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The Ghost Breakers (1940)

Apr 031940

Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope) and Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard) travel to Cuba to the long abandoned mansion she has just inherited. But many agents don’t want them there, including murderers, a zombie, and a ghost.

Quick Review: An interesting mix of horror and comedy, there is a lot to like about The Ghost Breakers. Bob Hope plays his traditional character, and while some of his jokes fall flat, others are quite funny. The zombie is the creepiest I’ve seen, and the scene where it chases Mary is the stuff of horror legend. There are a surprising number of tense moments, some nice atmosphere, and a few really beautiful scenes. In the most famous one, Mary, dressed as her dead ancestor, descends the staircase holding a candle to stand in front of the old portrait of that ancestor. It is striking and has been ripped off by a dozen or more films.

But it’s not all good. To say the ending is anticlimactic would be kind. We don’t find out who several of the characters are or how they are connected, and it feels like there is 20 minutes of needed plot missing. And then there is the bulging eyed, cowardly black servant. Sure, it’s no worse on the racism scale than “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies,” but that’s not saying a lot.

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Classic Horror, Dark House, Ghost Stories, Reviews, Zombies Tagged with: Two Reels

The Devil’s Daughter (1939)

Dec 191939

Sylvia Walton (Ida James) returns from Harlem to the islands to inherit a banana plantation. Her half-sister, Isabelle (Nina Mae McKinney), is none-too-happy about this and has taken to the hills and plans to scare her sister away with the use of voodoo. Sylvia is enamored with her conniving overseer (Jack Carter), but she has a second suitor in the straightforward John Lowden (Emmett ‘Babe’ Wallace). Unfortunately, Isabelle wants John, so that’s a second reason for her to get rid of her sister. Syliva also has a comic relief servant (Hamtree Harrington) from Harlem who can fill out any missing stereotypes, liking being a smalltime con-artist and loving dice.

The Devil’s Daughter is a remake, or perhaps a radical rethinking, of Ouanga (1936), and like its predecessor, it is a “race movie.” That is, it was a film with a mostly black cast and crew, intended for black segregated theaters, and produced by white-owned companies, the last insuring that the depiction of blacks was little better than in mainstream pictures. Also like Ouanga, it is cheap-looking and displays little in the way of skill from anyone involved. The shots are simplistic, the film stock’s inferior, the editing’s is crude, and the acting is amateurish.

It diverges substantially on story, enough that “inspired by” would be a more honest connection than calling it a remake. Gone is the mixed-race romance, both as a major plot point and as the motivation for action (John is black). This time it is mainly about sisters fighting over who runs a plantation. But for a horror fan, those aren’t the changes that matter. The big shift is that voodoo no longer has magic powers, so there is no curse and no zombies. Isabelle is only trying to scare her sister by pretending to have powers, and in the end, she isn’t willing to follow through and do anything drastic. That removes the horror elements, as well as any tension, though it isn’t as if Ouanga was actually tense.

There is some unintentional humor in a fistfight between John And the overseer. Of course they couldn’t afford a fight choreographer, so these guys just ran into each other and slapped and pushed and grabbed a bit. It’s close cousin is the Colin Firth/Hugh Grant fight in Bridget Jones’s Diary, but that was meant as comedy.

The one, and only thing of interest in The Devil’s Daughter is the great Ida James. No, she can’t act. She really can’t act. She is as bad as anyone I’ve ever seen on film. But she can sing. Not here, unfortunately. She was a jazz and pop singer, best remembered for working with the Count Basie Orchestra and Nat King Cole Trio. She was a familiar name to me and I was surprised to see her in this kind of dreck.

Horror, Poverty Row, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Wuthering Heights (1939)

Oct 111939

A visitor to Wuthering Heights is touched by the ghost of Cathy, and then is told the story of the disastrous love between Cathy (Merle Oberon), an upper class girl, and Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), a penniless gypsy. After pledging themselves to each other, Cathy turns from him to obtain a life of luxury. That brings tragedy not only to them, but to everyone near them.

Wuthering Heights isn’t a ghost story, but rather a Harlequin romance with supernatural bookends. Today, Emily Brontë’s story would be published with a bare-chested Fabio on the cover, holding a swooning buxom babe in one hand, and gazing out over the moors (where there might be pirates—you never know). You can label it a classic, but that doesn’t make it any more important than The Viscount Who Loved Me or Mistress Mabel and the Handsome Pirate.

