THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 20

 One A-list feature sneaked into the list this time around, just to remind you I've got a scintilla of good taste. But only a scintilla. 

BEGGARS IN ERMINE (1934): Steel factory owner John "Flint" Dawson is forced out of his job when crippled in an accident arranged by his board of directors rival Jim Marley -- who then runs off with Dawson's wife and baby. Still wealthy, Dawson travels the country organizing disabled beggars into a fraternity with the help of blind peddler named Marchant. Dawson invests 10% of the beggars' earnings while providing food and housing for them in all major cities. He's also been quietly providing for his daughter Joyce, orphaned when her mother died, while still finding time to plan a way to take back his factory from the money/power-hungry Marley. 

I'm not sure what's more fantastical in Beggars in Ermine: the ability to organize the nation's beggars or that a rich businessman would actually do such a thing. It's a credit to the great Lionel Atwill's talent that he's able to make both impossibilities fully believable. And this is an actor better known for roles on the wrong side of morals. Dawson has lunch with his workers, provides them with stock in their company, and is always looking out for their best interests --everything Jim Marley hates. There's a vaguely socialistic bent in Beggars in Ermine which resonates today. Call it paternal capitalism.

This was the first time in over 25 years that I first watched Beggars in Ermine. While it's a pleasure to see it restored from its previous worn-out public domain condition, it didn't hold up quite as well as I'd hoped. The subplot involving Joyce and Marley's son Lee could have been eliminated, thus trimming 10 of its 72 minutes, which would have fully focused on its near-fantasy story.  It would have been nice, too, if Marchant (played by Henry B. Walthall) didn't play the same damn song over and over on his accordion. What I appreciated more this time around, though, was the movie's assumption that audiences in 1934 would be savvy enough to understand its discussions of selling, buying, and shorting stocks, much of which went straight over my head. I wish Dawson were around to organize financial idiots like me.

BONUS POINTS: Only a Poverty Row studio like Monogram could misspell the name of Henry B. Walthall in the credits, despite him being in over 300 movies since 1908. Love his fedora and sunglasses, too.

CITY FOR CONQUEST (1940) Truck driver Danny Kenny turns to boxing to help send his kid brother Eddie to music school. Meanwhile, Danny's lifelong sweetheart (at least he thinks so), dancer Peggy Marsh, goes on tour with the lecherous, underhanded Murry Burns. As Danny and Peggy occasionally reunite, their careers rise and fall. By the end, Danny, losing his eyesight, is now operating a newsstand; Peggy is back to being a hoofer in low-rent vaudeville houses; and Eddie conducts his symphony at Carnegie Hall.

City for Conquest seemed vaguely familiar, as if I'd seen it parodied by Carol Burnett or Mad magazine. And maybe I had. Like the previously discussed Cry of the City, City for Conquest is one of those paint-by-numbers yet emotionally effective dramas that studios turned out with the ease of combing one's hair. A passel or two of familiar Warner Brothers's contract players, starting with James Cagney and Ann Sheridan, further help to make City for Conquest something like the best community theatre group you've ever seen (and I mean that as a tribute to their welcome familiarity, not their talent). Only Frank Craven's unnecessary appearances as a Greek chorus (billed as The Old Timer) slows things down. (His part was cut to almost nothing in City for Conquest's 1948 re-release, but restored decades later, which wasn't necessarily a good idea).

Unexpected actors include 25 year-old Anthony Quinn as the slimy Murry Burns -- his rape of Sheridan is kind of implied without being shown; soon-to-be legendary director Elia Kazan as Cagney's childhood friend-turned-gangster named Googi; and, in his movie debut, Arthur Kennedy as Eddie (he looks like he could be Cagney's brother). Anatole Litvak's masterful direction on what was obviously a big-budget production gives City for Conquest a look as epic as its title. And I dare you not to get choked up at Cagney and Sheridan's climactic reunion. A truly great '40s movie. But look fast as a waterfront backdrop shakes when a car drives by. Great doesn't mean perfect, y'know.

