A comment on audio commentaries

As a movie buff and home video collector, I heartily welcomed the laserdisc format. It was a bit unwieldy (phonograph record-size discs that had to be flipped over manually every hour—or half-hour, depending on the format) and expensive (at a time when VHS tapes were in the 20-30 dollar range, laserdiscs were 40-100, depending on the number of discs). But practically every laserdisc release of a widescreen movie was presented in letterboxed widescreen format, whereas VHS versions were still often panned-and-scanned to fit into a square screen format—widescreen TVs were not the standard yet. And laserdiscs could fit extra audio tracks on them, which allowed for the inclusion of audio commentaries on the movies that could be accessed while you were watching the movie. DVDs and Blu-Rays, basically more consumer-friendly versions of laserdiscs, are the standard for home video now. Most releases contain some "bonus features," ranging from short making-of featurettes to full-length documentaries, and audio commentaries continue to be included on many discs.

In my eyes, however, we are long past the golden age, if you will, of commentaries. When newer movies are released, usually the commentary is by one or more of the filmmakers; those may still be relevant and interesting, but I rarely listen to those. My focus is on the classic movie commentaries for films made long enough ago that most of the people involved are no longer with us. I have been a fan of commentaries ever since I started buying DVDs. For me, a good commentary should have the following elements: 1) it should be given in tandem with the movie as it plays so the commentator can talk about specific scenes or actors as we watch them; 2) the commentator should have some knowledge or expertise that the average movie fan may not have; 3) some description of the plot as it unfolds may be necessary, but most of the commentary should fill us in on the background of the production, the career of the actors, and relevant notes about the movie’s reception and influence; 4) while occasionally some humor and criticism are welcome, generally a respectful tone should predominate—in other words, the commentator should actually like the movie we're watching; 5) the best commentaries are ones that have been well planned in advance, with the person reading from a script of sorts or at least an outline.

These days, with the shrinking of the home video market, more classic movie releases include commentaries to attract the fans who may already own the movie on an earlier, bare-bones release. But the commentators are too often amateurs, or self-styled experts with blogs and podcasts, or academics with a narrow field of interest. My gold standard for commentaries are the ones done for the classic Universal horror films of the 30s and 40s by people like David J. Skal, Rudy Behlmer, Steve Hoberman, Tom Weaver, Richard Harland Smith, and Paul Jensen, authors and historians who knew what they were talking about and were enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge. Many of them also did commentaries for non-horror films as well; the late Behlmer spoke on discs of Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Laura, and always held my attention. Famous critic Roger Ebert did a couple, and his track for Citizen Kane is considered by some to be the best one ever. Tim Lucas, of the late lamented magazine Video Watchdog, also gives excellent commentary.

Lately, however, classic movie commentaries have taken a big dive in quality, with Kino Lorber being the worst offender. God bless them for continuing to issue new releases of classic films, sometimes long ignored ones, in very good restored prints. But the accompanying commentaries are often quite bad, mostly given by people who are amateurs (at least compared to people like Ebert, Behlmer and Skal, who all were published authors). They usually have little to no background information about the movies they discuss except what's available online at the Internet Movie Database—sometimes you can actually sense them pause as they consult their computer. Often losing track of what they are commenting on, they wind up drifting off topic for long minutes at a time. The track on the recent Blu-Ray of the Peter Ustinov Death on the Nile, by three "historians," is perhaps the worst I’ve ever heard, as they wind up hijacking the commentary to talk at tedious length about the film’s director, John Guillermin and let long, long stretches pass during which they ignore the film completely. I’ve read some complaints about commentators being anti-intellectual (which is true), but even actual academics can give poor commentary. I'm a fan of Jeanine Basinger as a writer, but her commentary on The Philadelphia Story is dry and boring. Emily Carman, on the Back Page disc, spends way too much time on social context, repeating the same points, and keeps getting the name of one the main actors wrong (it’s Claude Gillingwater, not Claude Gillingworth). An occasional snarky comment is OK, bur too much makes me wonder why the person is even interested in talking about the movie (even a pro like Tom Weaver is guilty of this). In the past couple of years, the only commentary I remember fondly is Alan K. Rode's for the WWII movie A Walk in the Sun, which is not a Kino Lorber disc. Even Criterion, a brand which can boast of many good commentaries, has moved away from them in favor of interviews and short featurettes. Kino Lorber should definitely take a lesson from them. Or they should start commissioning commentaries from professionals.

THE NIGHT HOLDS TERROR (1955)

Driving through the desert one day, engineer Gene Courtier picks up a hitchhiker named Victor and soon regrets it when he is terrorized by Victor and two other thugs: the tough boss guy Robert and the passive, occasionally sympathetic Luther. When he doesn't have enough money on him to satisfy the trio, they work out a plan whereby Gene will sign over his car to them and they'll sell it for cash. But due to office procedures, they won't be able to sell the car until the next day, so they make Gene drive them to his suburban home where they plan to spend the night with Gene, his wife Doris, and their two kids. Tensions arise not only between the crooks and the family but between the crooks themselves. Victor has a hair-trigger temper that Robert has to keep on eye on, and Luther, who gets cheated out of some of the money owed him, winds up trying to help Gene escape. The next day, when the men leave the house with Gene, Doris manages to call the police; meanwhile, when the thugs discover that Gene's father has some money, they decide to hold him hostage to get a better pay-off. The cops pair up with the phone company to try and trace the ransom phone calls. Nerves continue to fray until the nighttime climax.

I'm not a fan of the home invasion genre of crime film, claustrophobic B-movies which usually wind up as psychological thrillers. This one, for the most part, ignores psychology, but it also forgets to ratchet up the tension very often. The opening sequence when the crooks grab Gene plays out well, but as soon as the somewhat baroque car-sale plan goes into effect, things start to fall apart, for the crooks and the audience. When the thugs have center stage, things are interesting. Threatening hunk Vince Edwards (Victor) and tightly wound John Cassavetes (Robert) play off each other well, while David Cross (Luther) is a bit of a wild card, with his personality being the hardest to read. Hildy Parks, as Doris, is fine even if she has little to do except alternate between being nervous and being brave. Jack Kelly, as Gene, is a bit of a weak link, partly due to how the character is written. He swings from nervous to bold to foolish and back again throughout. One reason why the tension dissipates is that halfway through, when the police get involved, the movie goes to Dragnet-style docudrama, resulting in long sequences showing a kidnapping report going through police channels, the tracing of phone numbers, and the handling of the press—a major plotpoint is that the bad guys have a police radio in their car, so in theory they'll know if Doris calls the cops, but Doris doesn't realize this. The movie is well photographed, all on location which adds to the realistic tone. As others have pointed out, the title is not quite accurate—most of the action of the movie is set in bright, broad daylight. Some call this a film noir, but it's really just a crime film, watchable if rarely compelling. Nice line: Cassavetes telling the couple, "You've both seen too many crime thrillers." Pictured are Cassavetes and Edwards. [TCM]

