THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 57

Three movies made during the changeover from silent to sound, and one from a decade later featuring what was briefly Paramount's B-movie stock company.

THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK (1928): There's nothing about The Docks of New York promising greatness. A ship's stoker saves a hooker who tried to drown herself in the East River. They go to a dive bar, get married, spend the night the together before he ships off the following day. He has a change of heart and swims back to land, where he learns she's in night court for a crime he committed. He confesses, gets sentenced to 60 days. The hooker promises to wait for him.  

Would you watch such a movie? Well, maybe you should, just to see how important a great director can be. For Josef von Sternberg elevates a cliched tale into something both human and humane. The first reel or two feature situations and characters you've seen in countless old movies, particularly silents like this. Yet von Sternberg molds it all into something that you gradually come to understand and care about. Sure, George Bancroft (the stoker) is rough around the edges -- drinking beer straight out of a keg -- and Betty Compson (the hooker) has been beat around by life pretty badly. Yet each brings out something positive in the other. For Bancroft, it means a real love he's never felt for any woman. For Compson, it's a belief that it's possible to find a man who cares about her.

Von Sternberg transforms these battered people into a couple you root for even in their tawdry surroundings; it's a master class for anyone who wants to learn what an "actor's director" is. Watch the dozens of extras in the bar -- each one appears to have gotten personal instruction from von Sternberg; their action never looks forced or phony. (One funny moment comes when Bickford and Compson converse in a corner, completely ignoring a rowdy fight going on in a mirror's reflection above them.) 

There's more, much more, in The Docks of New York than is covered here, from the genuine filth covering the stokers, to how Betty Compson begins rock hard and slowly softens into the kind of woman her character probably dreamed of becoming when growing up. If von Sternberg's first movie, Salvation Hunters, was the work of a self-styled artiste trying too hard to say something important, The Docks of New York is a masterpiece of an unexpectedly mature drama from a bold, thoughtful director. Spoiler alert: the happy ending feels neither forced nor tacked on. 

BONUS POINTS: Gustav von Seyffertitz (born in 1862!) steals his five-minute scene as "Hymn-Book Harry", the priest who reluctantly marries the wayward couple in the dive bar. With a mere look in his eyes, von Seyffertitz reminds all the barflies (and us) of the solemnity of the moment. Brilliant stuff.

INTERFERENCE (1928): As you could guess from the advert on the right, Paramount's first talking feature Interference has nothing to do with football. It is, rather, a melodrama of the British upper-class involving hidden identity, divorce, blackmail, and murder. Kind of like the royal family if you dig hard enough. 

While Interference possesses many of the drawbacks prevalent during the early days of sound, its story is actually quite involving. Phillip Voaze has a chance meeting with first wife Deborah Kane a decade after his disappearance in World War I. In need of a few shillings, Deborah hatches a blackmailing scheme involving letters written to Voaze years earlier from his former sidepiece Faith. Without knowing what the others are doing, Voaze, Faith, and Faith's current husband Sir John Marlay each visit Deborah. One of them would like to kill her, another really does, while the third is arrested for it. All this hubbub for a few old "Oh baby, what you do to me" mash notes! People sure were touchy in 1928.

There are coincidences galore throughout Interference, like Voaze just happening to choose Marlay as a doctor, but that's to be expected in any movie of this type. Evelyn Brent and Doris Kenyon (as Deborah and Faith respectively) get the lion's share of histrionics. Clive Brook, the kind of distinguished Brit that talkies were created for, is agreeably lowkey as the stiff upper-lipped Sir John, the doctor whose prescription for blackmail is a dose of lethal threats. 

But it's William Powell, as the sickly Voaze, who steals Interference. His clipped, eloquent delivery, heard onscreen for the first time, must have convinced the boys at Paramount's front office that he was far more suited to leading roles than his often-villainous supporting parts in silents. No surprise that his next movie, a silent titled The Canary Murder Case, was immediately reshot with sound. Now that kind of studio interference makes sense.

