THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 56

 The genres are all over the map today -- Western, mystery, horror, and film noir. Each has a twist from the usual movies of their type, making them stand out either for the good or like a sore thumb.

LAW AND ORDER (1932): The year is 1890. Ex-lawman Fame Johnson, his brother Luther, and two sidekicks Ed Brandt and Deadwood, mosey into Tombstone, Arizona, where the residents are terrorized by the crooked sheriff and a gang of cattle rustlers. (Stop me if this is starting to sound vaguely familiar.) Fame is talked into become Tombstone's marshal, a development the galloots don't take kindly to. When Ed Brandt is shot down in the middle of Main Street, Fame and his posse decide it's time to meet up with the bad guys for a gunfight at --

Oh, you know where. Law and Order is a barely fictionalized version of the shootout at the O.K. Corral, with only the date and names changed. This doesn't negate the fact it's a topnotch Western -- high praise from a non-fan of the genre like me -- and, for my money, better than the more highly regarded My Darling Clementine, the 1946 version of the story directed by John Ford. It's about 30 minutes shorter, too, earning it an extra gold star.

I wouldn't be surprised if the star of Clementine, Henry Fonda, studied Huston's performance in Law and Order, as the two are often eerily alike. Of the two, I prefer Huston, one of the great movie actors of his time who doesn't get enough respect these days, and whose stage work didn't prevent him from being wholly natural in the entirely different style of movies. Watch how he makes dimwit killer Andy Devine (younger and thinner than you've ever seen him) feel good about his execution by reminding him that he's the first person to be legally hanged in Tombstone. You'd want to be arrested by a guy like Fame.

All of the supporting actors, especially Harry Carey as Ed Brandt, evoke the Old West more realistically than other studio Westerns of the time. Their clothes are often covered in dirt and dust and grime; they use the same towel to wash their faces and clean their shoes; their eyes reflect the deaths they've witnessed and participated in. Further making it a must-see, Law and Order (written by Walter Huston's 26-year-old son John) was recently restored for a 4K Blu ray, making it look and sound as good as it did nearly a century ago. Maybe better. Like I said, I've never been into Westerns, but Law and Order is one I'll return to more than once in the future. 

BONUS POINTS: The use of Universal's famous crane used in the 1929 musical Broadway, especially during the astonishing climactic shootout. And don't miss skinny Walter Brennan as the guy who sweeps out the local saloon. At age 38, he was toothless even then.

THE GHOST CAMERA (1933):
Good Lord, man, where has this delightful, fast-paced, 64-minute "mystery narrative" from the UK been hiding all my life? With a little tweaking, The Ghost Camera could pass for one of Alfred Hitchcock's early British talkies.

Finding a camera in the back seat of his car, John Gray develops the film hoping to identify the owner. Instead, one of the shots has captured a murder -- a photo which, along with the camera, quickly goes missing. John tracks down a woman in another photo, Mary Elton, whose brother Ernest vanished days earlier with the camera. As John and Mary follow the other photographic clues, they find the scene of the murder just as the police find Ernest. While the evidence is stacked against Ernest, John inadvertently saves the day when finding the real culprit.

If only all British "quota quickies" were as good as The Ghost Camera, starting with the twisty, occasionally risqué script by H. Fowler Mear (there's a British name for you!). I was and continue to be unfamiliar with Henry Kendall, who is memorable as John; he's like the prototype of the young Hugh Grant mixed with Edward Everett Horton. In one of her earliest roles, the nearly unrecognizable pre-Hollywood Ida Lupino is appealing as Mary, who seems to be hiding a very important secret. She's supposed to be 20-ish but, if Lupino's birthdate is correct, was actually 15! Well, people aged faster then, that's for sure.

Along with Lupino, there are a couple of other yet-to-be famous names found here. John Mills plays Ernest as the innocent guy who looks guilty, as when he makes his first entrance into the courtroom, twitching and stumbling like he's already being led to the gallows. The pitch perfect editing in that scene -- and throughout The Ghost Camera -- is the work of future director David Lean. Everyone in fact gives their all to what was intended as just another bottom-of-the-bill picture but today should be considered as an unjustifiably overlooked bit of British cinema.

BONUS POINTS: Upon entering the ruins of a 12th-century castle, a nervous Ida Lupino says the surroundings give her "a case of the jimjams", a phrase I hope to re-enter into everyday conversation.

CRY OF THE WEREWOLF (1944): Universal pretty much had the lycanthropy lore to
itself, first with Werewolf of London and, later, The Wolfman until Columbia got into the game with Cry of the Werewolf.  Columbia made an unexpectedly nice switcheroo by casting a woman, Nina Foch, as the hellish human hound. And in a regrettable example of genetics, Foch's Celeste is a werewolf by birth, courtesy of her late mother. Celeste is determined to rip the throats out of anyone connected to a museum featuring proof of her heritage. Such a loyal child!

Yet Cry of the Werewolf doesn't veer too far from what people were expecting. Celeste is the leader of an Eastern European gypsy "family" which apparently took a wrong turn outside Budapest and wound up in New Orleans. Further confusing things, two of the movie's characters are British, while nobody has a Louisiana accent. It's actually rather surprising that this mishmash doesn't include a Nazi professor trying to breed his own werewolves to unleash in America. Maybe Monogram already tried that gag.

