THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 62

Forty-six years separate the oldest and newest movies here, bookended by a silent version of a classic stage play and a semi-update of a classic novel. The fans of the play and the book would object to them. Too damn bad.

GHOSTS (1915): It helps to have a rough idea of what Hendrik Ibsen's groundbreaking play Ghosts is about. Otherwise, you'd think the "Inherited Trait" mentioned in one of the intertitles was insanity brought about by too much partying rather than syphilis. 

Capt. Alving's marriage to the wealthy Helen Arling doesn't prevent him from continuing his roue ways, even at his wedding reception. As time passes, his behavior worsens, even urging his eight-year-old son Oswald to knock back a shot of whiskey. Helen ships Oswald to boarding school, where he becomes a renowned artist... who keeps rubbing the back of his neck because that's apparently an effect of the "Inherited Trait". It also drives him to go off his nut, burn down a church and eventually take poison. Well, that's what syphilis a sore neck will do to you.

Wisecracks more or less aside, Ghosts at least tries to get across the idea of an STD, while definitely keeping the incest subplot of the story, as Oswald falls in love (and almost marrying) the woman he doesn't realize is his half-sister. His real father, of course, sired her out of wedlock -- which comes as a surprise to the guy who thought he was her father. Just why the family doctor knew all this but never told anybody until it was almost too late proves he should have lost his license to practice medicine. Or he just wanted to give Ghosts an excuse to run more than three reels.

Controversial dramas made in 1915 aren't known for subtlety, but Henry B. Walthall (Beggars in Ermine) is quite good as Alving father and son; his climactic nervous/psychological breakdown is remarkably effective and kind of scary. If you cut Ghosts some slack, it's not difficult to understand why it was considered a powerful, adult movie in its day, even if it cuts corners. Watch for Erich von Stroheim in a bit part in the boarding school, too.

BONUS POINTS: Following the opening credits, somebody named Karl Fromes poses as Hendrik Ibsen rather stiffly. Maybe he had a sore neck.

JULIUS SIZZER (1931): Do you remember a comedian named Benny Rubin? He was the go-to actor if you needed an old guy, maybe running a pawn shop or complaining about kids these days. Rarely explicitly Jewish, his character came close enough to give you the general idea.

Not so in the early days of sound, when Rubin's "gift" for Yiddish accents, slangs, and malapropisms came to the fore in many low-budget two-reelers for the smaller studios like RKO Pathe, which released the gangster parody Julius Sizzer. Here, Rubin plays crime boss Liddle Sizzer (you get the joke, right?) and his younger brother, the goodhearted Julius. The "plot", if you can call it that, involves Liddle trying to find the guy who took a shot at him, while he tries to keep Julius, just off the boat from Russia, away from the underworld.

There's very liddle -- excuse me, little -- in Julius Sizzer that would rouse even a smile today. Not that the Yiddish stuff is offensive. In fact, that's the only thing that makes it, and Rubin's other pre-code shorts, almost interesting. No, it's the constant use of the Yiddish accent attempting to make mediocre jokes and puns that's offensive, even if it is fascinating to view a kind of humor that feels as ancient as the Torah. (Liddle Sizzer's weapon of choice is little scissors. Oy vey!). Strictly for undemanding fans of early talkie comedies and historians looking for grant money in order to write seriously about this kind of stuff. 

BONUS POINTS: As often with movies like these, the fascination with Julius Sizzer comes when it inadvertently calls attention to itself as a movie, such as the ambient sound of an airplane flying overhead, a couple of brief moments when it goes out of focus, and the microphone being a little too far from the actors during wide shots.

YOU AND ME (1938): Give credit to director Fritz Lang for putting every genre except Westerns into You and Me: romcom, drama, gangster, comedy, German Expressionism, a touch of leftist polemics -- even Kurt Weill gets into the mix with a couple of songs. Its poor box office made sure there'll never be another movie quite like it again. But it was fun while it lasted (for 85 minutes)!

Five years after their pre-code Pick Up, Sylvia Sidney and George Raft were reteamed, this time as Helen Roberts and Joe Dennis, employees at a department store. Joe, like many of the workers, is an ex-con given a second chance by his boss. Helen is aware of Joe's past but still wants to marry him. But she's hiding a secret from her past, one that derails their marriage, and drives Joe back into a life of crime. 