BONUS POINTS: Old Timer Frank Craven was one of the writers of Laurel & Hardy's best feature, Sons of the Desert. 

THE MAD MONSTER (1942): PRC had no shame in ripping off ideas from the major
studios, so it was inevitable they would get around to the werewolf genre. Dr. Lorenzo Cameron -- a scientist of the so-you-think-I'm-mad-do-you? school -- has perfected transferring the blood of a wolf to his half-wit assistant Petro. Good news: Lorenzo intends to give the formula to the military in order to create a monster army to fight the Axis. Bad news: First, he's going to sic Petro on his former university colleagues who got him fired because of stunts like this. Talk about cancelling people!

George Zucco was fast becoming poverty row's go-to actor for nutty characters. And in The Mad Monster -- where he seems to be the title character -- Zucco as Cameron takes it to the next level in a lengthy scene hallucinating a conversation with all his past nemeses. It's rather strange watching what seems to be a "classy" actor happily wallowing in hogwash like this -- I'm certain he broke out in laughter more than once after director Sam Newfield called "Cut!" But as if to make Cameron and Petro even less empathetic to the audience, the first victim is an innocent little girl. That way, we want to see those guys pay for their crimes, because, well, maybe those professors deserved to get clawed to death. 

Glenn Strange's make-up as Petro as the werewolf makes him look more like a hillbilly in need of dental work and a haircut rather than a monster. To further save time and thought, The Mad Monster's writers trot out the old saws of the scientist's beautiful daughter dating a reporter (the inexplicably top billed Johnny Downs) who solves the crime; a thunderstorm in the final reel; and Cameon and Petro dying in a house fire -- before the military gets the chance to turn their troops into werewolves. Next time, maybe.

BONUS POINTS: Glenn Strange's unintentionally(?) hilarious performance of  Petro (before his werewolf transformation) is a carbon copy of Lon Chaney, Jr. in Of Mice and Men. I told you PRC only ripped off from the best. 

LIGHTHOUSE (1947): After discovering her low-rent boyfriend Sam is a two-timer, the spiteful
Connie marries his much older boss, lighthouse keeper Hank. While Sam is quite aware of Connie's -- ahem -- past, Hank remains blissfully unaware until her drunk friend JoJo spills the beans. Soon after, Hank is nearly killed in a mysterious fall into the ocean. While hospitalized, Connie grows to love him, while losing all affection for Sam. But a nosy insurance investigator gets Hank to thinking that his near-fatal slip into the sea might not have been an accident after all, setting up a three-way showdown. 

One of PRC's last releases, Lighthouse bears a strong resemblance to the superior The Voice of the Whistler from two years earlier. It starts out well enough, with PRC's signature low-budget atmosphere, squalid settings (a waterfront dive, the dump shared by Connie and JoJo, a lighthouse well-lived in by two guys), and starring a solid B-movie triumvirate. John Litel (Two-Dollar Bettor) plays Hank as a nice but clueless sap -- how does a guy this blind to reality run a lighthouse? As Sam, Don Castle (Roses are Red) continues his strange career as a Clark Gable-lookalike who sounds like one of the Bowery Boys, while June Lang (Connie) is simply a woman lacking the sense God gave geese. They look like the kind of unfortunates who'd get caught up in a sleazy phare-a-trois (look it up).  

In a way, the best actors are the two who don't initially seem important, but who set in motion Hank's growing mistrust of his bride. Marion Martin's JoJo continues PRC's solemn tradition of extraordinarily blowsy, big-mouth women with hair peroxided to an inch of its life. Charles Wagenheim (there's a B-movie actor's name!) is Quimby, the suspicious insurance investigator who warns Hank that Connie is an untrustworthy slut (in so many words). Lighthouse is actually pretty good until falling apart in its final moments with a happy ending rather than a depressing climax featuring at least one murder and the survivor(s) wishing they never met each other. Doesn't that sound like a better movie?

BONUS POINTS: You'll never forget the incessant flute-heavy eight-note leitmotif, whether you want to or not.

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