THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 66

 Pre-codes dominate today's quadruple feature, with one semi-noir rounding out the show.

CHINATOWN NIGHTS (1929): This must be the only movie where its source material -- in this case, Samuel Ornitz's Tong War -- is given almost equal billing on the one-sheets and opening credits, making me think either the guy had a lot of pull at Paramount or the phrase was on everybody's tong -- er, tongue.

Two tong leaders -- nightclub owner Chuck Riley (Wallace Beery) and Chinese businessman Boston Charley (Warner Oland) -- are on the Zhan tu (that's warpath to you white devils).  Chuck falls hard for uptown dame Joan Fry; before you can say "dim sum", the two are shacking up, Chinatown-style. But the couple are from two different worlds -- you might call them a dim sum -- and it seems inventible they're going to break like a bamboo chopstick. 

The William Wellman-directed Chinatown Nights has potential but is an utter mess. Filmed as a silent, the Paramount bosses ordered it reshot as a talkie. Dialogue was simply dubbed in over some silent footage, with real talking scenes added only when necessary. By my estimate, it's 50/50 split, and a bad one at that. Much of the dubbed dialogue is out of synch with the actors' lips; the back and forth between the two styles is jarring, often happening in the middle of a scene. Chinatown Nights would have worked better one way or the other rather than an awkward hybrid that likely fooled nobody.

As with the truculent Louise Brooks in The Canary Murder Case, Chinatown Night's leading lady Florence Vidor left the dubbing to someone else. Wallace Beery had no problem yakking his lines as the gangster whose hard heart softens with love. And you can never go wrong with Warner Oland in one of his stereotypical Asian roles. Unless you're Asian. Then you can join the non-movie nerds of today who will find nothing of interest in Chinatown Nights except wondering why people in 1929 paid 10 cents a ticket to watch it.

BONUS POINTS: In an effort to get Chuck out of the crime business, Joan tells the authorities that the tong members are illegal immigrants and suggests mass deportations. Say, that sounds familiar....

SAFE IN HELL (1931): New Orleans chippie Gilda Carlson, accused of murdering a john, is dropped off in Tortuga by her seaman sweetie Carl Bergen, who promises to return to her when the coast is clear. It's hard enough for Gilda to keep away from the horny criminal hotel guests without the local hangman Bruno figuring out how to get his paws on her as well. The unexpected arrival of a certain man from Gilda's past offers the chance of her escape from this island. But just try telling Bruno the hangman that.

Let's get this out of the way: Safe in Hell is one of the grimiest, sweatiest, squirm-inducing studio releases of its time; you've never seen so much spitting or sexually-depraved behavior on celluloid. Every glimmer of hope is killed with all the joy of a New Yorker stomping on a spotted lantern fly. And talk about racy! When Gilda checks into the hotel, one of the male guests warns his pals to avoid using "words ending in 'it', 'itch', and 'er'." While modern day viewers may think Gilda is being punished for her sins, Safe in Hell's original trailer describes her "The Little Girl Who Tried So Hard To Be Good -- And The World Wouldn't Let Her"; pre-code movies usually cut slack to Depression-hit janes who did what they had to in order to survive.

The long-forgotten Dorothy Mackaill gives the doomed Gilda the right balance of cynicism and faith; it's the kind of pre-code character that anticipates Jane Fonda's turn in Klute decades later. The ever-boyish Donald Cook, as Carl, really looks like the kind of guy who'd forgive his girlfriend's trespasses. Yet for all the greasy goons who populate Safe in Hell, it's the two black actors -- Nina Mae McKinney as the barmaid and Clarence Muse as the porter -- who stand out. Not only are they terrific actors whose careers were unfairly confined to roles like these due to their race, their characters seem to be the only decent people on the island. Maybe they need their own ICE troops to throw out the white illegals.

BONUS POINTS: Safe in Hell is the earliest studio movie I know of that begins only with the title card, saving the other credits for the end. Director William Wellman seemed to want to get the movie going pronto.

