THE FAKE (1953)

Tepid, run-of-the-mill crime drama with a weak screenplay and phoned-in acting, made palatable only by some film noir visual style, though thematically this is not noir. A staged fight breaks out in the Tate Gallery in London, diverting attention from the men who are stealing the Da Vinci painting Madonna and Child as it's being delivered. But, ah ha! American insurance investigator Dennis O'Keefe has been on the case; the real painting is safe and the crooks just got an empty crate. But O'Keefe is still puzzled over the identity of the big shot who was behind this attempt, who had already stolen two other Da Vincis in Florence and New York. Later, someone sneaks into the Tate after hours and takes Madonna and Child, replacing it with an almost perfect forgery, and O'Keefe is back on the case. Among the suspects: an aging, impoverished and embittered artist (John Laurie) who can in fact do nearly perfect copies of masterworks; his daughter (Coleen Gray, pictured with O'Keefe) who works for the gallery; a high-class private collector (Hugh Williams); and even the gallery director. The film moves rather sluggishly until the final third when it becomes a relatively tense cat-and-mouse game. I generally like O'Keefe but he and Gray are bland here, leaving Laurie and Williams to take acting honors. The gallery interiors were actually shot in the Tate, adding some novelty value. The background score is taken from Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition." [TCM]

ARSÈNE LUPIN RETURNS (1938)

Special agent Steve Emerson (Warren William) is riding a wave of good publicity for his crimebusting activities, but his boss has decided that his high profile has become a liability, so he's let go, but he steps immediately into a new gig as an insurance investigator. His first case is a doozy—the Count de Grissac (John Halliday), his niece Lorraine (Virginia Bruce) and his cousin M. Bouchet (Monty Wooley) are found tied up in their Manhattan hotel, their valuable family necklace stolen. But it turns out that it was only a paste substitute which was taken; the real one was in a hotel safe. Still, Emerson discovers the calling card of the notorious jewel thief Arsène Lupin at the scene of the crime. Lupin is presumed dead, but Emerson decides that whoever the thief is will come back when he realizes the jewels are fake, so he accompanies the de Grissac clan back to Paris where Lorraine's lover René Ferrand (Melvyn Douglas, pictured with Bruce) joins them. We soon discover that Ferrand is actually Arsène Lupin, alive and no longer thieving, and a bit irritated that someone is besmirching his name. When the real jewels are stolen and a well-known underworld fence is found dead, and signs point to Lupin as the culprit, Ferrand begins his own investigation to help Emerson. But what if Emerson himself is the guilty party?

An unoffical sequel to a 1932 film with John Barrymore, this is a fairly interesting variation on the trope of the criminal-gone-good who helps the cops (see also The Saint, Boston Blackie, etc.), enlivened considerably by the charming central trio of Douglas, William and Bruce, and by the ambiguity, kept going until the final scene, of whether Emerson is really the thief, or at least working for him. A scene near the end when the police search everyone in the room for the jewels, and those who have the jewels find clever ways of passing them along and away from the cops, is quite fun. Woolley and Halliday don't have a lot to do, but it's nice seeing them. Fine support is given by Nat Pendleton as a former crook buddy of Lupin's and George Zucco as the inspector. Prolific character actor Ian Wolfe has a small role credited as Ien Wulf. Overall, a nice light-hearted mystery. [TCM]

COSMOS: WAR OF THE PLANETS (1977)

I'll tell you right off the bat that this Italian B-movie, released to ride the Star Wars wave and full of allusions to 2001: A Space Odyssey, is one of those films that is so bad, it's almost good. But tastes vary wildly with this kind of film, so viewer beware. Astronaut Alex Hamiton (John Richardson) is on an expedition, headed up by an old military guy and a supercomputer named Wiz, to an uncharted planet from where a strange signal—which sounds exactly like Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor—has been emanating (as in 2001 ). Along the way, one man is sent on a spacewalk to repair a part and nearly dies (see 2001). On the planet, Hamilton and his crew find a sort of Stonehenge structure (a little like the monolith in 2001) which is a portal to another place (see STARGATE, which of course was made many years after this film), and are menaced by a giant killer robot. They find a race of sliver-green men dressed in very skimpy loincloths who are now being controlled by the very robots they built. One of them, Etor, hooks up with Hamilton's crew. The robot wants the earthlings to fix something (you can tell I was nodding off and not caring enough to backtrack) and they do, after which they destroy the robot and take off back to Earth with Etor. But the robot may not have had its last word yet.