While the film was conceived as a tearjerker (and was successful), it is hard to figure what about these unpleasant people could pull a tear from even chronic sobbers. Angst-ridden Heathcliff is a sadomasochistic wretch of a human being, and he’s the best of the lot. Cathy’s flip-flopping emotional state makes her seem like she’s suffering from multiple personality disorder instead of being a woman in love trying to overcome her upbringing. Cathy’s brother doesn’t have a personality at all, just two traits: he drinks and says cruel things. That’s all he does. The others are universally arrogant and dim. Why should I care if these people’s lives are ruined?

The melodrama is full out in every scene, with pounding of fists, and posing—lots of posing. Every performance is twice as broad and loud as it should be. But then what else can an actor do when he’s given the line, “I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul”?

Ah, but I shouldn’t forget that Wuthering Heights is a helpful guide in pointing out the fragility of women. Apparently, if a female ventures out in a storm, she’ll sink to the ground (for no apparent reason) and need to convalesce for weeks. Wow, I’ve been out in thundershowers before without catching a cold, but I guess women just can’t take water. God help them all if they should try to swim.

Thanks to cinematographer Gregg Toland, this overdone soap opera looks beautiful. Toland would work on Citizen Kane two years later, but his skills were apparent here. His only failure, or more likely director William Wyler’s, was with the moors, which should be intoxicating, but instead appear flat and unappealing.

No one could accuse any other part of the film of being flat, just unappealing.

Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The Return of Doctor X (1939)

Oct 081939

News reporter Walter Garrett (Wayne Morris) discovers the dead body of Angela Merrova (Lya Lys), but when she turns up alive, though strangely pale, he is fired. He goes to his friend, Dr. Mike Rhodes (Dennis Morgan), for help, which prompts Rhodes to investigate strange murders where the victims all had “type 1” blood. This leads him to the blood specialist, Dr. Francis Flegg (John Litel), and the bizarre, pale, Dr. Kane (Humphrey Bogart).

Forget plot, theme, or production values. The reason to watch The Return of Doctor X is to see Humphrey Bogart as an effeminate, glasses-wearing, striped-haired, rabbit-petting, blood-stealing, walking dead man. “Odd” is an understatement. Forced by his contract into taking the part, Bogart was not shy in stating his contempt for the picture.

The story is typical Mad Scientist fare, with Dr. Flegg wanting to help humanity with his medical breakthrough, but making insanely bad decisions along the way. Resurrecting Kane is the worst of them. The story has nothing that hasn’t been done better in fifty other films.

While it sounds like it should be a sequel to the 1933 WB Mad Scientist film, Doctor X, the only connection is the basic structure. Both have a comic relief reporter gratuitously tacked on to the horror elements, and both films would be far better for his removal. In this case, it is Walter Garrett (though the character’s name is listed as Barnett in the credits), played in farce style by Wayne Morris, who would later be known for low budget westerns. Garrett is never funny, and his glib lines and wolf glares at every female that passes belong in a Three Stooges short. Morris also looks too much like Dennis Morgan, giving us two tall, slender, generic, white guys chasing the mystery around town.

I have seen many films that contain a feminine psycho quietly petting a furry white animal (think Ernst Blofeld, or several Monty Python Episodes), but I haven’t seen a version that pre-dates this. If there is one, let me know, because I find it disconcerting to think that Bogart created that particular icon.

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Classic Horror, Mad Scientists, Mad Scientists, Reviews, Vampires Tagged with: Two Reels

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Oct 081939

Baron Wolf Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone), the son of the late doctor Frankenstein, travels to “Middle Europe,” with his wife Elsa (Josephine Hutchinson) and son Peter (Donnie Dunagan), to take possession of the family castle. Like his father, he is a scientist and experimenter, and he has a fanatical desire to prove that his father was a great man. The villagers are not happy to see another Frankenstein take up residence, and Inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill) warns the newcomers that it may be dangerous. He quickly runs into grave-robbing Ygor (Bela Lugosi), who aided his father and was hanged for his participation, but survived, and Ygor leads him to the still-living Monster (Boris Karloff), who is in a coma. The Baron thinks that if he can fully revive the monster, this will exonerate the family name, though Ygor has other plans.

Son of Frankenstein started the second cycle of Universal Monsters, and did so with a budget, stars, and style.