THE KNACK... AND HOW TO GET IT (1965)

It's London during the swinging Sixties and it seems to poor Colin (Michael Crawford), a teacher and owner of a boarding house, as if everyone is having sexy fun except for him. He's particularly jealous of his downstairs tenant Tolen (Ray Brooks, below left)—Colin frequently sees dozens of foxy young women, all dressed in white turtlenecks, waiting in line for their snogging sessions with Tolen (though it's not quite clear how much of what we see in this movie is real and how much is imaginative exaggeration, both a strength and weakness of the film). When Colin seeks advice, Tolen tells him protein and good food are essential, but that largely it's intuition, a "knack" that any man can develop. Tolen's friend Rory, also a womanizer (the two men are hosting a reunion of their ex-girl friends at the Royal Albert Hall) is supposed to move in with Tolen, but he never shows up, so an artist named Tom (Donal Donnelly), who paints over the color brown with white whenever he sees it, moves in instead, and the three form a somewhat unbalanced friendship. Tolen is the sex expert, Colin is the desperate student, and Tom, who seems not interested in sex at all, becomes largely an observer. Tossed into this tinderbox is Nancy (Rita Tushingham, pictured at right with Crawford), a young woman new in town, looking to stay at the YWCA and start a new life. The rest of the movie follows their zany misadventures together until we learn that having the knack doesn't guarantee happiness, and not having it isn't fatal to romance.

Directed by Richard Lester, this is a very strange bit of 60s filmmaking. Based on a stage play set completely in the boys' flat, this has been opened up like crazy so you can never accuse it of being stagy. For my money, it spends too much time amping up the visual style at the expense of narrative coherence and characterization. On the plus side, the movie never stagnates, filled as it is with jump cuts, jazzy camera moves, and Greek chorus comments from bystanders. Many reviewers comment on the fantasy elements, such as the opening gaggle of women, but it soon becomes very difficult to tell what’s what. Is the Royal Albert Hall girlfriend meeting real? There is visual evidence that it is, but it also seems like it should be fantasy. There are no cues, visual or otherwise, that separate fact from fantasy so every story element becomes fodder for wackiness. People's actions and motivations are unclear; dialogue is rattled off quickly, like the actor is reading the lines off a teleprompter that is running at high speed. There are scenes inspired by silent slapstick (a lamppost falls on the street and a huge bed frame is transported through the crowded streets of London), there is door-slamming farce, and there is an oddly jarring note injected near the end when Nancy faints while off-and-on flirting with Tolen, then accuses him of rape. Some chuckles may be had in an innuendo-filled scene in which Tolen is engaged in woodworking and tells Colin things like, "I like the twist of a good screw," and "I'm bound to ask for a good finish." There is fun to be had in odd offhand scenes, such as the one in which a clerk compliments Tushingham on her looks, then repeats the exact same words to the next customer. I also like the odd moment or two when Tom seems to accuse Tolen of wanting him. It's hard to judge the acting because none of the characters are allowed to come to rounded life, but all the actors are appealing enough, especially Tushingham and Donnelly (whose role is particularly thankless). I liked a "mods and rockers" reference that is a call back to Lester's previous film, A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. Despite the movie's shiny 60s atmosphere, in the end Colin and Nancy walk down the street together into couplehood, more because the story demands it, not necessarily because we have a sense that they really belong together. Interesting as a period piece mostly. [TCM]

GOLIATH AGAINST THE GIANTS (1961)

After five years of battle, the Greeks (or, whatever people live near the Acropolis which is specifically referenced here) have been conquered by Goliath (not the Biblical figure) and his army. But there is no rest for the battle-weary, as Goliath discovers that back in his hometown (Beyrath?), the evil Bokan has 1) wrested power from the rightful king; 2) started a campaign of terror in which groups of helpless people who can't pay their taxes are tossed over a cliff—and if the fall doesn’t kill them, the brutal giants who live in the valley will; 3) and has sent assassins to take out Goliath. He and his crew take a ship back to Beyrath, and stopping at a desert island to stock up on fresh water, they find lovely blond Elea, bound and suffering. Goliath rescues her, but back on the water, they run into a nasty squall and an even nastier sea monster, leading to a wreck and the death of all except Goliath, his buddy Namath (not a football player), and Elea who all eventually wash up on the shore of Beyrath. Now things get complicated. Suffice to say that Elea is actually an assassin working for Bokan, but when she gets the truth about Bokan from Goliath, she joins forces with him. Also, a tribe of Amazons attack and one of them, Daina, joins up with Goliath. Also, there's another buddy of Goliath, Breseus, who is threatened with a huge torture wheel until Goliath saves him. Goliath and his merry band manage to spark a revolt, and finally in the last 10 minutes, we enter the valley of the giants to find that these fearsome creatures are barely taller than Goliath and look like scruffy cavemen from a grade-B science fiction movie from the 1950s.

As peplum movies go, this has a solid reputation. It's crammed with plot, which occasionally works against it. I’m not 100% sure of all the details in my summary, and I left out a few points I was especially confused about. For example, the opening invasion sequence is narrated in such a fashion that it seems like the invaders are the bad guys, which is par for the course, but then we find out it's our hero Goliath doing the invading. Why? When the men set sail for Beyrath, they discover a young lad named Antheus as a stowaway. The character seems ready-made to be mentored by Goliath, but before we've had time to get to know him, it seems he drowns at sea with most of the rest of the crew. I was sure he'd crop up again somehow, but he never did. So narratively, it's a bit of a mess. But story details are often secondary in these torch-and-toga flicks, and where it really counts, in beefcake and adventure, I give this pretty good marks. Brad Harris is not as beefy as some peplum heroes; he looks OK in a toga but he's not terribly convincing when pulling off feats of brute strength. Fernando Rey is also OK as Bokan, the chief villain, not really showing signs of going on to work in art movies with director Luis Bunuel and co-starring with Gene Hackman in The French Connection. For the record, Gloria Milland (pictured with Brad Harris) is Elea and Pepe Rubio is Breseus. The final revolt scene goes on a bit too long but is effective. The widescreen print on the region 1 DVD looks good. [DVD]

LADY FROM CHUNGKING (1942)

Set during the Japanese occupation of China, this WWII melodrama begins in a Chinese rice field where a small boy is threatened by a Japanese guard for playing rather than working. The laborers are mostly silent, though the kindly Kwan Mei (Anna May Wong, pictured) comforts him. She is also a leader of a local resistance group and when the guards aren't watching, she passes out smuggled weapons to the workers. When an American Flying Tigers plane is shot down, one wounded pilot, Rodney Carr, is taken prisoner but the other one, Pat O'Rourke, is saved and hidden by Kwan Mei and the resistance fighters, though they have to kill and hide the body of one Japanese guard. When the body is discovered, General Kaimura (Harold Huber) orders the execution of all the coolies from the rice paddy, but Kwan Mei talks him out of it by stressing their economic importance in providing rice for the Japanese to sell. Kwan Mei, an educated aristocrat before the occupation, becomes Kaimura's mistress. This causes some of the rebels to accuse her of collaboration even as she negotiates with Hans Gruber, a German hotel owner who is selling arms to the resistance (while predicting Nazi victory in the war). A half-American, half-Russian singer named Lavara (Mae Clarke) is enlisted by Kwan Mei to help the pilot Carr escape, while Kwan Mei, the American pilots, and the Chinese rebels try to destroy an incoming supply of weapons meant for Kaimura and his troops.

