THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 68

 Two features, two shorts, two dictatorships. You'll understand.

IRON MAN (1931): No, this isn't the pre-code version of the Marvel Universe franchise. And just because it was directed by Tod Browning doesn't make it a horror movie, either. Iron Man is simply a run of the mill boxing melodrama made interesting only by 20-year-old Jean Harlow as Rose, the no-good wife of boxer Kid Carson. After having left him during his lean years, Rose suddenly shows up when he becomes the champ. Kid's manager George knows the score and tries warning Kid that the missus is using him strictly as a gravy train -- and as a new client for her sleazy sidepiece named Lewis. 

I don't know what drew Browning to Iron Man, seeing that it was outside of his usual wheelhouse. In fact, the only reason I stuck with it was because I had just finished reading the novel on which it was based. It was actually impressive how the movie included all the main characters (although Kid Carson is named Coke Carson in the book) and successfully compressed the story into its runtime. Too, the actors -- Harlow, Lew Ayres as Carson, Robert Armstrong as George, and John Miljan as Lewis -- fit my vision of the lead characters. 

The problem comes with everything else. Tod Browning's direction is sluggish, with zero style differentiating it from anyone else's work. Acting veers between awkward and histrionic. On the written page the story in involving, while onscreen is depressing, made worse by current unrestored prints being more beat up than Kid Carson after his climatic fight. (The many splices shorten the run time from its original 73 minutes to 68.) At the final bell, Iron Man loses by decision (mine). For Lew Ayres completists only. And you know who you are,

BONUS POINTS: While I usually object to movies changing a novel's ending, the very brief tacked-on scene offering a glimmer of hope to Kid and George was welcome after such a dismal experience. 

ATTORNEY FOR THE DEFENSE (1932); The early '30s were lousy with legal movies
-- Counsellor-at-Law, State's Attorney, The Mouthpiece, For the Defense, Lawyer Man -- and those are just the ones with Warren William, John Barrymore, and William Powell. 

Columbia got into the act with Attorney for the Defense starring Edmund Lowe as former New York D.A. William Burton, who has been caring for the widow and son of an innocent man he sent to the hot squat. Paul, the now-college age son, is seduced by Burton's ex-sweetie Val in order to get her hands on evidence that would convict her current bf guilty of extortion. That same evening, Burton, having found Paul passed out in the presence of Val's dead body, tells the kid to hit the road, but sticks around at the crime scene in order to get arrested. Burton defends himself in one of those climactic courtroom scenes that are more exciting than the real thing and would likely lead to a mistrial. 

Evelyn Brent is quite good as Val, the biggest jezebel since the real Jezebel and, at 36, was Hollywood's idea of a "middle-aged" well-dressed floozy. And what was likely a one-day shoot, Dwight Frye steals the opening scene as the innocent man put to death by Lowe. 

As with William, Barrymore, and Powell, Edmund Lowe is sophisticated, dressed to the nines -- maybe the tens -- even when he's sitting in the stir waiting for his trial. He also has the same crisp diction that gives his racy pre-code dialogue a real snap, especially when, early on, he catches Val with another man in her apartment. That Lowe has been forgotten is a crime itself, for he's the equal of the other three actors, making Attorney for the Defense a worthy addition to your next pre-code legal film festival.

BONUS POINTS: A lawyer named Abe Steiner trots out the usual Jewish tropes, even dropping the word "tsuris" while speaking to Burton's secretary. And in her own non-Jewish trope, she disgustedly wipes her face where he affectionately rubbed his hand. Yeesh.

RED REPUBLIC (1934): Back in the early days of the Depression, gullible people in the media tried to sell America on Russia's "worker's paradise" balderdash. Photographer Margaret Bourke-White did her bit by making the one-reel travelogue Red Republic. The color refers to the Communist flag, not the blood of the six-to-nine million people killed by Stalin. 

Red Republic starts innocently enough with a brief look at a village on the Caspian Sea, where camel-driving workers live in apartments outfitted with shower baths -- "and in Russia," the narrator adds, "shower baths stand for culture!" I thought running water stood for hygiene. Seems like you learn something new every day in the Motherland!

We then check out the oil fields. Whoever wrote the narration doesn't seem to understand the concept of irony when explaining that after taking over the fields from the rapacious Western countries, the Communist government had to hire Americans to build wells that actually worked. Same thing with the massive Dnieper Hydroelectric Station constructed under the supervision of "the same Col. Cooper who built the Hoover Dam". Seems like capitalism had its positives after all.

There are a few bits and pieces that sound good, such as how the government pays couples to get married, go to college, and help cover the cost of apartments with, of course, shower baths. The problem comes during the "workers parade" when we're told, "Russia is going onward and upwards at a steady pace." So were the show trials, executions, and government-created famines. But the women got to work side by side with men, so that made up for it.