The horror drought had been in effect since mid-1936, with no true horror films being made in the US, and only a few horror-adjacent thriller mysteries even coming close. It had been engineered by Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration. He was a right-wing extremist and hard-line Catholic and felt that all horror was immoral and must be wiped out. He worked using a combination of the actual veto power he’d been given, nagging, warnings of doom, and lies to get. He’d spent several years making any horror filmmaker’s life hell, cutting their scripts, calling them to say that horror was bad, and suggesting that this state or that state would come down hard on a film. Then he got a bigger weapon. British censorship was generally harsher than that of the US, although it wasn’t horror per se that they objected to, but a confusing combination of animal cruelty and anything they thought might cause social unrest (such as troublesome teenagers or racial issues), but they had banned several films, put in a new “H” rating, and cut multiple movies. Breen used this, aided by some poorly researched news articles, to claim that England, and somehow thus all of Europe, had banned horror. He’d been making it very difficult for anyone to make a horror film, and now he persuaded the studios that it wouldn’t be profitable enough to fight for. Universal, the horror king, had recently changed management, and the new team didn’t care about horror anyway, and the greatest horror director, James Whale, had become persona non grata after he told management what he thought of them. So horror was dead, and Breen had won. Well, he won until a dying theater showed a triple feature of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Son of Kong (not that I consider the last of these horror) and a studio exec saw the line wrapping around the block. He actually had thought that horror films couldn’t make money (these guys really didn’t look at their own ledgers, but hey, talkies were young and execs didn’t have the experience yet), but those lines said differently. Breen had power, but money had more power. Universal immediately released a double feature of Frankenstein and Dracula around the country and they made more money than on their initial releases, so they rushed Son of Frankenstein into production. It was a rough road, suddenly having to work out how to make a horror film again on a really tight schedule, and with Breen fighting them all the way. But they made it. And people came. And every studio saw that horror was back.

The result is better than anyone could have hoped for. It doesn’t live up to its predecessors, but then director Rowland V. Lee was no James Whale and it is hard to beat one of the greatest horror films of all time. What they really got right was the style. If you’ve read this far and have any interest in classic horror, you know what’s coming: German expressionism. It dominated Universal’s early horror films and this is its apogee. You have to go back to the silent The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to find a more effective, or extreme use of the form. Nothing in Son of Frankenstein is real, but rather is shaped to convey fears, uncertainties, and feelings in general. We’re not seeing a German town, and a manor house, and a scientists works space, but terror itself forged into those shapes. The Universal pictures in general didn’t pretend that they took place in a real Germany or real England, but in a fantasy “Middle Europe” filled with superstitious and much put upon peasants and a monomaniacal ruling class. So the film gives us a fog-shrouded collection of stretched and oddly placed houses on the edge of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The castle is a surreal nightmare of over-sized barren rooms, arches, twisted staircases, and a cavernous fireplace, all seen in high contrast lighting. It isn’t a home for humans but for fifteen foot giants, or perhaps for that feeling of being small in the world. The layout of the buildings doesn’t make sense, and I’m not talking about failures in design, such as the family tomb that’s only accessible through a secret passage no normal man could open, but rather that halls don’t meet up. Nothing is where it should be.

Am I going on too long about the expressionistic art direction and cinematography? No, because it’s a thing of beauty. If nothing else worked, the film would still be good based on that alone. And that expressionism makes much of the rest of it work. You can’t argue that this or that aspect of reviving a monster or travel to and from the town don’t make sense when sense isn’t the point. Also note, the expressionism extends into all aspects of the film, including the dialog and the acting. No one is trying to mimic real life, but give us something twice removed.

Boris Karloff again plays The Monster, (as he had in Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) but for the last time. The multifaceted innocent savage is gone, to be replaced by a hulking zombie. Between Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein the creature lost his ability to talk, so important in the previous film. It’s unfortunate that the best part of the originals, the pathos in The Monster, is missing, but to make up for that, Bela Lugosi‘s Ygor has personality to spare. It is Lugosi’s best role and he revels in it, cackling and coughing and taking it as far as it can go. He’s evil and murderous, by sympathetic and funny. After all, he was hanged for helping the rich and powerful baron, and that baron got away with it. One of the best moments in the movie is Ygor sitting by a broken window playing his haunting horn—it’s eerie and beautiful.

Basil Rathbone, an actor whose voice alone made legendary, is excellent, playing a mad scientist less likable than the original Frankenstein. That doctor was a loon in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Wolf von Frankenstein is an arrogant elitist with daddy issues, which is smart character design as it makes Ygor easier to like. Lionel Atwill’s inspector is another great character, a voice of calm and logic coming from the edge of a nightmare. Unfortunately, newer viewers will have a hard time taking him seriously after Mel Brooks parodied him in Young Frankenstein (Young Frankenstein is based on this film, not on the original Frankenstein).

