THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 68

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

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

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

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

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

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

Columbia got into the act with Attorney for the Defense starring Edmund Lowe as former New York D.A. William Burton, who has been caring for the widow and son of an innocent he sent to the hot squat. Paul, the now-college age son, is seduced by Burton's ex-sweetie Val in order to get her hands on evidence that would convict her current bf guilty of extortion. That same evening, Burton, having found Paul passed out in the presence of Val's dead body, tells the kid to hit the road, but sticks around at the crime scene in order to get arrested. Burton defends himself in one of those climactic courtrooms that are never as exciting as the real thing and would likely lead to a mistrial. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 67

 As we wait to hear the conspiracy theories involving the latest attempt on Donald Trump's life, here are four movies to take your mind off of the madhouse we call "life itself".

APPLAUSE (1929): Had I been running a movie studio in 1929, I'd have ordered my directors to watch Applause multiple times. Then I would have barked, "That's how you make a talkie!" And all thanks go to director Rouben Mamoulian. From its opening moments with the camera following a theater poster floating in the breeze to its climax tracking close to another poster featuring the story's lead character, Applause is the first sound movie to really move.

Sure, its story of over-the-hill burlesque queen Kitty Darling trying to keep her virginal teenage daughter April from following in her footsteps seems hackneyed today. But it's what Mamoulian does with the camera and editing that brings it fully to life for its 80 minutes. The techniques we take for granted now -- over the head shots, lightning-quick edits, motion -- seem to have made their sound debut here. The Russian cinema-inspired montages of the creepy audience members and washed-up burlesque dancers stun even now, while Kitty's p.o.v. shot of her low-rent colleagues looking down at her and her newborn baby is more horror movie than happy.

Broadway legend Helen Morgan, only 29, looks the part of the middle-aged floozie Kitty Darling, forever a slave to her unfaithful live-in boyfriend/manager Hitch Nelson (played by the actor with the unforgettable name Fuller Mellish, Jr.). Sleazy with a capital S, Hitch puts the moves on the 17-year-old April with the line, "Charity begins at home!", a moment both hilarious and disgusting. As for pre-code language, there are two "damns" and a character named Tony who dislikes his name because it "sounds like a wop bootblack".

For those unfamiliar with the star of Applause -- long before Judy Garland took her first upper, Helen Morgan was the original "tragic" female entertainer: torch singer, alcoholic, four-times married, psychologically and emotionally troubled, dead at 41 of cirrhosis. And it's all there onscreen in Applause, perhaps the first great American talkie. Recommended viewing; an excellent print is free on YouTube. 

BONUS POINTS: Applause features some great location footage of the old Penn Station, Brooklyn Bridge, and atop a Wall Street skyscraper. 

GIRL OF THE PORT (1930): Few movies are ahead of their time while being incredibly dated as Girl of the Port. Josie (Sally O'Neil), a washed-up showgirl, is herself washed up on a South Seas island to tend bar at the local dive. There she meets McEwen (Mitchell Lewis), a horny, racist landowner, and Jim (Reginald Sharland), a drunken, shellshocked, pyrophobic World War I vet. Deciding Jim is the only decent guy on the island, Sally moves him into her hut for a few months to sober him up. McEwen eventually kidnaps Jim, gets him drunk, and takes him to another island to scare him to death at the natives' firewalking routine -- only to discover it has the opposite of the desired effect. 

There are plenty of interesting bits in Girl of the Port, none including the title character. The prologue is a terrifying war scene where Jim and his fellow British soldiers are beat back or burned up by Germans with flamethrowers, an event that would shellshock anyone. Later at the bar, Mitchell Lewis stuns when his character McEwen buys a round for the boys and toasts, "To white supremacy!", before calling one of the natives a "black baboon". His pride vanishes when Jim announces that McEwen is actually a "half-caste". As his white "friends" move away, McEwen realizes he's buying a round for the smirking "half-castes" who silently welcome him as one of their own. It's an unexpected, well directed moment.