That's as much plot as I could figure out from this scraggly, poorly edited, disjointed movie which is nevertheless fun to watch. The good things: John Richardson is handsome and generally stoic as the hero—though sometimes seeming as confused by plot twists as we are; Etor (Aldo Canti, pictured above) is studly though sadly we see very little of him or the rest of his nearly-naked, pointy-eared pals; there's a scene of a couple rather chastely using an Orgasmatron-like machine (see SLEEPER); the chintzy but charming sets, with lots of colored lights and big buttons, which look like a couple of sci-fi geeks built in their basement. The bad things: the roaming plot; the terrible editing; people constantly screaming; listless acting from everyone except Richardson. It's in the public domain, and the Alpha Video print I saw was badly pan-and-scanned and in dreadful shape. If it ever turned up in a clean widescreen print, I'd watch it again, but that seems unlikely. A good "bad movie night" pick. [DVD]

THE PANTHER'S CLAW (1942)

Late one night, Officer Murphy nabs Everett Digberry (Byron Foulger) as he climbs over a wall and out of a cemetery. Digberry, a middle-aged milquetoast guy with a wife and five daughters (this fact is what passes for a running gag in this movie), says he's been blackmailed by someone calling himself The Panther (whose notes are signed with a inked paw) and was following instructions to place $1000 on his Aunt Kate's grave. When police commissioner Thatcher Colt (Sidney Blackmer) investigates, he discovers that several people, all associated with the Gotham Opera Company, for which Digberry is a wigmaker, have gotten the same notes, including opera diva Nina Politza and singer Enrico Lombardi, also known as the "Mad Baritone." Soon, the mystery of the Panther is solved: Digberry sent out the letters to cover up a loan he made to Nina, who is nearly penniless. But when Nina is found dead, wearing a gray wig made by Wilkins, one of Digberry's rivals, Colt and his assistant Tony Abbot find themselves in the middle of a murder case. All signs point to Digberry, but who is the mysterious man named Galloway who people know but never see?

Thatcher Colt was a pulp fiction detective created by Anthony Abbot (in an apparent inside joke, that's the name of Colt’s assistant in the movie), but as played by Blackmer, he seems to have absolutely nothing unique or interesting about him—no goofy character trait, no personality facet, no physical or cultural markers to make him stand out. I like Blackmer but he's so passive and soft-spoken here that he practically vanishes even as he's talking. Rick Vallin as Abbot is handsome and slightly peppier, but the real star of the show is Foulger as Digberry. His personality is similarly drab (on purpose) but at least his situation is moderately interesting and he gets far more screen time than Colt. Also adding some spice (albeit possibly unwanted) is African-American actor Billy Mitchell who plays an elevator operator in the demeaning manner that was the norm for black characters of that era. The film begins well, but once the fake blackmail plot is out of the way, the mystery becomes convoluted—the culprit is a minor character who was barely on my radar. There are some pleasures to be had here, most involving Foulger's character, but this forgotten B-movie doesn't really need rediscovery. Pictured above, from left, are Blackmer, Vallin, and Foulger. [YouTube]

THE MYSTERY OF MR. WONG (1939)

We see a Chinese man on a boat throw a package overboard which is picked up by a man in a motorboat and passed along until it reaches its destination, the home of gem collector Brandon Edwards (Morgan Wallace).  It's a legendary jewel from China called the Eye of the Daughter of the Moon which was lost in the Japanese looting of Nanking and is now in Edwards' possession. But the day before, Edwards got a letter threatening death to the gem's owner so he calls in detective James Lee Wong to investigate. That night, at a party at Edwards' home, an elaborate game called Indications is played, with partygoers acting out charades in short skits. During the charade for a book called "Murder Comes at Midnight," the character Edwards is playing is shot by a gun filled with blanks, but after he falls to the ground, it's discovered that he's actually been shot dead, from a different gun, from a different direction. Among the suspects: Peter (Craig Reynolds), the lover of Edwards' wife Valerie, who has said that he'd kill Edwards if he ever mistreated his wife; Strogonoff, a Russian singer who has been "adopted" by the family and lives with them; a possibly suspicious maid and butler. Wong, his criminologist friend Janney, and police captain Street (Grant Withers) have their work cut out for them.

This is the second in the Mr. Wong series. Wong, usually played by Boris Karloff, is mild-mannered but obviously intelligent and a man of good taste. If it weren’t for the occasional Chinese robe and the atmosphere of Wong's home, Karloff's portrayal is subtle enough that you might not even notice the character's ethnicity. If only for the charades twist, this is the most memorable of the Mr. Wong movies; the Monogram low-budget problems are present in sets and scripting, but the acting is a notch above usual; in addition to the always reliable Karloff, Withers, Reynolds and Wallace are good. The set-up involving a deadly parlor game is pretty much the same that was used in the earlier MURDER AT MIDNIGHT; both were written by Scott Darling. In the above picture, Reynolds is seated at the desk, Karloff is behind him, and Withers is standing to the left. [DVD]

OBSESSION (1949)

aka THE HIDDEN ROOM   

We first see psychiatrist Clive Riordan (Robert Newton) in a low-key, distracted mood at his London men's club. When he returns home early, his wife Storm (Sally Grey) is gone, and when she returns, she's in the company of another man, the young American Bill Kronin (Phil Brown). They claim to have been at a concert, but Clive cleverly catches them in a lie, pulls a gun on Bill, and marches him out of the house. As far as Storm knows, that was the end of the story, but five days later, Bill is reported missing. Clive claims he doesn't know what happened, but we discover that Clive took Bill to an abandoned cellar near his office and chained him up so he has access to a cot and a bathroom but can't escape. Clive holds him for weeks; a bit of cat-and-mouse rapport develops, but Bill has no idea what Clive's plan is: each day, Clive brings in a small amount of acid and pours it in a tub—when the tub is full, he'll put Bill in it. Naturally, there are complications, the first being the Riordan's dog who follows Clive out to the hidden room one day, the second being a Scotland Yard inspector (Naunton Wayne) who starts snooping around.