Anna May Wong has been made to carry a lot of symbolic weight; as one of the few Asian-Americans to have had lead roles in Hollywood movies in the classic era, her life story is often presented both as something to celebrate (she sustained a career in the 20s and 30s) and as something tragic (she was denied the parts that might have made her an even bigger star). I agree that she is an important symbol in movie history, but I also have my doubts that she could have handled the bigger roles to which she aspired. This, her last leading role, doesn't change my mind; she is attractive but bland here as the self-sacrificing heroine. [Spoiler: she is executed at the end but her spirit continues to speak to us.] Of course, this is a B-movie from Poverty Row studio PRC and B-director William Nigh (who cranked out over 70 movies between 1930 and 1948), so maybe working with grade-A talent might have made a difference in Wong's performances. Still, this is an appealing little war film with some interesting twists and turns (keeping track of the loyalties of both Gruber and Lavara keeps us on our toes) and good performances. As was the Hollywood norm, non-Asian actors play leading Japanese roles—Harold Huber as Kaimura and Ted Hecht as Shimoto, the general’s assistant—but both are very good, as is Ludwig Donath as Gruber, Mae Clarke as Lavara, and Rick Vallin as Rodney. An entertaining 40s B-film. [YouTube]

MEET DANNY WILSON (1952)

Saloon singer Danny Wilson (Frank Sinatra) and his pianist and manager Mike Ryan (Alex Nicol) are a small-time duo looking for a break. Danny has a tendency to be brash and get into fights that Mike has to finish for him, but they are truly the best of friends. One night as they skedaddle out of a cheap, noisy dive where Danny's caused trouble, they run into Joy (Shelley Winters), a dolled-up woman out for a night of drinking, so she gets the two to join her at a fancy bar, hoping their presence will protect her from unwanted male attention. The evening ends in a scuffle with a cop and the three wind up in jail. Their bail is paid by Joy's employer Nick (Raymond Burr), a gangster who runs the club where Joy sings. Sobered up, the three realize they've hit it off and Joy gets Nick to give the fellas a job. The one sticking point: Nick wants 50 percent of all of their earnings, present and future. They agree and Nick says no written contract is necessary, implying he has other ways of ensuring that they'll stick to the agreement. From then, it's a rocket to the top for Danny, always accompanied by Mike. Danny falls in love with Joy, but he is unaware that Joy and Mike are in love, and neither can bring themselves to tell him. Eventually, Danny becomes a big star and chafes under Nick's drain on his income. When Nick has to go into hiding, Danny's tempted to stop making payments to him. At the same time, he impulsively announces that he's going to marry Joy. Melodrama ensues.

This movie has a bit of a tone problem. The first third, and the most enjoyable part of the film, is basically a musical comedy, with Sinatra singing a number of standards ("How Deep is the Ocean," "I've Got a Crush on You") in the context of public performances. The energy between the starring trio is fun, and I especially liked Alex Nicol, who comes off as sort of a cross between Dan Dailey and Sterling Hayden; he's the person we most identify with. Sinatra and Winters are fine, but honestly I was most impressed by Raymond Burr, playing his usual 1950s menacing thug in a very low-key manner that made him all the more threatening. The tone becomes darker in the last half, to the point where I was worried that one of our leads might wind up dead. The screenplay has some nice dialogue. In the jail scene, a guitar player is there because he "hit a be-bop guy right in the goatee," which gets an approving nod from Sinatra. When, early on, Sinatra and Burr are discussing musical tastes, Burr says he prefers Crosby, and Nicol, wanting to get down to business, says, "Now that the byplay is over…" Near the end, when Burr comes out of hiding to get the money Sinatra owes him, Sinatra smarts off by saying, "Sue me." Burr pulls out a gun and says, dead seriously, "Meet my lawyer." The character of Danny Wilson seems obviously based loosely on Sinatra—apparently he was at a career low point when this was made, though the next year, things would turn around with his Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity. I knew this movie mostly because it was the inspiration for the one-hit wonder 80s pop band Danny Wilson ("Mary’s Prayer") but it was a short essay online in the New Yorker that made me look this one up. Pictured are Sinatra, Nicol and Winters. [TCM]

THE RETURN OF DR. FU MANCHU (1930)

At the end of THE MYSTERIOUS DR. FU MANCHU Fu (Warner Oland) was apparently dead, Inspector Nayland Smith (O.P Heggie) was victorious, and Fu's adopted daughter Lia (Jean Arthur) was free to marry her sweetheart Jack (Neil Hamilton) who, as the son of Sir John Petrie, one of Fu's primary enemies, was on Fu's most wanted list. Out of respect for Fu's religion, Smith orders that an autopsy not be performed, which turns out to be a big mistake. Fu wasn't actually dead but merely in a state of deep suspended animation, and at his funeral, Fu's henchmen sneak him out of his coffin, and awaken him so he can prepare to do battle again in revenge for the death of his wife and son at the hands of the British. The first clue that all is not well comes when, on the day of Jack and Lia's wedding, Lia gets that strange trance feeling that Fu's presence always had on her. Before the wedding can proceed, the servant Fai Lu enters, says Fu is alive, and drops dead holding a piece of paper with a blood-stained dragon, Fu's infamous calling card. That night, despite the house being guarded, Lia is kidnapped (along with her Aunt Agatha) and used as bait to get at Jack. Both Nayland and Jack wind up in Fu's clutches. Fu plans to inject Nayland with a brain-scrambling drug, and later, a seriously wounded and partially paralyzed Fu forces Jack to operate on him. Will our heroes prevail or will Fu get the upper hand?