BONUS POINTS: Rare footage of Stalin's mother, who, the narrator promises, is "proud of the tremendous things he is doing". Do I have to make another joke about government-sponsored killings?

TRAN UND HELLE (1940): And speaking of garrison states... Starting in 1939, newsreels from Germany's UFA studio featured an occasional segment featuring characters named Tran and Helle. Kind of a Deutsch Abbott & Costello, Tran was a chump forever listening to the Allies' propaganda or taking advantage of wartime challenges on the homefront, while sophisticated straightman Helle eventually put him on the straight and Nazi.

In this chapter, a well-lubricated Tran weeps about the French populace suffering under the Nazi jackboot. Downing his seventh cognac, he recounts all the wonderful things the alleged enemy had contributed to world culture. Helle patiently explains that the French were asking for it; if Hitler withdrew, France would only invade Germany like they always do. Tran sees the error of his ways and decides to hate the French after all. 

Just under six minutes long --twice the average length of these shorts -- this was one of the last Tran und Helle releases. Someone in the government must have realized that Tran was starting to make sense to most clear-thinking Germans. (In other shorts, Helle had to convince Tran it was a good thing Hitler lied to his citizens and made listening to the BBC punishable by two years in prison.) Moviegoers were probably wondering, too, if the war was such a great thing, why wasn't Helle gung-hoing to the frontlines instead of knocking back Lowenbraus with a supposed dolt who didn't know what he was talking about? If you ever want to understand what "unintended consequences" means, Tran und Helle is example nummer eins

BONUS POINTS: A year later, Ludwig Schmitz -- the former SS member who plays Tran -- was banned from movies for "unworthy behavior". As with the French, I'm sure he was asking for it.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 45

From the dawn of sound to Beatlemania -- for you youngsters out there...

THE CANARY MURDER CASE (1928): The first of Paramount's mysteries with amateur detective Philo Vance, who's always happy to help the NYPD solve a murder. Here, The Canary is an entertainer, not somebody's pet. There's no shortage of suspects, starting with rich kid Jimmy Spottswoode, with whom she had a brief fling, and his fiancée Alice LaFosse; Jimmy's father; three other men she's been having a go at; and a husband fresh out of prison. When Jimmy later confesses to the crime, Vance knows he's lying but has to figure out how to prove it when the real killer dies in an auto accident. 

More than any other movie detective, Philo Vance is dependent on his portrayer. Sure, he's an effete intellectual smarty-pants like Sherlock Holmes, but otherwise he has no personality to speak of. At least William Powell provides the proper panache, style, and what have you. He and Eugene Pallette (as the corpulent police Sergeant Heath) handle their dialogue like the longtime stage actors they once were, with their contrasting personalities providing plenty of amusing moments. 

It's the first 20 or so minutes that are problematic. Filmed as a silent in mid-1928, the Paramount execs quickly ordered it reshot as a talkie. Louise Brooks, as The Canary, had already sailed for Germany to make Pandora's Box and refused to return. Since the Canary is killed early on, another actress was hired to dub in Brooks' dialogue. Not only is what we're hearing obviously not Brooks' voice, it doesn't match what her lips are saying. And when certain very short parts of her scenes had to be reshot rather than merely dubbed, the other actress is conveniently (and awkwardly) offscreen as she speaks. A few other brief silent portions of the movie are jarringly voiced by the real actors but lack ambient sound effects of, say, slamming doors and auto engines. 

Simply as a murder mystery, The Canary Murder Case isn't bad. The suspects all have reasons to kill the dame. It keeps you guessing until the end. But between the dubbing and the solution to the murder being as absurdly convoluted as any ever dreamed up -- typical for the Philo Vance movies I've seen so far -- it's surprising that The Canary Murder Case didn't murder the series almost before it started.

BONUS POINTS: Whether by accident or not, one of the suspects, played by Gustav von Seyffertitz, is a double for Lenin.

GRAND EXIT (1935):  Former investigator Tom Fletcher is rehired by his old employer Interoceanic Fire Insurance Company to figure out who's behind the string of fires at buildings they cover. Over time, he and his sidekick John Grayson run into Adrienne Martin, who happens to be at each fire they investigate. Adrienne lights a fuse in both men. Sparks fly. Flames of love grow. But does smoke get in their eyes?  It's a match made in hell! (Thanks to one-sheet on the right for inspiring all that hype.)