 

NARCOTIC (1933): Dwain Esper, the Emperor of Exploitation, never met a social problem he couldn't cash in on. But unlike his delirious 1934 screed Maniac, Narcotic takes a fairly serious if seriously cut-rate look at drug addiction, while providing enough just enough tawdriness to entice audiences who patronized the more declassee grindhouses. 

This "true biography" follows the downward spiral of Dr. William G. Davis from brilliant surgeon to hopeless addict, starting at the local opium den before moving on to the harder stuff, and eventually hawking his own heroin-laced snake-oil remedy. Soon, he's surrounded by junkies ("If I don't get a pop right away, I'm gonna go nuts!"), hopheads, coke fiends, and -- gasp! -- prostitutes. And thanks to the graphic close-ups that would never be featured in studio releases, Narcotic makes it easy to learn how to puff, snort, and shoot up. Thanks for the instructions, Dwain!

Narcotic contains everything expected from Esper's grimy productions -- flimsy sets, women's gams, rickety silent movie footage of car chases and freak shows, and the requisite stilted line-readings from actors ranging from amateur to washed-up. Special commendation to J. Blackton Stuart, Jr., whose absurd portrayal of a "Chinaman" couldn't be less convincing if he played him as Australian. 

Oddly for the already-odd Esper movies, I recognized character actor Harry Cording (in a rare lead role as Dr. Davis) from his later appearances in the Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes movies. Having appeared in well over 200 movies, he's the probably the only actor in Narcotic capable of a decent performance, but only when not instructed by the director to chew scenery, mainline heroin, or smoke opium.

BONUS POINTS: In a brief sequence you'll never see on The Pitt, Narcotic also includes documentary footage of a real cesarian birth. When I later described the scene to my wife (a retired nurse), she said, "Oh, that was the old-fashioned way!" 

CRISS CROSS (1949): Burt Lancaster, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Dan Duryea make for
the most dangerous triangle outside Bermuda in this grade-A noir. Steve Thompson (Lancaster) returns to L.A. after odd-jobbing around the country, getting back his old job as armored truck driver, while doing likewise with his ex-wife Anna (DeCarlo), despite her being involved with gangster Slim Dundee (Duryea). Thompson gets the bright idea of arranging for Slim's gang to hijack his truck, split the dough with them, and run off with Anna. Sure, no way that plan won't go off the rails.

All noir elements -- doomed lovers, flashbacks, lust confused with love, greed mistaken for genius -- feature in the fast-moving Criss Cross. Director Robert Siodmak handles every aspect, from actors to lighting to framing, with the same skill that made his previous picture Cry of the City such a great watch. And just when you think you've reached the climax, the story continues into another, unexpected direction followed by another and another -- all within the final two reels. 

As for the cast, the incredibly young, curly-haired Lancaster likely never looked better. He and the borderline trashy DeCarlo have a real connection; they look like a couple who know they're doomed yet unable to resist their unhappy fate. And it's always a treat when Dan Duryea turns up in slimy roles like this, giving off sinister vibes with just his eyes. I don't know how Criss Cross never made it on my radar until now, but it was worth the wait.

BONUS POINTS:  Unbilled bit player Tony Curtis (still answering to the name of Bernie Schwartz) makes his very brief movie debut as DeCarlo's dance partner. And Alan Napier (all together now: Alfred the butler on the Batman TV series), has a small but key role as the classy dipso who organizes the truck hijacking. 

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 63

 How can four movies count as five? You'll find out.

TRAPPED BY THE MORMONS (1922): Long before the Church of Latter-Day Saints was an object of satire in a Broadway musical, it was considered a nefarious sexual cult. Just look at the tagline on the billboard for the British silent shocker Trapped by the Mormons.

