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!

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE LOST SQUADRON" (1932)

 Once Gertrude Stein's "Lost Generation" trope caught on like the Spanish Flu, it was inevitable Hollywood would cash in. The Lost Squadron -- the word was even shoehorned into the title -- follows three disillusioned World War I pilots -- Gibby, Woody, and Red -- along with their former mechanic, Fritz, returning to an America more interested in giving them parades than a helping hand.

Gibby's pre-war girlfriend, Follette Marsh, has dumped him for the bright lights of show biz. Woody turns to drink when discovering his business partner has absconded with all their money. Red's old employer won't rehire him, while Fritz is broke. Thank you for your service! Now get lost.

Laugh it up while you can, guys. It's all
downhill from here.

As time passes without any hope for them in their hometown of New York, Gibby, Red, and Fritz hobo their way in a boxcar to Hollywood, where Woody, now established as a stunt flyer, gets them hired on a movie he's currently working on.

It's a good deal, until Gibby discovers his ex-gf Follette is the leading lady and married to the director, the tyrannical, Arthur von Furst. Eventually, two of the pilots will be dead by murder and suicide respectively, while the third will fatally shoot the director. All in a $50-a-day's work!

Red, Fritz, and Gibby, post-war. Get a job,
you bums!

If nothing else, The Lost Squadron reveals the fallacy that the men who fought in Vietnam were the first veterans to face unemployment, addiction, and betrayal by the country they served.  Audiences must have felt too guilty to buy tickets to The Lost Squadron, seeing that it lost $125,000 in its original release.

Mary Astor demonstrates just one of her many
looks of misery for co-star Erich
von Stroheim.

The stars of Lost Squadron play to type. Richard Dix is the rugged, haunted Gibby; Robert Armstrong is Woody, the boastful sot with a death wish; and Joel McCrea's handsome, charming Red successfully woos Woody's sister. As Fritz, Hugh Herbert does his usual Ed Wynn-clone routine, although turns unexpectedly dramatic near the end. Poor Mary Astor doesn't have much to do in her thankless role of Follette except look unhappy, possibly because her name is Follette and not something normal like Julie or Betty. But it's Erich von Stroheim who dominates The Lost Squadron much like his character, the sadistic Arthur von Furst, does on the set of his movie. 

Von Furst even uses a swastika in his company's
logo. OK, so it's backwards, but still.

Never speaking when bellowing will do, brimming over with contempt for his actors and crew, von Furst is a not-so-borderline psychopath, hoping for real plane crashes, insulting the extras (I would notice that), and emotionally torturing his wife. (Hey, babe, you wanted to be in the movies!) Von Stroheim was likely drawing upon his own career as a similarly demanding director a decade earlier, whether filming in Death Valley in the middle of summer, or (allegedly) taking over a huge set to shoot a bacchanalian party sequence that turned into a real, weekend-long orgy. Top that, Mr. Spielberg!

Von Furst is speechless. Because he's dead.

Intense a director as he was, von Stroheim never attempted what von Furst does here: tamper with Gibby's plane in order to kill him. (The stunt players union would never allow such a thing today.) Things don't work out as planned, as Woody takes the doomed plane up instead. Red, figuring out who was behind the crash, hogties von Furst in the hangar until he can be dealt with later. (The Director's Guild would never allow this today, either.) 

It's here The Lost Squadron takes on a radically different tone in its final nerve-wracking 20 minutes, part-horror, part proto-noir, climaxing when Gibby, Red, and Fritz decide what to do after von Furst is shot by... Well, it isn't clear who did it; each takes the blame for their own reasons. But while Red is the likely culprit, it's Gibby who makes the ultimate sacrifice, leading to a completely out-of-left-field finale that you'll find either moving or unintentionally hilarious. But as far as I'm concerned, the characters of The Lost Squadron went through enough hell to earn a little heaven.

Well, if that's the way you feel about it...

Best pre-code moment of The Lost Squadron: Gibby goes up alongside Woody to warn him into landing the tampered plane. Woody responds by playfully giving him the finger. Maybe if he had said "Thank you," the movie would have turned a profit.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE GREAT FLAMARION" (1945)

It's a question not asked in polite circles but... aren't there some people who meet unhappy ends that, y'know, are just asking ufor it? The Great Flamarion has enough to field a basketball team: four saps and one no good dame. 

