twinkle in their eyes, usually become victims of circumstance who are redeemed in a tricky reversal, and always get at least one big dramatic scene, and all that is true here. There is also the added bonus that, when he's in his nightclothes, he looks like Ebenezer Scrooge, a role Arliss probably could have done in his sleep. Reginald Owen (who did play Scrooge in 1938) as King Louis is very good as usual; Alan Mowbray is fine as the villainous Sarnac and Doris Kenyon has some good moments as Pompadour. Margaret Lindsay is lovely as Nanette, but doesn't get to do much except suffer. Quite enjoyable. A quotable quote: "It is because people can jest that they do not hang themselves." I'm still waiting for a good George Arliss DVD set. Warner Archive put out a 3-disc set earlier this year, which was welcome, but which does not include his best movies. [TCM]

CABIRIA (1914)

During the Second Punic War (ca. 200 BC), the wealthy Batto and his family, including his very young daughter Cabiria, live in the shadow of Mt. Etna. When it erupts, the servants discover secret passages that lead to Batto's hoarded riches; they leave with some of it, and the nurse Croessa takes Cabiria with her, though Batto assumes his beloved daughter is dead. In Carthage, a high priest buys the little girl, intending to sacrifice her to the demonic god Moloch, but Croessa talks Roman spy Fulvius and his slave Maciste into tracking her down and saving her. Eventually, they are all separated, with Maciste sentenced to be chained to a millstone for the rest of his life. We follow the adventures of the characters, including Queen Sophonisba, who winds up with Cabiria, over the next few years until finally a happy ending reunites Cabiria with her saviors.

This silent Italian epic is perhaps the first film in the sword-and-sandal adventure genre that the Italians would become famous for in the 1960s. Despite its age, it holds attention due to elaborate sets and setpieces, and a strong narrative. It's also the movie that introduces the heroic character of Maciste who would be the focus of many of those 60s films, though in America, he was usually renamed Hercules or Sampson or Atlas. Interestingly in this film, Maciste is African (played by a white actor, Bartolomeo Pagano, in blackface—really more like duskyface, pictured at right), though in later movies, he would be white. The acting here is of the typical early silent type, all grimaces and hands in the air, but the adventure scenes are lots of fun, even if I lost track of who was fighting whom, and who we were supposed to be rooting for—not to mention that the title character vanishes for long stretches of the movie. Among the best scenes: the Moloch sequence which looks as if it may have been an inspiration for some scenes in D.W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE; a scene of soldiers making a human ladder with their shields so Fulvius can scale a castle wall; a nightmare scene with Sophonisba tortured by gigantic figures (pictured above); the final shot of a fairy ring of lovers and revelers circling our surviving trio out at sea. There is some interesting use of camera movement throughout, with many leisurely takes, especially in a scene in which the camera pans very slowly in to reveal Cabiria hiding behind a curtain. Worth seeing, and a must for silent film fans. [DVD]

THAT WAY WITH WOMEN (1947)

This is an unnecessary remake of the George Arliss movie THE MILLIONAIRE which is only of interest to fans of its stars. Sydney Greenstreet is a rich auto manufacturer who is under doctor's orders to take it easy but he's chomping at the bit to live, live, live. He sneaks out of the house posing as his own gardener and buys half of a struggling gas station--the other half belongs to war vet and all-around nice guy Dane Clark. Of course, Greenstreet has a lovely daughter, Martha Vickers (pictured with Clark), whom he tries to fix up with Clark, even though she already has a boyfriend, Craig Stevens, who is handsome and slick and, we soon find out, not a very nice guy--he runs a neighborhood protection racket which Greenstreet and Clark get into trouble with. There's a nice furniture-destroying fight between Clark and Stevens, but that's it for highlights. Alan Hale has a nice supporting spin and personal favorite John Ridgely appears as one of the racket boys. Directed by Fredrick De Cordova, long-time producer of the Johnny Carson show. You should opt for the original instead.  [TCM]

NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH (1948)

