THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 70

Strap yourself in as we travel to Bengal, Jamaica, the old West, and a tool supply company. Oh, and Florida, too, but keep it to yourself.

BEYOND BENGAL (1934): The 1930s were a prime era for jungle documentaries, no matter the quality, e.g., the notorious Ingagi. Harry Schenck, Beyond Bengal's star/director, is credited on only three other movies. This made him as qualified as anybody else churning out these things, especially when it came to padding it out with phony footage shot in Florida. (You can figure out the Florida scenes because they're in focus and, well, look phony.) Even the industry trade paper Variety doubted Beyond Bengal's authenticity in its bemused review.

In fact, you can bet your last poisha that anything in focus is as fraudulent as Harry's on-camera friend Joan Baldwin almost dying of jungle fever. Not even the footage of a native guide almost eaten by a crocodile trying passes the smell test. On the other hand, another guide almost getting squeezed to death by a python looks genuine -- but if it is, why didn't the cinematographer help the poor schmuck instead of cranking the camera? Oh, I know why! Non-white = expendable. 

The Bengali segments that are definitely for real are when Harry's pals shoot animals. (At one point, the narrator gloats, "Boy, this is gonna be good!" as one poor tiger is ready to bite the dust.)  When the narrator describes a panther as "the most dangerous and hateful creature on the planet," it's clear nobody involved with Beyond Bengal ever went beyond 5th grade to learn the definition of "ironic". An interesting history lesson to see how you didn't need A.I. to fool the public. 

BONUS POINTS: "Produced in cooperation with HIS HIGHNESS THE SULTAN OF PERAK F.M.S." (as the credits read), Beyond Bengal was nominated for the Mussolini Cup at the 1934 Venice Film Festival. Do they give that out anymore?

VAGABOND ADVENTURE: JAMAICA (1934): In addition to pseudo-documentaries about jungle life, one-reel travelogues entertained audiences at a time when travelling the world was strictly for the wealthy. 

Unlike MGM's Technicolor Traveltalks, the Van Buren/RKO Radio Vagabond Adventures lived down to their name. Its 16mm black & white footage of Jamaica captures none of the "silver rivers", "verdant valleys" and "blue Caribbean sea" the narrator breathlessly describes. His patronizing description of "peasant Negroes" hasn't aged well, either.  And why does the accompanying music sound like a Jewish folk song? However, what it offers is a rare look at Jamaica decades before it was a tourist haven for vacationers and potheads.

The opening shot presents a shoreline without hotels or bars, while the rest of the area doesn't seem to have any buildings more than two stories high. Locals still make sugar the old-fashioned way (it involves an oxen team, which also takes the banana crop to the ships), and peddle their foods at the market.  

Outside of the trolley car and autos in Kingston, Jamaica as presented in this Vagabond Adventure is probably little different from how it had been a century earlier. If you can get past the annoying voiceover, it's more fascinating than any contemporary documentary on the country you'd find today.

BONUS POINTS: We see the statue of Queen Victoria, who the narrator informs us "is lovingly referred to as the supreme lady of Jamaica". Not anymore, I bet.

TRAIL OF THE VIGILANTES (1940): Tim Mason, a reporter from back East, goes undercover out West to expose a colleague's murder by Mark Dawson, a cattleman ripping off locals by running a protection racket.

If you think that's a fairly standard plot for a run of the mill oater, so did director Allan Dwan. That's why he hired someone to do a rewrite and turn Trail of the Vigilantes into a sly upending of the genre while maintaining its serious throughline. From the moment Tim Mason shows up in the ironically named dusty town of Peaceful Valley -- a scene awfully similar to anyone who's seen Blazing Saddles -- you know this is not going to be your typical B-western. 

Luckily, the cast is game, starting with Franchot Tone as Tim, the tenderfoot who doesn't convince anybody he's an old cowhand, with an amusing running gag of making an ass of himself while jumping on his horse. As two ranch hands, Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine send up their usual screen roles, while the great Mischa Auer gets the most laughs as a con man impersonating a Native American chief, Spanish bullfighter, Russian Cossack, and Southern shyster. There is nobody but nobody like Mischa Auer around anymore, and we're all poorer for it.

 And talk about out of the box casting -- Warren William plays straightman as the no-good polecat Mark Dawson. At 46, he carries the bearing of a man a decade older but looks as elegant in Western finery as he did tuxedos during his pre-code days at Warners. Trail of the Vigilantes doesn't always hit the mark -- a scene at a mudhole is straight out of a latter-day Three Stooges short -- but otherwise provides a ranch-sized number of genuine laughs while still providing the action and dramatic arc that comes with the (Western) territory.