You and Me's multi-genre hopscotch is dizzying. It begins with an anti-capitalist number, before calming down into your average love story, before whiplashing into laughs, punches, guns, threats, a gauzy recreation of the song a nightclub chanteuse warbles, a bizarre prison fantasy/flashback recounted in rhythm and rhyme by the store's ex-cons... It's all very strange (and strangely entertaining), with camera angles and lighting in the manner of Lang's 1920s German productions. Ergo, it shouldn't have been a surprise that Depression-era moviegoers wanted something a little more accessible to drop their nickels on. 

Sylvia Sidney is nothing less than wonderful as the lovestruck Helen -- she can go from thrilled to despondent without breaking a sweat -- while George Raft is his usual cigar-store Indian self, made even more wooden in comparison by a lively supporting cast, including 28-year-old Robert Cummings, playing ex-cons. I think Raft's most interesting moment was likely off-screen, as he pretended to understand what the heck kind of movie You and Me was.

BONUS POINTS: It's also the only film where a group of criminals are literally taught a lesson (in math).

CASH ON DEMAND (1961): The next time your relatives drop by uninvited for Yuletide cheer,
tell them they're going to watch an update of A Christmas Carol. Then run Cash on Demand. It won't be what they were expecting, but it'll be a nice change from the hundredth screening of the real thing. That is, if they take their holiday fun with nerve wracking suspense and threats of violence. 

Peter Cushing, Hammer Studios' legendary horror mainstay, is the mousy yet Scrooge-like bank manager Harry Fordyce. Two days before Christmas, his ice-cold demeanor is shattered when forced to help rob his bank by a charming criminal posing as an insurance representative. If they don't pull off the heist within the allotted time of 45 minutes, Harry's wife will be zapped by two electrodes attached to her skull. And a happy new year!

When I call Cash on Demand nerve wracking, I'm not kidding, bub. The movie, playing out in real times, continually racks up tension until, as with Double Door, you feel like screaming at your TV. Cushing, detestable for the first several minutes, gradually becomes unexpectedly sympathetic, thanks to Andre Morell's eerily charming role as the robber. His psychological needling of Fordyce brings out, perhaps for the first time ever, the bank manager's humanity. To describe more would be unfair to first-time viewers; catch it next December, as it seems to be one of TCM's holiday favorites. Just be sure to have a glass of strong eggnog on hand to steady yourself.

BONUS POINTS: Fordyce's put-upon assistant is played by Richard Vernon, the disgruntled train passenger who shuts off Ringo's transistor radio in A Hard Day's Night.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 35

Three Paramount pre-Codes, two John Carradine appearances, two stories involving soul transfers, and one Monogram B-picture. Is this heaven or what?

PICK UP (1933): Mary Richards (not the news producer in Minneapolis with the wacky friends) is let out of prison after serving time for an extortion racket -- which ended in a mark's suicide -- run by her husband John, who has three more years to serve. Having nowhere to go on a rainy evening, Mary ducks into a cab driven by Harry Glynn, who takes pity on her, invites her to move in with him, and gets her a job at the taxi garage as a phone operator. Mary, who hasn't told Harry of her unsavory past, urges him to pursue his dreams to open his own auto repair garage. Over time, they rise the up the social ladder. Just as Mary gets her marriage annulled, John breaks out of prison with the idea of killing Harry, who's fallen in love with a shallow rich divorcee. Mary manages to convince John to hit the road with her in order to save Harry's life. Tell it to the judge!

Pick Up has plenty of pre-code moments, starting with references to "the badger game" (where a woman entices a man to a phony romantic liaison, only to have her husband break it up and force the victim pay hush money). Because Mary is still married, she and Harry shack up for three years; while they're never seen in bed together, you get the idea they're not just roommates. The subplot of the wealthy woman who strings along a "caveman" for her own amusement was typical of the time, as was her horselaugh when the sap proposes marriage. (Pre-codes were often down on rich people, who do stupid things like throw parties where guests dress like children, play on see-saws, and drink out of baby bottles as they do here.) Even the typically sleazy opening theme by the Paramount orchestra promises a good time. 

So why is Pick Up just kind of meh? Other than the slow pace, the fault ultimately lies with George Raft as Harry. An actor's flat, low-key style can often be interesting, drawing you in, making you wonder what makes him tick. All you wonder about Raft is if he would have even gotten a movie contract had he not been best friends with Bugsy Siegel. A pro like cutie-pie Sylvia Sidney, as Mary, leaves him in the dust in every scene they share. In fact, everyone in Pick Up outshines Raft, whose one moment of drama -- hiring a lawyer to defend Mary when she runs off with John -- sounds no more emotional than ordering a new set of tires. Hell of a shiny head of hair, though. (If you're going to watch Pick Up, stick with it 'til the end just for its ludicrous only-in-the-movies courtroom climax.)