Robert Newton (pictured) is the glue that holds this together and makes it worth watching. His character is given no background aside from the fact that he's a psychiatrist which in itself would have been interesting to delve into; his relationship with his wife is also not fleshed out. Grey is weak as the wife, perhaps because she is given little to work with—she seems singularly uninterested in Bill's whereabouts even though she was having an affair with him. Brown is better but his character is also flat. Newton, who was known to ham it up (see BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE), is quiet but tightly wound, and keeps the movie fairly tense. I like Naunton Wayne and he gives a nicely sly but understated performance as the cop. The dog and a cat both play important roles in the film's climax. [Criterion streaming]

SECRET OF THE CHATEAU (1934)

The Duke de Mornay has died, apparently murdered by the notorious Prihec who kills in order to get his hands on rare books. Chief inspector Marotte shows up at the auction of the Duke's books—being run by M. Fos, a well known book dealer—hoping that the killer will also show up. Instead, Marotte runs into Julie Verlaine (Claire Dodd) as she's chatting with the Duke's nephew Paul (Clark Williams) who tells her he is trying to find a buyer for a Gutenberg Bible that belonged to his uncle. Julie is known as a thief who works with her live-in boyfriend Lucien (Jack La Rue); in fact, she has just been released from a short stint in jail, and Marotte lets her know that he's keeping an eye on her. Julie wants to leave behind her life of crime, even if that means leaving Lucien, though out of habit she steals a rare Moliere book at the auction. Paul, thinking Julie is a rare book expert, asks her to visit the chateau to verify the value of the Gutenberg, which is kept under lock and alarm along with a fake copy. At the chateau, there are troubled waters: Paul's aunt, Mme. Rombiere, argues that she owns half of the Bible and she wants a say in how it's disposed of; M. Bardou, the executor of the will, wants to donate it to a museum. Also at the chateau: Didi (Alice White), a frisky former lover of Paul's who wants some of the money he may come into; the butler Martin and his wife, the cook, both of whom have only been employed there for a few weeks; and Professor Racque, a book seller who claims to have been promised books from the Duke's collection. For various reasons, all stay the night in the chateau, and at midnight, the tower bell mysteriously rings out. Legend has it that whenever the bell rings, death will follow, and sure enough, later in the night, there's a scream, a gunshot, and the ringing of the bible's alarm bell, all simultaneously. The Bible is gone and Bardou is dead, though Marotte believes that the theft and the killing were done by two different people. How many more will die before Marotte gets to the bottom of the mystery?

Though originally sold to television in the 50s as part of Universal's famous Shock Theater package of horror films, this is not horror, nor does it really belong to the "old dark house" genre. It's just a traditional crime/mystery B-film, though an entertaining and well-paced one. The movie has a very light tone with a fair amount of comic relief which I thought worked well, though not all reviewers agree. George E. Stone does his usual comic sidekick role to good effect (in one scene, he tries to oil the hinges of a squeaking door with salad dressing), and Alice White brings a nice jolt of energy to the proceedings in all of her scenes. Dodd is fine; Williams may be a little low on passion as the romantic lead, but he's handsome and otherwise serviceable. Osgood Perkins, father of actor Anthony, is good as the suspicious butler, as is Ferdinand Gottschalk as the inspector. No earthshaker, and definitely not a pick for horror night, but a nice way for a fan of B-mysteries to pass an hour. Pictured above right are White and Stone; at left are Dodd and Williams. [YouTube]

MR. WONG, DETECTIVE (1938)

Businessman Simon Dayton feels threatened and has detective James Lee Wong brought in protect him. Dayton and his business partners Meisel and Wilk are shipping out a new chemical weapon and Dayton feels paranoid, mostly because inventor Carl Roemer claims that the men stole his formula and Dayton fears he may make trouble. Meisel and Wilk insist on having Dayton sign legal papers stating that if any one of them dies, the others will inherit the dead man's shares in the company. That very day, Roemer shows up brandishing a gun, demanding money. Roemer is subdued and led out of Dayton's office and the police are called. Moments later, Dayton is found dead in his office, killed by poison gas released from a small glass sphere. Wong has a glassblower reproduce the sphere and runs experiments on what might have caused the sphere to shatter, releasing the deadly gas. Roemer is held as a likely suspect, but when Wilk gets a threatening letter and is found dead from the same gas, Roemer seems to be in the clear and suspicion falls on Meisel. But what about the rather suspicious Russian baron and countess who enter the picture? And when Meisel dies a similar death, the police seem stumped. But Mr. Wong is not…