The child is annoying, as is often the case in any film with a child that young, and it’s clear he’s no actor. Though he does bring a bit of warmth to the film in retrospect as Dunagan has said how kind Boris Karloff was to him on set, buying him ice cream and playing checkers with him, in full monster makeup. Peter Frankenstein is not on screen too often, so he’s a minor negative.

It’s best not to watch Son of Frankenstein too quickly after the first two; there are too many inconsistencies, such as the laboratory—now shaped like an observatory—sitting on the grounds of Castle Frankenstein, and Ygor being an assistant to the previous Dr. Frankenstein. But then, why would an expressionistic picture have any more interest in matching previous movies than it does in matching reality? It’s just about how it makes you feel.

It was followed by Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943) House of Frankenstein (1944), and House of Dracula (1945).

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Classic Horror, Mad Scientists, Mad Scientists, Reviews Tagged with: Four Reels

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)

Oct 041939

Robert Devereux, the overly proud Earl of Essex, desires the love of Queen Elizabeth (Bette Davis), and half of her throne. Elizabeth is romantically interested in Essex, but needs him to keep his place. As they jockey for position, both are foiled by the plotting and intrigues at the palace.

Either Errol Flynn or Bette Davis was badly miscast in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, but which one depends on what kind of a movie this was supposed to be. Flynn is playing in a Swashbuckler, while Davis is in a heavy historical drama. Flynn’s approach is backed by director Michael Curtiz (Captain Blood—1935, The Adventures of Robin Hood—1938, The Sea Hawk—1940), the rest of the cast (Swashbuckling stalwarts: Olivia de Havilland, Alan Hale, Henry Daniell, Donald Crisp, Henry Stephenson, James Stephenson, and Robert Warwick, along with Leo G. Carroll and Vincent Price), the color, set design, and the score (by Erich Wolfgang Korngold). Davis’s view is supported by the script. The schizophrenia is never resolved, making Davis appear silly and Flynn confused. Both over act, but at least Flynn could do that with charm.

There isn’t enough wit, romance, or swordplay for the movie to be anything but a tepid Swashbuckler. The single battle lacks the scope necessary, and is obviously stage-bound. But the film comes off worse as a drama because its serious elements just aren’t very good; there is little plot, and the character development is unbelievable and forced. Essex is made into an idiot (he should have been ambitious and proud, not mentally deficient). Plus the dialog is artificial.

The history of the film is famous. Davis wanted Warner Brothers to buy the successful play Elizabeth the Queen, and cast her and Laurence Olivier in a film version. However, Olivier wasn’t available, and wanting a return on their investment, cast Flynn, who Davis couldn’t stand. Flynn was unhappy with the title, which relegated his character to a supporting role, so after some finagling, the movie was cursed with: The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. In a scene where Elizabeth slaps Essex, Davis actually smacked Flynn. He later put additional oomph into a shove, knocking Davis to the floor. On screen, this translates to a truly impressive lack of chemistry. Both Flynn and Davis hated Curtiz (he was a great director, but few actors liked working with him), and Olivia de Havilland had been handed her secondary role as punishment for appearing in Gone With the Wind for a competing studio.

Historically inaccurate, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex was meant as a “prestige picture,” but it is far from that. Luckily, everyone involved had far better films either under their belt of yet to come.

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Reviews, Swashbucklers Tagged with: Two Reels

Tower of London (1939)

Oct 011939

Edward IV (Ian Hunter) has usurped the throne from the incompetent Henry VI, and rules with the aide of his brave and intelligent brother, Richard of Gloucester (Basil Rathbone). Richard does help his brother, but mainly with an eye toward helping himself. He sees six individuals in his way to becoming king, and he plans to eliminate them all, including his two young nephews. And if that means his peevish younger brother, the Duke of Clarence (Vincent Price), gets cut down—or drowned in a vat of wine—along the way, that’s all to the better. To do his dirty work he has loyal, club-footed executioner Mord (Boris Karloff), who runs an efficient torture chamber and is willing to kill whoever Richard tells him to. Mord also commands a squad of beggars, who act as spies and gossips for him. Most of the barriers to his success are inconsequential, not counting Henry Tudor, but there is one thorn in his side: young, brave John Wyatt (John Sutton), who, with the help of his love Alice Barton (Nan Grey) and the Queen (Barbara O’Neil), will carry out a plan that may drag Richard down.