BONUS POINTS: One credit reads "Dialogue Arranged by Ernest Pascal", as if the guy cut up the script, tossed the shreds up in the air, and glued them together at random like William Burroughs. Another credit, "Based on a Lothar Mendes Production", refers to Mendes' direction of the silent version of Interference, which Roy J. Pomeroy followed for his direction of the talkie version, which was shot simultaneously. As with The Canary Murder Case, those were the days when studios could pay actors once for making a movie twice.

THE SQUALL (1929): The funniest feature of 1929 must have been The Squall. And making it even more of a hoot is that it's a drama. Ergo, if you ever want to convince your friends that early talkies get a bad rap, this is not the movie to show them. 

In a small Hungarian village, middle-aged couple hire a young Gypsy woman named Nubi as their housekeeper. She shows her gratitude by seducing every male in the household and turning all the women against one another. Money goes missing, the maid and gardener quit, Paul breaks up with his fiancée Irma, fights break out -- and Nubi the housekeeper doesn't even sweep the floor! 

Absolutely nothing else happens in The Squall, other than the audience wondering why Nubi wasn't fired after her first day on the job. As for the acting -- hoo boy. Myrna Loy -- still stuck in "exotic" roles -- is Nubi. She's supposed to be sexy but appears to be a thousand kernels short of a cob. Too, Nubi (or, rather, Loy) is stuck with 90 minutes' worth of dialogue along the lines of "Nubi not happy!" or "Nubi like diamonds!" Loretta Young, as Irma, sounds exactly what she was in 1929: a 16 year-old girl badly reciting lines for the first time. Yet nobody beats Caroll Nye as Peter, emoting his already purple dialogue to the point where his mouth probably tasted like grapes. As for the direction, Alexander Korda makes sure to keep The Squall at a dead snail's pace. 

Somehow, Loy, Young, and Korda eventually proved to be far better than The Squall would have you believe. In later years they all probably shook their heads just hearing the word "squall" in weather forecasts. As for the rest of us... the forecast for watching The Squall is a 100% chance of disbelief mixed with unceasing laughter.

BONUS POINTS: The miniature horse & wagons standing in for the travelling Gypsy camp manage to be laughable and utterly charming all at once. In fact, they give a better performance than any human in the picture.

KING OF CHINATOWN (1939): 

Paramount must have been pretty pleased with the previous year's Dangerous to Know, because they rounded up much of the same cast for this well-made crime caper. Give the studio credit, too, for trying to revive Anna May Wong's sputtering career even in B-pictures like these. 

If there's a problem for fans of top-billed Wong, it's that her character, surgeon Dr. Mary Ling, is often overshadowed by Frank Baturin, the white leader of a Chinatown protection racket, who was shot by his underling Mike Gordon on orders of the gang's accountant (nicknamed The Professor). After performing life-saving surgery on Baturin, Dr. Ling becomes his temporary live-in caregiver. As Gordon and The Professor take over the racket, Baturin decides to break up his criminal band, furthering the accountant's desire to get him out of the way once and for all. Moral: always be good to your money manager.

King of Chinatown is unique in that the sex and race of Wong's character are never a subject for conversation or contention -- she is simply a brilliant surgeon, period. But unwilling to leave well enough alone, Paramount cast white actor Sidney Toler as her Chinese father because... well, he was currently playing Charlie Chan over at Fox! And why is Armenian-American Akim Tamiroff using an Italian accent when playing a character with the Ukrainian name of Maturin? Oh heck, let's continue with busy second-rate dialect actor J. Carroll Naish using an Irish accent as The Professor for no reason other than Chinese and Italian were already taken. Mexican-born Anthony Quinn, as the red-blooded American gunsel Gordon, already lost his accent, so he gets a pass.

All this confusion helps to make King of Chinatown an even more fun 56 minutes than it already it is. And despite the odd casting (and accent) choices throughout, Anna May Wong was probably grateful for the chance to prove she could do something other than the usual Dragon Lady routine. But I still wonder how she felt about a white guy playing her Chinese father. 

