WALL OF NOISE (1963)

Ty Hardin is a hunky race horse trainer; his live-in girl friend (Dorothy Provine) is a model; Ty's buddy (Jimmy Murphy) is a jockey who had—maybe still has—a thing for Provine. Hardin thinks the world of Frank's Choice, a horse he's been working with, and he gets Provine to bet their savings on him in a race, but when the horse shows signs of injury, he has the horse excused. Bets on the horse are refunded, but Hardin gets pissed off when he discovers that Provine never placed the bet and the two split up, with Murphy taking her to Florida—their relationship remaining ambiguous. Soon, Ralph Meeker, a construction company owner who is new to owning horses, hires Hardin to be his chief trainer. Things go well for a while until Meeker's bored wife (Suzanne Pleshette) starts flirting with Hardin. She offers to buy him a rambunctious stud called Escadero to train on his own but when Meeker suspects that Hardin has become Pleshette's stud (which he has for at least one night), he won't give her the money and he fires Hardin. Getting a loan from Provine's former boss (Simon Oakland), Hardin buys and trains Escadero and readies him for a race, hoping for a big win. Provine and Murphy return from Florida and Hardin lets bygones be bygones, hiring Murphy to ride Escadero. Without Hardin knowing it, Provine takes her savings and gives it to Oakland to help pay for the horse. Soon the stage is set for another race and possibly, another scratch.

I must admit the horse racing business stuff bored me, even the well-shot race scenes, and that takes care of almost half the film. The melodrama of the other half is a bit more engaging, but mostly I enjoyed the rather ripe performances which never quite went over-the-top. Ty Hardin, of course, is nice eye candy, though he only has two expressions in this film: mildly irritated and very irritated. Pleshette, in the same year she was featured in Hitchcock's THE BIRDS, is also physically appealing but also works with just two expressions: haughty and naughty. Meeker, beginning to look a bit seedy, and Oakland are fine as rich dirtbags. Provine, known primarily as for the early 60s show The Roaring Twenties, makes little impression. The only appealing character is the jockey played by cute B-actor Jimmy Murphy who was in a couple of late-period Bowery Boys movies.  At nearly two hours, it's way too long—I’m thinking it would have come off much better at a fast-paced 80 minutes or so. Interesting trivia: this apparently played in double features along with Roger Corman's B-horror classic THE TERROR. If you don’t enjoy ogling Ty Hardin (who gets two very brief shirtless scenes) as much as I do, you should probably skip this one; it's not especially good but it's not really bad enough to be a camp treat. I have no idea where the title comes from—when I saw this movie on the TCM schedule, I though it would be about a Phil Spector-like record producer. Pictured at top right are Hardin and Provine, with Murphy behind them; Hardin and Pleshette are at left. [TCM]

ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST (1948)

The dysfunctional Hubbard family lives in a small town in Alabama. In the summer of 1880, the patriarch Marcus (Fredric March) demands that none of his children attend the Confederate Day ceremonies in town, marking the anniversary of the deadly betrayal of a band of local Confederate soldiers. The Hubbards have been looked down on since the Civil War because Marcus was accused of war profiteering (pricing badly-needed salt supplies sky high), but he resents any implication of wrong-doing. His cold, conniving oldest son Ben (Edmond O'Brien) is trying to close a business deal, but he needs his father's money, which so far Marcus has been unwilling to lend. Younger son Oscar (Dan Duryea) is weak and pitiful—he attends the Confederate Day events behind his father's back and is ordered to leave by the townsfolk—and is treated badly by both Marcus and Ben. Young wily daughter Regina (Ann Blyth) has her dad wrapped around her finger (he refers to her as his only son) and thinks she can control most any man. All three want control of Dad's fortune, which he is loath to give up. Then there’s Marcus' wife Lavinia (Florence Eldridge) who is like a whipped puppy, passive and cringing, and perhaps a bit lost in wishes for better times and a more likable family.  On her birthday, she hopes that Marcus will finally deliver the money he's promised her for the building of a local hospital, but once again he puts her off.

The Hubbards are tied up tangentially with the Bagtrys, a formerly well-off family fallen on hard times. Regina is secretly seeing the Bagtry son John (John Dall) but he doesn't seem nearly sharp enough to keep up with her. A northern carpetbagger named Taylor is in town and intends to loan the Bagtrys money to hang on to their estate Lyonette, but Marcus wants the estate for himself, so Oscar stirs up the local KKK band to run Taylor out of town, hoping to get money from Marcus to marry the local tart, Laurette. John's somewhat flighty sister Birdy (Betsy Blair) then asks Ben if Marcus would loan them the money. All the Hubbards want some share in money or power, and all seem on the verge of getting some, but one night at a party, everything starts to unravel most spectacularly.

This is the prequel to Lillian Hellman's THE LITTLE FOXES, and you will get more out of this if you know that film, set twenty years later, in which Bette Davis plays the middle-aged Regina, but this works as a stand-alone drama as well. Both are morality tales in which we take pleasure in both the corrupt shenanigans of the family members and in the melodramatic comeuppance they eventually get. Women are at the center of FOXES, but the men take center stage here, and all three male leads get to do some solid scenery-chewing. Fredric March gives a performance all the more powerful for being mostly low-key as the corrupt Marcus—and just how corrupt he is, we don't find out until the conclusion; Edmond O'Brien reminded me of one of the conniving sons in THE LION IN WINTER, trying to hide his corruption while reveling in the power he imagines is within reach. Duryea, who plays Oscar's son Leo in LITTLE FOXES, is nicely slimy, though his tone and mannerisms here don't really separate him from the earlier (well, later) Leo; I did chuckle every time he exclaimed what sounded to my ears like, "Squeee!" Blyth has the thankless job of being an early Bette Davis but she's up to the task. Eldridge, March's real-life wife, is fine as the passive Lavinia who gets a little revenge of her own in the end. There's an interesting scene in which physical violence (the beating of the carpetbagger) is juxtaposed with can-can dancers, very much like a scene in Bob Fosse's CABARET. Hard to find, as it apparently has not been licensed to TV very often, but available now on DVD as part of Universal's Vault series. Pictured at top right are March, O'Brien and Blyth; at left are O'Brien and Duryea. [DVD]