Nora Prescott, a virginial thing of beauty, is mesmerized by Isoldi Keene, a Mormon elder, into leaving her parents, dumping her noble boyfriend, getting her female coworkers to join the church, and eventually marrying him. (Man, I had it tough just getting a girl to have a beer with me.) When Keene's current wife Sadie objects, he arranges for her murder. Keene's associates decide that Nora, who's finally come to her senses, might as well get the heave-ho as well. This movie might as well be titled Killed by the Mormons. 

You know right off the bat what kind of a scoundrel Keene is, seeing that the very first shot is a close-up of his eyes as he practices his hypnosis skills. He pulls every trick in the book to win over Nora, even the ol' resurrecting-the-dead gag. Religion never comes in to play as far as Mormons here are concerned; it's all about the polygamy. The only thing Nora's elderly father hates as much as the Mormons, it seems, is America because that's where these people come from. Just the seeing "Utah" on a pamphlet is enough to drive dad into a frenzy. I bet he's just jealous of all the tail those guys are getting.

The one thing that keeps Trapped by the Mormons from going full-scale camp is Evelyn Brent's portrayal of Nora. While Louis Willoughby (Isoldi Keene) and Cecil Morton York (Nora's father) compete in a scenery-chewing contest as if their union memberships depended on it, Brent keeps an even keel throughout. It's odd she rarely broke out of B-movies like Symphony of Living  (Interference being an exception). Quite a comedown for the attractive, American-born Brent, who had great success in classy British stage productions during the 1920s. Her character might have been trapped by the Mormons, but Brent herself was trapped by the studios.

BONUS POINTS: I recognized Olaf Hytten, one of the Elders, from his appearances in the 1940s Sherlock Holmes movies. God, how did I ever get laid?

THE INFORMER (1929): Long overshadowed by John Ford's 1935 adaptation of the novel, the original UK production of The Informer is interesting in  its own way. Gypo Nolan, a dimwit former member of the local Communist Party, turns in a comrade for the reward money so he and his hooker honey can sail to America. But being a dimwit, he starts flashing the cash at the local pub, leading folks to figure out what happened, and party officials putting him on "trial" 

Perhaps wanting to make Gypo even less sympathetic, the British version has him rat out his comrade out of jealousy over Katie, the woman they both love. In order to ease his guilt, Gypo eventually gives the reward money to a needy young woman whom Katie mistakenly believes he was carrying on with, leading her to inform on him to the Commies. While Ford's adaptation switches the Commies to the IRA, these changes in the original make for a more interesting story, as they add extra layers of drama and irony overall. The recently-restored DVD of The Informer, then, is well-worth a viewing.

The silent version, that is. Following its production, a sound version was prepared, dubbing dialogue in some scenes while reshooting others. This where the problem starts. Lars Hanson (Gypo) was Swedish, and Lya De Putti (Katie) was Italian, and needed other people to dub in their voices after the fact and, in at least one scene, off-camera while the stars very carefully mouthed their slowly spoken dialogue. Not only is it clunky, it's incredibly distracting, as Katie now has a cockney accent, and Gypo sounds like a talking gorilla. In fact, nobody has an Irish accent in The Informer. Watch the silent version of The Informer with its new score, followed by the part-talkie, and you'll understand why many movie critics thought sound was a bad idea.

BONUS POINTS: In its favor, the sound version recorded with the RCA Photophone process has a pre-credit overture to set the mood. Things like that are important to me, dammit. 

SHAKEDOWN (1950): The cliche of the on-the-spot, lightly unscrupulous but loveable newspaper photographer from the '30s and '40s gets a literal beating in Shakedown. Freelance shutterbug Jack Early turns his newfound gig at a San Francisco broadsheet into a moneymaking machine. First by taking shock, tabloidish photos, then playing criminal kingpins Nick Palmer and Harry Colton against each other for cash. Apparently deciding this isn't dangerous enough, Jack sneaks Harry and his gang into a party with a bunch of society swells so they can rob the joint. But this is one job that won't develop as well as his photos.