This sequel to the previous Fu Manchu film from a year earlier is better made and a bit more exciting, though Oland's Fu is a little less sinister-seeming than Boris Karloff's later iteration. One critic, Mark David Welsh, has written that Oland comes off like a "cuddly uncle" here, and while that's a bit of an exaggeration, Oland does sometimes feel more like a cranky Charlie Chan than an evil mastermind. But overall, this is passable early sound entertainment. The tone and pacing are out of a B-movie serial, with the set for the abandoned dye works that has become Fu's headquarters truly impressive. Jean Arthur and Neil Hamilton (pictured) don't have much chemistry but individually they're both fine—though Arthur has to suffer through one scene being carried out against her will as she yells, "You beast!"—as is Heggie as Nayland Smith. The return of William Austin as the shrieking nelly butler Sylvester is unwelcome. This film was billed in some of its original engagements as The New Adventures of Fu Manchu. The print, from a home video restoration presented by Kino Lorber, is in good shape. [Blu-ray]

JIGSAW (1962)

In the bedroom of a coastal short-term rental house, a woman is trying to get her lover Johnny (whose face we don't see) to loll about in bed with her a little longer, then she tells him that she's pregnant. His reaction, clearly not the one she was going for, is to strangle her. Cut to a few days later when a real estate agent reports a break-in. The agent's mild-mannered associate (compared to the gruff impatience of his boss) came to work to find the office broken into; the only things taken were some rental leases. Eventually, as the police detectives (Jack Warner and Ronald Lewis) follow leads in the robbery, they discover the beach house, leased by a John Campbell, and the dead body inside, which the killer had started to cut up and put in a trunk. They also find luggage with J.S. initials on the outside and assume those are the dead woman's initials. So the hunt is on for the identities of the both the victim and the murderer. Despite some witnesses who met John Campbell, they have a hard time pinning anyone down until circumstantial evidence puts a vacuum cleaner salesman (Michael Goodliffe) at the scene of the crime. But was he there at the time of the crime? Despite the description on the DVD box, this is most certainly not a film noir—it's a straightforward police procedural, mostly set in broad daylight, which is at pains to humanize its characters, including the cops and the suspects. As such cop movies go, this is a bit above average, though it moves slowly and at almost 110 minutes feels too long. But the structure is interesting—as Warner spins possible scenarios, we see them presented as they might have happened. The older Warner and the younger Lewis make an amiable pair, Yolande Donlan is fine as one of the J.S. women, and Michael Goodliffe is especially good as the chief suspect. The location shooting adds to the realistic feel of the film, which is based on a novel which was itself based on the true story of the Brighton Trunk Murders of the 1930s. Pictured is Ronald Lewis. [DVD]

THE LAST HURRAH (1958)

Frank Skeffington (Spencer Tracy), long-time mayor of a New England city very much like Boston, is running for a fifth term despite being at an age when most people think about retiring. He's a controversial figure (for reasons that are not made crystal clear, except that it's rich folks and the clergy who tend not to like him), but he seems to truly care about his constituents and is energized by campaigning and by his old cronies who rally around for what is presumed to be his final go. Skeffington gets his nephew, sports reporter Adam Caulfield (Jeffrey Hunter) to cover his campaign. That pretty much summarizes this late-era John Ford movie, which is more driven by character than plot, but the characters are interesting and are played by a wonderful array of classic-era supporting players. Among them: Pat O'Brien (Skeffington's campaign manager), John Carradine (a newspaper publisher bitterly opposed to Skeffington), Donald Crisp (a cardinal), Edward Brophy (a comic relief pal called 'Ditto'), James Gleason, Ricardo Cortez, Anna Lee (in a highlight scene at a wake for an unpopular man), Frank McHugh and Jane Darwell. Some have substantial roles, some are just walk-ons, but it's fun to see them all. Adam is clearly a son figure for Skeffington, as his own son, a flighty gadabout, is a disappointment, although there is a core of family love between them. Adam's father-in-law (Willis Bouchey) despises Skeffington, and Adam's wife (Dianne Foster) is barely sketched out at all. Skeffington's opponents are also vaguely presented, with one becoming the butt for some mild satire of campaign advertising. The biggest problem for me is that even Skeffington remains allusive, which is a problem in a character-driven drama; it's also a problem in a movie about politics when we're not sure what people's politics are. Tracy is good in the role, but I think he would have been even better with more background to work with, though his last scene is a little gem. Despite a flat visual style (the abovementioned wake scene is the most dynamic in the movie) and a gauzy narrative, this is worthwhile viewing for classic movie fans. Pictured are Tracy and Hunter. [TCM]

THE WITCHES (1967)

The 1960s was a high time for foreign language anthology movies (Boccaccio '70, Spirits of the Dead, Black Sabbath), most of which featured short tales on a particular theme (love, horror). The title of this one might lead you to believe that these stories will involve the supernatural, but no, the only common thread here is the leading lady of each of the five short films, Silvana Mangano. (It could have been called The Bitches, as most of the tales involve bad behavior on the part of Mangano or other women; despite what Wikipedia says, the stories do not actually feature witches.) The first tale, The Witch Burned Alive, seems to be a commentary on vanity, lust and jealousy: Mangano is a reclusive movie star who shows up at a friend's ski chalet in the middle of a weekend party. The men want to sleep with her, and when she passes out, the women strip her and revel in the fact that her beauty is achieved by artificial means (make-up, skin tape, etc.). The second story, Civic Spirit, is a five-minute joke about a woman who appears to be a good Samaritan by offering to take a car accident victim out of a traffic jam and to a hospital, but her real motive is not so civic-minded. The Earth as Seen from the Moon, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, is a fun, slapstick, somewhat surreal tale of a man and his grown son searching for a woman to replace the man's recently deceased wife. They find her a beautiful deaf mute who cleans up their hovel of a home and joins their schemes to make money. The Sicilian Belle is another very short bit in which Mangano complains to her father about a suitor, leading to a killing spree.

The best is saved for last. An Evening Like the Others, directed by Vittorio De Sica, has Mangano and her husband (a young and handsome Clint Eastwood) going through the rituals of a typical boring evening as Mangano wants some excitement and Eastwood just wants to relax. Interspersed are her fantasy visions of what her life could be like, featuring costumed superheroes and Eastwood, mostly naked, flying through the air into bed with her. What this colorful segment has going for it are the elements of surprise and fun, even if ultimately the message, if there is one, is that life will never live up to our fantasies. Overall, I found this a fairly weak anthology film as the parts didn't hang together well. Mangano (pictured in the De Sica story) shows a nice acting range, from cold and unpleasant in the first film to subservient in the third film to a bored fantasizer in the last film. Eastwood is quite fun in this almost sit-com role, an outlier in his career. Italian comic Toto works well with Ninetto Davoli (at the time Pasolini's companion) in the Pasolini story. This and the De Sica segment both have a kind of fun comic-book look. The first story, directed by Luchino Visconti, uses light and color in interesting ways. I don't recommend this highly, but as this movie has been difficult to see for some time, check it out while you can. [Criterion Channel]

SONG OF NORWAY (1970)