ELLERY QUEEN’S PENTHOUSE MYSTERY (1941)

Ventriloquist Ventro the Great has something of a secret identity—he's Gordon Cobb, a mysterious, well-connected, behind-the-scenes man (maybe a diplomat or a spy or just a playboy, we're never quite sure). In China, he's been hired by Tran Yan Sum to take a cache of jewels to the United States and sell it for money to be returned to China to buy food and supplies for refugees from the war with Japan. But we notice that some shadowy figures follow him across the ocean. When he arrives in New York City, the first thing he does is call a Miss Ling from his penthouse hotel room. Two days later, Sheila, his daughter, goes to detective Ellery Queen and his secretary (and girlfriend and would-be assistant sleuth) Nikki and asks for help as she knows her father arrived but she has not heard from him yet. Queen reluctantly agrees to investigate (he's apparently rented an office just to do work on a manuscript and resents it when Nikki accepts cases for him), and when he arrives at Cobb's hotel room, two porters are about to remove a trunk, but when Cobb's dead body tumbles from the trunk, Queen is definitely on the case. Others involved are Sanders, a bellboy who is actually a reporter; Count Brett, a passenger on the same ship which brought Cobb to the States; Walsh, overseer of Cobb's business affairs; Ritter, a gambler; and the exotic Miss Ling. This B-mystery starts off OK, but soon falls into the same trap as many other low-budget thrillers of the era: the urge to complicate matters in order to make up for cheap sets, lackluster acting and direction, and no musical score. I got so lost that by the climax, I didn't really care who killed Cobb. Ralph Bellamy, the fifth actor I've seen in the role, counting TV’s Jim Hutton, barely registers on screen; the best is Donald Cook; Charley Grapewin is his even blander father, Margaret Lindsay has little to do as Nikki. Frank Albertson does OK as Sanders and Anna May Wong is Miss Ling, a red herring role. Also with Mantan Moreland.  I can't even really recommend this to B-mystery fans. The picture is a publicity shot of Lindsay, Bellamy and Wong. [YouTube]

KAPO (1960)

During the Nazi occupation of Paris, Edith, a Jewish teenager, is walking home from a piano lesson when she sees her parents being rounded up by the authorities. A neighbor warns her to be silent, but she runs after them and is taken with them to a concentration camp. Separated from her parents, she is told that children and old people are the first to be killed, so she escapes from her holding room and is helped by a sympathetic doctor. He gives her the clothing and identity of a young woman named Nicole who has just died—he takes the girl's jacket off the corpse and gives it directly to Edith to put on. Nicole was a criminal and her jacket bears a black triangle which gives Edith a slight advantage over having the yellow star of the Jewish prisoners, and when she sees her parents as they are marched off to the gas chambers, she vows to survive; as the doctor says to her, "Live…and think of nothing else." Over time, she becomes a hardened survivor: first she becomes a prostitute for the SS men, and then rises in their esteem enough to be named "kapo," a camp inmate who is given official duties keeping the other inmates in line, even as she begins to lose the respect of the prisoners. She has a friendly relationship with an officer named Karl, but when a batch of Russian soldiers is brought to the camp, she falls in love with Sascha, their leader, and is slowly brought into the Russians' plan to stage an escape, with tragic consequences.

This was perhaps the first fiction film to deal with life in a concentration camp and may have seemed grim and realistic to audiences of the era, but now it feels melodramatic and predictable. It certainly remains watchable, but viewers may need to cut it some slack. Appropriately, it does have a fairly gritty look (in black & white) and camp life isn't exactly prettified; actually, everyday camp life is largely ignored here except for the scenes of the prisoners at hard labor. These women, though grimy and tired, don't look starved or unhealthy, even though the threat of sick inmates being sent off to be killed is mentioned more than once. There are some moments that still retain power, including the hanging of one inmate and the suicide of another, and the climactic escape scene is very effective. The acting all around is fine. Some critics think that Susan Strasberg (who was 22 playing 14, looking much more like 22) gives an affectless performance, but I think that fits a character who comes to disassociate herself from her former life in order to survive at any cost, a strategy that the movie would seem not to endorse. Gianni Garko (pictured with Strasberg) is ridiculously handsome, like a young Robert Redford, as Karl, the humanized Nazi; Laurent Terzieff, almost as handsome, makes a good Sascha. Emmanuelle Riva and Didi Perego are excellent as two of the female inmates with whom Edith bonds, to some degree. As this is an Italian film, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, most of the dialogue is in Italian, not French, despite the nationalities of the inmates. This felt off to me until I remembered that I think nothing of French or Italian characters speaking English in a Hollywood film. [TCM]

THE LADY IN SCARLET (1935)