It isn't often that you're rooting for the criminals, but you can't help it in Shakedown. Howard Duff makes Jack Early even more of a sociopath than the gangsters. The way Hollywood vet Brian Donlevy plays Nick, I'd have worked for him on the side and thank him profusely. Lawrence Tierney gives Harry a sinister edge, of course, but he won't give you any trouble if you don't mess with him. Now starting the downslope of his career -- he's fourth billed -- Tierney is unusually lowkey in Shakedown, making him sound almost exactly like Humphrey Bogart.

But by the end of the first reel, it's Howard Duff you loathe. He tells a drowning victim and a jumper to pose before he snaps their photos. He breaks up the engagement of photo editor Ellen Bennet (Peggy Dow) before putting the unwanted moves on Nick's wife Nita (Anne Vernon). His own editor (the underrated Bruce Bennett) hates him. In the abyss of Jack's miserable life, he watches Harry hotwiring Nick's car to blow up when he turns the ignition -- and lets it happen in order to get the shot and Nick's wife! You know a guy is despicable when you cheer as Lawrence Tierney slaps him hard on the face and, at the end, gives him what he's been asking for all along. A fast-paced drama with flashes of very dark humor, Shakedown will shake you up.

BONUS POINTS: Still in his bit part days, Rock Hudson has one line of dialogue as a nightclub doorman. 

LA VERITE SUR BEBE DONGE (1952): Sometimes it takes a while to rethink my initial take on a movie. In the case of the French production La Verite Sur Bebe Donge, it was the (over)night after seeing it. Certain images and plot twists came back to me in ways I hadn't appreciated the first time. By the time I had fallen back to sleep, it had gone from being one of those, you know, French movies where philosophical musings pass for small talk and world weariness is the default mood for the lead characters to a fascinating study of a marriage that never should have happened, with both sides to blame.

Director Henri Decoin, a fan of American movies, incorporates Hollywood noir touches throughout the film as we watch Francois Donge (Jean Gabin) dying in a hospital after being poisoned by his wife Bebe (Danielle Darrieux). Through flashbacks, we see how they got to this point -- a combination of Francois' infidelity and Bebe's blind spots concerning both his and her poor choices. (In an amusing moment, they even whisper their doubts to each other during the marriage ceremony). Going back and forth in time, we see, too, that everyone in the couple's orbit, from their family to friends, the doctor, and even a judge knows about the poisoning and can do nothing about it as long as Francois refuses to press charges. Only if he dies can the police move in.

Jean Gabin has the reputation as being one of the great French movie actors of his time, but it's Danielle Darrieux who knocked me out as the killer wife. Initially madly in love with Francois, her innocence gives way to an ice-cold heart. Such is her steely gaze and hardened exterior that Darrieux at times looks like a different woman altogether. As good a director as Decoin is, much of the credit to this transformation has to go to Darrieux herself. 

An American studio like RKO could have made La Verite Sur Bebe Donge with little difference other than a snappier pace than its 113 minutes, but it's fascinating to see a French noir with an American look. As with plenty of films francais, an anti-snob like me has to roll with La Verite Sur Bebe Donge on its own terms if they're to find any enjoyment in it. Fortunately, there's enough Hollywood in the trimmings to have made it an interesting watch. Even if I only realized it at 2:30 in the morning.

BONUS POINTS: Henri Decoin and screen writer Maurice Auberge pull a fast one by setting up Bebe's first scene to be one thing only turning out to be another at the climax. You'll understand when you see it.

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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. 37

 

Two weeks of the bachelor life while the wife was away in Vancouver and a retreat (from me?) offered lots of opportunities to catch up on Blu-Rays ordered but not yet seen and movies on YouTube I'd either never watched or heard of. Just the thing to distract from a New York heatwave.

THE TELLTALE HEART (1928): 

OK, you know the story, right? A whacked-out guy who's killed and buried an old man under the floorboards of the house? Manages to fool a couple of investigators only to give the game away by "hearing" the heartbeat of the dead man beneath his feet? And, like everything Poe wrote, is almost impossible to believe was published in the 1840s?