BONUS POINTS: Co-star Peggy Moran later recounted Trail of the Vigilantes did good box-office with "New York's sophisticated audiences." 

IMPULSE (PILOT EPISODE) (1952): Before Alfred Hitchcock Presents, there
was Impulse. Or would have been had there been more than its unaired pilot episode. Going by the opening narration of this episode (titled "Mr. Pips"), the series would have explored the idea of the consequences from acting upon our worst impulses. Don't tell me you haven't had the urge.

The eponymous Mr. Pips, a mousy worker at a tool supply factory, is regularly humiliated by his repulsive boss into literally crawling through a rabbit-warren of sky-high crates piled dangerously high to retrieve items. These scenes -- far creepier and more claustrophobic than you'd expect -- are greeted by non-stop derisive laughter by the workers, including the woman Pips has a crush on. Eventually, the laughter stops when Pips, finally pushed to the breaking point, brings a gun to work in order to exact some well-deserved revenge. Never push a mousy guy too far.

Maybe you need some personal connection to the mousy side of life to appreciate it, but character actor King Donovan slams it out of the park as Pips, a perfectly nice guy who's allowed himself to be the object of ridicule by not standing up for himself. When he finally explodes by smacking his boss in the mouth with a gun, I almost shook with joy. Pips forcing the weeping guy to crawl through the crates and ordering the others to laugh at the threat of death? Heaven.  If this was the kind of series Impulse had been like, I'd have owned the entire run on 4K UHD Blu-ray. Oh, and the moral of the episode seems to be Chicks dig guys who threaten violence to others!  

BONUS POINTS: "Mr. Pips" was directed by Alfred E. Green, whose 119 credits include Dick Powell's NRA-rah rah short The Road is Open Again.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 69

 

THE WITCHING HOUR (1934): "From the celebrated stage play by AUGUSTUS
THOMAS", as the opening credits inform us. Don't worry if you haven't heard of it, as it was first staged in 1907, and hasn't been revived since. 

Jack Brookfield accidentally hypnotizes his future son-in-law to murder a rival (you mean it hasn't happened to you?). The only lawyer who'll take the case is Martin Prentice, a former judge whose belief in the paranormal causes yet another climactic, borderline illegal courtroom stunt -- as in The Kiss Before the Mirror, involving gunfire -- we've all become accustomed to in movies like these. Which is why I love them! 

I don't know why The Witching Hour takes place in the South, other than to feature the usual black butlers speaking the way black butlers spoke in these movies. Keeping its timeframe in the turn of the century was a good idea since its basic idea would probably have been accepted by many people, just as the ghost of Martin Prentice's old flame visiting him every day was likely greeted by audiences with a shrug -- doesn't that happen to everybody? A fun, fast paced movie with the occasional welcome surprise -- the most welcome being how movie studios could whittle a four-act stage play like The Witching Hour down to 68 minutes.

BONUS POINTS: The only actor you'll recognize in The Witching Hour is William Frawley, two decades before his run as Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy, as the cynical jury foreman who winds up playing a key part in the defendant's freedom. (SPOILER: It involves hypnotism. Of course.)

THE SECRET BRIDE (1934): Attorney General Robert Sheldon has secretly married Ruth Vincent just before her father, Governor W.H. Vincent, is accused of accepting a bribe. If word gets out Sheldon is married to the Guv's daughter, it looks bad for both men. If he delays the investigation, it looks really bad. Worse still, Ruth refuses to testify on behalf of a woman wrongly accused of the murder of Sheldon's assistant. Ruth, you see, witnessed the crime through the window of Sheldon's apartment at midnight -- they're not supposed to be married, remember? Impeachment or electric chair: what to choose?

Despite featuring two of Warner Bros. top  actors-- Barbara Stanwyck and Warren William -- The Secret Bride is a comedown for both, as it possesses the odor of a mediocre script that the studio thought could be saved by its stars. Released not long after the enforcement of the Hays "code", the movie plays like Warners' attempt into more generic dramas where sex didn't exist and crime didn't pay. Stanwyck didn't stick around long afterwards, becoming a freelancer within a year. William, his caddish roles behind him, was transferred to Warners' Perry Mason series before being shown the door.

While William -- who isn't even billed on some of the lobby cards -- accepts his role with grace, Stanwyck seems vaguely aware that The Secret Bride is a comedown after slam bang pre-codes like Baby Face, Night Nurse, and The Miracle Woman. Both actors disappear in the final reel, as a complicated flashback narrated by another character explains the whole confusing mystery. Had The Secret Bride been made three years earlier, the lead characters would have been shacking up rather than married, the Governor really would have been crooked, and the killer might have gotten away with it because the victim had it coming. Sounds better, right?