BONUS POINTS: An outrageous phallic symbol is provided by close-up of Harry's fuel pump overflowing into Muriel's gas tank. Honest.

SUPERNATURAL (1933): Supernatural's poster promises a great time, and by and large delivers, well, a good one. One doesn't expect a dish like Carole Lombard in a borderline-fantasy/horror movie, where she plays Roma Courtney, who has inherited her late brother's fortune. Desperate to know how he died, Roma falls for the promises of Paul Bavian, a sham psychic who tries to worm  his way into her heart money. His plans are interrupted by Dr. Carl Housan, who has revived the spirit of executed killer Ruth Rogen. Guess whose body she decides to park in? By the end of Supernatural's 65 minutes, Bavian learns the hard way that you don't want to get involved with a woman whose soul has been hijacked by a very unpleasant dead murderer.

Supernatural, a Paramount Picture influenced by Universal's horror shows, is unique by offering two views of the fantasy world. It presents psychics not just as scammers, but criminals -- Bavian kills his landlady when she threatens to spill the beans on his phony baloney. Yet it totally accepts the possibility of the revival of a dead person's soul. (You may recall Man With Two Lives passing off a similar idea as a coma-induced dream.) Perhaps to make sure audiences knew Dr. Housan wasn't a nutty scientist like Dr. Frankenstein, he's played by H.B. Warner, best known for starring in King of Kings six years earlier. How bad could he be if he played Jesus, right? 

Carole Lombard is quite good as the before-and-after Roma Courtney; her style -- even her looks -- change dramatically when becoming possessed by Ruth Rogen.  Roma is such an innocent that you kind of understand why she doesn't see through Alan Dinehart's Paul Bavian -- he has such a kind manner (for a murderer). Pre-cowboy Randolph Scott looks good in a tux, but it's difficult to picture Lombard falling for him. Supernatural is no classic, but it's an interesting change of pace from Paramount's usual sexy comedies and pre-codes. And from what I've read about the guys who ran movie studios then, they all could have used a soul transplant. 

BONUS POINTS: The bizarre, montage-heavy prologue featuring Ruth Rogen testifying in court and newspaper headlines playing up the trial. The rest of the movie doesn't live up to its promise, but it's a nice opening.

THIS DAY AND AGE (1933): So connected is Cecil B. DeMille to Biblical epics that it's a little stunning to stumble across his early pre-Code talkies, especially This Day and Age. A beloved tailor named Herman Farbstein is gunned down by gangster Louis Garrett for not paying up for a protection racket. After Garrett is found not guilty, three high school seniors look for proof of his crime, leading the gangster to murder one of them. Fully expecting that Garrett will once again get off scot-free, a bunch of the victim's friends decide that vigilantism is their only choice. But don't worry -- before they string him up, they'll make sure he gets a fair trial with a jury of every blood-hungry teenage boy in town. Wait, don't they know females are allowed to serve, too?

With a climax almost-embarrassingly influenced by Fritz Lang's M, This Day and Age plays on the crime-weary audience's disgust with pesky things like law, evidence, and guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Perennial heavy Charles Bickford plays Garrett as such an evil guy that you really don't mind seeing him lowered into a huge hole of hungry rats. Don't ask me to recount the name of the high school kids or the actors who play them -- most of them are interchangeable pretty boys who dress more like legal interns than highschoolers. 

There's enough spectacle and violence here to keep modern audiences alternately entertained and shocked. (The murders are particularly brutal, while a teen girl essentially volunteers to be possibly raped by Garrett's bodyguard in order to distract him from his job.) Per usual with DeMille pictures, every dollar of the budget is onscreen, with hundreds of extras, large sets, and handsome cinematography making This Day and Age an unusually impressive-looking Paramount production. 

And don't worry about the girl and the bodyguard. When he learns that she's a virgin, he shakes his head and mutters, "I like my olives green, but I don't pick 'em." See, he's a nice guy after all!

BONUS POINTS: The brief role of the extraordinarily articulate school Vice-Principal is credited to John Peter Richmond, who would soon change his name to John Carradine.

VOODOO MAN (1944): It's an adage first spoken by Aristotle: a movie doesn't
have to be great to be a great movie. Exhibit one: Voodoo Man, wherein two fellows named Nicholas and Toby are kidnapping young women in order for their boss, Dr. Marlowe, to transfer the right soul into the body of his wife who's been dead 20 long years, yet kept in excellent condition somehow or another. Plenty of people would like anybody's soul transferred into their living spouses, but that's another story entirely.