The titular Flamarion (sap #1) is a sharpshooter touring vaudeville with two assistants, Connie (the no-good dame) and her dipso husband Al (sap #2). A sociopathic grifter from way back, Connie seduces Flamarion into "accidentally" killing Al during their act one night. Once a cold-hearted loner, now hopelessly in love, Flamarion sees his plans for marriage go kablooey when Connie suggests they split up for a few months in order to divert suspicion. 

When she doesn't show up at a pre-arranged time and place -- and his telegram to her is returned with a taunting "ADDRESS UNKNOWN" -- Flamarion realizes he's been had, and spends his last dollar tracking her down, eventually finding her in a Mexico City vaudeville theatre. Connie's now an assistant to her latest lover, Eddie the trick bicyclist (sap #3), while putting the moves on an acrobat (sap #4). Startled by Flamarion suddenly shooting out the lights in her dressing room, Connie gives him the ol' Honey-where-were-you routine to no avail. Grabbing her own gun, Connie shoots Flamarion, who has enough strength to strangle her to death before he himself dies onstage after falling from the rafters. If only show business was really this exciting.

"The drink's on me! Or is it you?"

A surprisingly sophisticated noirish drama from Republic Pictures -- whose releases tended to be B-Westerns with the likes of Roy Rogers -- The Great Flamarion provides a tremendous showcase for Erich von Stroheim (Flamarion), Mary Beth Hughes (Connie) and Dan Duryea, whose portrayal of the perpetually hammered Al veers from irritating -- as Connie asks him, "Can't you stay sober long enough to stooge for a couple of guns?" --  to boorish to, eventually, pathetic without missing a beat. He's the kind of alky who generously offers to buy a drink for the guy from whom he just borrowed five dollars. 

Load your pistol, Erich, before it's too late.

But this is von Stroheim and Hughes' show all the way. Once one of Hollywood's outstanding directors and character actors, von Stroheim -- who seems to have been born wearing a monocle -- was now punching the clock on Poverty Row. Imposing (despite his 5'7" height) with a gleaming head, a neck the size of a concrete pillar, a guttural Austrian accent and perpetual scowl, von Stroheim -- "the man you love to hate" -- seems out of place in the seedy world of vaudeville, making his descent into the arms of a deceitful jane that much more pitiable. By the time he's fatally shot, both you and he are relieved just to see him put out of his misery. It was a rare, perhaps unique, chance for von Stroheim to portray vulnerability and, as such, was probably one of his more challenging career moves -- even more than just walking through the lowly Republic gates to begin with. 

Mary Beth Hughes, with her sexy-girl-next-door style, is like a silver dollar gleaming in the gutter. No matter how beautiful it shines, once you pick it up you're covered in muck. Initially

Hey ladies, wouldn't this turn you on?

resistant -- "Your personal feelings do not interest me in the least" -- Flamarion gradually succumbs to her faux-charms. Connie breathily claims to be aroused when he shoots off the strap of her dress onstage, murmuring, "Every bullet is a caress." (This is another compliment I've yet to hear from my wife.) 

Of course it's all a lie, a far cry from her final insults before her death: "Why, you poor sucker! How can anyone love you? That fat bald neck, the squinty eyes. You're old, you're ugly. Even the touch of you makes me sick!" I wonder how von Stroheim -- who, frankly, looks exactly the way he's described -- felt while hearing those words spat at him by a woman who, in real life, would have probably said the same thing.  

The Great Flamarion overflows with great noir dialogue. One exchange is almost a textbook example of the seedy B-movie world. Connie, already having hooked Flamarion, is at a bar planning to run away with Eddie when Al stumbles over.

AL: I was lookin' for ya. I need some dough.
CONNIE: I don't have any with me.
AL: Well, what did you do --
CONNIE: What did I do with it? How much do you think is left in the grouch bag after the way you've been kicking it around? 
AL: For the love of Mike, cut out the preachin'. (to bartender:) Hey George, gimme a bourbon. And see what the boys in the back room will have. Better make mine a double bourbon, George. (glaring at Connie:) I'm in kind of a hurry. 
CONNIE: Y'know, no matter how fast you can drink, the distilleries can stay way ahead of ya.
AL: Yup. But by next week, I'll have 'em workin' nights to do it. (Connie tries to take Al's drink; he slaps her hand away.) Some day you're gonna do that and not pull back anything but a stump!