BONUS POINTS: It wouldn't be a '30s movie without the reliable gun-in-the-desk-drawer trope, and The Secret Bride gets it out of the way in the first five minutes. 

NON-STOP NEW YORK (1937): Jennie Carr, a witness to a murder, is flying from London to New York in order to stop an innocent man from getting the hot squat at Sing-Sing. Other passengers include Police Inspector Jim Grant, a professional blackmailer, a wiseacre adolescent violin prodigy, and the real murderer. And you thought your last flight was weird.

The through-line is secondary to that humdinger of an airplane showcased in the poster. That's the real star of Non-Stop New York, often placing it (wrongly) in the sci-fi category for years. The British production could have benefited from Alfred Hitchcock's sly touch, but director Robert Stevenson does a serviceable job with his engaging actors, many of whom went on to have fine careers both in the UK and the US. Anna Lee and John Loder pull the old will-they-or-won't-they routine as Jennie and Jim, while semi-familiar character actor Francis L. Sullivan is a proto-Victor Buono as the killer who has a couple more targets in mind. 

Absurd moments abound -- an outdoor deck with a guard rail only waist high, Jim climbing atop the plane while in flight, to name two -- but that's the fun of it, even if it wasn't meant to be goofy. Non-Stop New York takes a while for the story to get up to speed, but once the plane takes off, so does the movie, with a surprise twist courtesy of the violin prodigy. By the way, the wonder of the plane isn't just its futuristic double-decker construction, but that it flies 3,000 miles in "only" 16 hours! It would be nice to know why the designer thought it would be a good idea to put an outdoor flight deck on there, though.

BONUS POINTS: Twenty-five-year-old Peter Bull, possessing an almost unreal blobby face straight out of Alice in Wonderland, makes the most of his brief, slimy moments a blackmailer-wannabe. If his name isn't familiar, you may remember him as the Russian ambassador in Dr. Strangelove.

THE BOY WHO SAW THROUGH (1956): Through walls, that is. Not like he sees
anything important. A minister looking for his false teeth, a cook dropping a roast on the kitchen floor. Nothing that would get a kid in trouble. Unless you're living in a small town at the turn of the 20th century, and you're treated as a freakish troublemaker nobody believes.

At 24 minutes, The Boy who Saw Through plays like a lighthearted episode of The Twilight Zone. And like most of the Zone stories, it seems to be an allegory. The boy's therapist realizes the X-ray vision is real, but advises him not to mention it anymore -- the same way most children who see the truth are told to shut up. 

I couldn't discover if The Boy who Saw Through was part of a forgotten anthology series or merely syndicated to plug a half-hour hole in local TV schedules. Most everything about it is strictly so-so and is included here solely due to its 15-year-old star Ronnie Walken, who would later change his first name to Christopher. Already possessing charisma and ease before the camera, Walken also has a touch of the creepiness he would become famous for. But I guess that makes sense if he can see through walls. 

BONUS POINTS: The near-ever present shadow of the boom microphone is almost a star itself.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 59

A rare entry with three European movies and only one American. Good Lord, am I becoming a movie snob? 

ALRAUNE (1928): Something must have been in the Riesling during 1920s Germany, when movies about young women driving men literally mad with desire were all the rage --Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl, and The Blue Angel to name three. The more obscure Alraune adds a little bit of Frankenstein to the mix, as Prof. Jakob ten Brinken decides it would be cool to inseminate the sperm of an executed murderer into a streetwalker. You know, just to see what happens. 

If the original one-sheet on the right hasn't already tipped you off, the mad prof's "creation" -- named Alraune -- grows up to be a sexed-up young lady who can't help but leave a trail of half-crazed men (and one suicide) in her wake.  Eventually, she discovers who (or what) she really is, and, in revenge, gradually comes on to her "Papa". You know, just to see what happens. Like father, like daughter!

Famed German actress Brigitte Helm isn't exactly beautiful but gives Alraune the same literally mesmerizing sense of control over men as she did in Metropolis. She even stares down a pack of male circus lions into submission while in their cage. No wonder guys stand no chance with her -- not even her "Papa", played by Germany's premiere movie actor of the 1920s, Paul Wegener (The Student of Prague). Looking more like a 1950s Soviet official than a professor, Wegener's gradual decline from brilliant but nutty scientist to jealous, semi-incestuous would-be lover is one for the books, adding yet another sick layer to the story.  If you're a man, watch Alraune with the one you love some evening. You know, just to see what happens.

BONUS POINTS: The name Alraune is also a plant that, in mythology, grows where a hanged man's semen dropped to the ground, and grows into the shape of a human. Warning to gardeners: When pulled from the soil, the alraune allegedly lets out a scream that can kill you.