BONUS POINTS: Super-annoying actor Roscoe Karns disappears from King of Chinatown before the end of the second reel, as if director Nick Grinde realized they didn't need an ambulance driver character ripped-off from MGM's Dr. Kildare movies.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 44

 One movie from each decade from the '20s to the 50's, with only one starring an actor you might be familiar with. Hey, I've got to offer something to the masses

SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO SATAN (1929): As a 12-year-old fan of old horror movies and
young dishy starlets, my heart raced at a black & white still of a bizarre creature with unkempt hair and bad teeth towering over Thelma Todd (seen below). I had no idea what the movie was about, nor did I even care. All I wanted was to see the production, tantalizingly titled Seven Footprints to Satan. 

Alas, this was an impossible dream, for it was apparently lost, or at least misplaced. Then, very recently, a restored version became available for a mere $8.99. I waited for the right time (the 75 minutes my wife would be out of the house), put it on and prepared to be scared witless by monsters and seduced by a sexy actress.

Well, at least I got the sexy actress. As with nearly every rediscovered "lost" movie, Seven Footprints to Satan --originally a silent/talkie hybrid now lacking its original Vitaphone soundtrack --proved to be two footsteps to disappointment. Not that it's bad. The general idea of a couple kidnapped and taken to a strange mansion where they are put through their paces by Satan's minions, monsters, and eventually the host himself, is a good one. But I quickly figured out that the whole thing was a ruse, and that all the "monsters" were actually people paid to scare the male half of the couple (Creighton Hale). 

It's not like I'm giving anything away. You'd figure it out, too, even if 1929 audiences didn't. I realize the comedy/thriller genre was a big thing at the time, but come on. You've got to have genuine thrills mixed with the chuckles. While the actors' make-up and the art design are impressive, conceptually Seven Footprints to Satan isn't much different than one of those pop-up "horror houses" that appear in your neighborhood every Halloween. Is it worth $8.99? For a quasi-legendary once-lost picture, sure. Is it worth watching again? With Thelma Todd in a lowcut dress, absolutely. But not until next Halloween. Or the Halloween after.

BONUS POINTS: One of the "scary" creatures is Angelo Rossitto, the dwarf from the previously-discussed Old San Francisco and Scared to Death. Sheldon Lewis, the guy in the memorable still with Thelma Todd, plays the title role in the genuinely terrible, not-worth-watching-even-once The Phantom. Oh, and a naked woman is tied up to a pole and whipped.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND (1937): Squire John Meadows is a malevolent, vindictive justice of the peace in a small town he holds in the palm of his hand. When he's not bribing people to break the law on his behalf, he runs the local prison, taking glee on doling out physical and psychological punishment on the inmates -- men, women, and adolescents alike -- with an alarmingly sadistic glee. His latest scheme is to win the hand of the lovely Susan Merton by framing her fiancé George for poaching. When the real poacher, George's friend Tom, confesses to the crime, he is imprisoned. George, meanwhile, goes to Australia to seek his fortune but promises Sue he'll return. Seizing his opportunity, Meadows pays off the postmaster to give him George's letters so they don't get delivered. Deciding that isn't enough, he spreads the rumor that George has married another woman in Australia.

If you want subtlety, you've come to the wrong movie, for It's Never Too Late to Mend -- not the most understated title, either -- stars Tod Slaughter, usually called Britain's answer to Bela Lugosi. You want scenery chewing? Slaughter chows down with the manners of a starving hyena, with his co-stars not very far behind. Even the lovebirds George and Susan engage sweet nothings that went out of style two decades earlier. But that's the whole idea behind Slaughter movies, as they deliberately recreate the over-the-top melodrama of 19th century British stage plays (which is likely why they were never released in the U.S.). And once you get into the groove, your oh-so-sophisticated attitude and heh-heh snickering will give way to emotions you'd rather not admit to possessing. 

Go ahead, you laugh at the  15-year-old boy, imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his starving mother, dying in a metal straitjacket. You chortle at the chaplain protecting the prisoners with only the power of his faith. You giggle as Squire Meadows slips the heroic George a mickey in order to steal his newly-won fortune and fiancé. 