So: self-loathing racism. Untreated PTSD. Alcoholism. A couple shacking up. All in all, plenty of pre-code situations to revel in. Too bad the wisecracking Sally O'Neil and the overwrought Reginald Sharland dampen the potential with dialogue and direction aimed at the cheap seats. Had Girl of the Port come along two years later (although released in 1930, it was filmed in 1929), it could have been a better-made, more sophisticated take on the issues it deals with. Still worth its 68-minute watch to see the horrors of World War I unflinchingly portrayed, and an openly racist character get his comeuppance -- although he had to be only half white to do so.

BONUS POINTS: If Mitchell Lewis looks and sounds vaguely familiar, it's because he's the captain of the guards in The Wizard of Oz who says of the Wicked Witch, "She's dead. Dorothy killed her!" The alleged "black baboon" was in reality the Hawaiian surfing champ and five-time Olympic medal winner Duke Kahanamoku, who appeared as himself in the silly semi-documentary Around the World in 80 Minutes with Douglas Fairbanks. 

THE ROAD IS OPEN AGAIN (1933): No other president had Hollywood around his finger like Franklin D. Roosevelt. Even the Republican studio heads felt obliged to jump on the New Deal bandwagon, featuring references and even entire shorts devoted FDR's good works. 

Warner Brothers did its part by releasing the half-reeler The Road is Open Again. Dick Powell is sitting at the piano trying to knock out a new patriotic song. Upon closing his eyes for a moment, he's visited by the ghosts of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson. Rather than running out of the room screaming in terror, Powell listens to the trio explain how wonderful Roosevelt is, confident that the newly-elected commander-in-chief will right the ship of state. All that is required from the country is faith in their leader, and to buck up, because the road to prosperity is open again.

Huzzah! Dick Powell has the hook for his song. And as the ghosts disappear, Powell sings -- off the top of his head! -- "The Road is Open Again" as newsreels of people going to work and pro-New Deal headlines fill the screen.  And before you can say "massive national debt", the merry propaganda picture is over.

No doubt The Road is Open Again is charming while, according to some economists, completely wrongheaded about the New Deal in general. Yet it reminds us of a time when a president with a good heart and sound mind was able to bring a country together when rabblerousers on both ends of the political spectrum were dividing Americans, unemployment and inflation were on the rise, and dictators were starting to run riot over Europe. So glad things have gotten better!

BONUS POINTS: The lyrics to "The Road is Open Again" appear onscreen so the audience can join in. But just try to sing louder than Dick Powell.

HALLELUJAH, I'M A BUM! (1933): In an unusually witty performance, Al Jolson is Bumper, who lives the happy-go-lucky homeless life with his pals in Central Park. Bumper switches gears when rescuing June Marcher, who tried to end it all by jumping off a bridge into a park lake. June, having lost her memory, falls in love with Bumper. Going gaga himself, Bumper asks his pal John Hastings -- the goodtime Mayor of New York -- to arrange for a job so he can eventually marry June... not realizing she's the Mayor's ex-girlfriend. 

One of the year's biggest financial flops, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! has so many things going for it. Offbeat direction by Lewis Milestone; a sophisticated screenplay by S.N. Behrman; an incredibly clever score and "rhythmic dialogue" by Rodgers & Hart; and a great supporting cast. Harry Langdon is a riot as Egghead, the Communist trash collector who condemns both the "plutocrats" who run the city and "parasites" like Bumper and his pals who sponge off the workers. The never-disappointing Frank Morgan plays Mayor Hastings with equal parts sophistication and human qualities. There's some racy pre-code dialogue, too, with Madge Evans (as June) involving a pun on "laying a cornerstone", while a gay-coded maid wearing a monocle makes an appearance.

