THE ASTONISHED HEART (1950)

Psychiatrist Chris Faber (Noel Coward) and his wife Barbara (Celia Johnson) seem to have a comfortable marriage, though it is hinted that the physical aspect of their relationship flickered out some time ago. While shopping one rainy afternoon, Barbara runs into her school friend Leonora (Margaret Leighton) and the two spend some time catching up. Barbara invites Leonora to visit and to meet her husband, and on the surface, they don't seem to hit it off, with Chris basically ignoring her. But some time later when Barbara is out of town visiting a sick relative and can't accompany Leonora to a play they had tickets for, Chris takes her instead, and a full-blown passion is sparked. When Chris invokes a Bible quote for a lecture he is giving ("The Lord shall smite thee with madness, blindness and astonishment of heart"), he doesn't seem to realize that it could apply to him. Soon Barbara figures out what's going on and actually encourages the two of them to go on a trip together, perhaps hoping that this fling will burn itself out, but it doesn't. Or, more to the point, Leonora seems to tire of Chris, flirting with other men, and Chris unravels to the point where he turns a therapy session with a patient into a way to vent about Leonora. When, during an argument, Leonora calls Chris "one of the dead," he knows things are over, and is driven to a desperate and tragic act.

This is inevitably compared to the classic British tearjerker BRIEF ENCOUNTER: both are about average citizens tempted by an extramarital affair, both are based on plays by Noel Coward, and both feature Celia Johnson as the lead character. The differences, of course, are that in ENCOUNTER, Johnson is the tempted wife and she never actually consummates the affair; here, Johnson is the wronged wife whose husband not only has the affair but carries on with it with his wife's permission. There is no question that ENCOUNTER is the stronger film, but this one is not as weak as its reputation would have it. The role of the adulterous husband was originally assigned to Michael Redgrave, who would seem to have been perfect for it, but Coward didn't like his portrayal and so replaced him. Coward is a bit too old for the part; some viewers find his (mostly) passionless and aloof performance a weakness, but I think it fits the character. Redgrave would have done a better job being swept up into the affair, but Coward is excellent in the latter half of the film as a man who comes unraveled by his romantic obsession. Johnson (pictured with Coward) is fine, though her character loses some focus near the end, as does Leighton. The supporting actors who play the doctor's assistants deserve mention: Graham Payn—Coward's real-life partner—is Tim and Joyce Carey is Susan; both are likable, both have great sympathy for the doctor and his wife, and both have nicely nuanced character touches. At one point, when Susan notices Leonora eyeing Tim up and down, she says to Tim, "Don’t worry, I'm here to protect you," to which Tim replies, "Thanks" in a shaky voice. Is Tim shy, or gay, or both? Is Susan being sincere or snarky, or some combination of the two? Though Tim and Susan do pop up again, I wish they had more to do. Perhaps not a must-see, but worth catching if it crops up, which is doesn't do too often. [TCM]

THE WIZARD OF MARS (1965)

Four astronauts are in a space probe, heading for a flyby mission around Mars. There’s Steve, the leader; the chipper co-pilot Charlie; the slightly older Doc; and Dorothy, the surprisingly non-buxom, non-glamorous token female. They're exchanging light banter and nonsense technical jargon when they wind up in the middle of a space storm, complete with (badly animated) lightning; they lose all communications with Earth and are pulled down to the surface of Mars, jettisoning their main stage and landing their capsule near a polar cap. Once on Mars, their watches all freeze, "as if time were forbidden on this world" (says one character in a bit of heavy foreshadowing). Receiving a signal from the main stage where there are supplies needed to survive, they set off across the planet to find it. Rafting along a canal, they fend off attacking water creatures; in an underground cavern, they avoid lava flows from a volcano. But the signal turns out to be coming from a small unmanned explorer probe sent to Mars years ago. However, it does contain liquid oxygen they can use to replace their dwindling supply. Next they find a gold-tiled road which leads them toward a gleaming red dome on the horizon, a deserted Martian city of antiquity. Inside, they communicate with a large, disembodied, translucent head, a composite being who is a kind of avatar of the remaining Martians. It seems that the Martians were somehow able to "impale" time and stay alive indefinitely, but now they've realized that it's death that gives meaning to life, and they need the astronauts to help them set time back in motion. Even assuming the astronauts can help, how will they get back to Earth?