If you recognize Nina Foch, Barton MacLane (as the gruff police lieutenant) may ring a bell as well. If not, you won't recognize anybody in the cast, even if the romantic leads deserve a negative mention. Stephen Crane -- not the guy who wrote Red Bad of Courage -- has the presence of stale popcorn. His onscreen honey, Osa Massen, was probably Columbia's answer to Republic's Vera Hruba Ralston, right to the hard-to-pin-down accent and relentless state of confusion.

Despite my japes, Cry of the Werewolf is ultimately a perfectly watchable B-movie war weary audiences were desperate for to provide any kind of distraction for an hour. Save it for when all you can find on TV is junk -- in other words, any evening.

BONUS POINTS: Washing out of show business after only two more movies, Stephen Crane found his calling by creating the Kon Tiki restaurant chain. Another round of Zombies, Steve!

                                                         

DEUX HOMMES DANS MANHATTAN (1959): Ahh, the comforting pre-credit
sequence of so many '50s noirs: Times Square at night seen through a car's rear window, with the familiar ADMIRAL TELEVISION APPLIANCES neon sign in the background, accompanied by a lonely trumpet wailing like a lost child. Then the title appears: DEUX HOMMES DANS MANHATTAN. Hey, what they hey? A credit reading SCENARIO ADAPTATION ET DIALOGUES? What gives? 

Well, it was inevitable that the country that coined the phrase film noir would give it a go. And the set-up is actually a good one, updated for the geopolitical age. Moreau and Delmas, respectively a French reporter and photographer both stationed in New York, prowl the city one night investigating the disappearance of France's delegate to the United Nations. They track down the married man's known girlfriends but gain little useful information. The French friends are ready to give up until they learn of the attempted suicide of one of the delegate's sidepieces -- an event that takes their investigation to another, unexpected level. And, say, what's the deal with the car that's been tailing them all night?

All the elements are there for a classic noir. The problem with Deux Hommes dans Manhattan lies with writer/director Jean-Pierre Melville (who also plays Moreau). In his attempt to emulate an American movie genre, Melville exaggerates noir style to the point of laughability. Reporters wearing sunglasses in the office. Slutty women spouting "tough" dialogue that's actually inane. An obnoxious trumpet blast every time the mystery car behind them turns on its headlights. It's like a Cordon Bleu-trained chef using all his culinary knowledge to replicate your grandma's simple coffee cake by tripling the amount of ingredients and throwing in some others because they seem right.

Moreau and his costar Pierre Grasset do their best to emulate American anti-heroes, right down to the trench coat, fedora, and world-weary conversations. The French actresses are fine, but their American counterparts -- mon Dieu! Melville must have cast most of them for no other reason other than they worked cheap. It's always nice to see '50s New York in movies, but Deux Hommes dans Manhattan doesn't do it any favors. 

BONUS POINTS: Several location shots are plugged both visually and through dialogue in what appears to be product placement. The Capitol Records recording studio on East 23rd, the Pike Slip Inn, the Oven and Grill Diner, the Ridgewood Rathskeller... all now vanished but preserved in the movie. Well, at least it was good for something.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 55

 Today's menu consists of two pre-codes, a B-movie starring a blog favorite, and a short best watched with the sound muted. Time to binge!

AFRAID TO TALK (1932): Just when you think pre-codes couldn't get more cynical, up pops Afraid to Talk. Bellboy Eddie Martin witnesses the murder of gangster Jake Stransky by fellow criminal Jig Skelli. What appears to be open and shut case becomes dead and buried, since Skelli has proof that the city's mayor, police commissioner, judges and the D.A.'s office were on Stranksy's payroll. Ergo, the bellboy has to take the fall. After hours of mental and physical torture, Eddie signs a confession. The Mayor and Judge, happy to collect kickbacks as long as mobsters are killing each other, want no part of this, and risk their own careers in order to free Martin. District Attorney John Wade, on the other hand, decides to arrange Martin's jailhouse murder to make it look like suicide. Your tax dollars at work!

Even for a misanthrope like me, Afraid to Talk was a disquieting 75 minutes. Not even the previously-discussed Vice Squad presents lawmakers in such a tawdry light. So much so that where it takes place is never made clear, since references are made to cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New York. (Pay no attention to Times Square's electric headline tickertape that's often seen.) Too, constant reference is made to protecting "the party" at all costs -- just don't ask which party. No wonder some Depression-hit jobless characters hope for a red revolution. The latter is due to Afraid to Talk's writer, Albert Maltz, being a real-life member of the Communist party. And we all know that lawmakers in Stalin's Russia were the most integrous of people.

Forget about the leads playing the bellboy and his bride; it's the bad guys (some pretending to be good) who own Afraid to Talk. Master character actor Edward Arnold, who could play nice guys when he wanted to, chews up the joint as Jig Skelli, the jolly gangster who enjoys bantering with the D.A. as much as he does killing off rivals. And speaking of the D.A., the underrated Louis Calhern is oilier than a tin of mackerel as John Wade, who marks the innocent Eddie Martin for death with the ease of ordering one of the countless cigars smoked here. And it won't be the last time you'll find yourself saying, "Oh my God!" either.

Yup, Afraid to Talk swings for the disreputable fences time after time. The only problems are its current so-so condition (yet another obscure Paramount oldie in need of a good scrubbing), and that it lacks the more downbeat alternate ending allegedly filmed for its European release. Even in its current state, though, Afraid to Talk puts to lie any talk about the "innocent days" of movies and how the studios were afraid to confront audiences with the hard truth about what their government leaders were (and still are) capable of. 

