Sep 261944
Aug 251944
Private detective Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) is hired by dim-witted, hulking, ex-con Moose (Mike Mazurki) to find âhis Velma.â Heâs also hired for a one night body guard job that ends up with his client dead, the killing somehow connected to a stolen jade necklace belonging to the Grayle family: ingĂ©nue daughter Ann (Anne Shirley), father Leuwen (Miles Mander), and stepmother femme-fatale Helen (Claire Tevor). The two cases are connected through Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger), a quack doctor.
Raymond Chandler wasnât happy with the messy way Hollywood had used his novels, taking his plots but dropping the main character and replacing him with The Falcon and then detective Michael Shayne. He wanted to get out of town, but RKO already had the rights to Farewell My Lovely. Edward Dmytryk was tired of 3rd rate productions and wanted a chance to prove himself. Dick Powell was too old for the boyish roles he was known for and had wanted to get away from musicals and take on tough-guy roles for years. Claire Trevor had been on the edge of the A-list, playing good girls, but her stock was dropping fast and she needed a new image. Chandler hated the notion of a dancer playing his private eye, almost as much as Dmytryk hated it. And all four ended up happy. Trevor and Powell got new careers, Dmytryk got his chance, and Chandler was happy with a proper representation of Marlowe, at least for two years until Bogart became the definitive Marlowe in The Big Sleep. The title Farewell, My Lovely confused movie-goers who assumed it was another Dick Powell musical so it was renamed Murder, My Sweet, and they sold tickets, making the studio happy too.
The story is as convoluted as Chandlerâs stories normally are (try working out The Big Sleep some time), which is a minor advantage. You wonât figure it all out in the first reel. And the high contrast photography has that marvelous Film Noir feel. But the star of the show is the dialog: Chandlerâs or Chandler-like. Chandler was a master of elaborate lines structured with his invented slang and somehow making it sound like something an uneducated man would say, at least if he existed in a world far wittier than ours.
World class dialog can be a mixed blessing as it becomes noticeable when the execution is only average. And thatâs the problem with Murder, My Sweet. Dmytryk was a competent director, but nothing special. Heâd no artistry to elevate the material. And Powell? Like the director, Powell is fine. He doesnât embarrass himself. He should come off as a bit tougher, but thatâs not a major issue. But heâs flat. Thereâs no spark. Twenty other actors could have done the same and be equally âfine.â In the mouth of Bogart (and with the aid of Billy Wilder  or Howard Hawks), the lines would have made this a masterpiece. But with Powell, itâsâŠfine.
In addition to this film and the â46 The Big Sleep, Marlowe has appeared in numerous films, most of which it is fine to skip: Lady in the Lake (1946), The Brasher Doubloon (1947), Marlowe (1969), The Long Goodbye (1973), Farewell, My Lovely (1975), The Big Sleep (1978).
Jul 291944
Timid and distracted Dr. Carl Fletcher (J. Carrol Naish) is accused of murdering a woman, and an inquest is called. Fletcher, animal trainer Fred Mason (Milburn Stone), and his wife Dorothy (Martha Vickers) testify that Cheela the gorilla survived the bullet wound and has been kept by Fletcher. After a time Cheela disappeared and Paula (Acquanetta) appeared. Fletcherâs daughter, Joan (Lois Collier) visits her father at the sanitarium, with her finance, Bob (Richard Davis). Paula because possessive of Bob and Joan becomes catty and soon there is murder.
Captive Wild Woman wasnât a big hit, but it was cheap, so Universal made this sequel, with the flashbacks allowing the use of footage from the previous film, including scenes of lions and tigers originally shot for The Big Cage (1933). Oddly the footage of animals looks worse here then in Captive Wild Woman; my guess is that they didnât go back to the original negative, but took it from a print of Captive Wild Woman.