Dr. Boyer goes to an antique shop owned by Mr. Sayre and purchases a clock from Sayre's personable young assistant Pennyward. Sayre, convinced that his wife is having an affair with Boyer, has hired Quigley to skulk about keeping an eye on them. He's also called his lawyer, Shelby, to set up a time to change his will because he's upset that his daughter Alice plans to marry Pennyward. Meanwhile, Sayre's wife Julia, accompanied by Boyer, runs across her old friend Oliver Keith, a private detective, in a bar with his secretary (and, it would seem, girlfriend and/or mistress) Ella. Julia, whom Oliver knew when she was a stage actress (The Lady in Scarlet was one of her hit shows), tells Oliver about her husband's strange behavior and her knowledge that she's being followed. The whole group goes back to the Sayres' home where Sayre is found dead, with a dagger plunged into his hand. Suspects are plentiful. It's revealed that Alice and Pennyward are already secretly married, and Alice may have killed him to stop from being disinherited. Alice thinks that Julia killed him so she could be with Boyer. It's theorized that the stabbing of the right hand was done by the dying Sayre as a clue that the killer was his "right hand man" Pennyward. Soon added to the bunch is Dyker, a man who was involved in forging antiques, whose fingerprints are found on the door of Sayre's office. Soon, in rapid succession, some government bonds that had been set aside for Alice are found missing, Quigley (the skulking spy) is discovered doped up with truth serum in Dr. Boyer's office, and later that day, Dr. Boyer is found dead in his car. Oliver and Ella have their hands full trying to sort this case out, but they do, with a climax involving the traditional gathering of suspects.

I think that many B-mystery movies fill their running time with unnecessarily complex plots, perhaps to draw attention away from cheap sets, so-so acting, and a lack of credible atmosphere. Even some of the Charlie Chan films are guilty of this. Though I took lots of notes while watching this to keep track of the proceedings, I might have enjoyed it more had I just relaxed and let the sometimes absurd plotpoints wash over me. In any case, the real appeal here is supposed to be in the central detective characters, and in that aspect it's a bit of a washout. Reginald Denny, an old pro at solid supporting parts (and who does a great job as Algy, the comic relief sidekick in several Bulldog Drummond movies), is OK as Oliver, though he's surprisingly laid-back in a role that might have benefited from a bit more spark. His one quirk is that he whistles a little tune when he's hit upon a clue. Patricia Farr, as Ella, his love interest and sparring partner, is not OK—she seems to be trying hard, but she's too bland to give her snarky dialogue any bite. They were clearly going for a Nick and Nora Charles vibe here, but they miss by a mile—and I must admit, during the current #MeToo moment, that I cringed whenever Oliver called Ella by his pet name for her, "Stupid," which, of course, she is not. The only other actors to stand out are Claudia Dell as Alice and James Bush as Pennyward (his only problem is that he is just too wholesome looking to be a credible suspect). The lack of background music that would help to build tension is problematic, especially in a scene in which the camera pans over several people while waiting for a safe to be opened: no music, no tension, just uncomfortable-looking faces in a row. The suspect roundup is handled awkwardly and the solution is rather ho-hum, a phase that applies to the movie as a whole: not terrible but nothing special. In the colorized publicity still at top, Denny is at far right. [YouTube]

THE FLYING FLEET (1929)

Six buddies are set to graduate from Annapolis together and are looking forward to becoming Navy pilots after selection in San Diego. Our focus is on handsome nice guy Tommy (Ramon Novarro) and his best friend Steve (Ralph Graves), a cocky so-and-so always looking to make trouble. On a drunken night before commencement, Steve and Dizzy come sneaking in after hours; Steve eludes discovery but Dizzy is caught and dismissed, leaving five. In San Diego, the glasses-wearing Specs (Gardner James) is cut for his eyesight but becomes a navigator. Meanwhile, Tommy and Steve enter into a rivalry for the lovely Anita (Anita Page) that will last for the rest of the movie, with each one playing tricks on the other trying to make time with her. During pilot training in Pensacola, Florida, Kewpie (Sumner Getchell) freaks out during his trial flight and is sent off to become a radio operator, and later Tex (Carroll Nye) crashes in the water on his first solo flight—I assume he is killed though it's not made clear. What is clear is that Tommy and Steve, who make the grade, still indulge in juvenile pranks, in the air and on the ground, and both still date Anita, and when a storm comes out of nowhere on a trans-Pacific flight to Honolulu, they are both put to the test with lives at risk.

I don't know how old this plot (of buddies in the military having problems over a woman) is—it certainly gets used by Hollywood quite a bit just before and during WWII—but I suspect it was familiar before this silent film (with background music and sound effects) adapted it. As Ben Mankiewicz said when he introduced the film on TCM, it's a bit like a 1920s Top Gun: guys in planes, girls in sexy outfits, and the possibility of tragedy just around the corner. Novarro and Graves are absolutely right for their roles, as are the other buddies. Anita Page has little to do except bounce back and forth between Tommy and Steve, though if you've seen any other movie like this before, there's no surprise about whom she ends up with. I was especially interested to see Carroll Nye, mostly known as the thick-sideburned Frank Kennedy, post-war husband to Scarlett O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND, looking so young and handsome here as one of the friends. The line that made me go, huh?: after seeing girls out waterskiing, Steve says, "That’s what I call seafood!" The top picture is of Novarro and James; at right is Novarro being saved at sea by Graves. [TCM]

ISLE OF FURY (1936)

On the isolated South Seas island of Tankara, Humphrey Bogart and Margaret Lindsay are getting married during a hellacious storm when news arrives that a ship is foundering near the shore. As soon as he says "I do," Bogart goes racing out to rescue the sailors, an unsavory sea captain (Paul Graetz) and a young, handsome and somewhat mysterious fellow (Donald Woods). The island doctor (E.E. Clive) is suspicious, noting that only men trying to escape from something wind up on the islands. But Bogart, a fair-minded fellow, takes Woods in and, while he recovers, shows him the ropes of his pearl diving business. When superstitious native fishermen refuse to dive off a certain spot because some men vanished near there, Bogart goes down himself and winds up face to face with a huge killer octopus; Woods bravely dives in after him and kills the octopus. Now each man has saved the other's life and Bogart offers Woods a job in the business. Two things are going on that we know but that Bogart doesn't : 1) Bogart's chief native associates are not to be trusted; 2) Woods and Lindsay are fighting a physical attraction that's developing. Lindsay, who has lived on the island all her life, tells Woods that Bogart is a good man of whom she is fond, but she only married him because she promised her late mother that she would. When Woods seems not in a rush to leave the island, Bogart offers him a job as an assistant. As Woods contemplates this, Graetz, who had left the island, returns with news that threatens the established equilibrium of our cozy triangle.