Now that's a conversation. Did people really talk like that in the '40s? If so, they were a lot more colorful than today's dullards, who describe everything as "amazing" and "mad crazy." And while we're on the subject, were these noirs about unfaithful women playing on the fears of American soldiers overseas during the War? Or were all dolls really two-timers back in the day? If nothing else, years of watching B-movies go along way to explaining my issues involving trust.  

Flamarion spills his guts in
more ways than one.

Much of the credit for The Great Flamarion's success has to go to director Anthony Mann, still at the beginning of his career before his elevation as a film auteur in the '50s. Telling the story in flashback from Flamarion's dying confession, Mann uses the kinds of interesting camera angles and lighting that make a movie like this stand out from the rest of its kind. He's got a good way with the cast, too, allowing the actors long takes to speak their dialogue without abrupt edits. It really goes to show what some thought and care will do for a project that other directors would've considered a one-take quickie. 

The man you love to hate to love to
dance.

Just as an example, Mann gives von Stroheim a wonderful moment the actor probably never experienced in any movie before or after. Waiting for Connie to arrive in his lush hotel room after their three-month separation, Flamarion has been primping and preening, arranging flowers just so, when he suddenly breaks out into a solo waltz like a lovestruck teenager preparing for his first date. It's charming, hilarious and very sad all at once; he has no idea that Connie's currently shacking up with Eddie somewhere in Central America. Just call him Erich von Sucker.

Wilder, von Stroheim, Hughes,
Duryea and Mann try to ignore
Billy Wilder's insults.

Just how much input producer W. Lee Wilder had is difficult to say. He was once endorsed by his brother, the legendary writer/director Billy Wilder, as "a dull son of a bitch." A former handbag manufacturer, W. Lee Wilder's other movies include Phantom from Space, Killers from Space and, in a welcome change, The Snow Creature. What The Great Flamarion lacks in his brother's Double Indemnity production values ultimately quadruples in the overall sap quotient. Never have so many marks been preyed upon by a woman in one movie -- and in only 77 minutes. 

Unfortunately for a movie perfectionist like me, the original credit sequence on circulating prints of The Great Flamarion was replaced by a generic opening by TV-Pic, the distribution company that ran it on television in the '50s. The saving grace, however, was that TV-Pic appeared to have used the original negative; the movie is excellent for a public domain B-production, with faces popping out from shadows like the bullets Flamarion fires onstage. 

As with many other movies dissected here, The Great Flamarion has been unjustly forgotten, probably due its orphan status. However, being available for free on YouTube can only help revive its stature for new generations of fans of film noir, B-movies, treacherous dames and the Second Amendment.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "FRIENDS AND LOVERS" (1931)

Friends and Lovers asks the question, "Can two men remain friends when they both love the same woman?" We all know the answer to that one, but the movie spends 68 minutes teasing us with the possibilities -- kind of the way the woman in question does.

Captain Geoffrey Roberts and Lieutenant Ned Nichols (not to be confused with bandleader Red Nichols) are stationed in India when they discover they've both had affairs with a married woman, Alva Sangrito. Roberts tries to settle matters by sending Nichols on a fatal mission, only to wuss out and rescue him at the last minute. Having decided to put Alva behind them, the two men unexpectedly meet her (and her new fiance) in London at the kind of weekend sleepover rich people indulge in.  Realizing that Alva and Roberts are still in love, Nichols takes a wild shot at him, only to miss. Alva, finally realizing she's caused enough trouble for these idiots, leaves the party. Roberts, at Nichols' urging, successfully wins her back.

"Yes, it's true, I'm
devilishly handsome."

Director Victor Schertzinger must have thought Friends and Lovers a work of art, his name appearing as an ostentatious signature on the credits. But it's the actors who make it worth a look. For Friends and Lovers marks the American movie debut of Laurence Olivier, whom RKO Radio Pictures anticipated would be the new Ronald Colman. Unfortunately for both the studio and Olivier, Colman wasn't going anywhere. Within a year or so, Olivier was back on the British stage where he belonged. (You can take that last remark any way you'd like.)

"Don't let the door
hit you on the way out, Larry!"