There have been over a dozen film adaptations of The Telltale Heart, ranging from eight minutes to feature-length. And while the 1941 short directed by Jules Dassin is still startling -- especially for an MGM picture -- this silent two-reeler was the earliest and most unusual for its time. Directors Charles Klein and Leon Shamroy must have viewed every available German Expressionist film before embarking on this project. Tilted walls and doors, oddly-shaped furniture, the word KILL projected in squiggly lines over the lead character, the investigators speaking moving their mouths identically and simultaneously, this Telltale Heart was likely meant for the art-houses and film clubs attended strictly by the aficionados de film who wouldn't have known a Laurel from a Hardy.

The acting from Otto Matieson (as the killer) and William Heford and Hans Feurberg is, to be expected, highly-stylized, further creating a sense of dread and madness. Other than being a really interesting production, The Telltale Heart is one of the rare examples of silent American movies that, instead of pandering to audiences, actually brought them to a different level. It wouldn't have hurt to run it at the local Bijou before the latest Tom Mix western. Might have even been a good thing for the popcorn-munching kiddies.

BONUS POINTS: Otto Matieson played Dr. Joel Cairo in the original 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon. Co-director Leon Shamroy would go on to be the cinematographer (and later, director of cinematography) for over 100 movies, including Cleopatra, The Agony and the Ecstasy, South Pacific, and Snow White and The Three Stooges.

THE BIG TRAIL (1930): For "The Most Important Picture Ever Produced", The Big
Trail doesn't offer much difference from other major Westerns of the day as far as story is concerned -- it's your typical go-west drama featuring deserts, snowstorms, and murder. What definitely separates it from any movie of its day was being shot in the new 70mm Grandeur film process with hundreds of actors, extras, horses, cows, covered wagons... and, oh yes, 23 year-old John Wayne in his first starring role.

Even for a movie nut like me, a two-hour movie from 1930 almost promises to be something of a slog -- it takes a very full half-hour for the wagons to get moving, as characters are introduced, re-introduced, and re-re-introduced. The dialog tends get barked more often than spoken, with pauses adding to the film's length. But boy, does it look beautiful; aside from the occasional thin vertical scratches, the restoration job done on The Big Trail is pretty much perfect, giving a great idea of how it looked in the two theaters able to run it in 70mm at the time. (Each scene was also shot in 35mm, as were -- get this -- the four foreign language versions with different lead actors, all over the course of only four months. The budget was $1.25-million, or roughly $21-million in 2024 -- and still cheap at that.)

Watching a genuine, nearly century-old widescreen production, filmed entirely on location in six states, is remarkable and damn near uncanny. What's also uncanny is how annoying Fox Film's resident Swedish dialect comedian El Brendle can be as "comedy relief". The Big Trail could have been 20 minutes shorter without his endless "yackass" and "yumpin' yimminy" routines. 

But what of the barely out of his teens John Wayne? If you like him already, you'll like him here. If you never liked him, you'll at least be stunned by his movie-star handsome looks, decades before trucks of Chesterfields and barrels of Old Crow ravaged him. His delivery is exactly what you expect, only younger. What you don't expect is how is character, trapper Breck Coleman, is a friend to "the Injuns", preferring their company to that of whites. No matter what you think of John Wayne or Westerns in general, The Big Trail is one of those groundbreaking movies that you should see once, if only because, well, there was a time when a movie looked kind of like what you see now, and John Wayne hung out with Injuns.

BONUS POINTS: The Big Trail's original exit music remains on Blu-Ray and its occasional TCM broadcast.