BONUS POINT: The corrupt cops giving poor Eddie the third-degree. Not that they're doing it, but how it's photographed in one take, the camera slowly tracking closer as the harsh overhead light swings lazily back and forth. We're spared seeing the subsequent torture, having to be content with hearing Eddie's agonized off-camera screams.

EAST OF FITH AVENUE (1933):  Sure, that "Grand Hotel of a New York boarding house" hype on the East of Fifth Avenue one-sheet is accurate. But it also feels like Columbia's answer to Sam Goldwyn's Street Scene, right down to the Gershwinesque opening theme. Both movies focus on the denizens of lower-middle class New York neighborhoods in a compressed timeline. Characters have money and family problems. But while Street Scene was a big budget adaptation of an acclaimed Broadway drama, East of Fifth Avenue is... well, like I said, a Columbia picture. 

No need to give the names of most of the characters or the actors. And while there are a lot of them -- the layabout poet, the elderly couple, the snake oil salesman among others -- two carry much of the movie. Kitty (Dorothy Tree) eagerly awaits the return of Vic (Wallace Ford), the fast-talking gambler who unknowingly knocked her up. And Vic does indeed show up -- with his wife Edna, a cracked Southern belle. It doesn't take long for Edna to get tired of the boarding house life, leading Vic to desperately find a thousand bucks to bet on a surefire 10-1 nag at the track. Kitty, still in love with him, borrows from the elderly couple, which sets into motion the climactic events that affect most of the boarders in different, shocking ways.

While most of the characters are more like caricatures, Dorothy Tree brings Kitty to life in East of Fifth Avenue's most believable performance, holding the story together during the goofy first half before it gets increasingly dramatic. Familiar utility actor Wallace Ford gives his typical wiseguy flair, only less grating than usual. Even better, he often gives hints of his better dramatic style that would dominate his future supporting roles. I came close to turning off East of Fifth Avenue (118 East 56th, to be exact) in the first half hour but was glad to stick with it, as it didn't necessarily play out as expected, especially with the elderly couple. It might not be a grand hotel but it's pretty good.

BONUS POINTS: By the end of the movie, you will have learned a dozen or so pre-code ways to say a woman is pregnant without really saying it. Best example: when Kitty is kicked out of a chorus line, one of the dancers sneers, "Say, I thought you had a lot of experience." To which Kitty replies, "Yeah, too much!"

THE SIX DAY GRIND (1935): Some not-so-good pictures are worth seeing just once
because they're short. Others, because they have historical significance. Still others because they're proof that what was once considered witty has aged like camembert sitting on the windowsill for a year. 

The Six Day Grind is all three. It's a one-reeler; it features genuine newsreel footage of the six-day bicycle race held in Madison Square Garden in 1935, an event at once fascinating and boring beyond human standards; and it stars the married comedy team of Goodman and Jane Ace, known on their radio sitcom as the Easy Aces. The couple were similar to Burns & Allen, with the long-suffering straightman playing off his scatterbrained wife. But while George Burns clearly adored Gracie and her "illogical logic", Goodman seems to have married the incredibly stupid Jane just to have someone to insult on a regular basis.

The "Ace High" shorts made for the Van Buren Studios in New York anticipate Science Fiction Theater 2000. In all of them, The Aces are at a movie theater, where Jane reads the opening credits in her Southern drawl, before commenting about the newsreel onscreen. Goodman needs to correct her throughout, eventually using his catchphrase, "Isn't that awful?" Well yes, it is, but not in the way he's implying. If these two were sitting near you in a real movie theater, you'd demand the usher throw them out on their unfunny butts. Comedians and writers alike held Goodman Ace in high regard back in the day, so either he was funnier writing for other people, or his style doesn't hold up.

But you know what? The bicycle race footage is fun to watch for 10 minutes. These guys zip around track at a lot of miles per hour, with the teams trading off riders in order to sleep and eat. Watch The Six Day Grind with a friend, turn off the volume, and make your own wisecracks. It'll be funnier than what the Easy Aces have to say. 

BONUS POINTS: During a break, biking champ Alfred LeTourneau sleeps in an "oxygen therapy service tent," allowing Jane to complain, "Oh, why can't he breathe the same air as the rest of us?" It's the closest thing to a funny remark she makes here. 

BETRAYAL FROM THE EAST (1945): Lee Tracy was nearing the end of his movie career and spending more time on stage when he made this patriotic drama based on the non-fiction book of the same name. In pre-Pearl Harbor Los Angeles, carnival barker Eddie Carter is approached by his old army buddy Kato -- you can guess his ancestry -- for information regarding U.S. military plans on the Panama Canal. When Carter approaches U.S. Naval Intelligence with his suspicions that Kato is up to no good, he eagerly accepts Uncle Sam's request to go undercover in the Japanese spy ring operating on the West Coast. Sure, it's dangerous, but's more exciting than bringing customers inside a tent at two bits per rube.

Hollywood was churning out anti-Japanese movies like ramen noodles during the War, usually making the "Japs" out to be barely one step above apes. Betrayal From the East goes in a slightly different direction. The spies are -- or at least pretend to be --respectful and well-mannered. And unlike the usual "ah so" characters of the time, Carter's friend Kato speaks perfect English without a trace of an accent. And while you might not recognize the names of the "enemy" character actors -- Richard Loo, Philip Ahn, Victor Sen Yung, Abner Bieberman (who wasn't even Japanese but could pass in a pinch) -- they fall into the "oh, that guy" category. Regis Toomey's eight-minute role as an American spy might disappoint his fans, but how many of them are there, anyway?