As Nichols, Olivier is outclassed by Adolphe Menjou's Rogers in more than just military ranking. There's a 17-year difference in their real-life ages, giving Menjou a leg up not only in the art of movie acting but in life itself. Opposite a foxy film veteran like Menjou, 24 year-old Olivier is alternately juvenile (which may be the point) and playing to the balcony of the Old Vic (which definitely isn't). If you weren't aware that he would some day be considered one of the the great actors of his time, his impact on you would range somewhere between zero and so what.

"Love to hate...
or hate to love?"

Viennese-born Erich von Stroheim as Alva's husband, Victor, is the cyanide-laced frosting on the cake. Promoted early in his career as "The Man You Love To Hate" (an honorific now owned by Ashton Kutcher), von Stroheim is terrific as the guy who's been forcing his wife to engage in extramarital affairs just so he can blackmail her lovers for money. The way he bemusedly catches Rogers and Alva in a lie that he's set up is wonderfully funny in an icky way. And when demanding £5,000 to keep the couple's fling quiet, Victor informs Rogers that he's already gone to the trouble of finding out where he banks.

"Thanks for lending me
your wife, buddy!"

The equally-bemused look on Menjou's face signals that we're in the company of two old pros -- both the characters and the actors themselves -- who appreciate each other's jaded world-weariness. (Von Stroheim's innocent defense, "Blackmail is such an ugly word," instantly created a cliche that would launch a thousand comedy sketches.)

This is similar to the
way my wife & I hang out
at home.

Victor, by the way, needs the money in order to indulge in his hobby, collecting porcelain -- the most fragile piece being his own wife, who can't even fight back when he whips her with a riding crop, leading their butler to fatally shoot him. I wish he'd accidentally shot the wife, because von Stroheim's icy presence is missed for the remainder of the movie. A truly underrated actor, von Stroheim was appreciated far more in Europe, to Hollywood's lasting shame.

You may remember the actress who plays Alva, Lily Damita, from a previous piece about the 1932 sex farce This is the Night. Damita's sex-kitten persona in that movie is all but negated here, as she apparently confuses languor for heartache. She must have been mighty hot in real life, because I still can't figure out why Errol Flynn married her, let alone why she's the object of desire by four sapheads in this movie, two of whom were willing to kill each other over her. I guess men weren't as choosy during the Depression.

The only actor to have
starred alongside
Laurence Olivier and
Wheeler & Woolsey.

A couple of supporting actors are worth mentioning, not so much for their talent as for just being in the movie. Hugh Herbert plays McNellis, Rogers' valet, with a singularly unconvincing Scottish accent. Herbert, best known as the rubber-faced character actor from a hundred or so Warner Brothers' comedies, seems weirdly out of place when sharing scenes with Laurence Olivier. Your brain reacts to it as it would to, say, Shemp Howard playing opposite Max von Sydow: This makes no sense whatsoever.

"I was born in 1858.
Have some respect, sir!"

As the host of the sleepover, Frederic Kerr trots out his old codger routine seen in Frankenstein the same year. All's that missing is the fez. I bring him up only because he was 72 at the time -- and how often do you see actors who were born 155 years ago?

"Are you convinced I'm wonderful?"     

Watching a somewhat-better-than-average melodrama like Friends and Lovers convinced me that you can pull any Adolphe Menjou role off the shelf and never find a bad performance. His style might not have differed much from role to role -- Menjou doesn't even attempt a British accent in Friends and Lovers, his crisp diction being enough -- but no matter the genre, he was consistently good, occasionally great, always convincing.

"Oui! I am, how you say,
un grand hambone!"

In movies, Laurence Olivier, was inconsistently great, often histrionic, not always convincing. (He couldn't have bettered the job done by Menjou as the despicable martinet in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory.) Check out The 49th Parallel some time, where his French-Canadian trapper (left) could be substituted for Swift's Premium Ham in your grocery's meat section. For every movie like The Entertainer -- brilliant, a role in which Olivier really loses himself -- there's The Boys from Brazil, The Betsy, The Jazz Singer ("I haff no son!"), Inchon... And, of course, the legendary Polaroid commercials for which he was paid the princely sum of one million dollars. Having coveted the dough more than his reputation, it was one of his more credible jobs.
 
But none of that matters in a piece of sophisticated fluff like Friends and Lovers. Because in real life, Roberts wouldn't have saved Nichols back in India, and Nichols would've shot Roberts through the head at the sleepover. Alva, in turn, would've stayed with her fiance, just to make the survivor that much more miserable. And no amount of great acting would change that.

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