Grand Exit really does keep you guessing, as Tom and John have plausible motives to be the firebugs. Tom was previously fired by Interoceanic and replaced by John. Sure, Tom arranges for John to stay on the payroll -- so his junior partner can be proven to be the arsonist as he suspects. And if not John, then Adrienne could be a good fall guy, considering her unusual interest in his investigation. On the other hand, Tom could be exacting revenge on the company for getting fired in the first place and needs to frame somebody to pin the fires on, like Adrienne. 

Yet with all these conflagrations, Grand Exit is surprisingly lighthearted. Edmund Lowe, on the cusp of the end of his leading man days, and Ann Sothern at the beginning of her career, get plenty of laughs in roles appearing to be influenced by William Powell and Myrna Loy in Thin Man, right down to his penchant for day drinking.  Onslow Steven makes for a good straightman of the trio, thanks partly to his offbeat good looks. Lowe is undeniably the star, though, thanks to his fast-paced delivery and pulling shenanigans like impersonating a nut in order to follow a lead in a psych hospital. Never quite as charismatic as Powell, there's nevertheless a certain style about him that catches me off-guard every time I see him (The Gift of Gab notwithstanding). He was probably forgotten by the time of his death in 1971 but deserves a second look. But I still don't know what the title Grand Exit has to do with arson.

BONUS POINTS: One of the newsreel stock footage of fires features a brief shot of a building with a sign reading PLYMOUTH CHURCH. Just for what I consider fun, I did a Google search, and discovered it's located in Brooklyn and was part of the Underground Railroad during the 19th century.

SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL (1959): Looking at its American promotional material like the one-sheet on the right, you'd get the idea that Shake Hands with the Devil was a gangster picture. This was merely to fool people who would otherwise have no interest in watching an historical drama from the UK about Northern Ireland, circa 1920. 

Janes Cagney plays Sean Linahan, an erudite medical professor by day and the second in command of the Irish Republican Army by night. All of the actor's familiar mannerisms are with him, right down to the way he stands with his arms not quite at his sides, looking like he's preparing to throw a punch or break out into a dance routine. 

At 60 years old, Cagney resembles a paunchy, aging bulldog who still has it in him to rip your face off, as his character's "cause" isn't so much freeing Ireland but a psychopathic urge to commit violence for the sake of violence -- kind of like Kenneth Branagh's Belfast meets Warner Brothers' White Heat, but with different accents. So it's a real downer that his co-star, Don Murray, is such a wet sock in comparison as the American-born Kerry O'Shea, drawn into the cause when his roommate is killed by British forces. 

Murray is totally at sea in a role that should have gone to someone who could convincingly play a confused young man while still holding his own when surrounded by the likes of Cagney, Michael Redgrave, Glynis Johns, and Richard Harris (as a nasty IRA member). Not even the fine director Michael Anderson seems to have been able to draw anything more than average from Murray, even as he frames and lights every scene to perfection. A step or two away from great, Shake Hands with the Devil is still a riveting drama, giving an idea of where Cagney's career could have gone had he not retired two years later.

BONUS POINTS: In what was likely a daring bit of drama at the time, graffiti scrawled on a wall reads UP THE REPUBLIC. That's tellin' 'em!

THE MUSIC OF LENNON & MCCARTNEY (1965): Way too many people thought a little of the Beatles magic would rub off on them if they recorded the band's music. Way too many of them were wrong, as proven in this 1965 British special hosted (as if at gunpoint) by John and Paul themselves. The singers here who had been given Lennon & McCartney songs not recorded by the Beatles -- Peter & Gordon, Cilla Black, and Billy J. Kramer (all managed by Brian Epstein) -- come off quite well because their versions are literally incomparable. It's only when you hear remakes of Beatle recordings by the likes of a baroque-style orchestra or someone named Antonio Vargas you realize how important the Beatles themselves are to this music. And don't get me started on the allegedly groovy choreography by bleached blondes in go-go boots, which is the antithesis of what the Beatles were all about.

The interesting moments are few. American soul singer Esther Phillips' "And I Love Him" could have been a minor hit had it been written for her. At the piano, Henry Mancini's version of "If I Fell" demonstrates how strong their melodies could be. But the most memorable moment in The Music of Lennon & McCartney is "A Hard Day's Night" orated by Peter Sellers as Laurence Olivier playing Richard III. In addition to being pretty funny, it (deliberately?) makes the lyrics to the original recording sound really, really silly. Sellers and Mancini, by the way, are the only guests who perform live.

The hacks responsible for the subpar script put the naturally witty John and Paul on the same level of the atrocious Beatle cartoon series. (John's opening smirk immediately gives the game away.) It isn't until they're joined by George and Ringo to perform lip-synch their latest single, "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out" are you reminded that these guys revolutionized the music world. These two moments alone prove The Music of Lennon & McCartney would have been a better showcase had it featured the Beatles and nobody else. Except maybe Peter Sellers.