Trust me, It's Never Too Late to Mend -- considered one of Tod Slaughter's more "serious" movies --will have you hissing and booing the same way British audiences did when such behavior in the theater was not just accepted but demanded. And wouldn't it feel better to do that at an old, low-budget movie rather than the evening news?

BONUS POINTS: The 19th-century novel and play on which It's Never Too Late to Mend is based so moved Queen Victoria that she demanded the reform of the British penal system.

THE MONSTER MAKER (1944): PRC's The Monster Maker plays like a celluloid Mad-Libs game of countless poverty row movies: A PHONY DOCTOR from EASTERN EUROPE, who keeps a GORILLA in his LABORATORY, injects a CONCERT PIANIST with a dose of ACROMEGALY in order to marry THE PIANIST'S DAUGHTER, who resembles THE DOCTOR'S LATE WIFE, despite HIS ASSISTANT being IN LOVE WITH HIM. 

Credit the three(!) writers for coming up with the acromegaly angle to separate The Monster Maker from other low-budget B's of its type, even if its title damns anyone with the disease as, well, a monster. Very few people had likely even heard of it had it not been for actor Rondo Hatton, a real acromegaly victim. Here, Ralph Morgan has the honors, and only because we needed to see his before-and-after visage. Once a star at MGM (as in the adaptation of Eugene O'Neil's Strange Interlude), Morgan wasn't the only former A-lister who found himself slumming in stuff like The Monster Maker a decade later. A pro to the end, he gives his all for a concept that probably had everyone on the set dizzy from rolling their eyes.

Speaking of one-time A-listers on the skids, Bela Lugosi must have been busy making Voodoo Man at Monogram in order for J. Carrol Naish to win the lead role of Dr. Igor Markoff. Strictly in support throughout his career, he was probably thrilled to get top billing for a change. Hollywood's idea of a linguist, Naish played a wide variety of ethnic roles equaled only by his limited

talent. Italian, German, Russian, Sioux -- you can't tell one from another without the wardrobe and make-up departments cluing you in. (One of Naish's most absurd roles was in The Hatchet Man where his portrayal of a Chinatown resident consists of squeezing his eyelids nearly shut and over articulating his dialogue even more than usual.)

In order to pad out The Monster Maker to 65 minutes, co-star Wanda Blake (the object of Naish's affection) often repeats dialogue spoken to her, only as a question ("Your father visited me for a consultation." "My father visited you for a consultation?"). And we can't forget the ol' gorilla-in-the-lab gag, which serves no purpose other than for Dr. Markoff to try killing his love-starved assistant Maxine. These kinds of things make me love movies like The Monster Maker. It's short, utterly predictable, wildly implausible, and perfectly entertaining.

BONUS POINTS: They don't even try to convince us that the first scene in a Carnegie Hall-style theater is just a faux-loge 20 feet away from the faux-stage

BLACK TUESDAY (1954): The exceptionally violent Black Tuesday shows Edward G.

Robinson at age 61 still in all his glory as Vince Canelli, the star inmate of a West Coast prison where he and his fellow death row resident Peter Manning await their turn in the hot squat. One of the prison guards has been forced to help facilitate the escape of Canelli and others on death row in exchange for the freedom of his kidnapped daughter. But while the guard gets plugged anyway, the criminals look forward to splitting $200,000 in stolen loot Manning has hidden in a place only he knows -- even after he's been shot.

There's something poignant about Edward G, Robinson in Black Tuesday, still speaking with the N'yeah, see? delivery that made people sit up and take notice 25 years earlier. As for his character, Canelli's at an age where he should be enjoying his ill-gotten fortune by lounging on a beach in Acapulco, not breaking out of stir again with guns blazing. Not like Canelli's the reincarnation of St. Jude. While on his getaway from prison, Canelli kicks three of his death row pals to the curb in order to make sure he gets more of the stolen dough. He's willing to risk the life of the badly-wounded Manning for the same reason. Not even Father Slocum, the prison priest he's taken hostage, is safe from his threats. Maybe poignant isn't the right word after all.