It wouldn't be a '40s spy drama without a little romance, so Eddie falls hard for fellow undercover agent Peggy Harrison -- who, as played Nancy Kelly, is about a quarter-century his junior. Her apparent death -- and later reappearance hanging out with German spies -- gives the movie an unexpected Vertigo-ish twist. (Her character's real death is genuinely unsettling.) 

No longer the motormouth from his pre-code days, Lee Tracy is now a little slower and paunchier. Still, his B-pictures like Betrayal From the East offer a welcoming presence for fans like me who wonder when he's going to get the look-who-we-discovered treatment by johnny-come-latelys like the New York Times and the Film Forum.

BONUS POINTS: Betrayal From the East is introduced by Drew Pearson, the muckraking political journalist whose newspaper column, "Washington Merry-Go-Round", was the talk of Washington. Over a decade earlier, his book of the same name was the basis of a great movie starring Lee Tracy. 

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 54

Having gone through my John Garfield, Alan Ladd, and 1950s Bogart phases, I'm currently diving into Lee Tracy territory. Oh, and there's another gangster picture with Boris Karloff before his move to Horrorwood, USA.

THE WRECKER (1929): There's something rather moving about the tinny
Tiffany-Tone overture from Tiffany-Stahl Productions, the little studio that couldn't. They sure tried hard, though, playing on the same level as the majors, either with Technicolor or releasing European pictures like The Wrecker, a UK-German drama, stateside. For the latter, Tiffany even added a synchronized musical score, sound effects and a couple of very brief moments of talk to entice U.S. customers.

The basic idea of The Wrecker is interesting if slightly farfetched. An unknown terrorist nicknamed Jack the Wrecker is causing trains to crash across the UK. Sir Gervaise Bartlett is concerned that his company, United Coast Lines Railway, will be next -- as well he should. His business partner, Ambrose Barney, is Jack the Wrecker, and the secret owner of the Kyle Motor Coach Company. See, Barney is determined to put the train business out of business in order to boost his bus profits. Bartlett's new board member (and nephew) former cricketeer Roger Doyle and secretary Mary Shelton are assigned to figure out who's behind the crimes. Maybe if they noticed Barney sneering with glee when the trains go boom and reacting with ennui at Bartlett's murder...

Let's get the cast out of the way before proceeding. Two of the leads, Carlyle Blackwell (Ambrose Barney) and Joseph Striker (Roger Doyle) were really Yanks. Everyone else is British and likely forgotten even in the UK. The only name that might ring a bell -- or, rather, that a nerd like me would recognize -- is Benita Hume (Mary Shelton), who later married Ronald Coleman. As for two supporting characters, Bartlett's footman Walter exists only to insult a bumbling detective with the only-in-a-British-movie name Ramses Ratchett.

What gives The Wrecker whatever cachet it possesses a century after its release are the train wrecks. Unlike other movies that used charming (i.e., unconvincing) miniatures, here three honest-to-gosh trains are destroyed, each more jolting than the last. These scenes pack a visceral jolt that no CGI today can equal because they're so obviously real. If you ever see The Wrecker, you'll probably forget the actors but not the action, which is reason enough to watch it. And be sure not to miss the Tiffany-Tone overture. It'll bring a tear to your eye.

BONUS POINTS: The Wrecker unexpectedly parodies the then-popular use of vocalized songs on the soundtrack during love scenes, as Ratchett continually interrupts Roger and Mary's canoodling. It's pretty funny, really.

BEHIND THE MASK (1931): The final Boris Karloff gangster picture during his brief spell at Columbia Pictures. And it's still only a supporting role! Here, Boris plays ex-con Jim Henderson, a member of a heroin-smuggling ring lead by the never-seen Mr. X. Henderson has brought his former cellmate Jack Hart into the fold as a chauffeur for another gang member, Arnold, who -- wouldn't you know it -- has a beautiful daughter named Julie. Dr. August Steiner -- the only person who seems to report in person to Dr. X -- recognizes Hart as an undercover federal agent. When leaving Hart to drown after picking up the heroin at sea doesn't work, Steiner decides that a little heart surgery minus anesthesia might do the trick.

As usual with movies of this time, there's a lot more that happens during Behind the Mask's 68 minutes, but you get the gist of it. The movie's general idea is good -- it's always interesting to see Class A drugs in pre-codes -- but the overall production is a little disappointing. Many of the events that either make no sense or are difficult to believe -- like Hart creating a dummy in about five seconds before he allegedly parachutes to his alleged death or Alice getting the upper hand on a gangster in a hospital -- happen offscreen and are explained so hurriedly that even the writer seems to realize it's all balderdash. 

Jack Holt (as Hart), a one-time leading man in silents now moving into character parts, doesn't have much presence, appearing a decade older than his 44 years. He's utterly outranked in recognition and talent by Karloff and his Frankenstein co-star Edward Van Sloane as Steiner. (Columbia's publicity department clearly did everything it could to convince audiences Behind the Mask was a horror movie.) As with her role in another Columbia Karloff gangster picture The Guilty Generation, Constance Cummings, as Alice, does little more than swoon over a guy -- in this case Hart -- although she unexpectedly saves his life at the climax. Behind the Mask doesn't equal the gangster movies Warner Bros. was releasing at the time but thanks to Karloff isn't a total washout. And you won't have to wrack your brain figuring out who Mr. X really is, either.