Based on Somerset Maugham's The Narrow Corner (and made into a film just four years earlier with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), this programmer is more enjoyable than it usually gets credit for. Critical commentary centers on two things: Bogart's weak performance (and disconcerting pencil-thin mustache) and the ridiculously fake octopus battle. I won't defend the latter episode—the grappling with a smiling rubber octopus is indeed worthy of Ed Wood, and exciting music in the background just makes it worse—but Bogart is actually fine here; I think viewers are disgruntled that he's not playing the hard-boiled Bogart persona we know so well but that wasn't fully crafted until a few years later. But if your expectations remain on a par with the average Warners B-film of the era, I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's short (barely an hour), moves fairly well, and even better has a nice plot twist near the end, and a conclusion that defies the Production Code. Most reviews of the film on IMDb give away the spoiler twist as though it was clear from the start, but it's not so I won't divulge it here. Bogart's character is likeable but with a bit of an edge that always makes you think he might do something out of left field. I always like Woods, mostly a featured player in dozens of B-films in the 30s and 40s, and he's fine here. I'm not so much a fan of Lindsay who I find bland and forgettable, but even she's not bad in this role. Recommended, unless you can't stand to see Bogart play something besides a detective or a gangster. The book, BTW, is quite good but very different in its focus and the way it plays out. Pictured are, from left, Woods, Bogart and Lindsay. [TCM]

THE SECRET INVASION (1964)

Cairo, 1943. Five prisoners from varying locations are brought to Major Stewart Granger, all in handcuffs: an art thief (William Campbell); an IRA demolitions expert (Mickey Rooney); a forger (Edd Byrnes); a man with multiple academic degrees who became an international crime figure (Raf Vallone, pictured); and an assassin for hire (Henry Silva) who was convicted of killing his mistress. All are offered pardons if they will take on a dangerous military mission: sneak into a prison fortress in Dubrovnik and rescue General Quadri, an Italian thought to be in sympathy with the Allies who could get his Fascist troops to turn against the Nazis. They all agree, though early on, Byrnes tries to mastermind an escape at sea which fails. Once in Yugoslavia, they get help from a band of local partisans, including young Spela Rozin (credited as Mia Massini), who uses her newborn child as a way to take suspicion away from her as she assists the men. Just as they're about to tunnel into the fortress from a nearby crypt, they are caught, put in the same prison as Quadri, and interrogated and tortured by the commandant. However, they work out a plan to escape with Quadri, using a system of keeping time by snapping or tapping their fingers once a second to keep track of time. The bust-out works, though on their way to the Italian troops, a couple of the men are killed. Once the survivors reach the Italian troops, they discover that Quadri is already dead, and the man they have is a Nazi. Will their plan be foiled, or can they figure out another way to rally the troops to the Allies?

Roger Corman directed this well-paced, nicely photographed war film; though Corman had a much bigger budget than he'd ever had before, it's still decidedly a B-film but it looks pretty darned good and the motley group of actors works well together. Granger, as usual, seems a bit above it all, and Rooney uses an Irish accent that comes and goes—it feels like in the scenes he had to overdub, he had a stronger brogue than the scenes recorded live. But those are minor quibbles. Strongest is Vallone as the most grounded of the men; Silva's wooden-faced stoicism is an asset here as the assassin described has having "dead eyes" and he gets a good scene in the last half with Rozin that changes the arc of his character. The script, despite a couple of plotholes, is solid, though Vallone is burdened with a notoriously bad line: discussing the freeing of Dubrovnik, he says, "Who will free it from us? And who will free us from ourselves?" There are apparently several similarities between this and The Dirty Dozen, which came out a couple of years later, though I haven't seen that film yet. An enjoyable wartime thriller with a couple of well done battle setpieces, and the location shooting is a plus. [DVD]

THE BLIND GODDESS (1948)

In Prague, Count Mikla is found dead, a presumed suicide, though we know better, having seen his valet shoot him. Back in England, Mikla's friend Derek, who works for Lord Brasted, is suspicious, as Mikla had been feeding Derek information that Brasted, head of a commission raising money to aid displaced people after the war, was embezzling much of that money. Derek tells Brasted that he's going to the Prime Minister with his charges, which he does. Brasted then tells his wife Helen (who, BTW, is a former lover of Derek's) that Derek tried to blackmail him, using a conversation that, if overheard, could be interpreted that way. Brasted sues Derek for libel with the formidable Sir John Dearing as his barrister. Dearing, taking the word of Brasted, works his legal wonders in the courtroom, basing much of his case on a letter written by Derek—but as we know, forged by Brasted. Eventually, another letter comes into play, one Derek wrote to his girlfriend Mary (incidentally, Sir John's daughter) but which is passed off an illicit love letter to Brasted's wife. How far will Brasted go to punish Derek? And when evidence finally appears to suggest that Brasted is in fact guilty, will Sir John do the honorable thing in court?