I don't really have a bucket list of hard-to-find movies that I'm desperate to see. The ones I did have (the 1949 Great Gatsby, Alias Nick Beal, The Constant Nymph, the 1929 version of The Letter with Jeanne Eagels, the early Fu Manchu films with Warner Oland, etc.) I’ve managed to see. But this one comes close. It's one of those big-budget musicals from the 1965-1973 era that bombed rather spectacularly and led to big losses for studios. Some of these movies are indeed pretty bad and have become camp classics, like the infamous Lost Horizon musical which I've seen but haven't had the fortitude to review here yet; some, viewed without the bundle of expectations that existed at the time of their release, aren't all that bad (Darling Lili, Paint Your Wagon). This one falls somewhere between awful and OK. It's the story of the early life of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (Toralv Maurstad) from the time he was a young man, eager to begin a homegrown tradition of music apart from the German music that predominated in the mid-19th century. In the beginning, he's quite full of himself, but he can't get anyone important to take him seriously. His girlfriend Therese (Christina Schollin) comes from a family of money and power but her father is dead set against the couple. When Therese asks her father to anonymously sponsor a recital for Grieg, he agrees but stipulates that she must never see or communicate with Grieg again and must enter into an arranged marriage with a more suitable man. Eventually in Copenhagen, he meets up with his cousin Nina (Florence Henderson) and becomes best friends with Richard Nordraak (Frank Porretta), himself the composer of Norway's national anthem, who believes in Grieg's dream of a new national music. When Grieg gets a letter from Therese that her father is dead and her arranged marriage is off, it's too late—he is literally walking down the aisle marrying Nina. The rest of the film follows Grieg's ups and downs (including the untimely death of Nordraak from TB), and run-ins with folks like Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen. The story ends just as Grieg is about to achieve fame. [Pictured at left are Porretta, Henderson and Maurstad)

As with most big flops with bad reputations, this isn't quite as bad as it’s made out to be. The pluses: beautiful photography of the lovely locations in Norway, some fun production numbers (all the music is based on Grieg), decent performances, especially from Porretta and Schollin, and a nice supporting turn from Edward G. Robinson. I'll even defy scads of critics and say that Florence Henderson is fine as Nina; I think her image as Mrs. Brady in TV's The Brady Bunch created unwarranted prejudice against her. The minuses: the story is repetitious as Grieg keeps getting disappointed, keeps reacting rather petulantly, and keeps relying on his friends to move him forward. In the first half, the sheer number of songs (mostly unmotivated) becomes numbing, and in the second half, there aren't enough. Porretta has way more charm and personality than Maurstad and I was sad when he mostly vanished from the narrative at the midway point. Maurstad is a little wooden and can’t sing very well. When you have more invested in the supporting player than the lead, something's wrong.

But honestly, the biggest problem is that it tries so hard and so unsuccessfully to be another Sound of Music. The poster art features the main trio romping across hills just like Julie Andrews did (see picture at right); the opening is a series of shots of Norway mountains and lakes; even though there are no children in the story, many of the production numbers are stuffed with children, foreground and background, whose only purpose is to remind us of "Do Re Mi"; as good as Henderson is, she's not Julie Andrews. To be sure, there are other problems and quirks. During an otherwise pleasant Christmas sequence (which includes a moment reminiscent of "Who Will Buy" from Oliver), we get a fantasy scene with some kids getting chased by animated trolls in real nature settings. The animation is fine, but why is it in the movie in the first place? No matter how hard the director, Andrew L. Stone, and the studio try to make this a family movie, it's not. It’s rated G but the themes and incidents are not ones likely to appeal to kids. I think my favorite moment in the movie is when Nordraak sings "Three There Were," a passionate ode to his dear friends Edvard and Nina—frankly, it sounds like he's describing a ménage a trois, and I would love to have seen that developed further. This can't be dismissed as bad camp but it also can't be hailed as a good movie. Basically, it's a watchable movie for musical fans. [DVD]

THE FUGITIVE KIND (1960)

This film opens with a long single take of Valentine Xavier (Marlon Brando) in a courtroom explaining himself to a judge as he is about to be kicked out of New Orleans for some kind of unsavory behavior, perhaps in a whorehouse, though he claims he's just a relatively innocent guitar player. He does admit that turning thirty might be a good time to change his life, and he leaves the city, winding up on a stormy night in a small Mississippi town. Vee Talbot (Maureen Stapleton), the sheriff's wife, a woman with an artistic bent who seems a bit smothered by her husband, takes pity on him and lets him sleep in a jail cell. Next day, he's given a job at the general store, owned by the sickly Jabe Torrance (Victory Jory) and run by his younger wife, an Italian immigrant known as Lady (Anna Magnani). Jabe, returning home after a hospital stay to face a slow invalid decline covered in "death sweat," is still a mighty mean bastard, and Lady takes a liking to sexy Val. So does blond floozy Carol (Joanne Woodward), who thinks she remembers Val from New Orleans. And Vee still has a soft spot for him. But the town's menfolk aren't as happy to have him around, seeing him as a disruptive force. Eventually, Val and Lady have an affair and we discover that Lady's father, who owned a wine garden, died in a fire set by townspeople because he was selling wine to Black customers. Lady's dream is to open her own little sweet shop, and Val helps her put it together behind the general store. But things come to a head when 1) Lady winds up pregnant from Val, and 2) a jealous Jabe lets slip that he was an active participant in the fire that killed Lady's father. No happy endings are in store here.

We're in Tennessee Williams' Southern gothic territory here (based on his play Orpheus Descending), but overall this is not as engrossing as Streetcar Named Desire or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The biggest problem is the character of Valentine Xavier. He is supposed to be a wild partier, a member of the "fugitive kind," as the title would have it, but Brando underplays the part so much, he comes off as a rather tender, passive guy who reacts and observes more than takes direct action. I actually like his performance here (though it's a bit weird how much he sounds like Vito Corleone, especially in the opening scene) but the situations that swirl around him aren't terribly compelling. Magnani, with her heightened and artificial performance, acts like she's in a different movie, and for me, she and Brando have little chemistry. (Supposedly while making the movie, she had the hots for Brando but he didn't reciprocate.) Woodward, normally a spot-on actress, also overdoes the sleaziness of her character, and Stapleton, after giving a strong performance in the first 20 minutes, mostly vanishes from the story except for a strange moment near the end where she apparently suffers from hysterical blindness—it's an incident that seems to be present only to give the sheriff a reason to try and toss Val out of town. Jory is great as an intensely unlikable character. This odd movie is both overheated and underdone. Good line: when Val tells the sheriff that he is not a wanted man, the sheriff (R.G. Armstrong) replies, "Good lookin' boy like you is always wanted." Pictured are Brando and Magnani. [DVD]

WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978)

In the early 1900s, Prof. Aitken and his son Charles have charted Capt. Daniels' boat and a small crew to go searching for evidence of the legendary sunken city of Atlantis. The English father and son pair have brought along American engineer Greg Collinson (Doug McClure) and his invention, a diving bell, open at the bottom, that is lowered into the water by a cable. Greg and Charles go down in the bell, see some sights, get attacked by a prehistoric marine creature, and find a huge golden statue which is tied up and dragged up to the boat. The crew figures they won't get a cut of the treasure so they mutiny, overtaking the captain and wounding the professor, and cut the diving bell cable. But a gigantic octopus attacks both the bell and the ship and most everyone (except the professor and the innocent cabin boy) goes under the sea. Now things get a little vague. They all go through a cavern and wind up on a shore beneath the earth (which still somehow seems to have a sky and a sun). Greg and Charles don't realize that the crew members have mutinied, or that Capt. Daniels might be tempted to join them. In addition to faceless soldiers and sweaty slaves, they meet Atmir, a pretentious guy with a goofy bowl haircut, wearing a robe and what amounts to a sliver miniskirt. He tells them they have found Atlantis. Their plan is to make slaves of all sailors except Charles whose intellect they admire. What else? Oh, yeah, the ruling Atlantean class are from Mars, they've been meddling in human affairs for ages, they have a helmet which allows the wearer to see the future, and there's a big gross flappy-limbed creature (pictured) that will surely slaughter anyone who tries to escape back to the ocean surface.