Most of the connecting tissue is irrelevant. Thereâs no reason for Fred or Dorothy to be in the film except to use up some run time. And there few new lines are odd. Fred now says that African natives talked of scientists combining humans and animals and that Cheela was the result. That gives us two origin stories. Then there is Dorothy, who apparently never told anyone that Dr. Walters, in an attempt to bring back Paula, had threatened to kill her and that Dorothy released the gorilla so that it would kill him. Seems like something that would have come up previously.
Whatâs new is overly simple and dull. Fletcher is a placid protagonist, and Bob and Joan are exactly the type of white-bread young couple that plagued poorly written films. Actor Richard Davis made two films, both in 1944, and no more. That was probably for the best.
Which leaves the Ape Woman and Acquanetta as the draws. Unfortunately, this time we only get the were-ape makeup when sheâs laying on a slab. And Acquanetta has none of the charisma that she oozed in the first film. I suspect that is due to direction, as she walks around in a trance and speaks in a monotone (yes, she speaks in this film). I doubt it helped that Director Reginald LeBorg thought the project was terrible and only made the film because he felt he had no choice. Acquanetta believed the studio was not selling the movie, but was selling her, so she left Universal.
One or two nicely constructed scenes (such as the canoe being tipped over by a swimming were-ape) are not enough to make this an enjoyable viewing experience, but it sold enough tickets for Universal to produce yet another sequel (The Jungle Captive), though with a new actress as the Ape Woman.
Jul 081944
At a piano recital by the accomplished Anthony Lawrence (Ralph Morgan), Mad scientist Dr. Igor Markoff (J. Carrol Naish) spies Lawrenceâs daughter (Wanda McKay). Obsessed with her similarity to his dead wife, he injects Lawrence with the disfiguring acromegaly disease as leverage to force her to marry him.
Quick Review: One of the more distasteful films Iâve viewed, The Monster Maker is a reasonably made âPoverty Rowâ horror film. Naish overacts, though not massively. Otherwise, everyone is believable. That said, I canât imagine why anyone would want to watch this. It isnât exciting, or mysterious, or even shocking. There is no sex or gore, and little violence. Thereâs just drab unpleasantness. When a movie is this unpalatable, it needs some importance message, some insight into the human condition. None are to be had. For its brief sixty-two minute running time, the audience is supposed to wallow in the âjoyâ of watching an insane scientist give a disfiguring disease to a kind, elderly man. Iâm missing the fun here.
Perhaps if Morgan had been less sympathetic as the pianist, this might have been tolerable. Maybe with some low comedy (very low indeed)âŠÂ Well, maybe not. Put onscreen bodies being ripped asunder by hooks, and Iâm there, but some things are too much for me.
Jun 061944
Amnesiac and psychopath Robert Griffin (Jon Hall) escapes from an asylum after regaining his memory, and seeks out his old cohorts, the Herricks (Lester Matthews, Gale Sondergaard), demanding his cut, and more, in a diamond mine. Thrown out and on the run, he happens to stop at the home of a scientist (John Carradine), who turns Griffin invisible.
The Invisible Man series turns dark once again with this 5th film. While the title character is named Griffin, like the first Invisible Man, there is no other connection. Nothing suggests he’s a decedent, and the serum comes from a new, wacky scientist. It’s hard to say if the drug still causes insanity as Griffin is already over the deep end.
Where The Invisible Man’s Revenge doesn’t work is in several plot contrivances, and in its comedy. Having Griffin, lost and on the run, happen to come upon a house where a scientist just happens to be looking for an experimental subject for his invisibility drug, rips credibility to pieces and stomps on it (and it would be nice if everyone didn’t have the same blood type, or perhaps blood types don’t exist in this world). The so-called comedy is in the form of a helpful bum who tries one greedy scheme after another, or is forced into them by Griffin. An overlong dart game (gosh, he wins by having the Invisible Man run the darts to the target; what a surprise) takes up time, but does nothing else for the film besides dissipate the tone.