BONUS POINTS: A cylinder record player hooked up to a candlestick phone makes for the coolest answering machine ever.

THE NIGHT MAYOR (1932): By rights, The Night Mayor should have been an A-1 racy comedy, starting with the cast. Lee Tracy in the title role as Mayor Bobby Kingston, who spends more time romancing chorus girls than working in City Hall. (Any resemblance to New York Mayor Jimmy Walker is strictly deliberate.) Eugene Pallette as Hymie Shane, the chief of staff who'll do whatever he has to -- including attempted murder! -- protecting Kingston from a hostile press. And Evalyn Knapp as the mayor's current wisecracking squeeze, whose reporter boyfriend threatens to bring down the mayor on the front page of his right-wing newspaper.

Politics! The press! Sex! All the ingredients are there for a classic pre-code. So why is The Night Mayor such a disappointment? The overall idea is interesting -- while Mayor Kingston is a goodtime Bobby, he isn't corrupt, preferring to spend tax dollars on schools, playgrounds and hospitals rather than waste it on a symbolic duck pond and an unessential second airport. The only reason the morals committee wants him out on his butt is because of his dating habits and refusal to accept their bribes. 

Blame the script, then, which confuses cutesy dialogue with wit, and direction, which begs for Tacy's usual mile-a-minute patter instead of a performance more worthy of slow-poke Gary Cooper. And as for the sex... Kingston's new flame Doree Dawn won't make with the goods unless they middle-aisle-it. What is this, a '50s sitcom? 

And there lies the problem. The same way Friends was for people who thought Seinfeld too mean, The Night Mayor is for those who find pre-codes too icky. Track down Washington Merry-Go-Round on YouTube for a Lee Tracy political drama that delivers a real wallop. Even without the sex. And as for what happens to Doree Dawn -- let's just say the lesson for women 90 years ago was "Put out or shut up". 

BONUS POINTS: The too-brief moment when Lee Tracy shows off his tap dance skills -- back when you needed talent to be in the movies.

HI DIDDLE DIDDLE (1943): Depending on your tolerance level, Hi Diddle Diddle is either inane, riotously funny, or bizarre solely for the sake of being bizarre. Possessing the style of a low-rent Preston Sturges picture with the wackiness of the Hope & Crosby Road movies, it often seems like a first draft written under the influence of endless cups of coffee tempered with the occasional shot of I.W. Harper. And if you need an endorsement other than mine, Quentin Tarantino says it's his favorite comedy of all time. 

Yet for all that, Hi Diddle Diddle's story proper is nothing more than a typical late-era B-screwball picture. Sonny Phyffe is on 48 hours leave from the Navy to get married to Janie Prescott when they learn her mother Liza has lost her fortune due to a sleazy shyster. Through a series of nefarious schemes, Sonny's nouveau-riche father Hector recovers the money. That idea alone might be enough for any filmmaker. But it's what writer/director/producer Andrew Stone does that makes it, in that overused adjective, surreal. Wallpaper comes to (animated) life, the cast continually breaks the fourth wall, one of the supporting players is essentially said to be sleeping with the director... Stone seems to have wanted to do anything to distract the Homefront from the war going on overseas. He even provides a welcome twist on the ol' two-people-in-a-revolving-door gag. That takes talent.

In a zany-with-a-capital-Z movie like this, you need a cast that's game, and fortunately Hi Diddle Diddle has it, right down to the bit players. Adolphe Menjou puts over the nonsense in his usual suave manner in the role of Hector Phyffe; the way he keeps a stunned straight face when a woman's hat is shoved on his head is the funniest thing I've seen since forever. (OK, I'm an easy audience.) Billie Burke is her usual scatterbrain self as the mother of the bride. Dennis O'Keefe, soon to be a noir icon, surprises as the vacant-eyed groom whose sexual frustration as the wedding night is continually postponed somehow flew under the censors' radar. Future television-staple Martha Scott plays it straight as the bride (except for the scene where she and the others practice double-takes -- you have to see it to understand). Retired dramatic actress Pola Negri makes a surprise comeback as Menjou's second wife Genya, an egotistical opera singer who drives people out of a nightclub by singing an unwanted Wagner aria. 

If none of this arouses even a grin, then Hi Diddle Diddle is no way or shape for you. But if the Museum of Modern Art ever runs what they will undoubtedly refer to as "a forgotten classic wartime comedy", I don't want you crying that you couldn't get tickets, you hypocrite. If you can't wait for that hypothetical event, go here to see the restored version released in the UK, where it was retitled Try and Find It. If my history with recommendations is any indication, you'll probably try and lose it.

BONUS POINTS: The animated moments were provided by Leon Schlesinger Productions, better known as the animators on loan from Warner Brothers.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 49

 By sheer coincidence, there are two movies about brain-control -- the same situation I find myself in whenever I notice the YouTube app. 

ROAR OF THE DRAGON (1932): You know the story about the Alamo, right? OK, move the location from Texas to Manchuria. Now change the Alamo to a hotel, Davy Crockett to a drunken riverboat captain, the American soldiers to tourists, and the Mexicans to Chinese bandits. Presto: Roar of the Dragon. 