Doug McClure starred in a couple of earlier fantasy/adventure films (including THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT) based on early 20th century stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is not based on Burroughs but one could be forgiven for thinking it was, as it plays out just like McClure's earlier movies. The critics are divided over the film, mostly arguing about the fairly cheap effects, but I found the octopus and the swamp monster (combinations of puppetry and stop-motion animation) rather charming, and when the octopus is tearing the boat apart, quite effective. The acting is as good as it has to be, with McClure in fairly hunky form, and Peter Gilmore and Shane Rimmer giving good support as Charles and the captain. Michael Gothard gives a nice otherworldly tone to the character of Atmir. There is a mild romantic interest for McClure in Lea Brodie, but nothing much comes of that. Surprisingly, dancer extraordinaire Cyd Chrisse has a featured role as the de facto Queen of Atlantis, but she's given little to do except speak stridently—she doesn't even get to do an exotic Atlantean or Martian dance. But if none of this makes you want to see this film, there is a young, almost handsome John Ratzenberger (Cliff the mailman on Cheers) as one of the treacherous crew members. He has Cliff's face and voice, which can be a bit distracting, but it was great fun to see him. In the final analysis, it’s no masterpiece, but with the menacing octopus, the old-fashioned monsters, the hunky hero, and the occasionally fabulous sets, this is worth seeing. Sadly, TCM broadcast this in a full screen, pan-and-scan version. Though it was shot in widescreen, there seems to be no widescreen print available in the United States. Someone should look into giving all the McClure fantasy adventure films a decent region 1 boxed set release. [TCM]

BIG CITY (1948)

In 1937 New York City, a cantor (Danny Thomas) discovers an abandoned baby on the street. Soon, a settlement house minister (Robert Preston) and an Irish Catholic cop (George Murphy) have come along to offer help. They leave the infant in the care of Thomas's mother and go off to talk a judge (Edward Arnold) into giving them joint custody of the child, named Midge. Arnold agrees, with the caveat that the first of the men to marry will take permanent custody of Midge. For ten years, the arrangement works well—Midge (Margaret O’Brien, pictured with Preston) is happy, the men are happy, and the cantor's mom is happy. Midge's only problem seems to be dealing with a classmate (Butch Jenkins) who picks on her at school, but only because he has a crush on her. When Midge's teacher (Karin Booth) finds out about the unusual three-father situation, she arranges a visit with the family and sees how well things are working out. Both Preston and Thomas fall for Booth, but only Preston has the gumption to do something about it. Meanwhile, Murphy falls for a brassy saloon singer (Betty Garrett)—she's a bit rough around the edges but she has a good heart and loves Midge, though a Coney Island trip they take together ends up with Midge getting sick from too much junk food (they call it a "Coney Island hangover"). When Murphy and Garrett elope, they plan to take Midge to live with them, but Preston and Thomas both rebel, disapproving of Garrett and claiming the elopement was too sudden. Bad blood builds between the men, and soon it's off to see the judge who will need the wisdom of Solomon to work things out.

This light melodrama had the best of intentions when it was released shortly after WWII, making a case for tolerance, though honestly, the differences between the Jew, the Catholic and the Protestant are barely skin-deep, and it's really only the Jewish cantor who stands out because we see him singing at his synagogue. Today, the lack of people of color or of other nationalities in a plot about diversity seems astounding. Things start out well, but by the last half-hour, some predictable tear-jerking elements arise, none of which actually made me teary but which slow the movie's pace down. Preston is the acting standout here, doing a nice job with the one character (the Protestant minister) who doesn't have an obvious stereotype attached to him. O'Brien, at the age of 10, four years after her star turn in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS, does a nice job, and the two femme interest types (Garrett and Booth) are both good, though their interesting characters are underdeveloped. There are way too many songs in the film; nothing against Thomas and Garrett who shoulder most of them, but they generally stop the movie dead in its tracks. Irving Berlin’s "What'll I Do" is used effectively, but his "God Bless America" is dragged out way too often, serving almost as a musical theme for the movie, even though there is little here that suggests patriotic feelings (or, despite the title, urban themes, either). A fun highlight is little O'Brien putting on lipstick and imitating Garrett singing a fun novelty song called "Ok'l Baby Dok'l," though it gets her in big trouble. [TCM]

TIME OUT FOR MURDER (1938)

Helen is a very popular woman; she's the person who announces the time, every 15 seconds on the phone (a service which I remember, though the voice was recorded, but which I imagine isn't done much anymore). Men who love her voice call constantly. Her fiancé Johnny, a bank messenger hoping to be promoted soon to clerk, drops in on his way to deliver some financial papers to Peggy Norton. At Peggy's apartment, she gives him a box of jewels to take back to the bank, but later Peggy is found murdered and Johnny is arrested, as his fingerprints are found at the scene. (There is some folderol here about the correct time that loosely ties Helen into the story, and ends up being a clue to the mystery.) Meanwhile, reporter Barney (Michael Whalen), whom we first see playing "Love's Old Sweet Song" on a trombone, is being pestered by Margie (Gloria Stuart), a bill collector. His roommate Snapper (Chick Chandler), a photographer, has been calling Helen for the time over and over, and hears her voice break as she gives the time. Johnny smells a story and investigates, with Margie following along to make sure she gets her 15 dollars. The chief suspect is gangster Dutch Moran, a casual friend of Barney's who was paying some of Peggy's bills and was seen leaving her building the day of the murder. But Johnny's uncle, the bank president, was also involved with Peggy, and one of Dutch's thugs was seen in the vicinity of Peggy's building. Will Barney figure things out before things get too hot for him? And will Margie forget about the 15 dollars and become his girlfriend? This is the first of three Roving Reporter B-mysteries with Michael Whalen as Barney. It's nothing special, playing out like any number of other B-films that mix mystery and romantic comedy. It’s fairly well-paced and the supporting cast is solid, but Whalen is underwhelming as Barney. Gloria Stuart is fine, though she doesn't appear in the other two entries. Supporting actors who stand out are Ruth Hussey as Peggy, Douglas Fowley as Dutch, Robert Kellard as Johnny, and Jane Darwell as Helen's supervisor. For all the attention given early on to Helen and her job, she has little to do with the proceedings, though the time call gimmick does wind up tripping up the killer. Pictured are Whalen, Chandler and Stuart. [YouTube]