Other studios would take historical dramas and focus on pageantry for a prestige picture or on rapid lines and more rapid swordplay for a swashbucker, but Universal had its own set of skills, and it used them to bring out the horror in history. Tower Of London follows Richard the III’s rise and fall from power, and like most versions of the story, it tells it as the Tutors wanted it to be told (hey, it’s good to be the winner). That is, Richard is a calculating fiend, killing adult kin and children with abandon. Much of this view is likely false, but if you are going to go with it, as Shakespeare did before, do it with gusto.

Writer Robert N. Lee, brother to the director Director Rowland V. Lee (who was fresh from directing Rathbone and Karloff in Son of Frankenstein) did not use the Bard’s play, but went to older sources, and wrote his own script. The basics are the same, though enry VI is now nearly as conniving has his brother, and we get the new character of Mord.

Universal pulled out all the stops for this one, with elaborate castle sets (that would get a good deal of reuse), a large main cast and throngs of extras, and battlefield romps. And into this strides Rathbone, Karloff, Hunter, and a bit behind, Price, and blow everything else away. Rathbone is a wonderful Richard, my cinematic favorite which is high praise as it places him over Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen, as well as Price in a ’62 rough remake of this film. He’s charming, quick, intelligent, and ruthless. This is a Richard who could rise to the top of the violent political world. Hunter’s Edward is nearly as charming, nearly as quick, reasonably intelligent, and nearly as ruthless, which is why it is so captivating to watch the two play off each other, and why I was rooting for Richard. Mord is a inspired addition, letting us see Richard’s worse instincts come to life. It is another stunning role for Karloff who creates a frightening character, who is all the more so because he’s not some supernatural or science fiction entity, but one who is so very human. Richard is a megalomaniac mastermind, and Mord is a sadist, yet I was ready to cheer for them as they submerged Clarence. Their evil is joyful, and their opponents are mostly idiots.

Some may object to me reviewing this as horror, but where else do the deeds of Richard belong? We have beheadings, brandings, and torture on the rack (and in many other grisly ways), and it’s all done with glee. We have the murder of children, and Richard with dolls of each of his targets that he tosses upon the fire when they die. There’s also rain and fog and fear and screams. That sure sounds like horror to me.

For three-fourths of the run time I had this as a 4-star tour de force, but it falls a bit in the final act, as it was bound to. The problem here is the same with Shakespeare’s play, which is it’s all about Richard (or in this case, Richard and Mord). They are what’s interesting and fun. Henry Tutor is hardly a character, so to have him take down Richard always feels anticlimactic. Tower of London seeks to remedy this by bringing in Wyatt, but he’s a milquetoast nothing next to Richard (just as John Sutton fades to invisibility next to Rathbone and Karloff) and I cared nothing for his relationship with Alice. There needs to be a grand character with a huge personality to compete, and I’ve never seen one in any version of Richard III’s story. (This was Universal, which makes me wonder what Claude Rains was doing at the time.) Well, I’ll just blame history.

Classic Horror, Horror, Reviews Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

On Borrowed Time (1939)

Sep 101939

Julian Northrup (Lionel Barrymore), the argumentative and crippled grandfather and caretaker for Pud, is in a custody battle with his deceased wife’s unpleasant sister (Eily Malyon), but he has run out of time. Death has come for him, but with a surprisingly simple trick, he manages to trap the agent of death, Mr. Brink (Cedric Hardwicke) in a tree. With him there, no one on Earth can die.

No doubt most people of my generation would think of On Borrowed Time as a lengthened Twilight Zone episode, particularly as there are two episodes with numerous similarities. But that isn’t to this films detriment. Anything but. It is a morality tale, with its quirky characters drawn larger than life that sails along. It is funny here and there, but the storyline is carried out with solemnity, and the theme, of not only accepting death, but embracing it, is heartfelt.

Those of an earlier generation are likely to connect it to other “film-blancs” such as Death Takes a Holiday and Here Comes Mr. Jordan, where the afterlife is awash in fluffy clouds and basic forces of the universe are anthropomorphized. Like multiple others in this group, On Borrowed Time is based on a play, and feels like it. The scope is small. We rarely are shown anything beyond Julian’s house and yard. While we are warned of the consequences of a world without death, we do not see them. Everything is shown through the eyes of Julian and a few acquaintances. The film is dialog driven, though I cannot say how closely it matches the lines in the play except that the swearing has been removed for our protection.