Richard Dix returns to these pages as Capt. Carson, the cynical sot who finds his purpose in life when under fire. (Unsurprisingly, Dix is less believable playing a drunk than when he really was drunk in the Whistler movies.) He's got the hots for Natascha, the girlfriend of bandit-leader Vronksy. Natascha is played by Gwili Andre, RKO's unasked-for answer to Greta Garbo (or is it Marlene Dietrich?). While Andre is a looker and fairly sexy, her talent is limited to keeping her eyelids at half-staff -- there's a reason why Roar of the Dragon was the highlight of her brief movie career before returning to whence she came, modeling. In front of camera, I mean, not with clay.

Other than ZaSu Pitts and her "oh dear" hand-fluttering routine, the most familiar supporting actor is the great Edward Everett Horton, who gets a dramatic turn -- perhaps for the only time in his career -- when the woman he loves is killed by a bandit. Grabbing a machine gun, the formerly timid Horton starts firing like a madman before getting knifed in the back. Want more unexpected violence? Well, there's an elderly Jewish man getting captured by the bandits, trussed up on a pole and set on fire, forcing Carson into machine-gunning him to death to put him out of his misery. 

One of the loudest early talkies I've ever experienced, Roar of the Dragon features people yelling, guns firing, music blaring, and babies crying (no child-protective services here!), almost continually during its 69 minutes While the pace drags a bit during its final third, you sure won't fall asleep. 

BONUS POINTS: A newspaper headline reads RIVERBOAT CAPTAIN BEATS OFF BANDITS. Now wait a minute!...

REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES (1936): One of the all-time great movie promotional images -- but anyone wanting to see a full-scale zombie revolt will have to fast-forward to the final three minutes. Otherwise, this is one of those low-budget indies about a man straying where no man should go. Like, into certain low-budget indies.

Armand Loque has discovered the secret of zombie-making in post-World War I French Cambodia. This little talent comes in handy when he decides to take over the village where he and his fellow-geeks are currently encamped. His ultimate target is Cliff Grayson, who is engaged to Claire Duval, the woman Loque loves. Why didn't this egghead put the spell on her?

Hoping to cash in (a little late) on their low-budget, now-legendary cult fave 1932 hit White Zombie, siblings Edward and Victor Halperin decided that any movie with the Z word would bring in the ducats. Not without Bela Lugosi, the star of the original, it wouldn't. Still, Dean Jagger does a fine job as the doomed Armand Loque. (I've always wondered why it took him so long to break into A pictures, since he's always better than his surroundings.) Too, Robert Noland, as Cliff, isn't bad either; where both actors fail is in their love-dovey moments with Dorothy Stone as Claire, where their dialogue sounds straight out of a 19th-century melodrama. 

Another drawback with Revolt of the Zombies is its shabby sets. While the Halperins were able to rent classy soundstages at Universal for White Zombie, here they had to settle for Jagger walking in front of a blow-up photo of Cambodia's Angor Wat temple to set the unconvincing scene. Even if current prints were restored (in addition to its rough quality, it's missing a few minutes), it would look older than a 1936 release. Whatever good can be gotten from Revolt of the Zombies is Dean Jagger's often sensitive performance and his occasionally uncanny resemblance to Anthony Perkins. Too bad there aren't all that many zombies.

BONUS POINTS: The tight close-ups of Jagger's eyes when he's turning on the hoodoo that he do so well belong to Bela Lugosi, lifted from White Zombie. Jagger was probably grateful not that have a light shining straight into his pupils.

THE LADY AND THE MONSTER (1944): Erich von Stroheim must have felt like he'd
hit the end of the road, getting third billing behind B-lister Richard Arlen and (gulp) top-billed Vera Hruba Ralston in a Republic picture with a goofy title. No need, though, for this is an unexpectedly good, if Hollywoodized, adaption of the bizarre 1942 novel Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak, who co-wrote the script. 

Prof. Franz Mueller and his assistant Dr. Patrick Corey have finally achieved the dream of keeping the brain from a dead man -- in this case, investor W.H. Donovan -- alive in a jar. Much to the dismay of Corey's sweetie Janice Farrell, Donovan starts communicating with him telepathically. (Dames are so jealous!). As Mueller juices up the formula in the jar to make the brain chattier, Corey receives orders to arrange a new trial for a young man imprisoned for murder. With his personality deteriorating to the point of violence, Corey's left with no choice but to silence the little girl who saw the prisoner at the murder site. Don't blame the man, blame the brain!

Republic Pictures opened the purse strings for The Lady and the Monster, giving it the sheen of a Warners production. Director George Sherman and his crew did a dandy job, too, lighting Richard Arlen's face in a way that reflects his ugly -- evil -- new personality. No longer in the Rolodexes of the major studios, Erich von Stroheim still has what it takes to make an audience take notice, reciting  dialogue in his typical clipped delivery as if he thought this were actually worthy of him.

Bringing up the rear as the nominal star, Vera Hruba Ralston can't even react convincingly to seeing a brain in a jar, appearing more like she's suffering from a mild case of dyspepsia. (In her many, many close-ups, she resembles Teri Garr satirizing her.) If Republic honcho Herbert Yates wanted to do his mistress a favor, he'd have kept out of pictures to avoid being made a laughingstock. Ms. Ralston's contribution and the unfortunate tacked-on happy ending aside, The Lady and the Madman is one of the cooler Republic productions.