DAMAGED LIVES (1933) / DAMAGED GOODS (1937)

These two "sex hygiene" films warning against venereal disease have been issued on one disc by Kino Lorber, both in very good restored prints. Both are based on a 1901 play by Eugene Brieux which was later novelized by Upton Sinclair, but only the 1937 film officially credits the original source. The plots of the two movies are very similar, but the 1933 version, Damaged Lives, is far more interesting dramatically and as a film. Donald (Lyman Williams) is the son of a shipping magnate; he is impatient and hard-nosed but is learning the ropes of being a good boss with help from his father. His fiancée Joan (Diane Sinclair) is getting impatient to marry because she really, really wants a baby—which may be code for "really wants sex." Don Sr. encourages Don Jr. to break a date with Joan for a night on the town with a big shot client. When the drunken client winds up leaving with a hooker, Don takes Elise, the client's companion (Charlotte Merriam, pictured at left with Williams), back home where they have a one-night stand. Later, when his conscience is bothering him, he confesses the affair to Joan who, after a moment of umbrage, insists that the two get married right away by a justice of the peace. Soon, Elise summons Don to her room to tell him she has syphilis, then shoots herself. Worried, Don goes to a doctor who turns out to be a fly-by-night quack who tells Don he's fine then charges him a hundred bucks. But Don isn't fine, as he discovers when Joan gets pregnant and is diagnosed with syphilis, with a good chance that it will be passed on to the child. After the doc puts the fear of God into the couple by showing them pathetic cases of people crippled physically and mentally by the disease, he then tells them not to worry, that a 2-year course of medicine will wipe it out. But Joan isn't so sure, and she decides to turn on the gas and kill herself and her sleeping husband. At the last minute, Don struggles to awaken, but can he save Joan? This was directed by cult figure Edgar G. Ulmer, the year before he made his reputation with THE BLACK CAT. On its surface, it seems like an average early 30s melodrama, with the added attraction of some blatant educational footage showing the horrors of unattended venereal disease, but compared to the 1937 version, it's a minor masterpiece. Williams and Sinclair, in a B-movie way, actually make you care about their characters, and the final sequence as Joan prepares to turn on the gas is beautifully shot. Jason Robards Sr. plays the doctor and Charlotte Merriam is the tragic Elise. 

Damaged Goods, the 1937 film (also released as Forbidden Desire and Marriage Forbidden) which credits Upton Sinclair's novel as its source, is less artful and more to-the-point. It begins by connecting the story we are about to see with FDR's campaign of venereal disease education. As his friends jokingly play a funeral march at George's bachelor party, a group of young women arrive. George (Douglas Walton) chats with Margie (Phyllis Barry, both pictured at right). The two wind up having sex—symbolized by a broken champagne glass. Within six minutes of screen time, George discovers he has syphilis. Doctor Walker tells him that he can be cured but the treatment could take up to four years and advises him to delay the wedding. George tells his fiancée Henrietta (Arletta Duncan) that he has to postpone the wedding due to a lung condition. She and her congressman father find that a bit fishy, so George finds another doctor who claims he can cure him in a matter of months. George and Henrietta marry, have a child, and discover the infection is, of course, still active, though George keeps the news from his wife. There is an added subplot involving the baby seeming unhealthy and being taken to the country to stay with George's mother for a time. The wet nurse soon finds out what the baby's problem is and that she could in theory contract the disease from nursing the baby, and blackmail is in store. Ultimately this feels like a long propaganda movie, both warning people from having sex outside of marriage and trying to de-stigmatize the disease as a moral issue. The happy ending is that Henrietta's father decides to promote venereal disease education on a national level. The director, Phil Goldstone, filmed this in very workmanlike fashion and it has none of the style of the Ulmer movie. The acting is adequate, with the best performances coming from Greta Meyer as the wet nurse and Esther Dale as George's mother. The Kino Lorber disc includes educational shorts of the kind that might have accompanied screenings of these films (often for adult, sex-segregated audiences), where the films weren't banned by state censor boards. Both films have commentaries; I've only heard the one for the 1933 film and it’s mostly good although occasionally lapses into simplistic narration of the movie. [Blu-Ray]

DIMENSION 5 (1966)

Secret agent Justin Power (Jeffrey Hunter), on the run from enemy military police, gets out of a car driven by a woman, proceeds to punch the woman in the jaw, and escapes the police by touching a device on his belt which makes him dissolve into a pink mist. Actually, the device is a "time converter" which can send its user a few minutes or even days into the past or future. Back at Espionage Inc. headquarters, Justin's boss Cane (Donald Woods) gives him a new assignment: track down Big Buddah, the boss of the Dragons, a Chinese crime gang, who has threatened to destroy Los Angeles with a hydrogen bomb unless the United States takes all of its troops out of Southeast Asia. A Dragon agent named Chang is captured but is afraid to talk for fear of Dragon retaliation. In fact, at an airport, Chang is killed by one of the Dragons posing as a photographer, but Justin is able to flash back in time a few minutes and kill the killer, saving Chang. Justin gets an assistant, the lovely Asian agent Kitty (France Nuyen, pictured at left with Hunter), who has her own personal agenda that might clash with Justin's. When they find out that the H-bomb is being shipped into LA in pieces in three weeks, to be exploded on Christmas day, Justin and Kitty "convert" ahead three weeks at the shipping warehouse, hoping to catch the parts before the Dragons do.

This combo of the spy and science fiction genres is much maligned by critics, but seen in the proper context (colorful 60s B-movie with good-looking leads), I found it quite fun. More than one critic has noted that the time travel plotpoints are a bit half-hearted and could be excised to make a more coherent spy movie; I suppose that's true but it's the SF elements that give the movie a kick and provide a clever gimmick for the climactic sequence. Critics are split on the charms of the leads—some find Hunter bland and listless; others like him but find Nuyen bored and distracted. I like both of them. Hunter, in the middle of his career downturn (though he continued to make B-movies until right up to his untimely death in 1969 at the age of 42), is still handsome and charming, albeit with the occasional misogynist tone so prevalent in 1960s movies, especially spy and adventure films. Nuyen does have a somewhat detached feeling to her performance, but it ultimately ties into her character. The two seem an awkward fit at first, but their low-bubbling chemistry works OK. Harold Sakata (enshrined in movie history as Oddjob in Goldfinger) has the villainous presence down but gives a surprisingly low-key performance (his voice is dubbed by Paul Frees). I enjoyed seeing Donald Woods, a B-movie mainstay through the 30s and 40s, aging well as Cane, and Robert Ito (Jack Klugman's forensics assistant in the 70s TV show Quincy) is good but underused as one of the good guy agents. There's an odd subplot involving a Cantonese restaurant that Justin frequents (for some reason, he demands steak and potatoes instead of Chinese cuisine); one of its employees appears to have been a former lover of Justin's but may be currently in the employ of the Dragons. Some of the exposition is delivered drably, as is the background score, but the swingin' 60s sets are colorful. Despite my better self, I chuckled at the scenes of the trio of Espionage Inc. secretaries staring dreamily at Jeffery Hunter whenever he passed by. Not for all tastes, but fans of 60s B-movies will enjoy themselves. [DVD]