Lionel Barrymore dominates every moment, so how much you enjoy the picture will depend on how you feel about his idiosyncratic brand of acting. Barrymore always played Barrymore, which works well if the part fits him. This one does. Julian is caring and witty but also unreasonable and cruel. He’s not a simple man, nor one that is easy to like, and least without some reservations, all of which works in the films favor.

The rest of the cast is superb, particularly Cedric Hardwicke (The Ghoul, The Invisible Man Returns, The Ghost of Frankenstein) and Henry Travers (The Invisible Man, It’s a Wonderful Life). The exception is the child, but that can’t be blamed on the actor as the character is annoying and unrealistic, merging the characteristics of a five-year-old with those of a ten-year-old.

The ending is unexpected, and would no doubt be changed for the worse in a modern remake. They also might change the vaguely explained “experimenting” that the doctor does with animals in order to see if death has been stopped—and I might be in favor of such a change.

Fantasy, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

El signo de la muerte {Sign of Death} (1939)

Aug 311939

Journalists and romantic couple Carlos (Tomas Perrin Jr.) and Lola (Elena D’Orgaz) investigate the murder of a woman whose heart was cut out, implying she was a sacrifice. Their investigation leads them to the foremost expert on the Aztecs, Dr. Gallardo (Carlos Orellanda) of the museum. He’s also secretly a member of an Aztec cult and has discovered ancient writings that state that the Aztec god, and thus, the Aztec race, can be resurrected by sacrificing four chosen virgins. Gallardo’s assistant Cantinflas (Mario Moreno), as well as museum watchman Medel (Manuel Medel) are unaware of what their boss is up to and find themselves weaving in and out of trouble.

El signo de la muerte brings to mind El superloco from two years earlier, as both are horror comedies where the horror elements are unrelated to the comedy ones. However, in this case, the horror takes precedence (slightly), which is odd as the lead is Cantinflas. Cantinflas was a major star in Mexico, the biggest in comedy for several decades, who came from the Vaudeville-like tent shows that traveled the countryside. His persona was that of a lower class, nonsense-talking jester who would deflate the pompous and mighty. This was his forth film, of around fifty, and he was still developing the character, so he’s toned down a bit here, though he still speaks in circles. His routine was thought to be iconically Mexican, and so, not understandable to those from other cultures. That fits for me as I don’t find him funny, but I also don’t find him annoying, unlike many Vaudeville-turned-movie comics in the US, so maybe I understand enough. Medel was set as his adversary in multiple films as well as on stage, playing another member of the lower classes, but one not so clever.

In El signo de la muerte the two of them wander about, often together, trying to best each other in this and that. They do connect to the rest of the film as far as their characters knowing the others and working close to the big events, but they aren’t a major part of the story. They aren’t trying to solve the mystery, or join with the villains, or aid the heroes. They’re just there. And normally their joking does not include the major players in the story, so the story stops, they do their gags, the story starts up again, then stops again for them to do more gags.

The horror side of things is weakened by the constant starting and stopping that kills the atmosphere, but when it can get going it’s pretty strong stuff for 1939. We see the dagger plunge into a girl’s chest and blood flow, as well as the exposed breasts of one of the sacrifices when her dress is ripped down (apparently only some sacrifices need to be topless). It gives a nice kick to the proceedings. Carlos is a bit bland, but the Aztecs are quite colorful, so over all it works.

Though with the Aztecs we’re getting into some troubling stereotypes that get weirder the more you look into them. The cult is very pulpy, with bare-chested men waving spears around. They are the equivalent to Native Americans waiving tomahawks and saying in broken English to “Scalp ‘em some white men.” But this wasn’t done with blind prejudice. At the time in Mexico, the president and those supporting him were trying to craft a Mexican identity, while also breaking promises made in the revolution. That identity was a merging of the European culture that had invaded and the destroyed civilizations of indigenous peoples. So there was a big movement to connect the government to average Mexicans to Aztecs that they generally had no relationship to. Director Chano Uruta was critical of the government and of claiming this ancient heritage. Thus, Gallardo is a very white looking actor, claiming to be an Aztec, and it goes very wrong, and the Aztecs show up in the most stereotypical, cheap form he could come up with. I don’t know enough about Mexican politics to figure what this all means, but it’s interesting.