Some sources call this a noir thriller, but it's actually just a slow-burning courtroom drama without a speck of noir atmosphere that I could pick up on. Ultimately, Sir John does serve as a conflicted central character—and the actor playing him, Eric Portman (pictured), is top-billed—but that alone does not a noir film make. At 90 minutes, this feels a smidge on the long side, but it never gets boring, and the various plot twists and contrivances don't feel artificial or convoluted. The acting is fine all around; Portman is excellent as usual, and Hugh Williams (Brasted), Michael Denison (Derek) and Anne Crawford (Helen) are quite good. I didn't realize until after the fact that the young woman playing Sir John's daughter was Claire Bloom in her first movie role. Not a well-known film but worth your time if you're a fan of legal drama. [YouTube]

THE WITNESS CHAIR (1936)

One night, we see Paula (Ann Harding), secretary to Stanley Whittaker, leaving his office and trying to avoid being seen by the elevator operator. Later, Connie Trent shows up at Paula's with packed suitcases—she and Stanley were supposed to be running away together but he never showed up at the pier. The cops soon find Stanley's body in his office, with a suicide note saying he embezzled $75,000, exonerating Connie's father Jim (Walter Abel) who was under suspicion, but given some odd circumstances and the fact that gun found was Jim's, Jim is arrested. In court, there are conflicting reports of the embezzlement facts, and a case is built that Jim killed Stanley not only to get clear of financial wrongdoing, but to get Stanley away from his daughter. However, we soon find out that the company accountant was in on the theft of the money, and we also begin to wonder what role Paula played in all of this. Eventually, the truth comes out during the dramatic trial. As a B-level courtroom drama, this is acceptable though hardly distinguished in any way. It's nice to see Walter Abel (Danny the agent in HOLIDAY INN) in something of a lead role, and Ann Harding is fine in a fairly thankless part. Recognizable supporting players include Margaret Hamilton as a fainting bookkeeper, Moroni Olsen as a cop, Billy Benedict (Whitey in some of the Bowery Boys movies) as an office boy, and Frank Jenks. It's talky and somewhat static, but a pleasant if unexciting way to pass an hour for classic movie fans. Pictured are Abel and Harding. [TCM]

TERROR FROM THE YEAR 5000 (1958)

In 1947, the narrator tell us, man broke the sound barrier; in 1958, the space barrier; now, someone on an isolated island in Florida is trying to break the time barrier, but in doing so, will unleash a Terror! From the Year! 5000! In this Florida laboratory, Prof. Earling (Frederic Downs) and his assistant Victor (John Stratton) put an item in a large chamber with a glass window, fire up the electrical power—so much that they had to move to this island to avoid messing with the community's power grid—and when all the bells and whistles have stopped, they find a different object in the chamber. They believe they have just made an exchange with someone from the future—and Victor has even seen the hazy face of a woman appear briefly. Earling's daughter Claire (Joyce Holden), unknown to her father and Victor, sends one of these objects, a statuette, to Earling's former student Robert Hedges (Ward Costello) for carbon dating. Robert can scarcely believe the result: it's from the year 5200 A.D. It's also dangerously radioactive. Robert heads for Florida to consult with Earling and hits it off with Claire, which makes Victor jealous since he is supposedly her fiancé. The experiments continue for a time, and when Robert sends his Phi Beta Kappa key, the object returned is a bracelet with the phrase "Save us" etched on it in Greek, so Robert is convinced that Earling is on to something.

One night, Victor sneaks a couple of suitcases out of the house and throws them in a pond. Robert sees this, and the next day, he dives in and opens one of them to find a dead, mutant, three-eyed cat. It would appear that Victor has been running his own experiments without Earling's knowledge, and when radiation burns are found on Victor's skin, they take him to a mainland hospital for testing. But that night, Victor leaves the hospital, gets drunk, and heads back to the island where he pulls off one last experiment: bringing back the mysterious woman he saw earlier. It turns out that the people of the future have become mutated, radioactive freaks and she wants to mate with someone in order to save the human blood line. But who will want to mate with a scarred up woman dressed in dark leotards dotted with big sparkly doodads? Well, lucky for her, she can hypnotize folks with her sparkly fingernails. And Victor is her first victim.

This low-budget sci-fi film was mocked on Mystery Science Theatre 3000, but it's actually a little better than that accomplishment would indicate. If nothing else, the plot points were original in its day. Certainly the idea of exchanging items through time was new, and some critics say that this was the first American movie to show an operating time machine—MGM's adaptation of THE TIME MACHINE was made two years later. In most ways, it looks and feels like your average late 50s B-film, and one might wish that the effect of the woman from the future (Salome Jens) was better—she truly does look laughable in her sequined tights, though the scene in which she takes the face off of a visiting nurse to disguise herself is effective. The acting is passable, with John Stratton (pictured as the Terror's sparkly fingers cast reflections behind him) the standout as the mentally disintegrating Victor (though IMDb says that Stratton never made another movie). Of course, there are some bad movie moments just made for MST3K: the actress in the small role of Miss Blake, Robert's assistant, is awful—or maybe the person dubbing her is awful, or maybe both; there's a silly looking slapdown battle in the water between Robert and Victor; icky comic relief and creepiness are combined in the completely disposable character of Angelo. Interesting and watchable, though perhaps only for sci-fi fans. [YouTube]

SO DARK THE NIGHT (1946)

Famed French police detective Henri (Steven Geray), known for his relentless work in solving crimes, is a little burned out, not having had a vacation in years (and seemingly having no personal or social life), so his boss forces him to take some time out and visit the charming village of St. Margo. He stays at an inn occupied by the Michauds (the owners), their lovely young daughter Nanette, and a widow taken in as a housekeeper by the Michauds. Nanette has a touch of hero worship for Henri, and she's also a bit dazzled by his big city aura, so she spends a lot of time with him, much to the consternation of her longtime hotheaded boyfriend Leon. Seeing that Henri is enjoying her company, Mme. Michaud encourages a romance even though Leon says that he'd kill her if he lost her. But Henri and Nanette do grow close, and one night at a party held to celebrate their engagement, Leon makes a scene and storms out, and Nanette follows him. She doesn’t return and Henri falls into a depression thinking that she has eloped—until she is found dead by the river. It's assumed at first to be an accidental drowning until Henri discovers that she was strangled elsewhere and left at the river. Leon is the natural suspect and in fact, he is found dead at his farm, an apparent suicide, but Henri discovers footprints in the mud near the body and suddenly he's on the hunt for a murderer. The widow finds a note threatening more deaths, and soon Henri is tracking down a serial killer.