A major studio would have made a B-picture like Voodoo Man an utter bore thanks to writers, directors and actors who were ashamed of the assignment. But the behind-the-scenes folks at Monogram knew exactly how to excite the audience and find the right actors who could sell the product. And in this movie, Bela Lugosi (Marlowe), George Zucco (Nicholas), and John Carradine (Toby) not only sell it, they offer a money-back guarantee if you aren't entertained. 

As usual, Lugosi plays it totally straight, putting memories of his stage days in Hungary out of his head for the sake of the movie. Zucco is hilariously out of place as the owner of a gas station (where the women are kidnapped) who doubles as a boogity-boogity-chanting shaman during the attempted soul transfers. The relatively young (38) whippersnapper Carradine successfully goes to toe with these two legends, channeling Lennie from Of Mice and Men as the IQ-deficient Toby, running around with his arms stiffly at his sides with his mouth agape like the Bryce Canyon. Movie snobs who go gaga for Godard or run tout suite to Truffaut don't know what they're missing by turning up their snooty noses at Voodoo Man. It even features a subplot about a screenwriter named Ralph who's trying to solve the mystery of the disappearing women in order to write a movie about the disappearing women starring Bela Lugosi! That's kind of Fellini, isn't it?

BONUS POINTS: The legendary director William "One Take" Beaudine lives up to his nickname when the gas-ration sticker on a car windshield changes from shot to shot.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 32

 It pays to have subscriptions to arcane YouTube channels. They allow me to discover movies and TV shows that I would have otherwise missed, and you to learn about. Lucky you(?).

NIGHT WORLD (1932): Got an hour? Drop by Happy's Club on East 53rd Street, where owner Happy MacDonald is dealing with a bootlegger trying to muscle in on his territory. Club choreographer Klauss is having a little horizontal refreshment with Happy's wife Jill, who's trying to get her husband out of the way, permanently. Tough guy Ed Powell is putting the moves on showgirl Ruth Taylor. Ruth, immune to his "charms", is trying to nurse Michael Rand back to sobriety following the love-triangle murder of his father by his mother. And club doorman Tim Washington is waiting for word on the condition of his hospitalized wife. Make sure to duck when five people in a row are shot to death. Check, please!

How is it that a studio could release a 57-minute movie that packs more storylines than this year's lengthy Oscar-nominees combined, yet takes place in just one evening? Night World is kind of a prototype of the previously discussed Club Havana but with pre-code elements: sex, violence, bootleg booze, adultery, double-entendres, sexy showgirls in skimpy outfits under the tutelage of Busby Berkley, and a running gag involving a gay man. While the budding romance between Ruth and Michael is the main plot point, it's the other characters and situations that keep that Night World chugging along. I mean, what do you want to see, a couple of kids falling in love, or gangsters, guns, and slinky dancers in their dressing room?

Lead actors Lew Ayres and Mae Clarke are fine as Michael and Ruth, but it's the co-stars we've come to see. Fresh from his star-making turn in Frankenstein, Boris Karloff is no less threatening as Happy MacDonald, whose nickname and friendly smile don't disguise the violence lurking underneath. George Raft makes what he can of his brief appearance as the slick yet crude Ed Powell, one of his earliest credited roles. As Mike's shockingly cruel mother, Hedda Hopper gives us a taste of her future gossip columnist style. But it's black character actor Clarence Muse who, as in Black Moon, proves himself at least the equal of his white co-stars (and better than most), bringing humanity and wisdom to his role of Tim Washington, the club's philosophical doorman. Forget the lovebirds -- it's him you're rooting for. Yes, there's a lot going in Night World, all of it worth watching.

BONUS POINTS:  Night World's dizzying opening montage of Times Square theaters, streetwalkers, speakeasies and murderers is still an unexpectedly wild sequence. And look for a young Jack LaRue as a jittery gunman at the climax. 

HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT (1937): Good title, strange movie. Comedy! Romance! Drama! Murder! Cultural stereotypes, marital violence, disaster... Only an independent producer like Walter Wanger could have released something this schizophrenic; no studio would have understood it. I'm not sure any would today. 

While in Paris, shipping magnate and all-around nut Bruce Vail frames his estranged wife Irene's new lover, Paul Drummond, for a murder that he committed. Irene is forced return to New York with Bruce; Paul, still unidentified as the alleged murderer, gives chase along with his Chico Marx-style friend Cesare. Irene eventually crosses path with Paul, who, when finding out he's wanted for murder, does the noble thing and returns, with Irene, to Paris on a cruise ship built by Bruce. But midway through the voyage while sailing through a heavy fog in cold waters...