The two most famous Asian sleuths in Hollywood in the 1930s were Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto. B-studio Monogram introduced a third, Mr. Wong, based on a magazine fiction series by Hugh Wiley. As played by Boris Karloff, he is the least stereotyped of the bunch—he speaks in full English sentences, his make-up is fairly subtle and, though inclined to wear long Chinese robes while at home, there is otherwise little else to differentiate him from any movie detective of the era. This film, the first of six, is generally undistinguished in terms of acting, sets or style, though Karloff is fine—but he vanishes for long stretches of time so that the plot can get more convoluted than it needs to. To be fair, it's fairly easy to follow and I did enjoy the twists in both the identity of the killer and the method he uses to kill. Grant Withers is Sam Street, the cop who partners with Wong in all the films, and the worst I can say about him is that he's colorless. I've seen many of these in the past but have been revisiting the boxed set recently, so I'll review a few more soon. [DVD]

BOSTON BLACKIE BOOKED ON SUSPICION (1945)

The Boston Blackie movies are light, unpretentious crime stories in which Chester Morris plays the title character, a reformed safecracker who now helps the cops out, usually because he falls under suspicion and has to clear himself. This entry is one of the best in the series. Blackie's rich buddy Arthur Manleder has just bought a rare and used bookstore and on the eve of an important auction, the book expert Kittridge takes ill and cannot be present. Blackie, knowing this could tarnish the store's reputation, disguises himself beneath white hair and a beard as Kittridge and conducts the auction himself. Unfortunately, a very rare signed edition of Dickens' "Pickwick Papers" turns out to be a forgery. The cops suspect Blackie, so he remains in disguise and, with help from his sidekick the Runt and from Kittridge's lovely assistant Gloria, tries to track down the real crook. He discovers that a man named Hadley is the forger, but Hadley is bumped off before Blackie can turn him in. Now Blackie, wanted for murder, doubles down to solve the case, not realizing that Gloria is actually in cahoots with the real crook, Jack Higgins. This hour-long thriller is light on its feet, contains many funny moments—mostly involving Morris, George E. Stone as the Runt, and Richard Lane as his nemesis, Inspector Farraday—and has a good cast. In addition to Morris and Stone, who always work well together, Lynn Merrick is very good as the two-faced gal pal, and it was nice to see one of my favorite B-movie leads, Steve Cochran, as the slimy but handsome bad guy. A nice treat for Boston Blackie fans. Pictured above are Stone, Morris and Cochran. [TCM]

LUXURY LINER (1933)

In the same way that GRAND HOTEL followed the intersecting storylines of a number of people staying in a Berlin hotel, this film follows the same formula with a number of people on a luxury liner sailing from Germany to New York City. In an opening vignette, we see the contrast between a young lad excited to get 20 marks for his voyage from his father, and a rich businessman casually tossing a 20 mark tip to a steward. This highlights one of the movie's thematic concerns, the class differences of the passengers, from lower class folks down in steerage to the wealthy up in first class. Among the characters we get to know: Zita Johann is a young nurse with a tragedy in her past that keeps her aloof and a bit mysterious; George Brent is a doctor who boards at the last minute in order to talk his estranged wife out of leaving him; Vivienne Osborne is Brent's wife who may be a bit tightly wound, and the man she's running off with is Frank Morgan, a wealthy shipping magnate; C. Aubrey Smith is a former clothing manufacturer who just got out of jail for embezzlement; Alice White is a flirty little gold-digger who wants to latch onto a man who can get her up to first class, though she’s not above a little flirtation with the cute elevator operator (Henry Wadsworth), both pictured at right.

As in GRAND HOTEL, the plots develop slowly as characters interact with each other. Brent, who arrives at the ship practically in hysterics wanting his wife back, talks the ship's doctor, an old friend of his, into letting let him take over for this trip. As Brent works with Johann and she sees his calm, inspiring bedside manner with a young mother and an elderly woman, she begins to thaw and romantic feelings spring up. Still, Brent confronts Osborne and she brandishes a gun to get him out of her cabin. Later, however, she finds out that her new lover is flirting with an opera singer and she pretty much snaps. Down in steerage, Smith becomes popular when he agrees to help the desperate lower-class travelers invest their money in stocks that White overheard Morgan talking up. By the end, there is a birth, a murder, a suicide, and some financial reversals. Some plotlines end predictably (Brent and Johann), some not (White and Smith). This was an enjoyable melodrama, though the tone remains relatively light throughout despite the murder and suicide. The acting is fine, with Johann, Osborne and White as standouts, and it’s fun to see C. Aubrey Smith out of his comfort zone—rich grandfathers—doing something a little different. This is the second time this summer I've seen Alice White and I think she's an underrated comic actress, with a little bit of a Harlow vibe, though sweeter and more pixieish. I ran across this rarity on YouTube and it's worth digging around to find. [YouTube]

INNER SANCTUM (1948)

An older gentleman (Fritz Leiber) is chatting with a young woman (Eve Miller) on a train, and she comes to believe he may have psychic powers. The rest of the movie is the story he tells her. A woman very much like her gets off a train to meet her lover (Charles Russell, pictured), but during an altercation he accidentally stabs her to death and, while dumping her wrapped-up body in a cargo car on the train, is glimpsed by a young boy (Dale Belding). Russell gets a ride with a friendly newspaper editor to a nearby small town where he finds lodging at a boarding house. The occupants include a harmless drunk, a flirtatious totsy (Mary Beth Hughes), a single mother (Lee Patrick), and, of course, the little boy who saw him at the train station. At first, the boy doesn't realize that Russell was involved in a murder, but soon news reaches the town about the corpse being discovered and Belding, who has to share his bedroom with Russell, starts getting suspicious. Can Russell escape town with Hughes before the boy becomes a threat? Or will the boy become his second victim?