SMARTY (1934): "That was just awful", said my wife after watching Smarty. How could she not enjoy a pre-code comedy about a woman deliberately provoking her husband to respond with physical violence? And then eventually does the same thing with her second husband? When the little wifey tires of hubby #2, she returns to hubby #1 and manipulates him into slapping her twice, while he promises to beat her. And as any woman would do, she melts in his arms, kisses him and whispers, "Hit me again" as Smarty comes to its romantic end. Swooning yet? 

There's stuff in between, but you get the general idea. One of the last pre-code productions (by about six weeks), Smarty was made for Depression-era audiences to delight in the dysfunctional behavior of the idle rich. Vicki, the wife, is emotionally cruel, while husbands Tony and Vernon lack any self-respect. Its arch tone, slamming doors, and attempts at satiric sophistication probably worked in its original stage play incarnation, but as portrayed onscreen, you want to slap the hell out of all of them. As with Blood Money's Frances Dee yearning for "a good thrashing", Vicki isn't just asking for it, she's demanding it. What was up with women 90 years ago anyway?

God knows how, but Joan Blondell, husband #1 Warren William (the King of the Pre-Codes), and husband #2 Edward Everett Horton manage against all odds to create laughs from time to time.  Laid back co-stars Claire Dodd and Frank McHugh are their bemused friends enablers who egg on these sadomasochistic relationships. If emotionally cruel women and self-loathing, physically abusive men are funny to you-- as they apparently were in the UK where it was retitled Hit Me Again --Smarty is the romcom you've been aching for. 

BONUS POINTS: In today's parlance, Tony is triggered by Vicki's use of the phrase "diced carrots", which, while never made explicit, seems to be in regard to a part of his anatomy.

TO THE PUBLIC DANGER (1948): Say, remember those scary 15-minute movies
you had to watch in drivers ed classes back in the day? The ones where people do stupid things like drinking heavily before hopping behind the wheel? Well, years before that, a British movie studio got the bright idea to make a similar kind of picture and releasing it to cinemas. Don't forget the popcorn!

On-the-outs couple Fred and Nancy fall in with the charming Capt. Cole and his drunken mate Reggie at a local pub. In short order, Nancy and Cole get frisky while all four knock back whiskeys for the next couple of hours. The fun continues in Cole's car, as he drinks from a flask and lets Nancy take the wheel from the passenger side and -- BAM! Did they just hit someone riding a bike? No one can agree. Cole decides to stop at another pub where they get even more hammered, leading him to beat the crap out of Fred before continuing their joyride. One of the passengers eventually escapes this hell on wheels while the other three see it to the bitter end.

Sound a bit thin for a feature? Correct call, as To the Public Danger runs just 43 minutes, the perfect length for a brisk double bill. But there's nothing that screams "relaxing day at the movies" here. The first half is essentially 20 minutes of watching our "heroes" becoming progressively drunk, while much of the claustrophobic second half puts you literally in the driver's seat of an out-of-control auto. (The climax is genuinely terrifying.) While its short running time prevents To the Public Danger from wearing out its welcome, it would have been even better with Alfred Hitchcock calling the shots while the actors were drinking them.

BONUS POINTS: The twist ending is a genuine surprise, isn't a cheat, and is kind of funny in a way. Just not for the characters.

POPIOK I DIAMENT (ASHES AND DIAMONDS) (1958): 

Poland, V-E Day, 1945. Two members of the Polish resistance, Maciek and his mentor Andrezj, hang around a hotel waiting to assassinate a high-ranking Communist official. But as the hours pass, and a celebratory dinner for their target gets out of control, Maciek gradually falls in love with a barmaid, forcing him to question both his assignment and the choices he's made in his life that have led him to this pivotal moment. 

 I hadn't heard of Ashes and Diamonds until fairly recently. Word on the street -- OK, online -- was that it was one of the greatest movies ever made. And having finally gotten around to see it, I'd say it was one of the best looking movies ever. Its black & white cinematography and deft staging (as in a bombed-out church) were impressive as anything I've ever seen.

If there's a problem with Ashes and Diamonds is that it never remotely evokes 1945. Everything is strictly 1958, especially its 31-year-old star Zbigniew Cybulski as the philosophical assassin Maciek. Cybulski was for good reason considered the Polish James Dean -- only, to my eyes, a far better and more original actor. Like Dean, Cybulski was an icon of his generation who died in a violent accident, although making it to 40 rather than checking out at 24.

From his first moment onscreen to last, Cybulski is the real deal. Without aping Brando as so many of his contemporaries did, he seems to be creating something brand new right before your eyes. No, I was never convinced this character was actually around in 1945 -- not with that haircut or those cool lightly-tinted sunglasses he rarely removes -- but ultimately it didn't matter. 