When acting as a horror film, The Invisible Man’s Revenge is nearly the equal of The Invisible Man Returns, with Hall making a much more convincing villain than he did hero in The Invisible Agent. He drips malevolence. The gray nature of all the characters makes it more interesting as well. Griffin has been cheated and the Herricks may have tried to kill him years ago. They are good and loving people in many ways, with a touch of larceny. Exactly what happened, who is guilty, and what is fair is never spelled out.
The FX are the best in the series (well, they should be as it is the last in the series). The most impressive trick has Griffin splash water on his face to become momentarily visible. It holds up fifty years later.
The ending is manipulative, which isn’t a bad thing on its own. It will either make you cheer or groan. I’m on the cheering side.
May 131944
Newspaperman Larry Stevens (Dick Powell) makes a wish to see tomorrowâs newspaper and it comes true when his deceased colleague shows up with the paper. This brings him only trouble, except for bringing him closer to his new-found girlfriend, Sylvia Smith (Linda Darnell)
RenĂ© Clair was a French director that mixed comedy with Fantasy. His works all have a similar feelâgentle, moralistic, fun, and a bit simple. They are nicely filmed with dramatic B&W cinematography and casual editing. His English language talkies include The Ghost Goes West, Beauty and the Devil, and the superb I Married a Witch. It Happened Tomorrow feels like the others. The single most applicable word would be âcute.â Dick Powell is likable, though not captivating as the leadâwords that describe him in every movie. Darnell is adorable and supplies the charisma that Powell lacks.
But It Happened Tomorrow lags behind those others by being heavy-handed with its silly message, but worse, it is dated, or at least I think it is. In 1944, was this story fresh? By now we all have seen or read enough time travel stories that we know the basic rules. If you know the future, you donât draw excessive attention to yourself. If you know that there is a robbery before it happens, you donât tell everyone about it, and certainly not the police. Perhaps the way Larry acts made sense in 1944, but watching it in 2017, I spent half the time saying, âFor Godâs sake donât do that!â The story is old tropes run into the ground such that no one would use them now.
Thereâs also an unwanted framing piece that tells us at the beginning how the relationship and knowing the future will work out, which cuts away any suspense (but to be fair, with a magical romantic comedy, it was pretty clear how things were going to work out).
It Happened Tomorrow is a nice little fantasy about time whose time has past.
Apr 121944
This is one of those movies that has made its mark on modern culture while few people of recent generations have seen it. âGaslightingâ has become a verb, used normally in a political context and often dealing with feminism. Of course the terms current usage defines something quite mild compared to what happens in the movie.
Ingrid Bergman stars as Paula, a traumatized woman whose famous aunt had been murdered, probably for a set of gems. The case is unsolved: both the murder and the robbery. She falls in love with Gregory (Charles Boyer), a mysterious piano player who manipulates her into marriage and a return to her auntâs home. He spends his time doing something secretive at night, but the day is spent with him convincing her that she is insane. He gives her a gift, steals it back and then tells her she lost it. Heâs constantly telling her that she is ill, that she is confused, and that things are not as she remembers. This works shockingly well and she’s nuts in no time. Meanwhile a detective (Joseph Cotton), intrigued by how much Paula looks like her aunt, picks up the closed case, and quickly realizes that the piano player is the murderer and heâs back looking for the rocks.
And people love this film.
Iâll grant that it is filmed beautifully with high contrast B&W that gives everything a gothic feel. But once Iâm done marveling at the cinematography and smiling at the solid if unmemorable score, Iâve nothing else to compliment. Bergman and Boyer overact in the way I expect from stage productions. Sheâs doing the acting 101 crazy person routine. Her movements belong in a silent picture. Her speech would be too much in a radio drama. Boyer is doing the comic liar bit. He might as well be winking at the camera. Everything he says is clearly a lie to the audience, and should be to Paula. Yes, sheâs weak-willed from finding her aunts body ten years ago, but this isnât a matter of will. He does everything but twirl his mustache.