The title, which has nothing to do with the plot, is from a series of mystery books and a radio show from the 40s. Universal produced a series of Inner Sanctum B-movies with Lon Chaney Jr. but this is not related to those, except that it's a mystery with overtones of film noir and the supernatural. As such, it's interesting though there is a tone problem with too much comic relief throughout. The editor and the drunk are both present mostly for comedy purposes, and even Lee Patrick gets her share of humorous lines. Charles Russell, however, is deadly serious and gives a good, tense performance, though at times it seems at odds with every other performance except that of the boy, who does a nice job being both scared and adventurous. If Russell's character was fleshed out more (as it is, we know virtually nothing about him), he'd be a solid noir lead. The supernatural element comes into play in the frame story with Leiber (the father of the fantasy author with the same name) and provides a nice sting at the end of the story. A memorably clichéd exchange: Hughes, to Russell, "You're even too bad for me"; Russell, in reply, "You're very pretty—when those lips aren't moving." [Streaming]

HOUSEWIFE (1934)

Bill (George Brent) was once a high school football hero, but now he's an office manager at an advertising firm. He wants to work on ad campaigns, but his boss belittles his every attempt to step outside the boundaries of his job. His wife Nan (Ann Dvorak) encourages him to stand up for himself, but things remain status quo until two things happen: his brother-in-law gets a better job, and his boss hires Pat (Bette Davis), an old school chum of Bill's, as an ad writer, and then humiliates Bill in front of Pat. Nan has saved a little money which she gives to Bill so he can quit and start his own ad agency. He struggles for a while but finally breaks into the big time when he snags Paul (John Halliday), a cosmetics magnate, as a client, even giving him advice about how to boost sales—by slapping a "double strength" label on his skin cream and doubling the price. Soon Bill has a very successful business, and has even hired Pat as a copy writer, which is, of course, the beginning of his downfall when he and Pat start an affair. To muddy the waters even more, Paul, sensing the situation, comes on to Nan. Soon, Bill and Nan head to divorce court until a near-tragedy in the family makes the two reconsider.

Technically, this movie was released a couple of months after the Production Code went into effect, but it gets away with presenting fairly explicitly an extramarital affair without really having to "punish" either of the participants. Davis was near a crossroads in her career—this was the first movie that came out after OF HUMAN BONDAGE made her a sensation—and though Ann Dvorak has the title role, and arguably the more important role, Davis is billed ahead of her and with good reason. Even at half-speed in a supporting part, Davis throws sparks and is the main reason to watch this, though Brent makes for a very appealing lead. Unfortunately, Dvorak comes off rather blandly, though our sympathy still remains with her character. Ruth Donnelly is fun as Dvorak's sister-in-law, and Hobart Cavanaugh and Robert Barrat are fine in supporting roles. This is mild, light-toned if not exactly comic, melodrama and is generally entertaining, but not a major Bette Davis film. Pictured are Davis and Brent. [DVD]

CANDLES AT NINE (1944)

Everard Hope is an cranky old man who lives in a large house in which the rule is, no electric lights after 9:00, only candles—we're never told why; there are references to the wartime blackouts, but this seems to be a family rule from way back. Even his pet parrot constantly squawks out, "Lights, you damned fool, lights!" Everard has collected his relatives in order to have a reading of his will, but the night before, he runs out of his bedroom yelling, "Fire!" and falls down the stairs to his death. It turns out that he's left his money to Dorothea, a chorus girl whom none of the other relatives know. The catch is that she must spend a month living in the house before she can claim the estate. Dorothea is advised by the rather sinister-looking housekeeper Julia that she might be in danger if she accepts the challenge—there is some mystery concerning the death of Everard's brother years ago in a fall from a window in the house, and Julia implies that she might not survive her tenancy. Nevertheless, Dorothea starts spending money she doesn't quite have yet, goes out for drinks with some flirtatious cousins, and moves in. William Gordon, a former detective, has his suspicions about some of the relatives and starts hanging around, trying to keep her safe.