For while appearing more modern, he (and the rest of the fine cast, for that matter) made the Eastern Europe political subplots that much easier to understand, the way modern-dress Shakespeare does for me. And in doing so, many of the movie's scenes might have already become permanent fixtures in my memory. Perhaps giving Ashes and Diamonds a second spin one evening will place it on my own imaginary Top 100 list. It's certainly more than worthy of just one viewing. 

BONUS POINTS: Cybulski's last moment onscreen features one of the most remarkable pieces of acting I've ever seen. It's highly unlikely any young actor could equal it today.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 53

 It's an all-star Early Show spanning 24 years of movies and television, with gangsters, reporters, doctors, and juvenile delinquents ready to entertain, threaten, and shill for the sponsor.

THE GUILTY GENERATION (1931): Gang boss Tony Ricca pays an unexpected visit to his son, a promising architect who's changed his name from Marco Ricca to John Smith in order to hide his parental heritage. Wanting to make amends with his son, Tony promises to set him up with his own architectural business. Marco/John wants nothing to do with him or the whole dirty world of yeggs, tommy guns, and bootleg giggle water. So what is he to do when learning that the girl he falls in love with, Maria, is the daughter of Mike Palmero, another gang leader who's also Marco Ricca's chief rival? 

There's no reason to delve further into The Guilty Generation's story. Just think of Romeo & Juliet mashed with Little Caesar. Now picture Ricca padre e figlio played by pre-Frankenstein Boris Karloff and 24-year-old Robert Young.  Now we're talking Entertainment with a capital ENTER, whether either of them seems Italian or not. (Karloff's attempts are limited to one-word sentences like "grazie" in his British accent).

Too bad The Guilty Generation never lives up to what it promises in the first reel, since Karloff is barely seen again. Apparently, Columbia Pictures decided it was best to give dialect actor Leo Carillo (If You Could Only Cook) the bulk of the movie as Mike Palmero with his "whatsamatter with you, eh?" routine on full display. It's only when Palmero learns that his son has been knocked off by Ricca and finds out John Smith's real identity that Carillo's performance gets serious. Like, real serious.

Constance Cummings isn't given much to do as Maria Palmero except moon over Robert Young and show embarrassment by her brother Joe's drunken antics. Leslie Fenton (The Hatchet Man) jumps into Joe's role with nasty gusto, lashing out at his father and whoever else strikes his fancy.  If Karloff and Carillo had switched roles, The Guilty Generation wouldn't have been guilty of overpromising and underdelivering. 

BONUS POINTS: The startling way Mike Palmero's mother prevents him from interfering with his daughter's happiness still startles nearly a century on.

CLEAR ALL WIRES! (1933): 

From roughly 1932 to 1934, movies were awash in zany political satires, mocking capitalism, communism, fascism, and in the case of Clear All Wires!, journalism. And during that time, you couldn't have a fast-talking, double-crossing, woman-chasing reporter played by anyone other than the great Lee Tracy.

No stranger to faking his own kidnappings, twisting the news to guarantee headlines, or double-crossing his rivals, Chicago Globe reporter Buckley Joyce Thomas and his right-hand man Lefty fly to Moscow to cover the 15th anniversary of the Russian revolution, promising top officials that Pres. Roosevelt will recognize the communist government if they just sit down for an exclusive interview. Faster than you can say dobroye utro tovarishch, Thomas is hanging with Stalin, a commissar, and a disgruntled Marxist who wants to overthrow the current Communist government. But just as Thomas is making room for a Nobel Prize, the head of the KGB learns that his attempted assassination was arranged by the reporter. Not for real, mind you, just for the headlines. Tell that to the firing squad.

Few movies at the time of Clear All Wires!' release were so relentless in satirizing real-life politics and culture as is done here. (Would you expect to see a sight gag involving Stalin?) Yet instead of dating the movie, it oddly feels contemporary in its topical, SNL-style. It's easy to picture young men at the time wanting to become newspaper reporters due solely to the way Lee Tracy makes the job seem so damn fun. Other than that firing squad, that is. 

With James Gleason as the side-of-the-mouth-talking Lefty and Una Merkel as Thomas' ex-lover (and current girlfriend of his editor), and, of course, Lee Tracy's rat-a-tat delivery, Call All Wires! is a banger of a comedy offering an impressive number of big laughs. Highly recommended especially for those unfamiliar with its sadly forgotten star. Maybe I should run a Lee Tracy retrospective in my living room sometime.

