THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 9

 My wife's been at a retreat this week, giving me the chance to catch up on some entertainment that she might not go for, but gives me pleasure. And really, there's nothing like watching forgotten movies at 6:00 a.m. while chowing down on pancakes and swilling strong coffee to get your day going.

THE RETURN OF DR. X (1939): Dr. Michael Rhodes and idiot reporter Walter Garrett investigate a series of murders involving victims whose blood has been drained -- one of whom mysteriously returns to life only to die a second time. The deeper Rhodes and Garrett dig, the more it looks like --

Oh hell, it doesn't matter. The Return of Dr. X is the movie where Humphrey Bogart plays a vampire. His character, Marshall Quense, was once Maurice Xavier, a doctor executed for experiments involving starving children to death. (I guess that's to keep the audience from feeling sorry for his current living dead state.) Xavier/Quense had been brought back to life by Dr. Francis Flegg, who tips his hand early on by his interest in developing synthetic blood, not to mention wearing a monocle and devilish goatee. 

Wearing heavy white make-up, continually sweating as if in a sauna, and softly petting a lab rabbit, Bogart seems to realize he's hit the bottom of the Warner Bros. B-unit. It's only at the climax, sporting his trademark fedora and engaging in a shootout with cops, that Bogie even approaches his more familiar persona. But he's still a vampire.

The Return of Dr. X is your typical Warners B-picture, unashamedly espousing bogus medical procedures and half-baked scientific theories, accompanied by useless shadows, suspicious glances, and a studio orchestra working overtime to create tension to distract you from the silliness onscreen. Only Bogart's unintendedly(?) laugh-inducing performance makes it work watching. I guess Jack Warner tried to make it up to Bogie by giving him top billing in the closing credits. It didn't work.

BONUS POINTS: Huntz Hall appears as a newspaper copy boy. Oh, and in case you missed it, Humphrey Bogart plays a vampire.

THE CHASE (1946): Unemployed war vet Charles Scott lucks into a job as a chauffeur 
for the very rich (and very violent) businessman Eddie Roman. Eddie's wife Lorna, rightfully frightened of her hubby, convinces Charles to escape with her to Havana so they can start a new life together. (People fell in love really quickly back then). When Eddie finds out he's the cuck of the day, he arranges for Lorna to be murdered and make it look like Charles is the killer. But, hey, it was all a dream! Or was it? And why can't Charles figure it out? No matter -- Eddie Roman is still on his trail.

For its first two-thirds, The Chase promises to be a great, forgotten noir. While Robert Cummings (as Charles) and Michele Morgan (Lorna) get top-billing, the real stars are Steve Cochran, who portrays Eddie as a dead-eyed psycho not above feeding a business rival to his vicious dog, and the great Peter Lorre as his malevolent sidekick Gino. 

Unfortunately, once Charles wakes up, The Chase becomes an easy gait. However, it remains a good enough picture to keep watching until its (SPOILER) disappointingly happy ending. Credit director Arthur Ripley (whose friends thought him unbalanced) for the same sense of unease he also brought to the extraordinary Voice in the Wind two years earlier. Hey, he was nominated for work here at the Cannes Film Festival in 1947. All directors should be so unbalanced.

BONUS POINTS: The Chase offers your only chance to see Jack Benny's radio and television announcer Don Wilson in a film noir. 

SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT (1946): Yet another WW II-vet-in-trouble noir. George Taylor returns to L.A. from military duty with amnesia, the only clue to his identity being a letter from a friend named Larry Cravat promising him $5,000. With the help of nightclub thrush Christy Smith, her boss Mel Phillips, and flatfoot Donald Kendall, Taylor eventually discovers Cravat is not only wanted for murder, he's also in possession of $2,000,000 in smuggled Nazi money -- and there are plenty of people who will stop at nothing, including killing Taylor, to get their hands on it. 

Somewhere in the Night displays the same gloss as other 20th Century-Fox A-list noirs. Even star John Hodiak's mustache has been professionally trimmed to an inch of its life. Femmes Nancy Guild and Margo Woode (the latter a real knockout) obviously spent plenty of time in hair and wardrobe before stepping in front of the camera, too. 

Even though -- or, more accurately, because -- its storyline virtually defines the word "boilerplate", Somewhere in the Night  Night hits the right notes, even as it gets a little to complex for its own good. In order to find out his identity, Taylor visits half of L.A., including a steam bath, nightclub, hotel, docks, a mental hospital, and a psychic. (Why didn't he just stay at the military hospital and get free treatment?) But at least it gives an opportunity to enjoy a passel of great character actors -- Richard Conte, Lloyd Nolan, Harry Morgan, Sheldon Leonard, and scene-stealing Fritz Kortner -- to remind you that, truly, there's nobody like these guys around anymore.

BONUS POINTS: Close your eyes when Richard Conte speaks, and you'd swear you were listening to to Regis Philbin.

SHOWTIME U.S.A. (2/4/51): Ostensibly a showcase for the best of the New York stage, the short-lived TV series Showtime U.S.A. comes off as a self-aggrandizing project for its host, Vinton Freedley, the president of the American National Theater Company. From the moment the top-hatted Freedley smugly steps from his Sutton Avenue apartment building and into his chauffeur-driven 1951 Dodge, it's clear that he wants the lowly viewer to hold him in the same awe as he does himself. (What do you expect from a guy named Vinton Freedley?)

Perhaps realizing that nobody outside Broadway knew who he was, Freedley turns the rest of the hosting duties to Eva Gabor, who can't make enough jokes about her Hungarian accent. One dismal act after another follows: forgotten singer Johnny Johnston; forgotten actors Georgina Cookson and Michael Evans; and forgotten comic Florence Desmond impersonating the forgotten entertainer Hildegarde. This is the best of Broadway?

No, this is: the finale with John Garfield in a scene from Peer Gynt, in which he was then starring at the ANTA Theater on 52nd Street. For fans of Garfield's movies, his appearance here gives a brief, tantalizing taste of his stage work; this, folks, is the original Brando, the first Method actor to achieve mass appeal stardom. In just five minutes, the 38 year-old actor holds your interest in a way the previous "entertainers" on the show could only dream of. Typical of live TV at the time, Showtime U.S.A. runs long, abruptly cutting to the ABC-TV logo at the end of the scene. It never occurred to Vinton Freedley to forego one of the earlier acts to give Garfield an extra five minutes? Some producer he was.

BONUS POINTS: The then-current theater marquees featured in Showtime U.S.A.'s opening credits are a reminder of how far Broadway has fallen since John Garfield's time. Wait, that isn't a bonus after all.

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