The title, the central group of four characters (one named Dorothy) in search of something, the golden (yellow brick) road, and the floating see-through head all might suggest that this is an adaptation of THE WIZARD OF OZ. It is, but the similarities are all on the surface; I could find little in the plotpoints or the thematic concerns, except perhaps for the desire to return home, that match the 1939 movie. It was filmed on a low budget, but the special effects are actually rather good, or at least charming (except for those canal creatures which look like jagged chunks of plastic floating in water). There's been some interesting tinkering with color filters that makes the otherwise artificial sets look otherworldly. The lack of a real villain and the philosophizing that the Wizard (John Carradine in a role he probably filmed in an hour or so) indulges in make this stand out a bit from the average B-sci-fi movie of the era, and its electronic-ish soundtrack reminded me at times of the avant-garde music used in the later scenes of 2001. The writing is pretty bad with dialogue that sounds like it came from a beginning chapter book for kids, as when they see the golden road: "That looks like a long hike!"; "Well, I hope the hike leads us to something!" But the acting is mostly just adequate, with the best coming from Jerry Rannow (pictured, who went on to become a sit-com writer) as cute little Charlie, the only character who makes much of an impression. (The odd overdubbing of Dorothy's lines makes hash of the performance of Eve Bernhardt as Dorothy.) Not a great film, but a pleasant surprise. Also released on video as ALIEN MASSACRE (a very misleading title) and on YouTube as HORRORS OF THE RED PLANET. [YouTube]

THE FLOATING DUTCHMAN (1952)

A body is found floating in the water off the docks; he has no ID on him, but the police figure out it is probably a Dutch jeweler named Vandermeer who was known to deal in stolen property. A card from Victor Skinner's nightclub is found on the body with the name of a fence named Otto written on the back. Inspector Cathie sees a chance to pin something on Skinner, a notorious underworld figure, so he sends his agent Alex James to the nightclub with a made-up criminal background to infiltrate Skinner's circle. As Alex slowly wins Skinner's trust, he gets to know Rose, an employee, and her brother Philip, a musician in the club band who drinks too much (and therefore lets some things slip that he shouldn't). It turns that Skinner and his henchman, a nasty piece of work called Snowy (for Snow White, as he's a bit on the albino side), run a burglary ring; waiters overhear when their high-toned patrons will be out of their homes and tell members of Skinner's gang  who break in and steal jewels which they sell to Otto the fence. A triangle develops between Alex and Rose and Snowy, which complicates things as the cops come closing in. The critical take on this crime thriller is that it's rather drab and slow, but I found it about par for the course for a British B-film of the era, and I give it extra points for good performances by Dermot Walsh as Alex, Guy Verney as the twitchy Snow White, and especially Sydney Tafler as Skinner. Based on a novel by Nicolas Bentley who was apparently better known as a cartoonist and illustrator. At one point, Skinner calls Alex a “narc,” which is one of the earliest uses of that phrase that I know of. Pictured are Derek Blomfield (as Philip) and Tafler. [You Tube]

RED LIGHT (1949)