BONUS POINTS: As with the Humphrey Bogart picture Sirocco, the dialogue heard in opening scene with Thomas chatting with an Arab chieftain could be taken from a similar interview today.

BEDSIDE (1934): X-ray technician Bob Brown becomes a physician the old-fashioned way: buying the medical diploma off of a washed-up doctor-turned-morphine junkie going by the name of John Smith. (Can't anyone come up with a better alias?) By hiring a real doctor to do the heavy lifting and a PR rep named Sparks, Brown soon becomes the toast of New York society hypochondriacs. But as his lack of medical knowledge and the junkie doctor catch up with him, Brown learns that a piece of paper doesn't make you a real doctor -- especially when he's expected to perform brain surgery on his nurse.

By 1934, Warren William had made a career of playing scoundrels, cads, and scalawags, but his quack role in Bedside takes the bedpan. He gambles away the $1500 his girlfriend Caroline lent him to finish med school; turns away from examining a sick child because he can't be bothered with her; spends more time clipping his photos from newspapers than most doctors do on the golf course; and comes thisclose to killing a patient. And when he isn't at the office -- and often when he is -- he's gambling and drinking his life away. Even I started to find the guy despicable, and I love Warren William.

You know who else loves him? His nurse Caroline (Jean); his medical partner Dr. Wiley (David Meek, the actor who always is meek); and his PR pro Sparks (the ever-reliable Allen Jenkins). The only person on to him is the hophead who sold him the med school diploma (David Landau), and who continues to haunt him by returning uninvited for his morphine fix. (By the end, he's rubbing his nose and talking a mile a minute, indicating that he's become a cokehead, too.) To see a Warren William character brought low due to his own misbehavior isn't all that unusual. But what is, is how low a louse he eventually becomes, and how you wind up rooting for the law to catch up to him. Don't see Bedside before your next annual check-up. And if you do, ask the doc if he knows how to correctly perform a simple suture. You'd be shocked to learn how some so-called medical professionals don't.

BONUS POINTS: Director Robert Florey goes in for a little German expressionism in the climactic scene with Landau taunting William in the o.r. 

THE ELGIN HOUR: "CRIME IN THE STREETS" (1955): This live television play might have introduced every juvenile delinquent cliche of the '50s. The angry young teen out to murder someone just because. His overworked mother blaming herself for how he turned out. His frightened little brother. The Italian immigrant who owns the corner malt shop and whose son is part of the neighborhood gang. The social worker who understands that the kid acts the way he does because he's had a rough life and wants some attention.

You've seen it all before, somewhere or another. But per usual with productions like this, its creators and cast that make it worth 60 minutes of your time. Script by TV legend Reginald Rose, direction by Sidney Lumet. Robert Preston as social worker Bob Wagner. Former Warner Bros. star Glenda Farrell as Frankie's mother. Future Oscar-nominated director Mark Rydell as gang member Lou. Future musician/songwriter/Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks as Frankie's little brother Richie. And as the incorrigible Frankie, the future incorrigible director John Cassavetes. All this and the original Elgin Watch commercials!

As good an actor as Cassavetes was, it must have been kind of a stretch for the 26 year-old to play the eight years his junior Frankie. He doesn't look 18 but is convincing enough as one kicked around by life to age beyond his years. Only Mark Rydell (also 26) rivals him in striking looks and talent as the crazy-eyed Lou, who appears headed to the psych ward instead of prison.

As with many 1950s TV productions, Crime in the Streets presents old school stars going toe to toe with young Method-era whippersnappers.  No question Crime in the Streets is dated but is still a good example of a time when TV presented live plays with top-notch New York talent before everybody moved to Hollywood and got as many takes as they wanted with video tape. Meh.

BONUS POINTS: When Frankie and his gang synchronize their watches, it gives us a chance to see a close-up of -- guess what -- Frankie's Elgin watch. How do these ruffians afford them? Oh wait -- they're on sale this week at your local department store!

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 42

By sheer coincidence, three of these titles are from 1951, which will never be confused with 1939 as a classic year for movies. 

SKYSCRAPER SOULS (1932): Warren William, the King of the Pre-Codes,
temporarily left his homebase at Warner Bros. for M-G-M as super-rich banker David Dwight, who isn't super-rich enough to outright own the skyscraper he's built. Nor is he moral enough to stop stringing along his loyal secretary Sarah while he woos her beautiful young niece, Lynn, who's currently dating Tom, a bank teller. Dwight solves the first problem by taking on a partner and issuing stock. As they start manipulating the market, everyone who bought shares in the stock -- including Tom -- lose their money, with unintended consequences all around.