This movie tries to span several genres: old dark house thriller, comedy, musical—we see Dorothea sing and dance at a club—and never really comes together. Horror movie fans in particular are likely to be disappointed at the lack of any real scares. Still, it's kind of fun, with good atmosphere and a scene-stealing performance from Beatrix Lehmann as the housekeeper (pictured), who functions as a kind of Mrs. Danvers character. She and Eliot Makeham (as the cranky old man) are the only ones who really take their roles seriously. The star of the film is Jessie Matthews, a stage and screen star in England, though this wound up being her last major movie before she had a second career on British television. One character says to her, "Gosh! You’re plucky!" but for me, she called to mind a low-energy Ann Miller. There’s also two comic relief brothers (Reginald Purdell and Hugh Dempster) who vie ineptly for Dorothea's hand. A few amusing lines crop up. When we see Dorothea do her act, she is accompanied on stage by Maurice, introduced by the MC as "not her husband and not likely to be." Later the brothers come to visit Dorothea and are told by Julia that she "is in but not at home," to which one of them replies, "Bit of a contortionist, what?" [YouTube]

THE IRON PETTICOAT (1957)

In this Cold War rehash of the Greta Garbo classic NINOTCHKA, Katharine Hepburn plays a Russian pilot who is forced out of the sky when she violates American air space in Germany. The Americans hope that she's a defector, but she claims she left Russia in a fit of pique because a man was promoted over her. She's not interested in being part of any anti-Communist propaganda (she despises the superficiality of American women who are only interested "only in nail polish and false bosoms"), but the Air Force would like to change her mind, so a major (Bob Hope) is put in charge of taking Hepburn to London and softening her up so she'll be a good little defector. Of course, as he tries to convert her, she tries to convert him to socialism, and slowly, despite the presence of Hope's fiancée, they start to fall in love.

Let me repeat that: Katherine Hepburn and Bob Hope fall in love. That is the main gimmick behind this movie, and it plays out as badly as you would expect. Though both actors are professionals and seem to be trying as hard as they can, they both seem very uncomfortable, with the picture above epitomizing their on-screen chemistry. Hepburn's accent is grating (and varies occasionally) and she looks dreadful; Hope mostly acts like he's in a Road movie with Bing Crosby—when someone insults him by calling him a "dog nose," Hope replies, "Oh, you got a little Crosby blood in ya!" Apparently, Hope brought in some of his own gag writers to "polish" the dialogue, and the screenwriter, the legendary Ben Hecht, had his name taken out of the official credits. Hepburn wasn't too happy, either, and the two had a frosty relationship. It's not quite a disaster; if nothing else, I like to tell friends that I've seen a romantic comedy with Hepburn and Hope, and watch their reactions. If you're expecting a Bob Hope comedy, you’ll probably like it, but if you want a Hepburn comedy like The Philadelphia Story or Bringing Up Baby, avoid it like the plague. [TCM]

TOO LATE BLUES (1961)

John Cassavetes' first movie for a big studio—and one of his last, as he eventually went on to forge a career as the godfather of American independent cinema—charts the rise and fall of a jazz musician (Bobby Darin) following the typical trajectory of such showbiz tales: hardscrabble beginnings, clashes with fellow musicians over his art, temptation to hit it big by selling out, leaving his buddies in the lurch because he has to follow his own muse, hitting bottom, seeing the error of his ways and maybe making a comeback in the end. Some of Cassavetes' later style is on display here, especially in the interesting camera moves and use of close-ups, but the narrative is slow-moving and several individual scenes go on too long, especially the odd poolroom fight scene between Darin's combo and a punk (Vince Edwards). Darin is good, if a bit of a cold fish, as the pianist torn between art and commercialism; Stella Stevens is very good as a somewhat neurotic (but in mostly a low-key fashion) young singer who Darin discovers and adds to his band; the actors playing the band members, including a young and surprisingly boyish Seymour Cassel, give naturalistic performances, though the music was actually played by pros including Benny Carter, Jimmy Rowles and Tommy Tedesco. The standout performance is given by Everett Chambers as Darin's agent who actually comes across as the most complex character—he cares about Darin, but he also cares about the band and making money, and he occasionally sleeps with Stevens. He acts sometimes in reprehensible ways but he's not a one-note villain. Chambers (pictured above with Darin behind him) left acting for a career in TV producing (including Peyton Place, Columbo, and Cassavetes' short-lived jazz/detective show Johnny Staccato). Marilyn Clark has a small role as a middle-aged woman who "keeps" Darin for a time. The score by David Raksin is fine, especially the fun opening number played by the band for a group of children. [TCM]

THE LOST VOLCANO (1950)

aka BOMBA AND THE LOST VOLCANO

Zoologist Paul Gordon (Donald Woods) is living with his wife Ruth and young son David in the middle of an African jungle, studying animals. David occasionally goes off to roam the wilds with his buddy Bomba the Jungle Boy, who has even provided him with a matching loincloth, but Paul and Ruth think Bomba is an imaginary friend. However, we have seen Bomba (Johnny Sheffield) secretly free some animals that Paul and his men captured one night. Meanwhile, Dr. Langley, an ethnologist from the Cairo Museum, shows up with his assistants Barton and Higgins, and wants to hire Paul to take them to find a dormant volcano which may point them toward a buried lost city. At first, Paul declines, saying he wants to take his family back to civilization, but soon, a jewel-studded knife that Bomba found near the volcano and gave to David as a gift ups the ante. Barton and Higgins volunteer to take David back to the city so Paul can lead their expedition, but actually the two kidnap David and try to force him to take them to the volcano so they can get their hands on whatever treasures there may be. Paul and Ruth and Langley go after the men. When Bomba gets in on the chase, there's all kinds of excitement: Barton shoots Bomba's vine in two, a python attacks Higgins, Bomba wrestles a crocodile, there’s more gunplay, and of course, guess which volcano suddenly picks this time to get active?