So why did it bomb so badly? Its production history involving three directors, a sneak preview debacle requiring an entire re-shoot with a new script, score, and at least one actor re-casted, along with Jolson's dimming popularity and the unusually sophisticated score all likely contributed. While the pace starts to flag during its final third, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! (available for free at Internet Archive in an excellent print) is now considered by many contemporary movie critics to be not only Al Jolson's best movie but the pre-code musical most deserving of a revival. I could have told them that upon my first viewing on a UHF channel in 1970, but it's nice being proven right again. (The print I saw back then was the original British release, with the word "Tramp" replacing "Bum" in the title and songs, the offending word having a much different meaning there.)

BONUS POINTS: Richard Rodgers cameos as an assistant photographer, while Lorenz Hart can be seen as a harried bank teller. And six years before co-starring in The Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan says, "There's no place like home." 

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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. 65

Frank Capra makes his Early Show debut, an honor he likely would have refused, while Bela Lugosi, Walter Huston, and Edward G. Robinson return to join an antediluvian vaudeville act in their first (and last) appearance. 

THEY LEARNED ABOUT WOMEN (1930): Here's a story you've never seen before: two lifelong friends are torn apart by a no-good dame. The twist: the friends are professional baseball players who moonlight as vaudeville entertainers. Or the other way around, it's never made clear.

One doesn't watch a picture like They Learned About Women for entertainment any more than archeologists explore pyramids to find a new place to live. It's strictly historical study, for this is the only feature starring Gus Van & Joe Schenck -- in their time (c. 1915-1930) the most popular singing duo in show business, who are now as au courant as the allosaurus. 

And here's where it gets fascinating for nerdy amateur showbiz historians. Put aside for a moment that Van has the face of a human bulldog, and Schenck possesses the voice of Neil Sedaka turned up to 11. They are great at what they do if -- and this is important -- you remember what audiences enjoyed a century ago, like harmony as loud as the lead voice, or songs featuring dialect humor. They Learned About Women feature three of the latter: African-American (despite the potential offense, a fantastic number you can watch here), Irish, and Italian, (You can find Van & Schenck shorts where they do their "tributes" to Jews and Chinese as well.)

Not all the music in They Learned About Women is culturally unacceptable in the 21st century; it's artistically unacceptable as well, although I enjoyed them tremendously. Without Van & Schenck, They Learned About Women would be an exercise in ennui. It's best to fast-forward through the "drama" and go straight to the songs -- IF you have any interest in the kind of pop music that was already going out of style by the time of the movie's release (Schenck himself died six months later). Don't miss leading lady Bessie Love's jazzy solo "I Got Me a Real Man", either. She's kind of a hot mama in her own innocent way.

BONUS POINTS: Authentic footage of the old Yankee Stadium is featured in the climactic ballgame. 

AMERICAN MADNESS (1932): For a director remembered for uplifting movies, Frank Capra had a pretty cynical (meaning accurate) eye for corruption, unbridled capitalism, and the sheer idiocy of the average American. His movies' tacked-on happy endings are nothing more than fairytale codas meant to make you forget the reality you just experienced. 

American Madness may be the first entry in that quasi-genre, and is definitely better than its forgotten status would have it. It also plays like the blueprint for It's a Wonderful Life, seeing that it focuses on a down-to-earth bank president facing a hostile takeover and a hostile clientele when hysterical rumors lead to a run by panicked depositors. 

Walter Huston, as usual, knocks it out of the park as Thomas Dickson, the big city bank president with a heart of gold and a knack for seeing the good in everybody -- even when one of them, cashier Cyrill Cluett, engineers the bank's robbery to pay off a debt to a gangster. Pat O'Brien is Matt, a colleague who believes Cluett is fooling around with Dickson's wife, winds up being the prime suspect in the robbery. But it's Huston who's the star of the show; his casual chit-chat and gangly walk suggest a friendly small-town businessman who goes by his gut feeling when it comes to loaning money. He's the boss you've always dreamed of having yet has never existed in real life. 