Robinson overshadows his Black Tuesday co-stars, although the older, familiar character actors manage to hold their own. (No point in naming names -- you'd only know them by their faces anyway.) But the younger, less impressive supporting actors are straight out of a baby-boomer's Emmy Award "In Memoriam" segment. In addition to Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) as Manning, there's Milburn Stone (Gunsmoke), Russell Johnson (Gilligan's Island), William Schallert (Patty Duke Show), and Stafford Repp (Batman). Black Tuesday is unlikely to be considered a classic in the Robinson canon like Little Caesar, but it still makes for fine entertainment and demonstrates how commanding an actor he was throughout his entire career.

BONUS POINTS: Sylvia Findley as Ellen Norris, one of the few actresses who looks like she would be Edward G. Robinson's girlfriend (which might be why her imdb profile lists only two movies).

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE HATCHET MAN" (1932)

As with our previous movie,

Old San Francisco, The Hatchet Man presents
Hollywood's take on Chinatown, its residents, customs, and, most importantly, crimes. 

In something of a Greek tragedy-meets-Warner Brothers, professional assassin Wong Low Get is assigned to kill his lifelong friend (and tong rival) Sun Yat Ming. 

Wong inherits Sun's business and six year-old daughter, Toya, who eventually grows up to be his wife -- yes, he marries his stepdaughter! So you kind of understand when she gives it up to Wong's young bodyguard Harry En Lai. (I know: weird name Harry, right?)

Filled with a murderous fury, Wong nevertheless lets the two lovebirds run away, although promising revenge if Harry ever hurts Toya. And boy does he ever get revenge. To quote Confucius, Don't fuck around with someone whose job title is the hatchet man.

Robinson looks more Chinese here than he
does in The Hatchet Man's 74 minutes.

The Hatchet Man multiplies by several times Old San Francisco's "yellowface" trope by casting white actors in all the lead parts, the most egregious to modern day audiences being Edward G. Robinson in the title role.

Now, I take a back seat to no man in my enjoyment and admiration of Edward G. Robinson, an actor whose face -- whose eyes -- can register more emotion in one scene than most actors can in a dozen movies combined. His lifelong adeptness in playing any character -- criminals, chumps, newspaper editors, cops, etc. etc. etc. -- almost made one take him for granted. He always delivered the goods no matter what the role or genre.

"What's the password?"
"Swordfish teriyaki."

So now that we have that off the table... not for one second does Robinson convince as a Chinese character. He doesn't even attempt an accent, and wears only the barest "slant-eyed" make-up. Director William Wellman likely knew audiences were paying to see Little Caesar, not a "Chinaman", and he was going to give it to them. 

I mean, he wears a fedora with his Chinese clothing in his earliest scenes before switching to the kind of suits he wore in gangster pictures. Every time he speaks, you expect him to say, "Look, you muggs!" And, speaking as an old white guy, that's what makes him so entertaining in The Hatchet Man. 

The light shining off Young's sequined dress is
capable of causing temporary blindness.

Robinson being a white actor, it wouldn't make any sense to for him to have a real Chinese woman play his daughter. Enter Loretta Young, only 19 and still four years away from giving birth to Clark Gable's bastard child, to play his stepdaughter/wife. 

Hollywood having a thing for "exotic" Asian women, Young is a little more realistic than Robinson, although in the way that Chico Marx makes a more convincing Italian than, say, Barry Fitzgerald. You'd have to try to be less realistic.


As with other movies featuring young

Harry hopes he's not making love to a
mannequin.

Chinese characters raised in the good ol' USA, Toya and her beau Harry speak exclusively in American slang, making Charlie Chan's hipster #1 son sound like Christopher Plummer. (When was the last time you heard someone say, "I'll tell you what let's do!"?) 