In San Francisco, John Torno (George Raft), prosperous owner of a freight line, is happy to welcome his younger brother Jess, a military chaplain, back from overseas; he's staying in a hotel until he leaves for his next assignment. But in San Quentin, Nick Cherney (Raymond Burr) an accountant for Torno's company who was caught embezzling, makes a deal with fellow inmate Rocky (Harry Morgan), about to be released, to kill Jess for revenge. When Rocky confronts Jess in his hotel room, he says, "I got a present from Nick," and shoots him. John arrives in time to hear Jess' last words: "…written in Bible…" Later, John realizes that the message must be in the Gideon's Bible left in the hotel room, but when he goes back to the room, it's missing. John decides to track down the five people to have had that room since Jess' death and get the Bible. The first person is Carla North (Virginia Mayo); in a bizarre coincidence, they discover that her late brother was in Jess' platoon, so she offers to help John track down the rest. Meanwhile, Nick is now out of prison and goes to John's assistant Warni (Gene Lockhart) to ask for a second chance. He doesn't get it, but he does manage to make contact with John again. Warni assumes he's in the clear until Rocky lets it slip that he mentioned Nick's name as he shot Jess. Nick now realizes that his name might be written in that Bible, and after disposing of Rocky, he goes after the Bible himself.

Despite the occasional plot hole problem, this is a terrific little film noir. I'm not really a fan of George Raft, but here his woodenness passes for a stoicism barely masking his grief; this may be his best 40s role. Critics praise Burr, rightfully, for his brutally nasty performance but Morgan is no slouch as a slimy thug. Virginia Mayo has been growing on me lately and she's good here. A young Arthur Franz is fine in the small role of the brother and the always welcome familiar faces of Arthur Shields, Stanley Clements (the street kid who's always busting Bing Crosby's chops in GOING MY WAY), Barton MacLane and William Frawley show up. Victor Sen Yung, who played Charlie Chan's son Jimmy in many Chan films, shows up as Raft's valet. But perhaps the best moment in the movie belongs to Gene Lockhart. Known mostly for comic or light parts, here he goes more serious as Raft's assistant, and he gives it all he's got in a dramatic night scene in which he's chased down in a freight truck yard by Burr. Interestingly, the movie has a religious theme, which is embodied in the film's epigraph, "Man proposes, God disposes," and in a Biblical quote used later, "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." The slightly nutty finale, which is good enough not to spoil here, cements that theme. Religious noir may be a one-movie genre, and for that reason alone, this is worth watching. But that title? No idea what it means. Pictured are Burr and Morgan. [TCM]

SWEET KITTY BELLAIRS (1930)

At the opening of this early sound musical, set in England in 1793, Kitty Bellairs is riding in a coach from London to Bath. She and her fellow passengers (including the young and handsome but shy Lord Varney) introduce themselves to each other in song, but a masked highwayman stops the coach, declaring, "Your bank notes interest me more than the notes of your song." He makes them get out of the coach and takes their money, but after he flirts with Kitty, he gives back their loot in exchange for one kiss from her. In Bath, where the townspeople and shopkeepers begin their day in song (like the villagers in Disney's Beauty and the Beast), Kitty stays with her sister Julia and her older husband Sir Jasper. The two are in the middle of a bad patch, as he has become inattentive and in response, she has become distant, and Kitty suggests that she try to make him jealous. Meanwhile, the highwayman sends Kitty a love letter and a lock of his hair, but Sir Jasper finds it and assumes it was sent to Julia, which does in fact rouse his jealousy. Kitty winds up balancing the attentions of not only the highwayman and Lord Vareny but also a Captain O'Hara whom she meets at a ball. After a duel (fought between two older men in sedan chairs), the threat of a second one, and bedroom trickery, all shakes out for the best.