This is a great little film noir (a rural noir rather than urban) not nearly as well known as it should be. The director, Joseph H. Lewis, has a reputation for turning out some stylish looking B-films and this is one—evocative shots, nice use of shadows and darkness, offbeat camera angles, shots that frame people as trapped, either physically or psychologically. Best of all is a creepy lighting shift at the climax as the killer is revealed. Some critics disparage the acting of Steven Geary (pictured), a supporting stalwart who gets a rare lead role here, but I think his low-key performance is a plus for the film. The rest of the cast was mostly unknown to me but all are fine. The chemistry between Geray and Micheline Cheirel (as Nanette) is non-existent, but that actually helps to reinforce the discomfort some of the townsfolk (and the viewers) feel about the age and status difference between the two. Definitely one to seek out, available on DVD as part of the Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Set IV. [DVD]

THE DEVIL PLAYS (1931)

The first five minutes of this film is fun: a man walks into a room where a cluster of people are examining the body of someone who has been stabbed to death. When the visitor, Jerry, wonders out loud why no one has called the police, they begin chuckling as the dead man gets up off the floor—it's all been a harmless parlor game. Sadly, the movie goes downhill quickly from here. This early sound film from Poverty Row studio Chesterfield is deadly dull. It's only an hour but it took all the patience I could dredge up to stick with it to the end. As you might predict, these folks who are apparently spending a weekend together at a mansion in the country eventually do have to deal with a real murder. Involved, along with Jerry Murdock, are two married couples, the Stileses and the Quincys; Harry Forrest, a mystery author; and Diana, Mrs. Stiles' sister. Some intrigue is revealed: Harry has a rendezvous on a balcony with Diana; Jerry has loaned Mrs. Stiles money to open a tea shop; someone has doped up the Quincys so they'll sleep soundly. A chauffeur sees someone sneaking around after midnight, and the next morning, Jerry is discovered dead (for real). Inspector Brown and his comic relief sergeant arrive to interrogate everyone, including Rita, a possible golddigger, who shows up claiming to be Jerry's widow. Soon, Mrs. Quincy is stabbed to death behind the counter at her tea shop. The cops ask the novelist for help in sorting things out.

There’s nothing really wrong with the plot or even the writing—it plays out like an average B-mystery, slightly less convoluted than most. But in every other aspect, this is a tedious affair. The director, Richard Thorpe, went on to a long if undistinguished career, but shows very little flair here, though in addition to the atmospheric opening, there's a nicely shot overhead scene of pandemonium breaking out in the tea shop when Mrs. Quincy is found dead. The actors are a rather sorry lot. I’d never heard of any of them, though most had decent careers in supporting roles or B-movies. They are generally competent, though no one stands out as interesting. Jameson Thomas, who plays the novelist, is one of the most colorless B-leads I've ever seen.  The movie isn’t exactly actively bad, but it’s just so damned boring. Pictured is Edmund Burns who plays Quincy. [Amazon Prime]

CHILDREN OF PLEASURE (1930)

Danny is a popular songwriter whose publisher Bernie is pushing his latest hoped-for hit "A Couple of Birds"; Emma, Bernie's secretary, harbors a secret crush on Danny; Fanny is the vaudeville vocalist who sings Danny's songs and who flirts comically with Andy, her piano player. Into this cozy little group comes Pat, a blonde socialite who flirts heavily with Danny on a dance floor, even though she is escorted by Rod, an older man with whom she seems to have an intimate relationship. Danny falls for her and soon they get engaged, but before the wedding, Danny overhears her tell Rod that she's just "experimenting" with Danny, and she refers to Rod as "Danny's understudy." At the wedding rehearsal, Danny makes a scene and leaves on a drinking binge. The next morning, Emma explains to Danny that the two of them got married while he was drunk; his reaction is ambiguous. Did they really, or is Emma just trying to save Danny from the clutches of Pat? Does he really want to be saved?

The title of this pre-Code film is misleading: I assumed it would be a melodrama about illegitimate children, or perhaps about hedonistic flappers and the men who ruin them. But, no, it's a show-biz musical comedy centering on a traditional love triangle. The pre-Code aspects are thin, mostly present in the casually promiscuous behavior of Pat. At 70 minutes, it would seem like it might be a briskly-paced affair, but almost half the running time is taken up with musical numbers performed in a theater or club (no Astaire and Rogers bursting out in song here). Because the songs are not memorable, the movie feels longer than it should. A couple of the production numbers are interesting: one song called "Dust" features a large bunch of dancing girls decked out in devil outfits (pictured above left), and "A Couple of Birds" has dancing boys in tuxes and blackface. The acting rarely rises above serviceable: Lawrence Gray (bland) is Danny, Wynne Gibson (sweet) is Emma, Helen Johnson (cool) is Pat. May Boley takes a stab at a bigger-than-life turn, playing Fanny like Fanny Brice—she doesn't quite succeed, coming off more like a second-string performer than the big star she's supposed to be, but she's OK. Two actors are saddled with Jewish stereotypes: Lee Kohlmer as Bernie is a bit more subtle than comic actor Benny Rubin as Andy. Jack Benny and Cliff Edwards have cameos as themselves. Amusing line, delivered by Fanny as someone who has had four husbands and is working on a fifth: "A woman is like a car—she never gets to be good until after the first 5000 miles." For fans of early musicals. Pictured above from left are Kohlmer, Gray and Gibson. [TCM]