BONUS POINTS: Ever have the desire to hear a Beatle song sounding machine-gunned out by a flamenco dancer? This is your chance.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 28

 Two silent moves (one of them Russian), one B-noir, and early television drama starring a legendary movie actor. I don't know what more you could ask for. Maybe something you've heard of? Sorry, that ain't my game.

THE DEVIL (1921): Young actors, take note. George Arliss didn't make his first movie, The Devil, until he was 52. And that was 13 years after he originated the part onstage -- his first leading role since becoming a professional actor in 1887! Good things take time.

Arliss is the mysterious Dr. Muller. For no reason other than his own amusement, Muller manipulates two couples, artist Paul De Veaux and his model Mimi, and wealthy businessman Georges Roben and Marie Matin, into thinking they're not really in love with their partners. Faster than you can say, "The devil made me do it," Paul and Marie become lovers, while Muller makes sure Paul and Mimi catch them in the act, all the while acting like a benevolent bystander. When the couples reunite with their former flames, the angry Muller once again plays a game of human chess, arranging for Paul and Marie to innocently meet, while telling Georges they've renewed their affair -- and handing him a gun, just so the cuck can stop their nonsense once and for all. 

After watching George Arliss play enough real-life heroes to fill a history book, it's nice to see him as the personification of evil. The tips of his hair curled up ever so slightly to look like horns; his strange grey eyes looking like they're piercing into people's souls; a smile that doesn't look quite human; the weird dress jacket with lapels resembling bat wings -- you'd think the guy might want to be a little more on the downlow. And while The Devil is a silent picture, anyone who's watched enough of his talkies can "hear" him speak his dialogue via the intertitles. (As for his costars, only Edmund Lowe is recognizable.)

There's not a lot of subtlety in The Devil, especially at the climax when Mimi literally sends Muller back to hell with a Christian prayer that magically creates a crucifix from out of nowhere. But what do you expect from a 1921 melodrama based on a play from almost two decades earlier? George Arliss, both in character and as an actor, looks like he's having one hell of a time in The Devil, which is more than enough reason to watch it.

BONUS POINTS: While the star is called "Mr. George Arliss" in the credits, his wife and co-star Florence, is identified only as "Mrs. Arliss". A producer should suggest Nicole Kidman be credited "Mrs. Urban" in her next movie. You know, just as a joke.

Космический рейс (SPACE FLIGHT, A/K/A COSMIC VOYAGE) (1935): It's interesting that in 1935, the Soviet-era movie industry could produce a remarkably accurate movie about space travel, while still making silent movies. I guess that's an irony similar to a worker's paradise where millions are starving to death. 

The story of Space Flight isn't all that revolutionary (hey, another Soviet irony!) In the futuristic year 1946, Prof. Pavel Sedikh ignores the warnings of others by flying his rocket to the moon, taking along a female professor named Marina, and the adolescent stowaway Andryusha. Upon landing, the three explore the moon's surface, where Sedikh is briefly separated from the others when falling into a crater. After the three are reunited -- and Andryusha retrieves a cat that had been sent up in a previous flight -- the three cosmonauts return home to be welcomed as Commie heroes.

You can't make a Soviet-era movie without a message, and Space Flight's seems to be that space travel isn't just for young men: old guys, women, and children are perfectly capable of making a lunar flight, even if the experts who run the space lab have no faith in them. In fact, Andryusha seems like the kind of kid who'll grow up to put the doubters in front of a firing squad. 

Forget about the story (and the actors' names). What oddballs like me have come for are the visuals. Space Flight impressively predicts spacesuits, weightlessness, and returning to earth via parachute. What it gets totally wrong are Sedikh and Marina packing suitcases for their flight, and the three large water tanks the characters get into to withstand the shock of taking off and landing. Modern viewers used to CGI would probably laugh at the moon set and the miniatures standing in for rockets. To me, the work that went into creating them is far more impressive than programming a computer. Something else I really enjoyed was the occasional use of stop motion to replicate the cosmonauts bouncing around the moon, often with the camera smoothly tracking along with them. But in yet another Soviet irony, Space Flight was soon pulled from release by censors because stop motion was antithetical to "socialist realism". How does a comrade say, "Oh, brother!" in Russian?

BONUS POINTS: The aforementioned suitcases are pretty cool, seeing that the hinges are at the far end, so they open like car trunks. 