Classic Horror, Foreign Language, Horror, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

The Man They Could Not Hang (1939)

Jul 151939

Dr. Henryk Savaard (Boris Karloff) is one of the greatest scientists in the world. He has created a technique to restore a dead body to life which will progress the art of surgery by a thousand year (or maybe a few decades). With the aid of his protégé Lang (Byron Foulger), he finishes the first part of experiment, to kill a man without harming the tissue, but is interrupted by his hysterical nurse and the dimwitted police, stopping him from reviving the body. He’s arrested, convicted, and hanged for murder. Lang is given his body after the execution, and he revives the doctor, who plans to avenge himself. Six of the jurors are found hung. The remaining people who caused his death, the foolish nurse, DA, medical examiner, police lieutenant, and four jurors are sent telegrams to meet at Savaards old house, where he plans to dispatch them all. But reporter ‘Scoop” Foley (Robert Wilcox) and his daughter Janet (Lorna Gray) may screw up his plans.

How stupid can a person be? And she’s a nurse. OK, so she freaks because her boyfriend has volunteered for a dangerous experiment. Fine. She could throw a fit (she throws a small one, but she could amplify it seven times over) to stop the boyfriend. Or she could sabotage the experiment before hand. But what no one with even the slightest brain would do is stop a medical procedure half way through. It’s mind boggling, and frustrating. And that’s this movie. It’s frustrating, mainly because it has the potential to be a very good B-movie.

Karloff is in great form. He was a fine actor, but particularly good a playing a kind and gentle man (apparently fitting to his personality) and a powerful, avenging force edging on insanity. Here he combines the two into a far more authentic character than these sorts of simple films deserve. He’s the heart and soul of the film. Savaard’s aims are either good and noble, or understandable, depending on where we are in the film. The rest of the cast do their job, but this his Karloff’s film. It was the first of a string of low-budget pictures he’d make for Columbia. It’s also a mad scientist film that doesn’t take the anti-science position. There’s no comment about it being wrong to know what man wasn’t meant to know. Savaard is clearly in the right. The problem comes from lesser minds stopping him.

What I can’t figure is how the studio got so mixed up one how an audience would enjoy this movie. This is a B-movie, and a mad scientist one at that, so it isn’t designed as a deep character study, but as a fun diversion. And with the wonderful character developed by Karloff, and the stupidity and cruelty of almost everyone else in the film, the joy clearly comes from him doing away with the fools. But the last half is written as if we are supposed to be rooting for the idiots, and enjoying their attempts to survive and thwart Savaard. Sure the Production Code wasn’t going to let him get away with murder, but we could, and should, have been given a chance to revel in them. Was there anyone who watched this and thought, “Come on nurse, you must escape as you are my hero” instead of “Oh please die!”

So we have a nicely made film, with some great moments, caped with story twists that sap the catharsis it should have supplied.

Classic Horror, Dark House, Horror, Mad Scientists, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)

May 061939

The queen of France has twin sons, later named Louis XIV and Philippe. The second is kept secret and sent off to be raised by the musketeer D’Artagnan (Warren William), with the aid of three godfathers: Parthos (Alan Hale), Aramis (Miles Mander), and Athos (Bert Roach). The young prince grows to be an evil king (Louis Hayward)m supported by the self-serving Fouquet (Joseph Schildkraut). Philippe (also Louis Hayward) grows to be a rash and rather foolish hero. When the twins meet, it sets in motion a great many incidents.

The Man in the Iron Mask comes from the same novel series as The Three Musketeers, with many of the same characters. The various stories of the Musketeers are the most filmed Swashbucklers, but not the most artistically successful. The films often vary wildly from the source material, and no more so than here as which brother is the good guy is different from the book.

As in most of the Musketeer films, the hero is not just a charming rogue, but an idiot. This gets tiring as he is constantly putting his life in danger as well as those around him for no reason. And while there is something of an overall plot to the movie, the flow is more “stuff that happens because there are royal twins.” That gives the film a lackadaisical feel.

Louis Hayward was a reasonable second-tier adventure lead, appearing in The Son of Monte Cristo (1940) The Return of Monte Cristo (1946), The Black Arrow (1948), The Masked Pirate (1949), Fortunes of Captain Blood (1950), Lady in the Iron Mask (1952), and Captain Pirate (1952). He is passable as Philippe and better as the effete Louis. When he is just this side of crazy he is excellent. Joan Bennett is pleasant eye-candy as the slightly-written princess/romantic interest. She would reteam with Hayward in the superior The Son of Monte Cristo.