FEAR IN THE NIGHT (1947)

Vince Grayson tells his brother-in-law, police detective Cliff Herlihy, about a nightmare he had that seemed very real: he was in an octagonal mirrored room with a man and a woman who were breaking into a safe. He and the man got into a fistfight and he stabbed the man to death. The woman ran off and Vince placed the man's body behind a mirrored door, locked it with a key, and left. What makes the dream particularly disturbing is when Vince wakes up, he has choke marks on his neck and he finds a key in his jacket. Cliff thinks he's just had a very bad dream and, to get his mind off of it, Cliff and his wife take Vince and his girlfriend out for a picnic. When a thunderstorm hits, they take refuge in an abandoned house and Cliff is horrified when he finds a room in the house that looks just like the room in his dream. A local policeman tells them the story of a murder in the house and Vince, certain that he's a killer, attempts suicide. Cliff saves him and slowly spins out a theory of his own involving hypnosis. Can Cliff lay a trap for the real killer before Vince goes off the deep end?

This is a solid film noir based on a story by Cornell Woolrich (best-known for writing the story on which REAR WINDOW was based, though most of his works are worth reading). The noir device of the average guy suddenly thrown into a maelstrom of darkness and guilt is the foundation for the whole plot, and DeForest Kelley (pictured), whom you undoubtedly know as Bones on Star Trek, does a nice job as the nervous young man. Paul Kelly is equally good as the cop, and in a bit of a departure for noir, there really is no femme fatale or even a romantic relationship—the ladies stay in the background except for a strange scene which establishes that Cliff's wife has an over-the-top neurotic reaction to thunderstorms, giving them a reason to look for refuge and to find the murder house. Robert Emmett Keane, a familiar face from nearly 200 character roles, many uncredited, is the villain. The dark visual style is typical noir. If you can get past a few far-fetched plot points, you’ll enjoy this one. [Streaming]

WILSON (1944)

This biopic of 28th president Woodrow Wilson begins in 1909 when we see Wilson (Alexander Knox), president of Princeton, at a football game which his team loses to Yale. That night, he is visited by Senator Jones who asks him to run for governor of New Jersey, as a progressive against "special interests." He is unsure, but his wife Ellen encourages him, so he runs. At the state convention, he is asked about the corrupt political machine that put him up to the run (notably, Senator Jones) and Wilson replies by insisting he will break up the old boys' network. Jones says publically he will not run for office again, and Wilson wins the election, but a year later, when Jones negates himself and says he'll run, Wilson threatens to make trouble so he winds up getting kicked upstairs, in a fashion, and is encouraged to run for President. A lengthy sequence covers the tumultuous 1912 Democratic convention at which Wilson finally wins the nomination on the 46th ballot, and later wins the national election. Not long after moving into the White House, his wife takes ill and dies. As WWI begins, Wilson is still in mourning but the sinking of Lusitania forces him back to reality; Republican congressman Henry Cabot Lodge (Cedric Hardwickwe), who wants to push the U.S. into the war, becomes Wilson's nemesis when Wilson announces he will not retaliate militarily. Wilson begins dating Edith Galt (Geraldine Fitzgerald) which causes much gossip until he marries her. He goes on to win a second term with anti-war promises, but eventually he is forced by events to declare war against Germany. The eventual armistice leads to Wilson's attempt to establish a peacekeeping League of Nations, and he undertakes an arduous train tour across the country to whip up support, but along the way, he suffers a stroke and Edith secretly takes over whatever duties she can. Lodge leads a number of congressmen to fight against the League, and the next president, Republican Warren Harding, kills any chance of America's participation. But Wilson recovers enough to leave office proudly and on his own steam.

As with many Hollywood biographical films, this is episodic, the only way really to cover twelve years in anyone's life. And, as in many biopics, he is made out to be the next thing to a saint, with no mention made of his racist and segregationist beliefs. At 2 ½ hours, this has often been derided as slow and boring, and the film lost a fair amount of money on its initial release. But viewed now, it comes off pretty well: the pace is fine and Knox's performance, given Wilson’s generally mild persona, is impressive—though things never get exciting, I never lost interest throughout the running time. It's also great fun to see so many familiar supporting players, including Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price (practically unrecognizable as fellow New Jersey politician William McAdoo), Sidney Blackmer, Charles Coburn, and Marcel Dalio. It's in color which also helps it play well today. This may not make classic movie fans out of young people today, but if you're already a biopic buff, this is a must-see. Pictured are Knox and Ruth Nelson as Wilson's first wife. [TCM]

FAST AND FURIOUS (1939)

On a hot summer day, Garda Sloane (Ann Sothren) turns up the heat in the office of her husband Joel (Franchot Tone), hoping he'll take the hint and split the city for a resort vacation. As it happens, his old college friend Mike (Lee Bowman) is running a beauty pageant at Seaside City; Joel loans Mike a few thousand dollars to invest in it and is promised a judging slot, so Garda gets her wish and the two take off for the shore. But there's trouble in store. First, Garda gets jealous when Joel takes his judging duties too seriously. Then Joel finds out that Bartell, the promoter, may be a swindler who is collecting money to pay off a gangster named Connors. Bartell winds up dead and the cops think Mike did it, so Joel and Garda, with some help from a flirtatious reporter named Bentley (Allyn Joslyn), try to clear his name. Suspects include Connors; Lily (Ruth Hussey), Bartell’s associate; and a pageant contestant named Jerry.