This is an interesting oddity. Made as the early musicals were falling out of fashion, this was not a success and is rarely screened today, but at just over an hour, it’s actually a nice pre-Code treat. It feels like the Paramount musicals of the early 30s such as LOVE ME TONIGHT or ONE HOUR WITH YOU (and at times, the group songs are reminiscent of the numbers in the early Marx Brothers films), and occasionally, it threatens to turn into an operetta. The songs are OK if not especially memorable, except for the lovely "I’ve Been Waiting for You" duet with Kitty and Lord Varney. Due to the technical limitations of the original soundtrack, the lyrics can be hard to decipher, but the narrative is easy to follow. Claudia Dell (Kitty) made a lot of movies in the early 30s but never really hit stardom, though she’s quite charming here. A young Walter Pidgeon (Varney, picured with Dell) is handsome and has a pleasant singing voice. The blustery Ernest Torrence (Jasper) acquits himself well both comically and musically. Perry Askham, whose career did not last, is O'Hara and an actor with the unusual name of Rolfe Sedan has a nice moment as an effeminate confidante of Kitty's who, with a glint in his eye, urges her to go for "the manly man." Pleasant fun, of interest mostly to film buffs. [TCM]

THE TELL-TALE HEART (1960)

An offsceen voice introduces an odd semi-musical tone accompanied by the thumping of a heartbeat and warns us that, if we're squeamish, we may want to close our eyes when we hear those sounds. Next, we see a man (Lawrence Payne) walking nervously through a house, hearing an amplified thumping—he smashes a metronome on a piano, then sees a square of rug on the floor throb up and down, which sets him to screaming. Cut to Edgar Allen Poe (also Payne) in his rooms on the Rue Morgue in Paris woken from this nightmare by his friend (Dermot Walsh); Poe takes a calming snort of cocaine and heads to his writing desk, apparently to write out this nightmare. The rest of the movie is the story of Edgar Marsh (yes, Lawrence Payne), a shy and lonely librarian with a limp whose drab life is shaken up when a lovely young woman named Betty (Adrienne Corri) moves in to an apartment across the street from him. He spies on her from his window and pays an awkward visit to her at the flower shop where she works. His only friend Carl (Dermot Walsh) encourages him to be more forthright with the young lady, and he takes that advice; soon, they are dating and Edgar actually seems to be happy, but he is oblivious to the fact that, when Betty and Carl meet, sparks fly. One night, while looking out his window, Edgar sees the two in a passionate embrace and something snaps. The next evening when Carl visits, Edgar goes crazy and beats the shit out of him with a poker, killing him and hiding the body under the floorboards beneath his piano. Ah, now those familiar with the title short story by Poe know where this is going: Edgar begins hearing the beating of Carl's dead heart—the movie's opening sequence is repeated here—and even opening up the floor, ripping out Carl's heart and burying it outside doesn't make the sound go away. Meanwhile, Betty gets suspicious and reports Carl as a missing person, though the police aren't inclined to worry as he is known to be a free soul who might leave town for days. But when the police inspector finds out that Carl was last seen in the company of Edgar, he gets suspicious.

This movie hadn't even been on my radar before I came across it during a random search for "classic horror" on Amazon Prime Video. Made in England in 1960 (but not released in the States until 1962), it seems to be striving for the feel of Roger Corman's Poe films but only one of those films (HOUSE OF USHER) had been released before this movie; it's much less glossy than the Corman movies, or even the British Hammer films of the era so the timing feels more like coincidence. The opening plays out strangely: the character played by Payne is clearly referred to as Poe, but in the story proper, he is called Edgar Marsh. By the end, we know that the central narrative is Poe's dream, though there is a clever little kicker at the end, but the opening clearly confused some critics who think referring to the story as a dream is a spoiler. If you're actually paying attention to the first five minutes, it's not a spoiler, though by the time you get to the end of this 80-minute movie, you may have forgotten the frame story and be surprised by the dream ending. The acting is solid all around. All three leads were somewhat familiar to me: Payne (pictured) from THE CRAWLING EYE, Corri as Patrick Magee's wife in CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and Walsh from "Matakitas Is Coming," a particularly creepy episode of the 60s British anthology show Journey to the Unknown. For a 1960 movie, it's got a couple of surprisingly graphic moments, one involving the title heart and another when one of the characters falls to his death from a staircase. For classic horror fans, this is a treat. [Amazon Video]

LETTRES D’AMOUR (1942)