The Musketeers have small roles, though Alan Hale makes an impression. He was a Swashbuckling mainstay with a supporting role in The Sea Hawk and three portrayals of Little John: Robin Hood (1922), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950). Warren William also makes an impression, but a less favorable one, He is far too stuffy as D’Artagnan and far more suited to the businessman roles that were his bread and butter.

James Whale was a great director for the proper film; he excelled at quirky horror such as Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and The Invisible man). And here his eye for a scene and work with actors is solid, but he is not an action director. A Swashbuckler needs to sing in its sword fights and Whale can’t manage that, playing tricks with speed that would be at home in silent pictures. Made a year after The Adventures of Robin Hood, the action appears primitive.

I enjoyed The Man in the Iron Mask, but if I’d missed it, that would have been fine as well.

Reviews, Swashbucklers Tagged with: Two Reels

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Apr 181939

The Baskerville family has been cursed for centuries by a hound from Hell due to the foul behavior of an ancestor. Recently, Sir Charles Baskerville had died of fright out on the moor. Dr Mortimer (Lionel Atwill), a believer in the supernatural, requests the aid of Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) to keep the newly arriving heir, Henry (Richard Greene), safe. Holmes can’t leave London, but sends Watson to Baskerville manner. The only other residents of the house are the suspicious butler and housekeeper (John Carradine, Eily Malyon), but there are a few close neighbors besides Mortimer and his wife: amateur archeologist John Stapleton (Morton Lowry) and his attractive sister Beryl (Wendy Barrie), and the overly litigious Frankland (Barlowe Borland). And somewhere on the moor is an escaped maniac.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best known Sherlock Holmes adventure, and one of the most popular books ever, which is a little strange since Holmes is missing for about a third. Even more so, it’s not a very good mystery. It’s nearly impossible not to figure out the villain and how he is doing his evil deeds, though a good deal trickier to guess why (is it possible at all?). So as a mystery, it falls short, but as a thriller, or more specifically, as a cinematic Old Dark House story, it comes into its own.

We’ve got an ancient curse and a maniac. We’ve got a group of eccentric characters in a small area, surrounded by deadly moors and the sounds of strange howls. We’ve got a suspicious butler waving a candle in the window at night and an ominous séance. We’ve got dim corridors, oversized halls, and unused rooms in a great stone house. And we’ve got mist to cover it all. This is the stuff of horror—a very specific type of horror—and here The Hound of the Baskervilles is at home.

You see it doesn’t matter what happens, but how it is displayed and this adaption knows exactly what to do: An unknown sound heard from a candlelit room. Then the slow turning of the handle. A gun. The door opens. It’s OK, just Henry. But wait, something is happening and he needs help. An advance down a darkened hallway. A light. A man signaling. And on it goes. Yes, atmosphere is trumping content, but the atmosphere is marvelous. It’s non-stop shadows and wind and strange sounds. When our group find a pleasant moment of relaxation, as in the dinner party, it’s clear that they are in a pinpoint of light, with darkness around. Step away from the table and the illusion of safety is gone.

Rathbone controls the role of Holmes, a sharp, obsessed genius, but unlike in his later appearances (when Rathbone was sick of the part), Holmes has a sense of humor. He’s fun, and having fun. Oh he takes his job as a detective seriously, but he also enjoys it, that is until the job’s finished and then he asks for cocaine. This is my favorite of Rathbone’s Holmes movies, containing his best performance, and probably the best appearance of the character in any film. Nigel Bruce’s Watson is a departure from the books, but I find it charming, and some comedy bumbling, as long as it isn’t taken too far, works for a sidekick when the hero is this smart.

Richard Greene is lackluster (strange now to think they gave him top billing), but then Henry isn’t much of a part and Greene is as good as anyone has ever been with it. The rest of the cast do better, particularly Atwill, Carradine, and Malyon, but then they get the weird and wonderful parts, so plenty for them to dig into.

The film follows the book more closely than most versions, and its departures are improvements, at least for a film (with the exception of eliminating Frankland’s daughter as more suspects would be nice, and of the change to Beryl’s status), as they build suspense, which is vital for the movie if not the novel. And those departures never feel out of place.

The Hound of the Baskervilles was the start of a 14 film run for Rathbone as Holmes (my ranking of those 14), and it is easy to see why. This picture as a whole is enjoyable, wrapping you in to it’s never-never-land of evil criminals and super-detectives, but Rathbone is even better. Both for him and for it’s Dark House horror, this is a film to see.

Dark House, Horror, Reviews Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

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