This is the third entry in a B-mystery series (seemingly modeled on the Thin Man movies) which featured the Sloanes, rare book dealers, though you'd be hard pressed to know that from this movie as the book element is pretty much absent here. In each film, a different pair of actors played the leads; Tone and Sothern (pictured) are no better or worse than Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell in the previous entry, FAST AND LOOSE (I have not yet seen the first one, FAST COMPANY with Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice). The mystery elements are weaker than the comic elements, and that's OK as the cast handles the humor well. There is a running gag involving lions that has a nice payoff at the end. The functional direction is by Busby Berkeley, a long way from his classic 1930s musicals. The 70 minutes go by quickly; generally, it's not terribly memorable but not hard to watch. [TCM]

ELOPEMENT (1951)

In this bland and predictable comedy, Clifton Webb plays a prominent industrial designer whose genius daughter (Anne Francis) has graduated from college. He hopes she will go to Sweden to work with his mentor, but that night at a party, Francis' psychology professor (William Lundigan) confesses his love for her and the two impulsively decide to elope. When Webb discovers Francis' bed empty in the morning, he is furious and he and his wife head to over to Lundigan's parents' house to find that Lundigan's father (Charles Bickford) is almost as mad as Webb. Both sets of parents wind up in one car chasing after the couple, but they end up liking each other and decide they approve of the marriage. However, at the same time, Francis and Lundigan begin questioning their relationship, and Webb and Bickford find themselves trying to get the two back together. Much as I love Webb in LAURA and THE RAZOR'S EDGE, I'm not a fan of his 20th Century Fox comedies of the 50s. His brittle, distant, ironic persona in his more serious movies does not travel well into the sit-com father role he took in his later films. Obviously he must have been popular as a beleaguered dad, but his performances haven't aged well. Add to that ill-suited fit a screenplay with virtually no surprises and you have a rather colorless film. Still, this is not unwatchable—Webb has his moments, and Francis and Lundigan have some chemistry. Bickford is unmemorable, as are the actresses playing the wives. Reginald Gardiner is welcome in his small role as an old friend of Webb's. Difficult to recommend wholeheartedly, but also easy to watch if you want a TV sit-com stretched out to almost 90 minutes. Pictured are Francis and Lundigan. [FMC]

RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK (1965)

In a village tavern during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, the innkeeper's wife has taken ill and the doctor has left saying he can do nothing more for her, but the drunken monk Rasputin (Christopher Lee) goes to her bed and makes a show of curing her with his mystical healing powers. During a celebratory party he downs three bottles of wine and makes out with the innkeeper's daughter in the barn, and when her jealous boyfriend attacks, Rasputin chops the boy's hand off. When the bishop hears of this behavior, the monk is called upon to defend himself; he says he sins big in order to have a lot to offer up to God. He is excommunicated and leaves town for St. Petersburg and while at a tavern meets Sonia (Barbara Shelley), a handmaid at the royal court. He degrades her, sleeps with her, and hypnotizes her into causing the young prince to have an accident so he can swoop in and heal him, thereby insinuating himself into the royal family. Rasputin's influence grows, but after Rasputin drives the Tsarina to kill herself, a group of men in the palace, including Sonia's brother Peter, plot to get rid of him. If you know nothing else about Rasputin, you know he was a hard man to kill, despite having consumed poisoned chocolates and wine, so the death scene climax goes on for a while.

It's a given that this Hammer movie will not be historically accurate, so there should be no griping about that. This is a case of historical context used for a horror film. The problem is this is not a successful genre mash-up. Christopher Lee tries hard, but he seems stymied in his attempt to give a full-blooded performance—he emphasizes the grungy, decadent side of Rasputin, but not his hypnotically charismatic side, so his rise among the royals seem artificial. The sets, costumes, and color schemes are right out of the traditional Hammer horror films, especially the Dracula series, so for me, this built up expectations of pulpy enjoyment that don't come to fruition—the mayhem near the end is nicely done, but getting there is a bit of a chore. I'd recommend this mostly to Hammer and/or Lee compleists. [TCM]

FOUR JACKS AND A JILL (1942)

Nifty Sullivan (Ray Bolger) is a songwriter and leader of the swing band Four Jacks and a Queen, the latter being lead singer Opal (June Havoc). Nifty steals some of his tunes from the classical world; as one of the band members says, "You gotta hand it to a guy who can whip the Barber of Seville into 'Once Over Lightly with You, Baby!'" At a symphony concert, he winds up sitting with Nina (Anne Shirley), a poor homeless girl singer from the Balkan country Aregal, and when she gets him out of trouble with Noodle, a gangster who is dating Opal, he invites her to stay in the apartment he shares with the band. Noodle makes Opal quit singing to be his full-time moll, and Nina moves into high gear, getting the boys a gig at the Little Aregal Café and joining the group, claiming to be a personal favorite singer of King Stephan of Aregal. The king is rumored to be visiting New York City in secret, and taxi driver Steve Sarno (Desi Arnaz), who bears a resemblance to him, poses as the king. So, what develops is: Steve begins an affair with Opal even as Nifty gets jealous of Nina's attentions to Steve (as the king) and Noodle decides he wants to use the royal fuss to break Opal into high society—he calls her a "vulture for culture." With all these shenanigans in motion, who should show up but the real King Stephan.

As I watched this B-musical unfold, I had this nagging thought that I’d seen it before. It turns out it's an uncredited remake of the early sound musical STREET GIRL. The story is packed with incident but it's easy to follow. Though the 1929 film is primitive in style, I think that version has the edge; this one, though decently acted, is sloppily directed. I like Bolger but he's not the most charismatic lead man around; Shirley and Havoc are fine; the young Arnaz actually steals the show with his slightly shady character. One of Bolger's show-off, long-take dance numbers to a song called "I'm in Good Shape for the Shape I'm In" is hurt by some shaky camerawork. "Boogie Woogie Conga" is the only memorable tune. There is fine support from Eddie Foy Jr., Jack Briggs and William Blees as the other three Jacks. Pictured are Shirley, Arnaz and Bolger. [TCM]