By now in the series, Bomba is a Jungle Teenager—Sheffield was 19—but he can still pull off some stand-offish charm, or charming stand-offishness, though it's clear Bomba would rather horse around with kids than start dating. This is the first Bomba movie that doesn't provide a young woman who falls for Bomba, and that's OK. One critic notes disparagingly that Sheffield has a wrestler's build rather than a swimmer's build like Johnny Weissmuller had as Tarzan—Weissmuller may have been, early in the Tarzan series, sleeker and more aesthetically pleasing, but Sheffield is just a different kind of beefcake. Young Tommy Ivo is fine as David, his character clearly intended to help skew the audience toward children. Woods and Marjorie Lord are adequate in the adult leads, and John Ridgely, on a downhill slide from his heyday as a supporting actor at Warner Brothers, is good as one of the bad guys. The action picks up nicely in the last 15 minutes as the volcano begins to boil. The "lost city" trope, common in Tarzan stories and other jungle adventures, will undoubtedly return in later series entries. [DVD]

BEHIND GREEN LIGHTS (1946)

Sleazy reporter Walter Bard is visited by socialite Janet Bradley (Carole Landis), daughter of a mayoral candidate. He's holding incriminating papers and wants money for them, but Janet could only raise half the money, so after negotiations fail, she pulls out a gun, takes the papers by force, and leaves. Meanwhile, it's just another night at the nearby police station where new reporter Johnny Williams (Richard Crane) is being shown around the press room and Lt. Sam Carson (William Gargan) is warning some rowdy young people to stay home, listen to the radio and eat donuts rather than go carousing at "questionable joints." Suddenly, a car runs up over the curb in front of the station and a dead body falls out, that of Walter Bard, apparently killed by gunshot. Janet's name is found on Bard's calendar and she is called in for questioning. Carson gets a little sweet on her and tries hard to clear her name, though she admits to having had a gun. Meanwhile, newspaper publisher Max Calvert is told that a more detailed examination of the body discovered that Bard was actually killed by poison, not a gunshot wound, but as Janet's father is Calvert's chief rival for mayor, Calvert gets Yager, the coroner, to swap Bard's body for a John Doe body, hoping to strengthen the case against Janet which will hurt her father's chances on election day. In a comedy of errors, Bard's body winds up stashed away in the press room closet. And two more suspects enter the scene: Bard's estranged wife Nora (Mary Anderson) and her lawyer/boyfriend. Can Carson clear Janet's name before Calvert's paper smears her father's name?

This generally fun B-cop movie has a bit too much plot for its budget. The storylines and characters are interesting, but the execution leaves something to be desired. There is a fair amount of action, but leading man Gargan, whom I usually like, is pretty much confined to office scenes of expository dialogue, leaving the supporting cast to keep things moving. Richard Crane (pictured standing, with Gargan in the car), who I know as 50s TV sci-fi hero Rocky Jones, is especially fun as the reporter who finds the dead body, though after being set up in the beginning as an important character, he basically vanishes from the last half. Fred Sherman has a small but crucial role as a boxer who escapes police custody in order to get one last fight in. You actually hear the cliché line, "Get me rewrite, sweetheart" during a frantic press room scene. The print of this shown on the streaming channel Café Noir was not good, and quite chopped up in the beginning, and to make matters worse, the channel took this full screen film and blew it up to make it look widescreen, thereby frequently cutting off the tops of people's heads and making it impossible to read the opening text scrawl. Shame on you, Café Noir! [Streaming]

THE SHADOW (1933)

This film has nothing to do with the pulp fiction hero The Shadow, aka Lamont Cranston. Instead, it's an early sound "old dark house" B-mystery from England, and more enjoyable than the Lamont Cranston movies I've seen. A sinister figure known only as The Shadow has been blackmailing famous people, leading to a string of suicides of people (a movie star, a financier, a politician) who can't pay his price. Elliot, a Scotland Yard man, tries to con the Shadow by posing as someone who wants to sell him some incriminating letters, but their meeting ends with Elliot shot dead. Found in Elliot's hand is a small charm of a closed fist, the only physical clue the police have. That weekend, Sir Richard, the head of Scotland Yard, has a small house party, and Inspector Fleming, who worked on tracing the charm, thinks the Shadow might be drawn to Sir Richard's to get the charm back. Staying at the house that foggy Friday night: Sir Richard's flighty aunt, his lovely daughter Sonia, her sturdy fiancée Beverley, and an eccentric mystery novelist named Reggie who is the absolute stereotype of an upper-class British twit. Stopping by later is a stranded motorist named Jim and his sister Moya, who we know are not what they claim to be—Jim has some kind score from the past to settle with Sir Richard. There's also the butler who is spotted letting a suspicious figure in through a window. When Inspector Fleming is shot just as he's about to say who he thinks the Shadow is, Inspector Carr arrives with his men, having to deal with 1) Reggie trying to be helpful; 2) the aunt being nervous; 3) finding out that Sonia thinks the mysterious charm looks familiar, and 4) discovering that the key to the safe where the charm is being kept has gone missing.