While the story of Skyscraper Souls is pure Warners -- amoral boss, willing secretary, sex without guilt -- its gloss is M-G-M all the way. Warren William never starred in a better-looking movie, that's for sure. Louis B. Mayer must have gazed enviously at the box office take William's movies provided, and wanted a piece of the action, budget be damned. In fact, bigger budgets were the studio's whole reason for being. An overhead shot of the Dwight Building lobby is breathtaking in its size and scope -- this is a place where anybody would want to work, even if the boss is lecherous and, ultimately, near-sociopathic in his plan to bankrupt innocent  investors in order to gain entire ownership of his office tower, leading to one of the pre-codes' more genuinely shocking climaxes in what was, until then, something of a nasty joyride of a picture. 

Thanks to the seemingly different way people aged a century or so ago. 38 year-old Warren William and 29 year-old Verree Teasdale both look middle-aged, all the more commendable to be paired as lovers as well as boss and secretary, making his affair with 22 year-old Maureen O'Sullivan (who definitely looks her age) likely that much more risible to some audiences today but perfectly acceptable (and understandable) in 1932, even if she already has a boyfriend. There's a price to be paid for all those sexual and financial shenanigans, unusual in a pre-code like Skyscraper Souls, yet fitting nonetheless. 

BONUS POINTS: Boris Karloff can be seen in a two-second walk-on in a bank scene. Was his role meant to be larger, or was he between takes of The Mask of Fu Manchu at Metro when Skyscraper Souls director Edgar Selwyn put him through make-up and wardrobe just for fun?

YES SIR, MR. BONES (1951): Over five decades ago, I stumbled upon Yes Sir, Mr. Bones while flipping through the TV dial, and what little I watched scared the hell out of me. Since then, the very idea of minstrel shows has become more bizarre even as "all in good fun" blackface has had a resurgence. Ergo, I'm asking for trouble by even watching this super-cheap release from poverty row studio Lippert Pictures, while saving you the guilt you'd feel from watching it yourself. 

Hanging on by the barest of plot threads -- a little boy visiting a rest home for former minstrel entertainers gets to imagine what one of the shows was like -- Yes Sir, Mr. Bones is historically important for two reasons, even if only one of which would be acceptable today. First, it features entertainers who actually appeared in minstrel shows of yore, including husband and wife team Chick & Cotton Watts, the remarkably offensive Slim Williams, and the legendary Emmett Miller, whose eerie "high yodeling" singing influenced Jimmy Rodgers and, eventually, Hank Williams. Unfortunately, Miller gets only a few seconds demonstrating his style, spending a large chunk of his time doing a typical mushmouth routine with Ches Davis.

A more acceptable -- and entirely unsurprising -- reason to watch Yes Sir, Mr. Bones is that the handful of black entertainers featured are so much better than the ofays in blackface. Monette Moore's vocalizing of "Stay Out of the Kitchen" (likely sung this one time only) makes up for her Aunt Jemima wardrobe, while Brother Bones's whistling and "bones"-playing of "Listen to the Mockingbird" amazes even today. But it's the hilarious team of F.E. Miller and Scatman Carothers (who would later drop the "a" from his last name) that steal the show with a sample of the so-called "never-ending" conversation that Miller shared years earlier on stage with Mantan Moreland. (They were teamed in the previously-discussed Mr. Washington Goes to Town.) These two pros are so brilliant that it makes you wonder what they and their brethren thought of being onstage with dopey guys in blackface. From start to finish, Yes Sir, Mr. Bones is only an hour long, which, along with its restoration, may or may not be enough to get you interested in watching it on YouTube. (I know, I know -- somebody spent good money on restoring Yes Sir, Mr. Bones? There must be a big audience for blackface in the 21st century.)

BONUS POINTS: Never heard of Brother Bones? If you've ever watched the Harlem Globetrotters, you've definitely heard his 1949 recording of "Sweet Georgia Brown". Scatman Crothers went on to make 134 movie and TV appearances, his best-known being Halloran, the hotel maintenance man in The Shining. 

THE HOODLUM (1951): Against the advice of the warden, 12-time loser Vincent Lubeck is let out of stir and into the arms of his dear old mother. His younger brother Johnny isn't so welcoming, but at the behest of mom gives Vince a job at his gas station. Vince returns the favor by driving away customers, knocking up Johnny's girlfriend Rosa, and plotting a bank heist with some of his chums from the old days. You can get dizzy counting the number of subsequent deaths, including mom (by heartbreak), Rosa (via swan dive off an apartment building) and Vincent himself. Well, at least Johnny still has the gas station.