Strangely, American Madness feels at times more like a Howard Hawks picture, with realistic overlapping dialogue and fast paced action, leading an eye-popping climax with what looks like the biggest group of extras since the Babylon scene in Intolerance.  Brimming with humor, drama, and outright misanthropy, American Madness is the work of a moviemaker still questioning the so-called wisdom of both the ruling class and middle class. 

BONUS POINTS: American Madness is one of the last movies to feature the credit DIRECTED BY FRANK R. CAPRA. Maybe he dropped the "R" because it didn't have the same ring as Darryl F. Zanuck or Louis B, Mayer. 

THE DEATH KISS (1932): Gangsters are setting up a hit. As the target exits a nightclub, their moll gives him an unexpected kiss, allowing the hitmen to ready, aim, fire. CUT! It turns out we're on a movie set. As the director arranges for a second take, the crew realizes the actor was killed for real. Is Alec Baldwin on the loose again?

Cheap joke aside, The Death Kiss is actually quite a decent picture, reuniting the stars of the previous year's hit, Dracula: Bela Lugosi, Edward Van Sloan, and David Manners. Disappointingly, Lugosi, as studio manager Joseph Steiner, doesn't have a lot to do other than seem awfully anxious to pin the murder on the leading lady, who had been divorced from the now-dead actor. Van Sloan (as director Tom Avery) merely wants the set locked down, while Manners (wisecracking scriptwriter Franklyn Drew) wants to find the real killer since he's in love with the sexy suspect, as all scriptwriters are.

For a Poverty Row production from Sono Art-World Wide (the abhorrent Lucky Boy and Peacock Alley), The Death Kiss is a quite the meta-mystery in that it gives a behind-the-scenes look at the picture business, making good use of the equally-low-budget Tiffany Studios (where The Death Kiss was filmed) as we visit the sound stages, screening room and back lot. And typical of "inside" movies of the time, the guy running the studio is a malaprop-slinging Jewish caricature. (His response upon hearing about the murder of his star: "Oy, that's going to cost me a fortune!"). Figuring out whodunnit is beside the point; The Death Kiss is a fun watch, with some clever camerawork and familiar character actors helping to speed things along -- literally. You won't realize until the end that it all takes place in one day.

BONUS POINTS: As with The Vampire Bat, The Death Kiss uses the occasional hand-tinted sequences for cheap but interesting effects, especially when a movie reel goes up in flames. And did you know that the iceman often slid his delivery into the icebox through a special door in the wall of the house? The things you learn in old movies!

NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948): Sometimes a movie can make you rethink
your admiration of an actor (like Robert de Niro in most movies not directed by Martin Scorsese). Night Has a Thousand Eyes, on the other hand, increased my appreciation for Edward G. Robinson.

Its story isn't anything new, A phony showbiz psychic named Triton acquires a sudden gift (if you can call it that) of real prognostication which eventually sets off a chain of events that prevents the death of one person and causes the death of another --an idea previously explored in The Clairvoyant with Claude Raines. And as with The Clairvoyant, Night Has a Thousand Eyes deliberately makes you wonder if the tragic climax was inevitable or caused by the psychic's own actions: a cop-out ending to please the censors, I'd say. 

None of this negates my belief that Edward G. Robinson was the best of the major tough-guy actors of his time, including Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Because while those two gentlemen are great at what they do, Robinson goes one step further by creating enormous empathy for characters like Triton. You can picture Robinson in, say, The Caine Mutiny or White Heat, but neither Bogart nor Cagney could have starred in Night Has a Thousand Eyes -- or Scarlett Street, The Woman in The Window, Tales of Manhattan, and other dramas where Robinson shows a side painful in its melancholy. Kind of lost in the shuffle among the "classic" Robinson movies, Night Has a Thousand Eyes needs a million more viewers.

BONUS POINTS: William Demarest has a rare "straight" role as Police Lieut. Shawn, occasionally cracking wise as a sop to his fans.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 64

There are actually actors you've heard of here. I must be slipping.