I WOULDN'T BE IN YOUR SHOES (1948): Finally -- a film noir where the murder clue is provided by muddy imprints of tap shoes! The police trace them to dancer Tom Quinn, who's also in possession of some of the money that had been stolen from the victim. All this circumstantial evidence leads to Tom's appointment with the hot squat. Police Detective Clint Judd tracks down a more likely suspect -- not so much out of the goodness of his heart but because he has the serious hots for Tom's wife Ann, who recklessly promises to marry him if he reopens the investigation. When the second suspect doesn't pan out, Detective Judd consoles Ann the best way he knows how: getting her a new, furnished apartment that he can also move into as soon as hubby gets fried. What's a soon-to-be-widow to do at a time like this? Maybe take a good look at the money that the horny, crazy cop is carrying...

Don Castle, the Clark Gable of low budget noirs (the previously discussed Roses are Red and Lighthouse among them) is the hapless Tom Quinn, who not only can't catch a break, but almost seems to welcome his pending execution. As with fellow B-lister Tom Neal, Castle's character appears to mirror his real life acceptance of his position in the movie world (both began at MGM before taking the down elevator to Poverty Row studios). As such, he brings some genuine emotion to I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes, making it one of the few noirs where I was kind of hoping for a happy ending. We know the guy is innocent of the crime, and, frankly, Don Castle deserves some joy, even if it's only in a movie. 

I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes' other star, Regis Toomey, clicks big as the creepy dick Clint Judd, a combination of his other detective roles with a splash of his psycho killer from Dark Mountain. Early on, he portrays Judd as an honest hardworking cop, while gradually allowing his dark side to seep through. By the climax, even his eyes start to look whacked-out. Toomey wasn't necessarily a great actor, but in roles like this, he was terrific -- one of the few actors, like Richard Dix, whose best performances were flat and lowkey. (Depending on your age, you may remember him as Det. Les Hart in Burke's Law. Yes, another detective.) 

Elsye Knox sells the character of Ann just enough -- you believe a sap like Judd would fall for her false promise of marriage. Ann's guilt for helping to get her husband in this mess, by convincing him to keep the stolen money he found, comes through as well. And she's got an interesting look -- Lizabeth Scott minus the hard edge. Familiar character actors appear, too, inside and outside the prison walls, making I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes a good fit for a pre-dawn 70 minutes of noir.

BONUS POINTS: In case you were wondering, Tom's shoes wound up in the alley when he threw them at a howling cat. Did anybody ever do that other than in movies, cartoons, and comic strips?

SUSPENSE: A CASK OF AMONTILLADO (October 11, 1949): Rome, V-E Day. A man named
Montresor tells American soldiers that he witnessed the murder of a fascist General named Fortunado. The latter was once a stableboy for him until the war, when he commandeered both Montresor's castle and sister. Having started an affair with another woman, Fortunado killed the sister. In return, Montresor leads the alcoholic general to the basement of the castle with the promise of a cask of you know what. Getting the upper hand on him, Montesor chains Fortunado to the wall and entombs him.

Anyone familiar with A Cask of Amontillado will recognize that Suspense took a few liberties with Poe's short story. But who cares about that when Bela Lugosi stars in his first-ever TV appearance as Fortunado?  Like George Arliss, nobody else matters here -- except maybe for Ray Walston in one of his earliest TV roles as the army officer taking Montesor's confession. You could say Walston gives the best (i.e., most realistic) performance. But only the most fervid Poe fans would watch this if Bela Lugosi didn't have the lead, giving us the rare chance to see him not just on live TV, but in a dramatic role that has nothing to do with horror or the supernatural. He is a character actor, first and foremost. It's a shame that, unlike, say, Boris Karloff, he didn't have more chances to appear on television dramas.

This episode of Suspense (with spooky organ music similar to the still-airing radio version) is also a memento of early televised plays, when brick walls were no more believable than a school play, and walking down a long winding stairway was done on one simple set shot from different angles. Lugosi twice has trouble with his pistol, and also accidentally kicks over a wine bottle -- typical moments when viewers were reminded that they were watching something live with no retakes possible. A Cask of Amontillado, then, is the closest we'll come to seeing Bela Lugosi in a dramatic stage performance. And just to remind you how old this episode is, its setting -- V-E Day -- happened only four years earlier!

BONUS POINTS: The Suspense sponsor, Auto-Lite, reminds us that its spark plugs cause less radio and television interference.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 18

Sex! Loansharking! Magical murder! A singer making a fool of himself for the sake of a TV show! It must be another Early Show.

SEX (1920): Now there's a 

 straightforward title for a straightforward movie
about a straightforward woman whose life eventually goes sideways. Sneering showgirl Adrienne Renault is enjoying an affair with Philip Overman -- until his wife divorces him. The thrill of the relationship now gone, Adrienne dumps Philip in favor of Dick Wallace, with whom she unexpectedly falls in love. Two years after they marry, Dick begins an affair with Daisy Henderson, a once-innocent dancer whom Adrienne had taken under her protective wing. Her marriage, heart, and spirit now broken, Adrienne sails to Europe on an ocean liner, where her previous lover Philip Overman has reconciled with his wife. How you like now, Little Miss Sex Queen?