The townspeople of the village of Argenson are excited about a visit from Emperor Napoleon III—they have erected a grand Triumphal Arch on the road into town, though when the mail coach goes under it, the arch comes tumbling down. The town officials are a bit put out by the Emperor's unexpected absences as he goes off flirting with Zelie, a businesswoman and widow of three years (she was only married three months) who is just now putting her mourning clothes away. The Emperor assumes her experience has been "three months of happiness, three years of regret," but she says it's more like "three months of regret, three years of happiness," and assures him she is "rich, free and happy." We soon discover that the town is split into two factions: the Shop (led by Zelie) and Society, exemplified by the prefect's wife Hortense. Despite this tension, Zelie and Hortense are friends, and tied together by the fact that Hortense is engaged in a long-distance affair with Parisian attorney Francois, and she has him send love letters to her but addressed to Zelie who passes them along. But things are about to get more complicated when Francois is appointed to the position of DA in Argenson, with an assignment to cuckold the prefect who himself cuckolded the previous DA. Not to mention that one of the love letters has gone astray. There are many merry mix-ups leading up to the climactic ball where Hortense plans on humiliating the Shop folks by having the Society folks learn to dance the quadrille, leaving Zelie and her friends on the sideline. However, Zelie gets wind of this and hires the same dance master to teach her and her Shop friends the same dance.

This French film is a delightful confection, not quite farcical but certainly comically complex, which manages to mock class, ambition and the sexes all at once. Despite its real-world concerns with gender and class, its tone is generally light as meringue; produced during the German occupation, anything stronger would surely have been censored. Speaking of censoring, this film, with its many adulterous flings, would never have passed Hollywood code muster, but that fluffy tone mixed with mildly naughty content is part of what makes this quite watchable today. I'd never heard of any of the actors, but there are at least two wonderful discoveries here: Odette Joueux as Zelie and Francois Perier as Francois, both of whom are talented and attractive, and both pictured above. The director, Claude Autant-Lara, is probably best known today for the original 1947 DEVIL IN THE FLESH. I saw this as part of a 4-DVD set of films that Autant-Lara directed during the occupation, and I hope to get around to the others soon. My favorite line, during the final ball: "We dance on a volcano of cordiality!" [DVD]

THE INNER CIRCLE (1946)

Johnny Strange runs the private eye agency Action Incorporated—and seems to be the only agent—and is on the phone placing an ad for a secretary, someone who is "blonde, beautiful, between 22 and 28, unmarried, with a skin you love to touch and a heart you can't," and in the middle of the phone call, in walks Gerry Smith, who wants the job and seems to fit the bill. After some snappy dialogue between the two, she's hired, and the first phone call she takes involves a woman with a foreign accent who wants Johnny to meet her at her house. When he arrives, he finds the woman, wearing a dark veil, with the dead body of her husband, a radio commentator named Fitch. She first offers him money to hide the corpse, then knocks him out and makes it look like Johnny killed Fitch. Lucky for Johnny, Gerry followed him to the house so when the police come, she tells them that she saw Johnny kill Fitch in self-defense. Johnny doesn't know why Gerry didn't tell what actually happened. As we know, what really happened is that Gerry was the mysterious woman, wearing a disguise. It turns out that Gerry's sister was being blackmailed by Fitch, and Gerry herself becomes the target of a blackmail attempt by Fitch's gardener who saw everything and found Gerry's discarded disguise.  Also involved are a chanteuse named Rhoda who collected gossip tips for Fitch, and her lover, club owner and gangster Duke York. Ultimately, Johnny gathers all the suspects and interested parties at Fitch's house for a reenactment of Fitch's final day, broadcast over the radio.