HOUSE BY THE RIVER (1950): A-list director Fritz Lang decamped to low-brow Republic Studios for a drama that mixes the worst sides of writers and family. After turn-of-the-20th-century author Stephen Byrne accidentally(?) kills his maid, he guilt-trips his gimpy older brother John into dumping the body into a river. As news of the maid's "disappearance" makes the news, Stephen is delighted to see the sales of his latest book rise, inspiring him to write a new novel about the real crime. Even better, once the body turns up, the locals believe big brother John is the murderer, giving Stephen the idea of arranging the guy's "suicide" to "prove" his guilt. And as long as he's at it, Stephen might as well strangle his own wife to death, too, because it would make a terrific climax to his book. But not even the cleverest writer can always make that kind of thing work.

From House by the River's opening moments, you know Louis Hayward's characterization of Stephen Byrne is going to be a quietly nasty one, gradually growing during its 90 minutes until all you want is for him to disappear from this earth, the more painful the better. I'm not quite familiar with Hayward's oeuvre, but this one performance alone is impressive enough to keep in one's memory. Just how much of it is strictly his own talent or brought out by Fritz Lang is not for me to say. All I know is, well, this is a Fritz Lang movie to the core. And with not necessarily well-remembered co-stars Lee Bowman (John Byrne) and Jane Wyatt (Stephen's wife Marjorie) doing first-rate work -- hell, even Dorothy Gaunt as the short-lived maid Emily has real presence -- makes me believe Lang knew exactly how to get the best out of actors. 

Lang was also smart enough to cast plenty of interesting, often familiar character actors in supporting roles, including Peter Brocco as the one-eyed coroner; Jody Gilbert as John's love-starved, frog-faced housekeeper; and Katheen Freeman as a giddy family friend. House by the River is not the easiest place to visit but is nevertheless worth dropping by just to see how easily a sociopath can manipulate neighbors and so-called loved ones alike. The only distraction is how the South African-born Louis Hayward resembles Desi Arnaz at certain angles. Babaloo!

BONUS POINTS: Paul Brocco's eyeglasses have one dark lens, evoking Fritz Lang, who wore a patch over one eye and a monocle over the other. 

THE ENFORCER (1951): The boys in the Warner Bros. publicity department must have been
aware that their studio's number one star was aging fast. Although Humphrey Bogart had entered the bowtie stage of his career, the posters for The Enforcer didn't just picture him with his '40s neckwear, his face was airbrushed to within an inch of Casablanca. 

And while Bogie is his usual tough guy persona, as D.A. Martin Ferguson he's definitely on the side of the righteous as he tries to bring down a ring of hitmen-for-hire.  If you didn't see the original trailer, you wouldn't even know who the enforcer is supposed to be -- the D.A. or the killers' ringleader.

The hitmen surrounding Bogart in The Enforcer are some of the most striking-looking character actors of the day, including the least-expected hitman ever, Zero Mostel, looking well over a decade than his 36 years. If you're used to Mostel as a comedian-par-excellence, his performance as Big Babe Lazick is a real stunner. More of a wannabe murderer than the real thing, Lazick is just a petty criminal trying to earn an extra buck for his wife and son. Others in this real rat pack are guys you've seen somewhere even if you're not sure where, like Ted de Corsia and Michael Tolan, the only one who doesn't look like he would kill your baby for crying. 

But the real scene-stealer is the most low-key, the great Everett Sloane as the ringleader who dreamt up the brilliant idea of hiring killers who have absolutely no connection to the victims in order to throw the police off their trail. The Enforcer has so many memorable actors that at times Bogart seems to be a supporting player in his own movie. Yet his final decade of movies gave Bogart a different, often deeper side; too, if you watch them in order there's a genuine poignancy as he seems to be gradually dying before your eyes -- which, frankly, he is -- but always putting up a fight. Even if he doesn't exactly run the board in The Enforcer, Bogart is, as always, a real screen presence.

BONUS POINTS: The only movie where a potential victim is warned off the streets by Humphrey Bogart speaking over a record store loudspeaker. I don't care how serious it's supposed to be, it's mirth-provoking as heck.

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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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