BONUS POINTS: Several years earlier, George Sherman directed another sci-fi/medical/crime movie, The Return of Dr. X. You know, the one with Humphrey Bogart as a vampire. 

PLUNDER ROAD (1957): Sometimes, all you need in a movie is 75 minutes of a seemingly successful crime going to hell for everyone involved. If nothing else, Plunder Road will discourage you from robbing $10-million in federal gold bars, no matter how easy it looks. 

The crime itself is interesting because it's something of an updated Western, seeing that the five criminals pull off a train heist Utah before heading to California. But instead of riding horses, they're driving three trucks filled with the loot disguised as or hidden by other items. It's just a darn shame that they didn't anticipate police roadblocks going up. Guess they haven't watched enough movies!

Speaking of watching movies, Plunder Road has an interesting mix of actors in both familiar roles and playing against type. In the former is Stafford Repp (you remember him as the Irish cop in the Batman series) still in his bad guy years, forever obnoxiously chewing gum; the always-welcome Elisha Cook, Jr. looking forward to using his loot to move to Rio with his son; and the more-obscure Steven Ritch as Frankie, who puts his race-car skills to good use trying to avoid the cops. 

Yet the most interesting actors are former leading men Gene Raymond and Wayne Morris. Once A-listers, over time they aged out of their charming manner and good looks and into character parts like the ones they play here. Their grim expressions and cold-blooded ways -- Morris shoots an old gas station attendant without blinking an eye -- show a versatility denied during their star-making days two decades earlier. You have a rough idea of how they and the others in Plunder Road are going to wind up, but that's beside the point. It's the actors that count, and they make it worth watching.

BONUS POINTS: Plunder Road teaches you how to blow up a train with the fuse of a bomb hooked up to a dashboard cigarette lighter. Easier than you think!

                                                              *******************

THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 48

 Add three Bs with one A, and what have you got? Need I explain?

THE MYSTERIOUS MR. WONG (1935): Come with me to the Chinatown area of
Monogram Pictures, where cinema cliches long-gone reside. Actors of every ethnic persuasion except Chinese. The wisecracking reporter. The wisecracking dame he's got the hots for. The dimwitted Irish flatfoot. And holding court, the criminal kingpin with the thin droopy moustache, flat-brimmed hat, and evil intentions. But the only thing mysterious about him is: why does the Chinese guy have a Hungarian accent? Ah so! He's Bela Lugosi!

Only three years after Dracula, Lugosi was already making himself familiar in the dusty streets of Poverty Row, churning out B's like The Mysterious Mr. Wong. Like Fritz Lang's mastermind Dr. Mabuse, Mr. Wong has minions doing his bidding -- or, rather, killing, as he tries to collect 12 coins once owned by Confucius that, when gathered together, will give him special powers (like sounding Chinese?). Maybe if the cops owned the things, they'd have the power to break this case instead of leaving the job to a reporter and his sidepiece: Wallace Ford (the poor man's Lee Tracy) and Arline Judge (the poor woman's Joan Blondell). 

Unfortunately, Bela Lugosi was already becoming the poor man's Bela Lugosi. Perhaps to compensate for the ridiculous dialogue in much of The Mysterious Mr. Wong, Bela overenunciates his dialogue in order to prevent audiences from falling asleep, his mouth twisting open and shut as if chewing a dozen pieces of bubble gum at once. Yet surrounded by henchmen who look and sound about as Chinese as Edgar Buchanan, Lugosi at least can almost pass for what was once called Asiatic; only the extras are the real thing. Embarrassed as they likely were, at least they got five or ten bucks, a sandwich, and the chance to hang with Bela Lugosi for a week. As with watching The Mysterious Mr. Wong, it's better than a day-old eggroll.

BONUS POINTS: A few years later, William Nigh, the director of this masterpiece, also directed Boris Karloff in three other Mr. Wong movies at Monogram. Only that Mr. Wong is a detective and has nothing to do with this Mr. Wong. I'd say something about "two Wongs don't make a right" but it's too easy, unfunny, and has been done to death, kind of like every Mr. Wong plot, criminal or detective.

MY SON IS GUILTY (1939): Ham-fisted title aside, this is actually a pretty good B, sincere and human, thanks to the leads: Harry Carey as beat cop Tim Kerry; Bruce Cabot as his mildly sociopathic ex-con son Ritzy; Jacqueline Wells as Julia Allen (the girl who inexplicably loves Ritzy), and Glenn Ford as aspiring author Barney (the nice guy who explicably loves Julia). 

Ritzy, sprung from a two-year stint in the slammer, is determined to go straight -- straight to a criminal gang run by femme felon Claire Morelli. Ritzy, having gotten a job at the police station thanks to his dad, turns off the two-way radio system to help the crooks successfully pull off a robbery. Two cops are shot -- one fatally by Ritzy -- while the one with the slug in his shoulder is you-know-who. Eventually that you-know-who is face to face with Ritzy, both of them with gun in hand. Talk about dysfunctional families!