MEN OF CHANCE (1931)

Struggling artist Marthe (Mary Astor) and her gal pal Gertie (Kitty Kelly) are down and out in Paris. Gertie has established a connection with a Frenchman, though neither speaks the other's language, but Marthe gets mistaken for a prostitute and is arrested. Dorval (John Halliday), an American gambler who witnesses the incident, pays her fine for her; she assumes he wants sex as a reward, but he says he prefers playing chess—with human beings. He grooms her, passing her off as a countess, to attract a successful gambler and horse owner named Johnny (Ricardo Cortez). The plan is for her to marry him for his money, but unknown to Marthe, Dorval and his buddy Farley are also out for revenge against Johnny for all the money that he's cost them. The two indeed hit it off, and when Johnny is called back to the States, he takes Marthe with him and they marry on the ship (accompanied by Gertie as her maid). Over time, Marthe comes to love Johnny, and when she runs into Dorval, she tells him so. But he tells her a tale of woe and poverty, so thinking she owes him something, she starts innocently feeding him tips on Johnny's horses. Dorval then has Farley bribe the jockeys to lose, causing Johnny to start losing money and Dorval to start winning. When Johnny finds out what's been going on, he thinks she's selling him out on purpose and walks out on her. Dorval and Farley then get a distraught Marthe to participate in one last scheme: feed one of his heavily favored horses poisoned sugar just before a race. She agrees, but will she go through with it?

Horse race movies always confuse me; despite having had a part-time summer job at a race track, the intricacies of the sport and the betting are beyond me. But the fun here is following the intricacies of the character entanglements. It's a pre-Code movie, but still there are ambiguities about the sexual relationships. Is Gertie sleeping with sugar daddies? Did Marthe share her favors with Dorval? Is Dorval gay? (There is a cute scene in a bar with the punchline being that an effeminate man says to the bartender, "I’ll have a chocolate parfait with gobs of whipped cream.") If the plot is a bit predictable, the acting is good, especially Astor and Cortez. Kitty Kelly strains a bit in delivering the comic relief. Passable entertainment for its era. Pictured are Astor and Halliday. [TCM]

GOIN' TO TOWN (1935)

In an Old West town in the present day (that is, the 1930s), Cleo is a popular singer at a saloon (labeled a dance pavilion). When rich but feared Buck Gonzales, a notorious cattle rustler, rides into town, he wants to know when Cleo will finally give in and marry him. She loses to him in dice and agrees to marry him if he agrees to sign over his money and property to her. He does, but before they can marry, he's killed during a rustling expedition, so she gets his considerable property including a ranch and oil wells. As she takes over the daily operation of his various businesses, she falls for British engineer Edward Carrington, getting his attention by shooting his hat off his head. He's interested, but when he finds out that she has a bet on whether or not she can snare him, he rejects her and leaves for business in Buenos Aires. Cleo follows him with her horse Cactus, determined to win a horse racing prize, become a high society dame, and win Carrington over. It's a bumpy road, but she eventually gets everything she wants.

Most Mae West movies are very mannered affairs, star vehicles built on rickety stories and featuring weak characterization. Most W.C. Fields and Marx Brothers movies are like this as well—supporting players in these movies never really had a chance of making an impact because the spotlight was always on the star (Cary Grant in SHE DONE HIM WRONG being the exception). Before the creation of the Production Code in 1934, West was popular for her (somewhat exaggerated) sexiness and her naughty double-entendres, but by the time of this movie, she had to tone everything down to get her movies released. Fields and the Marxes managed to sustain their popularity—their narratives were just as weak as West's but their humor wasn't tied so much to sex as to anarchic wackiness—but West didn't. However, she can still elicit laughter with her dry readings. When an admirer says, "I didn't get your name," West replies, "It's not your fault; you tried hard enough." When a man tells her he is the "backbone of his family," she responds, "Your family ought to see a chiropractor." (My favorite line, to a Russian man, "Cigarette me, Cossack!") What she can't do is write a strong plot (like Fields, she wrote most of her movies) or play a three-dimensional character. The other characters are equally weak. Stodgy Paul Cavanagh can do nothing to make Carrington come to life, and he and West have no chemistry—she certainly never acts like she's really in love with him—and no one else gets much screen time. There are two Native American characters and one is fairly important to the plot, but neither has much dialogue. It's fairly short and not hard to watch, and the finale, which involves West singing an aria, which she does well, is OK, but overall disappointing. [Criterion Channel]

BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL (1965)

According to the Criterion Channel, cult figure Doris Wishman is known for being the most prolific American female director (some thirty movies made between 1960 and 2002), but she's not particularly celebrated in Hollywood history because the vast majority of them were nudist movies or sexploitation flicks (mostly soft-core). I was excited to finally run across one of her movies but disappointed to discover that women can make boring sexploitation movies just like men. Gigi Darlene (at left) plays Meg, a woman who wants her husband to stay home Saturday morning, but he has a big client he has to see. She lolls about, takes a shower, and leaves the apartment only to be assaulted in the hallway by the janitor. When he takes her back to his apartment to rape her, she manages to conk him over the head, killing him. She takes a bus from Boston to Manhattan (where the murder of the janitor is front page news) and meets a guy named Al on a park bench. He's sympathetic to her situation and takes her back to his place. She seems about to settle into being a maid/wife figure, but he's a mean drunk and he beats her with a belt and passes out. Next, she meets Della, a friendly lesbian who takes Meg to her place where they hang out in their underwear. Eventually they have consensual sex, but Meg knows this relationship isn't for her, so next she winds up renting a room from a married couple, but the husband attacks her, so Meg becomes a companion to an invalid. This seems like it might finally be the right place for Meg, but when the invalid's son turns out to be a cop working on the Boston janitor case…

In its day, this passed for soft-core porn, though now it would barely get an R rating. Aside from women in revealing lingerie, we see a little bit of bare ass and that's it in terms of exposed flesh. The sexual assaults are a bit rough but not exactly explicit. I don't remember hearing cussing. Any moral message this might carry is muddled: Is Meg a bad girl? Why? Just because she walks around in private in her underwear? Wishman wrote and directed this, but I don't see a point of view here that is either feminist or uniquely female. Gigi Darlene is attractive but seems like an amateur, though she made over 20 sexploitation films in the 1960s. The only actor of note here is Alan Feinstein who plays Meg's husband—he went on to a long career in TV, primarily soap operas (Edge of Night, Falcon Crest), and he stands out in his limited screen time as the only real pro here. The uncredited musical score is great fun. I noticed a number of religious icon artworks featured in the background (and occasionally seen in close-up) but I don't know if that is a thematic touch or just coincidence. I'm glad to have caught a Wishman movie but I think one may be enough. [Criterion Channel]