Lawrence Tierney was still riding the fumes of his star-making role in Dillinger from 1945 when The Hoodlum was released. This low-budget programmer has every cliche in the screenwriters' book, including the gray-haired mother with an Easter European accent, and a robbery that doesn't go as planned. But none of that matters with Tierney in the lead. Not a great actor by any stretch -- he's only marginally better than George Raft, whom he also sounds like -- Tierney nevertheless is one of the scarier bad guys of his time. Maybe he was drawing from his real-life exploits of bar fights and beating up cops (which derailed his career), but there's something undeniably unnerving about his performance in The Hoodlum, or any of his bad-guy roles. 

You can't say he has no depth as an actor; you can see Vince's shame when, on the run from the cops, his dying mom admits to being wrong about urging the parole board to free him from prison. But until that point, Tierney is at his best treating Rosa like dirt after she asks him to run away with her, splashing a car with gasoline because he doesn't like the driver, or shooting as many bank guards as possible at the robbery. 

Edward Tierney, Lawrence's real-life younger brother, is strictly one-note as Johnny, perhaps due as much to the script as his talent, although it's pretty interesting to see the two siblings going at it the way they do. By the climax, when Johnny pulls a gun on Vince with the promise to kill him at the town dump, you wonder if any of what you're watching was cathartic for Edward, whose career didn't go much of anywhere. As for Lawrence, he was already on the fast-track to smaller roles and only the occasional TV appearance before his great comeback in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs in 1992, where he had become unrecognizable from the almost handsome but still scary actor he was in The Hoodlum. 

BONUS POINTS: Shaky rear-projection in the apartment rooftop scene makes L.A. look like it's experiencing a 2.0 earthquake.

SIROCCO (1951): Outside of In a Lonely Place, Humphrey Bogart's self-produced movies for Columbia aren't highly regarded. But give one of them, Sirocco, credit for being intriguing if nothing else, as Bogie portrays a genuine antihero that you're not sure you want to root for, seeing that his character, Harry Smith, is smuggling weapons to Syrian terrorists -- or are they freedom fighters? -- battling the French occupational force in 1923. (The sounds of violent street fighting run almost nonstop until the very end.) Smith finds himself attracted to Violette, the sidepiece of Col. Feroud of the French army, who makes the smuggler his number one target more for personal than professional reasons. After being informed on by a colleague, Smith suddenly finds himself shunned by almost everybody he knows -- except, ironically, Feroud, who does him a favor, ultimately at the cost of one of their lives. 

As with another of Bogart's Columbia releases, Tokyo Joe from two years earlier, Sirocco gives off a Casablanca vibe; hell, nine years after that classic's release, the tagline on the one-sheet above doesn't even try to hide it. Mideast intrigue, guys in fezzes, a foreign dame, and the lead character who has no cause to believe in, no loyalty to any side -- he can even get you out of the country for a price. The difference is that you know from the get-go that it's all a front for Casablanca's Rick Blaine. Sirocco's Harry Smith is a cynic bordering on nihilist, seeing that he doesn't care who or how many die as long as he gets paid. And he walked out on his wife back in the States!  In a way, it's kind of a refreshing change to see him not as a conventional hero or bad guy but something in between -- or, perhaps, out of bounds.

Also going for Sirocco is the fine cast of supporting characters actors. Bogart, comfortable in his own skin on and offscreen, seems to have no problem being upstaged every time he turns around. He must have enjoyed working with Everett Sloane and Zero Mostel on his previous movie The Enforcer, seeing they appear here respectively as the French commanding officer Gen. LaSalle and smuggler Balukjiaan, the man who drops a dime on Smith to save his own neck. The familiar Peter Brocco and Jeff Corey underplay to good effect as a sarcastic barber and witty jewel thief, while the lively Nick Dennis (Harry's sidekick Nasir) unashamedly steals every scene from Bogart with the ease of Jerry Colonna, whom he resembles. As with The Enforcer, Sirocco provides proof that a new generation of actors had come along who undoubtedly admired Bogart but had their own way of doing things. 

So it's kind of strange that the biggest name outside of Bogart, 40-year-old Lee J. Cobb, doesn't register well as Col. Feroud. Hulking, jealous, prone to anger yet desirous of brokering a truce between the French and Syrians, Cobb is nevertheless wrong for the part. (He and Everett Sloane might have swapped roles to better effect.) As for Marta Toren as Violette, whatever sex appeal she exudes -- which isn't much -- is overpowered by her character's greed. You just don't buy Smith's attraction to her, unless it's because she's a woman who matches him in misanthropy. These little problems aside, Sirocco overall is a well-made, fascinating drama, and probably the second best of Bogart's Columbia pictures.

BONUS POINTS: Cobb's dialogue with LaSalle and the emotionally cold leader of the Syrian underground proves nothing has ever changed in the Middle East and never will. Maybe Harry Smith was onto something after all.

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