As with similar dramas of its time, Sex wanted to titillate its audience with, um, sex, while making them feel guilty about it by the sixth reel (a trick Cecil B. DeMille successfully put to use in his career). Adrienne's cynicism is upfront, advising virginal newcomer Daisy to take what she can get without feeling sorry for anybody but herself. As for the millionaire businessmen, we never learn exactly what they do to make themselves wealthy -- they seem to spend all their time at their girlfriends' apartments, attending Broadway shows, and ducking their wives. 

By 1920, histrionics were becoming a thing of the past in movies, so Sex's actors keep the emotions on a low boil. Louise Glaum is excellent as Adrienne, pulling off two scenes that mirror each other -- first as the mistress and later the spurned wife -- quite well. Credit director Fred Niblo, too, for tackling a potentially melodramatic subject without going overboard. As movie historians like to say, Sex is ripe for reappraisal -- if only somebody could do a restoration of the current washed out print that often make the intertitles difficult to read. But who needs words with a movie called Sex?

BONUS POINTS: Wondering how audiences reacted to a movie titled Sex that never features anything stronger than a kiss.

I DEMAND PAYMENT (1938): Forced into joining a loansharking outfit run by Joe Travis, Toby

Locke marries his girlfriend Judith Avery solely to prevent her from testifying against him in court. When she learns the truth, Judith takes the easy way out by driving her car in front of a speeding train (wouldn't an annulment worked just as well?), but survives just so her surgeon, Dr. Craig Mitchell, can fall in love with her. Meanwhile, Toby kills one of Travis's enforcers, Louie Badolio, in order to get his hands on the ten grand he's carrying, before convincing Judith to run away to Mexico with him. Louie's brother, oddly named Smiles, and another enforcer, oddly named Happy, follow with murder in mind. Just as Smiles is ready to pull a gat on Toby, Dr. Mitchell shows up to try to win back Judith. Can't a couple honeymoon in peace?

And is it too much to ask for a movie titled I Demand Payment to live up to its promise of being strictly a low-budget indie crime movie? Apparently so, since the subplot involving Judith and Dr. Mitchell takes up too much cutesy time. I was really hoping the underrated Jack LaRue (the poor man's Bogart) would have more screentime than he does as Smiles, but what we see of him will have to do. (Unless I'm mistaken, LaRue starts out with an Italian accent before giving up midway through.) 

As dimwitted gunman Happy Crofton, Guinn (Big Boy) Williams, on loan from Warner Brothers, gives his usual better-than-expected performance -- the part seems like it was written specifically for him -- especially in the final scene, where all the actors finally have something interesting to chew on. LaRue and Williams do the heavy lifting for nominal "stars" Betty Burgess, Matty Kemp, and Lloyd Hughes. As loanshark ringleader leader Joe Travis, Bryant Washburn deserves a shoutout for a cleft chin deeper than the Erie Canal. The only movie I can find released by the who-the-heck-are-they Imperial Pictures, I Demand Payment will have you demanding why I wrote about it. (Because of the title, Jack LaRue, and its 58-minute runtime, OK?)

BONUS POINTS: Betty Burgess looks better after smashing into a train than most women do after a trip to the beauty parlor. 

THE STRANGE MR. GREGORY (1945): A magician known as Gregory the Great, having fallen in love with Ellen Randall, frames her husband John for two murders, including that of... Gregory the Great! Impossible you say? Not at all -- Gregory has mastered the mysterious "death trance", right down to losing a pulse. (I'm not giving anything away -- you'd have to be in a death trance not to have figured it out.) Gregory reappears as his twin brother, Lane, to resume his pursuit of Ellen. Ellen's friend Sheila smells a magic rat, and before you can say "hocus pocus", she and the D.A. are out to prove that Lane is really Gregory by visiting his tomb -- where the magician appears to be still dead. What gives? And how long do you think it will take before Gregory turns up again to put his final moves on the unwilling Ellen?

For a movie that runs 63 minutes, it took a lot of condensing to cram the general idea of The Strange Mr. Gregory into one paragraph. That's why today's screenwriters could learn from the guys who churned out movies for studios like Monogram: add a different plot point every three minutes, the better to keep the audience from realizing that what they're watching is a lot of hooey, and still wrap up the show at the end of lunch hour.

Like many former A-listers who found themselves freelancing on Poverty Row in later years, Edmund Lowe never phones it in as Gregory, even though he probably laughed all the way through the first table read (as if Monogram ever had table reads). Whether sporting a thoroughly unconvincing toupee and goatee as Gregory or his authentic thin moustache as Lane, Lowe likely reminded 1945 audiences that he still had what it took to be a star, doing his pitch-perfect best to pretend that The Strange Mr. Gregory isn't as silly as it seems. You won't miss anything special if you don't see it, but it's not an hour wasted, either.