Are we supposed to be engaged with Paulaâs slow decent into madness? Nope, because that all happens in three weeks during one scene change. They show up, and in the next scene sheâs already âtoo sick to go out.â So thatâs already done and we just see Boyer lying to her over and over and her squirming about or whispering.
I donât think anyone would say we are supposed to be interested in the mystery. Gaslight is often characterized as a mystery, but it isnât one. We know immediately who the killer is, and the minute the gems are introduced, we know what the killer is doing, where he is doing it, and that he will be caught. Thereâs no mystery.
Are we supposed to be pulled in by the suspense? What suspense? Thereâs no uncertainty for us. Every single thing in the movie is telegraphed. Most events (to the extent this film has âeventsâ) are set in stone at the beginning. We know exactly what is going to happen and how it is going to happen. There are no surprises, no doubt, and no tension.
Don’t come in looking for a character study. These people have no characters. Paula is “girl going nuts.” Gregory is “crazed liar.” That’s it. There’s nothing deeper.
Perhaps if we spent more time with Cotton and his police work, it mightâmightâhave been interesting as a procedural, but that takes up very little screen time. Most of the movie is just Boyer lying about how Paula is crazy and Bergman overacting her responses. It happens over and over. Some have said this is like a Hitchcock thriller, but Iâd say its closest cousins are in modern torture porn. We are watching unpleasantness (overdone, unbelievably presented unpleasantness) for unpleasantnessâs sake and we are watching it over and over again. It doesnât lead to anything, since any plot points connected to driving Paula insane are covered in a few seconds. Once we get that heâs broken her (and as mentioned, we get that early and quickly), thereâs nothing more to learn, yet we get fully an hour more of psychological torture.
If thatâs entertainment, Iâm happy to remain unentertained.
Apr 061944
All of the Universal monsters, Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (John Carradine), Wolf Man (Lon Chaney), a hunchback, and a mad scientist meet in a monster mash. The evil Dr. Niemann (Boris Karloff) and a hunchback murderer (J. Carrol Naish), who acts as his servant, escape from prison to continue Frankenstein’s work, and stumbles upon the other monsters.
Quick Review: So much is wrong with House of Frankenstein (the sixth film in the series after Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, Ghost of Frankenstein, and Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man) that I’ll stick with the good, and you can assume that the rest is a mess. Luckily, the good is enough to make this acceptable Saturday afternoon free TV fare for fans of the earlier Frankenstein films. You couldn’t ask for better than Boris Karloff, who plays not The Monster, but the mad scientist. He purrs evil, which is quite a feat. Lon Chaney Jr. still can do the Larry Talbot angst bit, though it is starting to get old by the film’s end. The Wolf Man continues to be the best incarnation of lycanthropy and leaps around convincingly. And the story of the hunchback in love with the shallow gypsy girl works on all levels. That’s it, and it is just barely enough.
Mar 141944
At a horror museum, while the tour guide (John Abbott) gives speeches on werewolves, Doctor Charles Morris (Fritz Leiber)âdoctor ofâŠhistory maybe, or voodooâresearches a werewolf woman. Heâs murdered, seemingly by a wolf, and his scientist son (Stephen Crane) and the son’s semi-sister/girlfriend (Osa Massen) play detective to find the murderer. Police detective (Barton MacLane) also plays detective. Is the murderer human or werewolf, and is it the gypsy queen (Nina Foch), the janitor (Ivan Triesault), or the guide?
In the â30s and â40s, Universal was the king of monster movies. There was a reason for that. Studios that dabbled just couldnât figure out what to do. They didnât know who their audience was, so aimed at young teen boys. Their low budgets looked as cheap as they were and they often pulled in actors who had no interest in the parts, or no talent. The Cry of the Werewolf, along with The Return of the Vampire, was Colombiaâs attempt to cash in on Universalâs and, to a lesser extent, RKOâs recent successes, and Colombia made all the mistakes expected. The weak world buildingâa gypsy tribe hangs around New Orleans like it is 17th century Romania and there is almost no lore or rules for werewolvesâisnât a big negative but simply a failure of imagination. The confused tone, on the other hand, is enough to sink the film on its own. The gypsies seem to be in a much better, and serious horror film while the main cast is in a mystery serial, and the police are in a slapstick comedy. Others have compared the police antics to the Three Stooges and it is a connection easy to make. The film thinks it is a mystery, but we know who the killer is and why from the beginning.