Between his make-up and naturally unusual looks, Leslie Fenton, as Harry, can almost pass for the real thing. But again, I'm an old white guy who's totally out of touch with today's woke generation, so don't go by me. 

Robinson's about to wipe that smirk off Naish's face.

But you know who definitely can't pass for Chinese? J. Carol Naish as the ill-fated victim of Robinson's hatchet. Naish stuffs as many Chinese cliches as he can into his  brief role of Sun Yat Ming. Shuffling walk, hands stuck into the opposite sleeves, tight lips... He doesn't even open his eyes, apparently believing that looking like he was asleep made him more authentically Chinese.

In trying so hard to be Chinese, Naish winds up giving The Hatchet Man's most ridiculous performance, which was pretty familiar territory for him. Naish made 40-year career of cultural stereotypes: Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, Native American, Irish -- no culture was safe from his endlessly insulting virtuosity. His biggest pejorative success was in the title role of the radio sitcom Life with Luigi from 1948-1953. He had less luck with the TV version, which so outraged Italian-Americans that he was fired and replaced midway through its first (and only) season. How you like, pisan?

Now that I think of it, the prologue could have been a little
more respectful, too.

Yet for all of Hatchet Man's derogatory portrayals, the character who probably comes off worst is a white interloper, Jim Malone, who tries reviving the hostility between the now-peaceful tongs for his own nefarious ends. Powerful white guy trying to bust up a minority? That ain't a stereotype -- that's reality.

Attending a sit-down between the two factions, Malone registers his displeasure  thusly: "Cut out this Chink lingo! Talk United States!" And if you think we've made progress since then, you could go on YouTube right now and find cellphone footage of somebody saying the same thing. 

This guy literally has an ax to grind.

The most interesting bit of Chinese culture -- one that really allows Robinson to remind you what a great actor he was -- comes when Wong and tong elder Nog Hong Fah catch Toya and Harry in an embrace. 

As Nog looks on in respect, Wong is ready to take his hatchet to Harry's skull. But when Toya assures him that Harry makes her happy, Wong lets them leave together. 

Disgusted that Wong didn't do his murderous duty as a husband, the tong, in today's parlance, cancels him. Almost overnight, Wong loses his business, home, and,

The movie was retitled The Honorable Mr. Wong in Australia,
where The Felling Axe Man wouldn't have had the same ring.

worse the respect of his community. Forced to sell all his worldly goods, he can find work only as a simple field hand, no better than the peasants surrounding him.

It almost physically hurts to see Robinson's characters reduced in stature because their pain feels so authentic. Even a movie as culturally-dated as The Hatchet Man allows him to register human emotions that everyone can empathize with. Sorrow at killing his best friend, love for his wife, fury at the man breaking up his marriage, shame at his rejection -- all are strong and convincing. 

Robinson is 38, Young is 19; they're in "yellowface"and ripping off
Chinese culture; he playing her stepfather and husband -- yeah, the kids
wouldn't go for this movie these days.

Ultimately, The Hatchet Man's greatest irony is if it had starred Chinese actors, it would have been culturally fascinating, but not nearly as (and here's that dirty word again) entertaining, particularly with Edward G. Robinson in the lead. And as with Old San Francisco, Generation Z or whatever they are today would likely call for its destruction. 

It is written in the hand of our ancestors: you kids don't know what you're missing.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "VOICE IN THE WIND" (1944)

As they still are today, many independent movies of the past were far more interesting than their mainstream counterparts. Something akin to art could be made without the Cerberus-like studio president, publicist and bookkeeper fiercely barking at the director to hurry it up, make it commercial and account for every last penny. Something like Voice in the Wind, an ethereal drama bordering on noir. As the poster warns, it's "A STRANGE NEW KIND OF PICTURE!" And that's a compliment.

Guadalupe, 1940. A mysterious, amnesiac mute known only as El Hombre haunts the waterfront dives, his only means of communication being his beautiful musicianship on the piano. Brothers Angelo and Luigi are certain El Hombre has sunk their boat in which they falsely promised to transport refugees to the USA, only to rob and kill them at sea. (Nowadays, Royal Caribbean merely makes you throw up violently, then gives you a 50% refund. I'm not sure which is better.) While Angelo nonetheless still has a soft spot for El Hombre, Luigi promises to have his revenge.