BONUS POINTS: Jean Rogers, who plays Ellen, was the sexy Dale Arden in the Flash Gordon serials a decade earlier. If her voice is any indication, she was either stage-trained or smoked three packs of Old Golds a day.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO MEL (1955): Imagine an SCTV sketch directed by Ed Wood, and you have Everything Happens to Mel, an astonishingly amateurish unaired sitcom pilot starring crooner Mel Torme playing crooner Mel Turner. (Already you know the kind of deep thought that went into this.) After being mauled by a strange Southern hick named Millie, Mel brings her to his nightclub instead of the nearest police station because she's a good singer. Just as he's ready to become her manager, Millie's hillbilly father shows up to bring her home. And that's all she wrote. 

Well, maybe not she wrote. It could have been a he, or even an A.I. prototype -- it's impossible to know. While the cast is listed in the credits, none of the behind-the-camera "talent" takes the blame for creating the celluloid miasma known as Everything Happens to Mel. And my Ed Wood reference isn't necessarily a joke. While anybody can be a lousy writer/director, Wood leaves his uniquely inept stamp on his projects like a stray dog with an intestinal virus; this show has it all in spades. Yet nowhere in Wood's oeuvre does Everything Happens to Mel appear. It doesn't even come up on Torme's imdb resume. It's as if we're watching a bad Kodacolor dream brought on by an overdose of Robitussin. 

And perhaps that's how Torme would have wanted it. As good a singer he is, his songs here range from forgettable to abhorrent; only his ace drum solo makes a positive impression. Torme proved himself a fine dramatic actor three years later in The Fearmakers, but what happens to Mel here is an embarrassing attempt at spreading his wings before falling flat on his face. 

BONUS POINTS: The only thing that could make this thing worse is if former vaudeville comic/Abbott & Costello foil/short-lived Stooge Joe Besser (as the nightclub owner) reacted to Torme's sudden turn of bad luck by turning to the camera and bawling, "Everything happens to Mel!" So he does. Thanks, Joe!

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 10

 Now that my wife has returned home after a week away at a retreat, my obscure movie marathon is winding up. So, until the next thrilling installment, here are four pictures to entertain or appall. But at least I finally saw them.

LILIOM (1930): In Budapest, humble servant girl Julie falls in love with vain carousel barker Liliom. Julie's devotion pleases him enough to quit his job, move in with her, avoid work, and knock her up. It must be love! When a robbery he's involved in goes wrong, Liliom kills himself. God's Chief Magistrate allows Liliom to visit his daughter for ten minutes after a spending a decade in hell. His eventual anonymous visit with the daughter doesn't go well, although Liliom returns to the afterlife happy that she heard her father was handsome. Yeesh!

Where to begin with an alleged love story where you hate the guy and don't respect the girl? Truly, I have no idea what the point of Liliom is. From the moment they meet, the jackass abuses Julie emotionally, psychologically, and (offscreen) physically --and she willingly keeps coming back for more! Apparently, she believes that Liliom isn't really a bad sort -- he acts the way he does because he's hurt inside. Even the great Lee Tracy, one of my faves, bothers me as the two-bit crook who indirectly causes Liliom's death. Come to think of it, every character in this movie bothers me.

I was drawn to Liliom having seen the 1934 version filmed in France and starring Charles Boyer. Maybe I enjoyed that one because it was a little more frank -- you can see he and Julie share a bedroom -- and Boyer's French dialogue made him at least sound charming. He's also a much better actor than Charles Farrell, who here sounds like Bert Wheeler. Farrell is also grating, irritating, and an all-around abhorrent fellow. Rose Hobart's Julie couldn't be more masochistic -- and, worse, pathetic.

And talk about the apple not falling far from the tree! When Liliom slaps his 10 year-old daughter, she describes it to her mother as feeling like a kiss! Julie understands, as she explains to the little girl, "It's possible for someone to beat you and beat you... and not hurt you at all." How the hell did Rodgers & Hammerstein turn this horror show into the much-loved musical Carousel? And more to the point, why? 

BONUS POINTS: The lush production reminded me of another Fox film, the 1928 silent classic Sunrise. And the arrival of the Heaven-bound train into Julie's living room to bring Liliom to the afterlife is as startling a special effect that could be seen in a movie this old, and wouldn't be nearly effective with today's CGI.