Nina Foch wasnât going to win an Academy Award but sheâs easily the best actor in the film. MacLane is only here for the paycheck, but that puts him above Massen, who is a master next to Crane. Too bad Crane’s the star. This was his first film and he cleverly quit the business a year later. The script gives him nothing to work with, but he had nothing to give. If everything else had been fantastic, the film would still have failed due to Craneâs high school theater gangster version of a scientist.
The werewolf genre could have used another good entry. This isnât it.
Mar 091944
Due to an act of cowardice, Sir Simon de Canterville (Charles Laughton) is cursed never to know peace until a descendant performs a brave deed. Three hundred years later, American troops are billeted at Canterville castle, and one of them, Private Cuffy Williams (Robert Young), turns out to be a distant relative. The young Lady Jessica de Canterville (Margaret O’Brien) befriends Cuffy and the ghost, and together they attempt to break the curse.
Sir Simon makes a good point when discussing Americans: âWhat can a people without ancestors know about ghosts?â What indeed.
This is the best rendition of The Canterville Ghost yet to be filmed, though Oscar Wilde would have some trouble identifying his own play. Much of Wildeâs themes are missing, replaced with wartime propaganda, but in this case, it works. Instead of a minister and his family taking over the castle, itâs a group of American G.I.s preparing to show Hitler what for.
I saw The Canterville Ghost first sometime in the early â60s (I was quite small at the time, so youâll have to forgive me for being inexact). I watched it again every year âtill well into my teens and often afterwards, and while it isnât quite as magical now as it was forty years ago, itâs close. I still laugh and smile throughout, and I still feel for the characters.
Even with the forced addition of WWII era flag-waving (and I canât think of a better time for a bit of patriotic fervor than 1944), thereâs a lot of wit in the dialog. Both during the comedic segments and the emotional ones, itâs a joy to hear the characters speak.
Robert Young is an amiable lead, but better still are the numerous supporting players (including the always wonderful Una OâConnor, who added so much to classics such as The Invisible Man, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Christmas in Connecticut). As good as they are, the film belongs to Margaret OâBrien and Charles Laughton. OâBrien, who is best known for her crying jags in Meet Me in St. Louis, is at her best here. Sheâs funny, and charming. Laughton plays it wildly flamboyant and quietly sentimental. Itâs a remarkable performance, and no one has come close in the many remakes.
While the story made sense to a pre-teen, an older me questions the behavior of the troops. If you are a soldier, away from home, and given the opportunity to slow-dance with cute British chicks, why would you switch the music to boogie-woogie? Yes, Iâm perfectly willing to accept the existence of a ghost, but not G.I.s giving up the opportunity to hold girls tightly in their arms.
The Canterville Ghost is a perfect choice for a family afternoon, movie marathon on Halloween.
It has been remade numerous times, but always as TV movies, including a horrible 1986 version.
Mar 021944
Seventeen-year-old psychopath Pinkie Brown (Richard Attenborough) runs a cheap protection racket in Brighton with his gang of Dallow (William Hartnell), Cubitt (Nigel Stock), and Spicer (Wylie Watson). He kills a reporter, and it is ruled a suicide, but Ida (Hermione Baddeley), a performer the reporter met briefly, doesnât believe it and sets out to prove it was murder. Rose (Carol Marsh), a naĂŻve and lonely waitress, has evidence, so Pinkie âcourtsâ her to keep her quiet. At the same time, a larger gang is moving in.