Undoubtedly a "quota quicke," made to satisfy a law requiring that a certain percentage of movies shown in Great Britain be British productions, this low-budget mystery is great fun. It's paced well, with few slow sections, and the actors all acquit themselves nicely. The only actors in the cast that I'm familiar with are Elizabeth Allan as Sonia and Feliz Aylmer as Sir Richard. The standout is Henry Kendall (pictured at right with Allan) as the goofy Reggie, though as with much comic relief, some may get their fill of his twittering inanities earlier than others. He calls everyone "Old bean" or "Old thing," even when they ask him not to. There are some witty one-liners and though the film is rather stagy—the bulk of it happens on just a couple of sets—it generally doesn't feel static. There are a couple of plotholes, and given the identity of the Shadow, the film doesn't play fair in at least one scene, but all's well that ends well. Enjoyable. [YouTube]

VICE RAID (1960)

An off-screen narrator tells us that the Syndicate is like an octopus with its "dirty tentacles" in gambling, drugs and prostitution. We see cops Whitey (Richard Coogan) and Ben (Joseph Sullivan) stop small-time crook Muggsy for "transporting," i.e., bringing an unmarried female across state lines to work, one assumes, as a hooker. While Whitey is otherwise occupied, Ben tells Muggsy to beat it, then shoots him dead, letting us know that Ben is on the syndicate payroll and had to kill Muggsy to stop him from ratting on the big boys. Sure enough, big boss Vince (Brad Dexter), who runs several modeling agencies which are fronts for escort services, decides it's time to get Whitey out of his hair. He brings in buxom Carol Hudson (Mamie Van Doren) and lets Whitey snag her, then has her testify that Whitey entrapped her. Whitey gets booted off the force but talks his boss into giving him a chance to clear his name. He sets up a fake call-girl business and starts getting Vince's agencies closed down. Meanwhile Carol, who has been set up in a nice apartment as Vince's mistress, is shocked when her kid sister Louise shows up to visit her in the big city with hopes of becoming a model just like Carol. When Louise falls prey in a particularly awful way to the bad guys, Carol joins Whitey in his attempt to bring Vince to justice. This is a fairly well-paced B film, though Mamie Van Doren is pretty much the only reason to watch this to the end. The story is predictable, the lead actor (Coogan) is almost completely without charm, and the characters are one-dimensional. Brad Dexter brings some heat to his villain role, the stern narration lends the proceedings a pleasant campy aura, and the sexy sax music score is out of control. Favorite line: when Vince says to Carol, "You like money, don’t you?" she replies, "If I'd wanted glory, I'd have joined the WACS." Pictured above are Van Doren and Coogan. [Netflix streaming]

RIO RITA (1942)

This is an odd duck of a film. It's based very loosely on a 1920s stage musical which was filmed at the dawn of the sound era as a vehicle for the comedians Wheeler and Woolsey who also starred in the Broadway production. Here, some of the songs have been retained, but the original plot involving a search by the Texas Rangers for a notorious Mexican bandit has been completely revamped for the slapsticky talents of Abbott and Costello, and for the wartime setting. Bud and Lou are stranded in Texas and hop into the trunk of a car with New York license plates, hoping to make it back to the Big Apple, but instead wind up at a hotel in a small Texas town near the Mexican border. It turns out they've hopped a ride with John Carroll, a singing star who is returning to his hometown for the first time in years and who starts up a flirtation with the lovely Kathryn Grayson, owner of the local hotel, who had a big crush on him in the past. However, Grayson may have cause to be jealous when Patricia Dane, who works for the hotel manager (Tom Conway), starts making a play for Carroll. Unbeknownst to our heroes, the hotel and the local radio station are nests of Nazi spies—led by Conway—who hope to get a coded message out in Carroll's big national broadcast. The best bits along the way to the predictable ending involve boxes of artificial apples that are actually miniature radios, a gigantic industrial washing machine in which Lou gets stuck, and the climactic arrival of singing Texas Rangers.

I loved Abbott and Costello when I was a kid; I have fond memories of seeing them on the local afternoon movie show and at school when they would sometimes show Friday afternoon movies. But they eventually lost their appeal to me, especially when I discovered the Marx Brothers, and I have rarely revisited their films in my adulthood. This was an early one that they did on loan to MGM from Universal, and it has more of the feel of a glossy MGM musical than it does a mid-budget Abbott & Costello romp. In fact, it feels like three different movies: an A&C comedy of bungling, an MGM musical, and a straight-up romance. The fit is a bit awkward at times, but frankly I found it rather fun to be bounced around between genres, especially when the likable John Carroll and the talented Kathryn Grayson (both pictured above) are providing the musical and romantic relief from the comedy. Barry Nelson has a small role as a government agent and Peter Whitney is effective as a Nazi thug. Overall, the few musical interludes are not memorable except for the Rangers song. A likable movie, if not one for the ages. [TCM]