We learn through flashbacks that El Hombre is really Jan Volny, a legendary classical pianist from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.  Volny puts himself in jeopardy when ending a recital with "The Moldau" by Bedrich Smetana, a Czech composer banned by the Nazis. Knowing he will pay for his "crime," Volny sends his wife, Marya, to Paris for her own safety. While being shipped to a concentration camp, Volny manages to escape and find his way to Guadalupe.

Unbeknownst to Volny, Marya, too, has escaped to Guadalupe with her parents. (Considering I couldn't find Guadalupe on a map, I find their travel smarts very impressive.) Now dying of pneumonia, Marya has heard her husband playing piano in a nearby bar, finding the strength to leave her bed just before she collapses in the street. Volny regains his memory upon recognizing her crucifix around as being similar to the one he's kept locked in a trunk. He's ready to return to her, only to be gunned down by a vengeful Luigi. Angelo, appalled, engages Luigi in a fight that leaves them both dead. Leaving a trail of blood behind him, Volny drags himself to Marya's deathbed where -- and stop me if you've heard this -- he, too dies. The end, brother, and then some.

Obviously, studio fare this was not, especially in wartime when escapism was all the rage. Writer/director Arthur Ripley's bleak outlook was encouraged during his collaborations with film comedian Harry Langdon in the '20s. Ripley immerses Voice in the Wind with darkness, metaphorically and otherwise. 

Other than the flashbacks, the entire movie takes place during one, fog-shrouded evening where even the interiors feel damp. A ghostly foghorn groans every few seconds for an hour of the film's 85-minute running time, while Volny's relentlessly mournful barroom performance of "The Moldau" provides not so much relief but a soundtrack for the gloomy proceedings unfolding. 

Yet this desolation pulls you in like a dream too fascinating to awaken from. It's no surprise that Harry Langdon's wife described Arthur Ripley as "morbid" while fellow-director Edgar Ulmer thought him mentally unsound. Frankly, I find these excellent recommendations for a filmmaker.

Being an independent production (released by United Artists when original distributor PRC considered the final cut a little too outré), Voice in the Wind in its current worn state is a little battered around the edges, the muffled soundtrack occasionally obscuring the heavy-on-the-pepperoni accents of Alexander Granache and J. Carrol Naish as Angelo and Luigi. But there's no mistaking Angelo's inner evil when he viciously slaps a hooker into unconsciousness while Angelo and younger brother Marco laugh appreciatively.

Further disturbing violence is provided by the cold yet effeminate Nazi Capt. von Neubach, beating the senses out of Volny for playing "forbidden" music. The actor, possessing the unlikely name of Howard Johnson, seems to be setting the stage for Christoph Waltz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds.

But the movie is held together by Frances Lederer in what must have been an emotionally-draining role, Volny, the mentally-damaged mute who dies twice -- psychologically at the hands of a Nazi, then physically by a sociopath. (No coincidence both sets of killers are Axis representatives.) His is not an easy part, having to sustain a mood of melancholy without ever going overboard. Lederer acts throughout most of Voice in the Wind only with his eyes, a technique almost vanished following the coming of sound.

Called "dark and distressing" by Bosley Crowther in his original review for the New York Times, Voice in the Wind is utterly unlike other wartime dramas, demanding not only patience but a sensitivity rarely found in audiences then or now. It's a subtle, somber film whose moments of hope are as fleeting as, well, a voice in the wind. No doubt many found, and will continue to find, the film a curious evening's entertainment. 

Others might miss the point entirely, like the aforementioned Mr. Crowther, who sniffed that the producers could have "spent more money on lighting their sets. It might help matters slightly if you didn't have to strain your eyes to see what goes on." 

Some works of art demand more than just eyes to see "what goes on." If a movie could also be considered a tone poem, Voice in the Wind is it. 

 

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