GIFT OF GAB (1934): 1930s comedies don't come much worse than Gift of Gab, a
70-minute exercise in tedium wrapped in futility, about the rise, fall, and redemption of egomaniacal radio announcer. It tries without success to be Universal Pictures' answer to the Paramount's Big Broadcast musicals, which featured popular radio and recording stars of the day in guest roles supporting the studio contract players in the lead roles.

But while the Big Broadcast films featured the likes of Burns & Allen, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, and Bob Hope, Gift of Gab stars Edmund Lowe, who, while a fine actor, was not necessarily a box office favorite by this time. As for the radio guest stars, they're basically the people who didn't make the final cut at Paramount:  second-tier radio announcer Tom Hanlon; annoying comedian Phil Baker (who resembles a sex criminal); and writer/raconteur/pompous ass Alexander Wolcott. The musical guests range from bonafide stars Ruth Etting, Ethel Waters, and crooner Gene Austin (who was by now losing ground to Crosby), to unknowns like the Downey Sisters and the Beale Street Boys.

Lost until fairly recently, Gift of Gab was legendary for featuring appearances by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Once a print was discovered and the legend became real, it proved a disappointment, since the two horror stars, while appearing in the same scene, are never on screen together, and have three lines of dialogue between them. 

Their scene, a parody of murder mysteries, makes no sense since it's a visual sketch that's supposed to be on radio. But it also features Chester Morris in a nice self-parodic turn as a dumb detective. Everybody else in Gift of Gab is wasted. In fact, the best way to enjoy it is to be wasted.

BONUS POINTS: The leading lady is played by Gloria Stuart, the old lady from James Cameron's Titanic 63 years later, proving it's possible to survive a movie like Gift of Gab, and continue to entertain audiences at the end of the century.

THE 9TH GUEST (1934): Eight people  receive identical telegrams from an unknown host inviting them to a party thrown in their honor. Soon after they arrive, a mysterious voice comes over the living room radio warning them that each will die before the night is over; the penthouse is wired so nobody can leave. True to the voice's promise, at every hour a guest dies in a different way from the one before. Accusations fly throughout the night until the mystery is solved, with only two survivors able to live to tell the tale. Good luck getting the cops to believe any of it, though.

Depression-era audiences must have gotten a kick out of rich people behaving like maniacs and getting knocked off like teacups off a mantle in an earthquake. The 9th Guest (the title character being Death) is the kind of locked room -- make that locked penthouse -- mystery where it doesn't matter who the actors are. All that counts is that they suffer emotionally and physically for the benefit of ticket-buyers.

For the budget-conscious Columbia Pictures, The 9th Guest's art deco set is pretty sweet. And while the solution is pretty convoluted, you'll realize some of the clues were right there in front of you if you were paying attention. 

As for the cast, fans of this kind of movie will recognize many of the actors while not knowing their names. B-listers cost less, and the set likely took up most of the budget. 

BONUS POINTS: In a case of art deco taken one step beyond, the grandfather  clock is built into the living room wall. 

CLOSE-UP (1948): After covering a woman's fashion show in Madison Square, newsreel cameraman Phil Sparr discovers he also filmed a close-up of escaped Nazi war criminal Martin Beaumont. (And you thought David Hemmings had a scoop in Blow-Up!) Sparr is soon hunted down by Beaumont with the help of washed-up actor Joe Gibbons and two-timing doll Peggy Lake. Will Sparr live to film another newsreel -- or wind up on the cutting room floor? 

Close-Up would probably have a decent reputation if it looked, well, decent, rather than in its current washed-out, audio-challenged state. Location footage of Manhattan, including a genuinely exciting chase aboard the Staten Island Ferry and a climactic shootout along the East River jazz things up. You just kind of wish the newsreel folks were a little more careful when it comes to trusting guys who claim to be FBI agents without showing any ID.

As Phil Sparr, character actor Alan Baxter appears to be auditioning to be Gary Cooper's voice-over and an oak tree's stand-in. Borscht Belt comic Joey Faye, as Sparr's sidekick Roger, makes up for Baxter's stiffness by delivering every line as if he were onstage at Grossinger's. The best performance is given by Richard Kollmar, a Broadway actor and producer in his only movie appearance, as Beaumont, giving his character genuine menace without going overboard. Fun fact: Kollmar was married to columnist Dorothy Killgallen, with whom he starred in the daily radio talk show Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick, which opens itself to way too many interpretations. 

Close-Up, then, provides plenty of reasons for a nostalgic 75-minute viewing, not the least of which is that it reminds you of a time when Nazis were still frowned upon, instead of something to aspire to. 

BONUS POINTS: Character actor Sid Melton in a truly funny scene as a cab driver being questioned by the police. Delivering a ridiculous monologue in one long take, Melton steals the movie without breaking a sweat. If he had to do more than one take, it was the fault of the director.

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