BEHIND THE MAKEUP (1930): Thanks to copyright expiration laws, a treasure

trove -- make that a pile -- of movies released in 1930 are appearing on YouTube every day. Most of them have been forgotten, and for good reason. But any starring William Powell is always a good bet, for he stands out in his early talkies like an ICE agent at a Quinceanera. But in a good way!

Still transitioning from character actor to leading man, Powell is Gardoni, a comedic entertainer from Italy stuck in New Orleans (why? how?) who teams up with third-rate vaudevillian Hap Brown. Even if you've never seen another movie in your life, you know what's coming. Gardoni steals Hap's material, his girlfriend Marie, and money, but eventually gets dumped by his sidepiece named Kitty. Drowning in gambling debts, Gardoni drowns himself for real, allowing Marie to return to Hap. Frankly, had I been that sap Hap, I'd have said "No sloppy seconds for me, lady!" and let her wallow in misery for the rest of her life.

Powell, per usual, towers over his co-stars, even with an Italian accent that sounds like... William Powell doing an Italian accent. As for his comedy partner/romantic rival, Hal Skelly's Hap doesn't come across well; you feel more contempt than empathy for allowing himself to be humiliated. Same with Fay Wray as Marie. Sure, Hap is a third-string vaudevillian, but how can she not see through Gardoni's "amore mio" routine? 

Likely the best thing to come out of Behind the Makeup was teaming William Powell with Kay Francis for the first of several times. Francis gives Kitty her usual chilly rich bitch style, taking delight in wooing Gardoni and ditching him for a millionaire. It's interesting to see Powell in the rare role of a rejected lover -- Myrna Loy never threw him overboard at MGM. As much as I like Powell, I say good for Kay Francis for giving what Gardoni deserved. Now if Hap had only done the same to Marie.

BONUS POINTS: Someone at Paramount's promo department played it cute, billing William Powell third in the posters and lobby cards, but second in the "cast of characters". 

FAST AND LOOSE (1930): The title of the goofy romantic comedy Fast and Loose seems to refer to the characters' behavior, their way with the truth, and the story itself: Spoiled rich kids fall in love with people beneath their class. Rich mother panics, rich father investigates for himself. Most of them wind up in the clink after a police raid at a restaurant. Stern talking-to, followed by love and kisses all around. You've seen it before, and are probably asking, So what?

This what. While Fast and Loose is predictable, the dialogue is... on the witty side. Sophisticated. Very often chuckle-worthy, going from Not bad to Hey, this is some funny stuff! The people credited with the original source material and screenplay are unfamiliar, but the "Dialogue by" goes to Preston Sturges. Ah ha, that explains it!

In only his second screen credit, Sturges is already displaying his talent for writing upscale dialogue that the average moviegoer could appreciate. Fast and Loose flirts with pre-code situations and conversations while never quite crossing the line -- or if it does, it's so subtle that many people wouldn't quite notice. And as with every Sturges movie I've seen, there's one moment that had me laughing loud and long, causing me to miss several subsequent lines of dialogue. It concerns the use of the word "cremated", which gives you a sense of what I find funny.

Oh, there's a cast, too. Miriam Hopkins (in her first feature), Carole Lombard, and Frank Morgan are the famous faces; they and the forgotten Charles Starrett, Ilka Chase, Barry O'Moore, and Henry Wadsworth all do a splendid job with Sturges' words. Had he written and directed Fast and Loose in the 1940s, it would have starred Veronica Lake, Joel McCrea, William Demarest, Rudy Vallee, and Eve Arden. It would have been even funnier, but the Fast and Loose that we have is more than good enough. 

BONUS POINTS: Miriam Hopkins resembles a 1970s model with her frizzy hair, while the pre-glamorous Carole Lombard is unexpectedly cute and innocent. 

LET US LIVE (1939): At the risk of being accused of heresy, I've never been a big Henry Fonda fan, He usually strikes me as flat and chilly, with cold, steely eyes that signals a hot temper seething underneath. 