Forget it, you wouldn't believe it. In fact, everything in History is Made at Night is unbelievable, even by Hollywood standards. If it works at all it's because of Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur in the leads -- somehow you believe them even if everything else is ridiculous. Colin Clive is flat-out sociopathic as Bruce, throwing the movie even more off-balance whenever he's onscreen. His is a fascinating, unsetting performance; it's hard to tell if it's due to Frank Borzage's direction or Clive's real-life alcoholism (which killed him weeks after the movie's release). Today, many people name History is Made at Night as their favorite movie ever. Your mileage may vary. Mine sure did, but not enough to end the trip before it was over.

BONUS POINTS: Fourteen years later, History is Made at Night's producer Walter Wanger pulled the jealous husband routine himself by shooting the guy he suspected having an affair with his wife, actress Constance Bennett. 

FINDERS KEEPERS (1955): You can't expect any game show called Finders Keepers to possess a morsel of sophistication. But my God, my God, my God!  It's astonishing people actually carved 30 minutes out of their lives every week to watch dreck like this. If you wonder why its network, DuMont, eventually went out of business, look no further.

As with DuMont's other dreadful game show, the previously-discussed Auction-Aire, the New York-based Finders Keepers depends on the telephonic participants at their homes in the tri-state area, each of whom are certain that they will win the top prize: a piano, a new Westinghouse kitchen ("every woman's dream"), and a trip for two to Paris (combined worth: $3,000!).  "Girl Friday" Peggy O'Shea hides a tag somewhere on a set that resembles a living room and kitchen. The jolly house organist then plays a few bars of a song to provide a hint of the hiding place. The contestant at home then has to tell an audience member where to look, while also responding to the audience's cheering or silence. Then the home contestant has to identify a photo of a building to win the big prize. Otherwise, they get a tea set and a carton of Coca-Cola. Lower gift taxes to pay, I suppose.

Over-caffeinated host Fred Robbins really gets the thrills when introducing guest Richard Egan as tag hunter for one round. Egan, doing a pretty good job hiding his embarrassment, is almost as creepy here as he is in Hollywood Story. As he runs around the set trying to find the tag, you can almost hear him think, "This is what I have to do to plug my latest movie?" Airing only five months, Finders Keepers probably provided vital clues for Goodson-Todman Productions in creating hit game shows like To Tell the Truth, Password, and I've Got a Secret: Let celebrities be the contestants, have them play in person, and keep the damn thing simple! And for those who care, the "mystery" photo no one can identify is the Museum of the City of New York on Fifth Avenue. 

BONUS POINTS: One of the audience contestants is a nervous girl no older than ten. For her participation, she wins a dog. Her reaction signals that she already has a dog her parents hate, and this one will get tossed in the nearest alley.

THE INVISIBLE CITY (1961): Made for WCBS-TV, the Emmy-nominated The Invisible City is not a sci-fi cheapie -- it's a documentary cheapie. And it's about New York. Or, rather, the areas and people the average city dweller never saw or met in 1961, and still don't today. The captain of the Staten Island Ferry. A guy who washes the windows of the Chase Manhattan skyscraper. The lucky folks who live in the Turtle Bay area with their own private park. A seamstress still happily working at Bergdorf Goodman since forever. And it's a fascinating snapshot of not only of a city on the cusp of radical change, but of a style of non-fiction TV as forgotten as its subjects are today.

The narration, gently spoken by Eddie Albert, is the same style used in the intros to the then-current Naked City series -- prose poetry, lifting up rather than speaking down to the audience. The New Yorkers examined are the folks who keep the city humming -- or, like the Turtle Bay residents, provide us with insight to what life was like compared to growing up 30 or 40 years earlier. And you can see some of those changes. Older businessmen still wearing hats, as the up-and-comers go without. Middle-aged women donning white gloves, while their daughters prefer the casual look. Commuters reading the Times on paper rather than iPhones. And smokers. Lots of smokers.

Producer Warren Wallace interviews his subjects with respect and genuine interest. Filmed on black & white 16mm film in cramped quarters -- the window washer's wife is in her modest kitchen -- these sequences are simple and unglamorous, the voices echoey or competing with ambient sound. The music accompanying Albert's narration is very 1961, bordering on modern classical. Compare The Invisible City to today's scrubbed and scripted "reality" series, and weep for current TV viewers. Actually, don't bother. They wouldn't understand anything this good.

BONUS POINTS: The score is performed by the CBS Chamber Orchestra. Yes, there was a time when TV networks had such a thing.

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