This British thriller with a distinct noir feel has a reputation as a "bad" movie, but aside from the atrocious American accents from the mostly Brit cast, I quite enjoyed it. Miss Blandish is a lovely young Manhattan heiress who is set to marry a man she's not in love with, and she keeps getting orchids delivered with accompanying cards imprinted with black dice which implore her not to marry. She sends the orchids back (hence the title) but they keep coming. One night, when Blandish and fiancé duck out of a fancy party to be alone at a roadhouse, some small-time thugs follow and hold them up for her jewels. The drunken fiancé tries to stop them and is shot dead; one of the thugs punches Blandish out cold and they kidnap her, planning on splitting the diamonds and a big ransom. Their plans are thwarted when Slim Grisson, owner of a fancy nightclub and head of a notorious crime gang, finds out what's going on—he’s the one who's been sending Blandish the orchids, a pair of black dice being his club's logo. He gets rid of most of the thugs and makes his gang think he's taking control of the kidnapping, but as he's in love with her, he actually sets her free. Then she finds herself falling for him—he’s shady and tough, and symbolizes everything she's been forbidden to experience—so she stays, which causes problems with his gang (the nominal head of which is his somewhat grotesque mother, who becomes jealous of Blandish). Into this stew comes a reporter digging into the case, who is not afraid to use a gun in his journalistic exploits. 

There are problems here aside from the accents. One is that there is no real moral center, no one with whom the audience can fully identify. Jack LaRue, as Grisson, is a dapper tough guy who owns a club with a gambling room, making Humphrey Bogart in CASABLANCA the primary reference point for the character, though LaRue also has a tic involving the constant rolling of dice, which conjures up George Raft. But LaRue, though OK in the role, is no Bogart, and there’s no real chemistry between him and Linden Travers (both pictured above), who plays Miss Blandish—who for her part is attractive but no Ingrid Bergman. LaRue does a nice job of often seeming dumbstruck by his feelings. The film is notable for its violence; not only do lots of people get killed, but almost everybody either slaps someone or gets slapped, even the women. There are a couple of nightclub songs and one moderately amusing bit in which a comedian does an imitation of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. A number of supporting players do nice jobs, including Walter Crisham as a mob enforcer, Richard Nelson as the thug who mandhandles Miss Blandish, and Charles Goldner as a snarky waiter. Many people wind up dead by the end, and the bleak (but absolutely correct) conclusion is right out of film noir. There is not a lot of humor, but my favorite exchange is the following: "Do you believe in fairy stories?" "That depends on the fairy." [TCM]

THE GROUP (1966)

This episodic soap opera follows the lives of eight young women who graduate from Vassar in 1933—after having been close friends throughout college—and remain in touch for the next decade. Based on a novel by Mary McCarthy, the movie packs a lot of incidents into its 2-1/2 hour running time, and the best way to summarize the action is to tick through the major characters one by one. Kay (Joanna Pettet) gets married soon out of college to an insecure Marxist playwright (Larry Hagman) who becomes an abusive alcoholic. Dottie (Joan Hackett) has sex for the first time with Hagman's former roommate (Richard Mulligan) and is shaken when she realizes she's just a one-night stand for him. Libby (Jessica Walter) wants to break into publishing and gets a job as a manuscript reader for editor Hal Holbrook; she faints when he fires her (for having virtually no gift for recognizing talent) but Holbrook sets her up as a secretary for a literary agent. Polly (Shirley Knight) becomes a nurse and briefly dates Holbrook before falling for a doctor (James Brodrick) who helps her deal with her senile father. 

We don't see as much of the other four women, though they do pop in and out of the larger narrative threads. Pris (Elizabeth Hartman) and Pokey (Mary-Robin Redd) get married and become mothers; Helena (Kathleen Widdoes) writes an alumni newsletter and keeps everyone in touch; Lakey (Candice Bergen) jets off to Europe where she takes a rich, German, female lover—the ever-charming Hagman calls her a "lesbo" to her face. One of the women meets a tragic fate which brings everyone back together one more time for a funeral. Despite the many plotlines which twine in and out of each other, it's not hard to follow the action, but the characterizations do suffer; it might have worked better as a TV series. I kept getting Pris and Pokey mixed up—Pris is the one whose jerk of a husband forces her to breast-feed against her nurses' advice—and, though Libby, as the snotty bitch, is the most fun, she winds up being around mostly for her acid one-liners. The acting is fine, with Walter (dark hair, pictured above), Pettet (behind Walter) and Knight coming off best; Bergen appears in the beginning and vanishes for most of the rest of the movie until the end. If there is an implied message or moral embedded here about American women—or men, or the times for that matter—I didn't get it, but it held my interest. The film does have a period feel, but it seems more like the 50s than the 30s. Favorite line, from Jessica Walter: "I'm appalled by all this vulgar breeding." [TCM]