Well, you can forget that for now, because the forgotten drama Let Us Live knocked me out of my chair thanks to Fonda's astonishingly emotional performance as Brick Tennant, who, along with his friend Joe, is wrongly sentenced to death row for murder. An upbeat, patriotic guy, engaged to his girlfriend Mary, Brick gradually loses his faith in the law, justice, and America itself as the public, the police, and the D.A. are hellbent on killing the two men even when Mary finds proof of their innocence. Only Lt. Everett, the original cop on the case, believes her, as they race the clock to prevent Brick and Joe from going to the chair.

Fonda's transformation from optimist to bitter cynic is remarkable in its believability. While Alan Baxter's Joe was already a skeptic, Fonda is shocked that everything he believed in America was a lie, making Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

look like a MAGA production (It also lays the groundwork for two future Fonda classics, The Grapes of Wrath and The Wrong Man.) Even the happy ending really isn't happy after all, because it's quite clear that the once-sanguine Brick has been changed forever, and nor for better. 

Credit needs to go to director John Brahm and his technical team for their splendid work with Let Us Live's proto-noir cinematography and lighting. A round of applause as well for Maureen O'Sullivan as Mary (this is the best acting of hers I've seen), and Stanley Ridges as the death-happy D.A. As with his other roles, it took me a few minutes to realize it was him -- he's absolutely the most underrated character actor of his time. And let's give Ralph Bellamy a pat on the back as Lt. Everett just because his character is essential to proving the guys' innocence. Let Us Live comes highly recommended from this movie dork. And it runs only 68 minutes!

BONUS POINTS: You'll get lockjaw from saying, "Oh, that guy!" due to all the recognizable character actors. In addition to the perennial Charles Lane, there's Byron Foulger, Dick Elliot, Henry Kolker, Charles Trowbridge, Clarence Wilson, John Qualen, Sam McDaniel...

CLIMAX!: "NO RIGHT TO KILL" (8/9/1956): It seems to be go-to idea for movie and TV writers: when in doubt, churn out an update of Crime and Punishment. If you're unfamiliar with the details -- other than there was a crime followed by punishment -- the TV Guide outline on the right will suffice.

John Cassavetes was still riding high on the previously discussed live TV play Crime in the Streets as a juvenile delinquent. His performance here as the doomed wannabe writer Malcom McCloud is more age-appropriate but less believable. He seems way too smart to declaim his grandiloquent dialogue ("I shall leave!") even though his character probably would likely speak that way to prove he's more intellectual than his Greenwich Village neighbors. Cassavetes is also saddled with direction that screams I killed the pawnbroker!, which only arouses the suspicion of District Attorney Profear when they meet at a party. (Just how McCloud has a friend who knows the D.A. goes unexplained.)

The two main costars come off better than Cassavetes because they're better fits for their roles. Terry Moore makes her cliched character of the dumb but kindhearted waitress sympathetic and kind of believable. She can't help feeling something for McCloud, who's different from the grabby guys who populate her restaurant. (Climax! host Bill Lundigan reminds us that Moore "appears through the courtesy of 20th Century-Fox and is currently starring in Between Heaven and Hell, a 20th Century-Fox production in Cinemascope". Thanks for appearing on the 15-inch TV screen, Terry!)

No offense to John Cassavetes, but Robert Harris comes out on top as D.A. Porfear. Without anything but a gut feeling to go on, the sly, witty Profear gradually allows McCloud to confess without using the third-degree. I will bet a C-note that Harris patterned his performance on that of Edward Arnold, who played the role in the 1935 version of Crime and Punishment opposite Peter Lorre. While Cassavetes is the draw today in No Right to Kill, Harris is the one you wind up remembering.

BONUS POINTS: The commercials for the 1956 Chryslers are impressive, seeing there are up to five on stage at one time, and have pretty cool windows, too! 

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