At least half of My Son is Guilty's success is due to Harry Carey. His portrayal of good-hearted cop Tim Kerry (he buys a little roller-skating girl a new bottle of milk to replace the one she dropped after colliding with him) is real and utterly sympathetic. The script might be predictable - is predictable - but you can't help but feel bad that, through no fault of his own, he raised a son who went sideways in life. (It helps Carey looks at least 15 years older than his actual age of 60.) Bruce Cabot, 34 but appearing closer to 50, pulls off the no-good offspring trope better than you usually see in movies like this; just by the way he enters his first scene, you strongly dislike the guy. Jacqueline Wells is cute and engaging, but her character is such a poor judge of Ritzy it's kind of difficult to work up any empathy for her. As for Glenn Ford (in his second feature) --- like his male co-stars, he doesn't quite match his real age: 22 but looking 14. You can see traces of the actor he was going to become, even if he sounds like a better-educated Leo Gorcey. He likely scrubbed My Son is Guilty from his curriculum vitae and memory, but there's nothing to be ashamed of here. Between the stars and a bunch of familiar faces from Columbia Pictures' character actors file, the movie is a step or two above the usual 60-minute fare.

BONUS POINTS: A sequence featuring the legendary tap dancers the Nicholas Brothers was originally shot for, but cut from, the 1934 Columbia picture Jealousy. 

THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946): In 1943, Universal released the
Sherlock Holmes mystery The Spider Woman, with Gale Sondergaard in the title role. A year later, The Pearl of Death, another Holmes picture, featured a performance with Mr. Acromegaly himself, Rondo Hatton. It took another year for some genius at the studio put the two actors together in The Spider Woman Strikes Back, hoping to lure in suckers who thought they were getting a sequel to the "original". By the time Universal bothered to release it a year later, both Hatton and the Sherlock Holmes movie series were dead. 

Jean Kingsley takes a job as paid companion to Zenobia Dollard, a blind woman beloved by everyone in the village of Domingo -- beloved because nobody knows Dollard is faking her blindness, and has been murdering every young woman who has worked for her by draining their blood in order to feed her poisonous flowers. These flowers are given to the farmers' cattle to eat by her mute flunky Mario, in order to force the farmers to leave town, allowing Zenobia to buy their property. Hal Wentley, a local yokel who loves Jean, figures out something is rotten in Domingo (or at least in Zenobia's greenhouse), and sets things to right. That is, Zenobia and Mario are burned to a crisp when their abode goes up in flames. As for what the spiders have to do with it -- well, I remember seeing some spiders, but I'm not sure what their purpose was. And besides, Poisonous Flower Woman doesn't have the same ring. You want a detailed analysis of "film", go read the collected works of Pauline Kael.)

You gotta feel a little bad for the classy Gale Sondergaard. Here she was, the first winner of the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, now slumming in nuttiness like the 59-minute The Spider Woman Strikes Back. It's a credit to her talent that she plays it as if it was worthy of her. For Brenda Joyce (as Jean), it's difficult to figure out if it was a step up or down from playing Jane in RKO's Tarzan B-pictures. Unsurprisingly, Rondo Hatton steals the show as Mario the Monster (as his character is billed). Unlike most of his movies, Rondo has plenty of screentime here. Even better, he's not lit or dressed to make him look frightening. Often wearing a suit (or at least tie and clean shirt), there are times he looks startingly like Ed Sullivan. But as usual, his looks apparently prevent his character from speaking, while his sign language resembles someone doing hand shadow animals. In other words, outside of Sondergaard, Rondo gives the most believable performance in the picture. 

BONUS POINTS: Future TV legends Kirby Grant (Sky King) and Milburn Stone (Doc Adams in Gunsmoke) co-star respectively as Hal Wentley and a scientist). 

GIDEON'S DAY  (A/K/A GIDEON OF SCOTLAND YARD) (1959): It's a rare event finding a comedy/drama done right, especially one featuring not one, not two, but three murders (one involving the rape of a teenage girl), along with various other crimes that don't usually raise a chuckle (unless you get a kick out of an old man getting his skull bashed with a hammer). But damn if Gideon's Day isn't one of the breeziest movies I've seen in some time. And it's directed by John Ford! What's he doing on this blog?

Pipe-smoking Scotland Yard Inspector George Gideon starts the workday getting a traffic ticket from an eager-beaver young bobby. From there, it's all downhill, as he bounces from one case to another, starting with a colleague accepting bribes from a heroin dealer. From then on are the aforementioned violent crimes, along with a bank robbery, and probably a couple others I'm forgetting. There's also a school concert featuring his 18 year-old daughter he wants to attend; showing up in court to make a statement regarding an earlier case; and a fish in his filing cabinet (don't ask). And astonishingly, most of these disparate events wind up being linked in the most unexpected ways.

Gideon's Day (retitled Gideon of Scotland Yard for its American release) doesn't resemble a John Ford production. In fact, with its occasional fast, overlapping dialogue, it could pass for a Howard Hawks movie. Filmed in London with British talent, it lacks the director's usual familiar actors he usually worked with. (Jack Hawkins, as Gideon, is the only actor here I was even vaguely recognized.) Columbia Pictures, had so little faith in the project that they released stateside with a shorter runtime and in black & white. Nice way to treat the only director to win four Academy Awards (six if you include two documentaries). Fortunately, Gideon's Day is available now in its original length and vivid three-strip Technicolor (although with the American credits). No matter the title, it deserves mention along with John Ford's more famous productions. 

BONUS POINTS: Dialogue you'd never hear in an American movie, such as this exchange between Gideon and a thief pointing a gun at him: 

GIDEON: If you were fool enough to fire that gun --                              CRIMINAL: I don't see why you should speak in the subjunctive. I am going to fire this gun!

Even the criminals are classier in the UK.