This B-mystery is ambitious but can't quite pull off the complicated story and would-be multilayer characters. For example, the ambiguities about what side Gerry is on are muddled. Still, at under an hour, it's mostly fun. B-player Warren Douglas gets a rare lead here and is fine, as is Adele Mara as Gerry (both pictured above). Ricardo Cortez, always a welcome presence, is Duke, William Frawley is the investigating cop, and Virginia Christie is Rhoda. The radio broadcast at the end, inspired equally by Agatha Christie and Charlie Chan, is pulled off a little awkwardly, but the whole thing has a breezy tone and goes by quickly. [Streaming]

THE PAGAN (1929)

This silent film (with some synchronized sound effects and a couple of songs) is set on an island "in the farthest reaches of the Pacific" where, as the title cards tell us, "a struggling half-breed city has risen to meet the ruthless march of commerce” and that “when East meets West, the result is six barrooms and one bank”—which pretty much tells you the attitude expressed here about the natives. Slater (Donald Crisp) arrives on the island looking for a source for coconuts. He goes to see young Henry Shoesmith Jr. (Ramon Novarro), a "half-breed" whose Anglo father was a friend of Slater's. Henry has a small store but there is very little on the shelves and the clerk spends his time napping. Slater sees Henry as a lazy pagan (we first see Henry lolling about bare-chested with Madge, the island's feisty prostitute), but Henry is also good-hearted and trusting, and he gives Slater access to his coconut trees for free. A spark develops between Henry and Slater's young and lovely ward Tito (Dorothy Janis), a half-breed orphan whom Slater calls his "Christian duty." But Slater, who is training Tito to be "all-white" in her behavior and appearance, calls Henry a "sun-baked pagan" and warns him to stay away from Tito unless he makes something of himself. After Slater and Tito leave the island, Henry takes Slater's remark to heart and borrows money from the bank to jumpstart his store. He's a success but he extends so much credit to the islanders that he can't pay back his loan, so when Slater and Tito return, Slater still won't let him see Tito. In fact, Slater is so paranoid that he arranges to marry Tito himself. With some help from the hooker with a heart of gold, Henry makes one last attempt at making Tito his sweetheart.

This is a fun and interesting movie for a number of reasons. The first 15 minutes are chock-full of casually racist stereotypes about non-whites. The islanders are depicted as lazy heathens, and Slater clearly believes that the "half-breeds" should be trying to better themselves by becoming more "white" in their outlook. Of course, by the middle of the movie, Slater is a full-out villain, reminiscent of the self-righteous preacher of Somerset Maugham's RAIN, and ultimately the message of the film seems to largely subvert the impressions of the opening, if only to say that West should co-exist with East without trying to change its culture. In this pre-Code film, the pagans wind up presented in a positive light and the Christian Western figure becomes a vicious bully with an incestuous twist—Tito is not literally his daughter, but he is her adoptive father, and the sight of the two of them standing at the wedding altar approaches the sight of John Huston and his granddaughter in the final moments of CHINATOWN. (BTW, Slater meets a delicious and deserved fate.)  Still, it's a little weird to hear Madge tell Henry, in trying to get him to rescue Tito, "White men fight for their women—natives *take* their women!" The movie was shot on location in Tahiti and looks fabulous, and director Woody Van Dyke brings a lot of energy to the exterior scenes.

The acting is of a high order all around. Novarro is at his matinee idol peak here; in fact, it's not the women who are objectified here but Novarro, especially in a "female gaze" shot in which the camera pans along his shirtless body as he lies in repose. He overdoes the snarky facial expression here and there but otherwise is fine, as is Dorothy Janis as Tito—she looks remarkably like a dark-haired Stevie Nicks (pictured with Novarro at left). Renee Adoree steals all her scenes as the friendly whore. Crisp is properly stiff and unlikeable as the white trader, and he does a good job early on in a couple of scenes in which you think he will soften his prejudiced views. Though silent, there are sound effects, and Novarro sings "Pagan Love Song" at least three times—it becomes a kind of code between him and Tito. The first time, the synchronization is off (at least in the print I saw) but the other two times, it's fine. A dated but enjoyable bit of pre-Code social criticism disguised as an exotic romance. [TCM]

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]