This is British-style Noir, with daylight open-spaces bright and cheery, but nights dreary and dangerous and interiors gloomy and sickly. And unlike many of the top American Noirs, there are no even semi-competent crooks. Pinkie is not only evil, heâs stupid and acts without thinking. His gang doesnât trust him, and the police are far too hands-off. The larger gang has a good deal of power in town but are just a bunch of thugs controlled by a âbusinessman.â
For Pinkie and his gang, crime has not paid. They live in a grimy boarding house, much more impoverished than those they harass. This is a bleak petty world of evil and foolish people. And like the Post-War British Comedies that were rising at the time over at Ealing studios, the characters are all a bit quirky and a touch removed from reality.
Graham Greene adapted his own novel and believed he improved on it. I’m not about to argue that as as the script is excellent, mixing clever dialog, character development, and rich themes effortlessly. At the helm were the Boulting Brothers, a pair who would produce a string of solid satires in the â50s and â60s (Privateâs Progress, Lucky Jim, Iâm All Right Jack, Carlton-Browne of the F.O., Heavens Above!). Perhaps their best move was casting a young Attenboroughâbest known now as the kindly but foolish maker of Jurassic Park. He brings an insane intensity to Pinkie, one of the great Noir villains. Pinkie always attempts to appear controlled, but you can see his anger and fear in every scene, ready to explode out of him. The rest of the film is good, but Attenboroughâs performance is astounding.
The religious aspect is paired back from the novel (due to censorship concerns, which is also responsible for a statement at the beginning of the film saying that Brighton is a lovely spot now) but is still the foundation of the story. Rose is a good Catholic girl who would damn herself for Pinkie. Pinkie sees himself as already damned. Under his bravado, he is scared of a Hell he believes in as surely as Rose does. It is amusing that modern commentators think that the altered ending makes the film softer, but those people are overlooking the religious aspect. Iâll be vague to avoid spoilers, and say only that the ending as is has serious religious consequences.
Brighton Rock is well remembered in England, but is overlooked in America. It shouldnât be.
Feb 271944
Upper-class Dona St. Columb (Joan Fontaine) has had enough of her cloddish, uncarring husband (Ralph Forbes) and his cad of a friend (Basil Rathbone), so takes off to Cornwall with her two children. There she is taken care of by William (Cecil Kellaway), a servant whoâs cleverer than expected and has a secret. She also runs into her neighbor, Lord Godolphin (Nigel Bruce), who warns her of pirates. She is not worried, but fantasies about a manly pirate, and soon-after meets one in the dashing Jean Benoit Aubrey (Arturo de CĂłrdova). That is the beginning of adventure and romance.
Costumes, pirates, and swordsâone would expect a Swashbuckler, but Frenchmanâs Creek is more Harlequin romance. I imagine 1944 theaters filled with middle-aged housewives all-a-flutter. Dona is bold, but not to bold. Sheâs rich, but dreams of excitement. And Jean is one of those many well know bad boy pirates who is absolutely good. They trade nearly hidden innuendos and her bosoms heave to the extent allowed by the production code. It is a full fifty-five minutes before there is any pirating, and then it is quite peaceful and more about our plucky heroine running around dressed as a boy. Cannons and gunshots and thieving is just the greatest of larks.
While action is hard to find, thereâs no such problems in finding rich colors, extensive sets, and beautiful costumes. This is an attractive film. No Swashbuckler outside of The Adventures of Robin Hood look better. It won the Oscar for art direction and it was deserved. The acting is good or bad depending on what you think it should be. If you are looking for realistic behavior, then this is a disaster. If, however, you are looking for stylized romance, with a touch of mustache-twirling, it isnât bad at all. Fontaine makes a fine stand-in for the women whose fantasy this is supposed to be.
I found Frenchmanâs Creek slow and a bit silly, and if I was requiring it to live up to the standards of a Swashbuckler, Iâd rate it very low. But Iâm not the intended audience. For someone looking for a Harlequin romance on film, I doubt there is better to be found.