THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 22

 The little lady was out of town for a week, allowing me to catch up on several movies building up on the DVR queue that wouldn't necessarily be up her alley. But how much of what I like really are? Here are just four of them:

CURTAIN CALL (1940): Broadway producer Jeff Crandall and director Donald Avery want to get even with actress Charlotte Morley, who's leaving their employ at the end of her contract, by demanding she star in a terrible play written by the young, first-time writer Helen Middleton. Crandall and Avery believe Morley will refuse the part, thus allowing them to sue her. Unfortunately, she loves the play, forcing Avery to woo Middleton in order to let him rewrite it into a farce in order to save his and Crandall's reputation.

Unlike dramas or gangster pictures, B-comedies tend to be a tough watch. But Curtain Call is the rare exception that, with 15 extra minutes and a bigger budget, could easily have passed for an A release. Barbara Read, as the clueless playwright, happily allows the rest of the cast chew the scenery as if they hadn't eaten in weeks, with Donald MacBride and Alan Mowbray (Crandall and Avery) having the biggest appetite of all. Dalton Trumbo's dialogue is so sophisticated and often hilarious that the quieter scenes with Helen Middleton and her hometown suitor John Archer seem like they were written by someone else.  

The idea of a middle-aged guy faking love with an innocent woman barely out of her teens sounds iffy today, but is played so absurdly that only the usual hair-trigger Twitter crowd would take offense. And while Helen Middleton proudly stands up for herself by refusing any rewrites, it's also made quite clear that her play really does stink from here to Sunday. (Avery's fast-talking press agent describes it as "a hangover on paper.") While it wouldn't necessarily work as a movie today, a smart Broadway producer could turn Curtain Call into a crowd-pleasing stage farce without having to pretend to fall in love with the writer.

BONUS POINTS: The always-welcome Frank Faylen (Dobie Gillis' father on TV) from Natzy Nuisance and Address Unknown plays the press agent, while Alan Mowbray portrayed Satan in The Devil with Hitler.

BLUES IN THE NIGHT (1941): Anticipating Syncopation by a year, Blues in the Night is the story of a New Orleans-inspired band led by Jigger Pine. Only here, the musicians are playing in a New Jersey gin joint run by Sam Payras, who, along with the club's thrush Kay Grant, two-timed their cohort Del Davis after a bank robbery years earlier. Davis has returned with the band in order to open an illegal gambling room upstairs. Jigger finds himself falling hard for the no-good Kay, and takes off with her to join a money-making orchestra. After a stint in the psych ward (playing dopey music for Manhattan swells literally drives him crazy) Jigger returns to his old band in Jersey, where a showdown involving him, Del, Kay, and the bar's clean-up guy Brad Ames, turns fatal for three of them.

Just one of countless examples of a poster promising one thing and the movie delivering another, the semi-noir/musical Blues in the Night should have a better reputation. Director Anatole Litvak (City for Conquest) does a great job with the camera, whether using it as the keyboard's point-of-view for Jigger's hands as he plays piano, or his bizarre mental breakdown. Litvak also cast the movie with plenty of interestingly unattractive character actors: Richard Whorf as the hot-tempered Jigger; Lloyd Nolan as the slimy Del Davis; Howard da Silva as Sam Payras (who makes the mistake of wanting to drop a dime on Del); Billy Hallop, Peter Whitney, and Elia Kazan as members of the band; and, perhaps best of all, Wallace Ford as Brad, described more than once as Kay's "crippled stooge." Once an annoying comedic actor, Ford's talent grew as he eased into dramatic supporting roles. He gives the most subdued performance here, not exactly stealing the movie but being the most grounded in reality.

Jack Warner probably panicked when he saw this defiantly non-box office crew and insisted on tossing in audience favorites Jack Carson and singer/starlet Priscilla Lane as trumpet player Leo Powell and his wife named Character. (I bet ten bucks this was an in-joke by writer Robert Rossen.) While just missing the designation of "classic" by a G-major chord, Blues in the Night is definitely worth its $2.99 price on streaming services. And yes, the legendary title number was written for the movie. It lost the Academy Award for Best Song to "The Last Time I Saw Paris", which nobody sings anymore. Not-so fun fact: A decade after Blues in the Night's release, Elia Kazan, Howard da Silva, and Robert Rossen were caught up in the HUAC red scare investigation.

BONUS POINTS: Don Siegel, credited with the movie's montages, would later become a director, best known for Dirty Harry 30 years later.

STOLEN FACE (1952): Take a jigger of Hitchcock's Vertigo, mix with a shot of Steve

Martin's The Man with Two Brains. Shake well and pour yourself a tangy Stolen Face. Dr. Phillip Ritter falls in love with concert pianist Alice Brent. Learning that she's engaged to another man, Ritter returns home and performs plastic surgery on Lily Conover -- a prisoner whose crime wave started after an accident left her face badly scarred -- to make her look like Alice. Of course, marriage immediately follows because, well, he's a doctor, he knows what he's doing, even when he chooses her wardrobe. But Ritter learns the hard way it takes more than a pretty face and a nice dress to change a sociopathic criminal. Oh, and guess what concert pianist returns to Ritter's life after her engagement breaks up? 

A UK production from Hammer, and something of a preview of their later horror movies, Stolen Face makes sure we know early on that Ritter isn't some crazy doctor because... um... he doesn't charge poor patients! Therefore, it's perfectly understandable that the lovesick guy wants to physically recreate the woman he loves onto someone else's face. And he's played by Paul Henreid, the heroic fighter of Nazis in Casablanca, which only increases our sympathy, especially when Alice takes on the habit of shoplifting furs and jewelry, turning their home into her own private dance hall, and taking up with a new lover. Come to think of it, this doc is too stupid to deserve anybody's sympathy.

The double role of Alice/Lily goes to Lizabeth Scott, who was created herself by Warner Brothers as a Lauren Bacall substitute, right down to the throaty delivery. But while she never really got the same acclaim, Scott pulls off a performance that Bacall couldn't have matched; even though her "Lily" voice was dubbed by someone else, Scott looks different in both roles even while, of course, identical. You can tell, however, Stolen Face's modest budget when, at the climactic showdown between the two women, Scott is never seen as both women in the same shot. No matter -- one of them gets what she deserves.

BONUS POINTS: A bit of production sloppiness occurs when Henreid is walking in front of a back projection of Picadilly Circus. A movie theater in the background is running Joan of Arc starring Ingrid Bergman, which was released five years earlier. And no, I don't know why this is a bonus, other than it shows what a smarty-pants I am.

MACHINE GUN MCCAIN (1969): Freshly sprung from prison after 12 years, armed robber Hank McCain is offered a lucrative "job" by his 20 year-old son Jack: clean out the safe from the Royal Casino in Las Vegas. What Hank doesn't know is that Jack is working for Charlie Adamo, a Mafia lieutenant trying to take over the Royal without the permission of his bosses. But Hank has his own plans for what he's going to do with the money, while "the boys" back East are going to deal with these jokers their own way.

If B-movies were still a thing 1969, Machine Gun McCain would have been one of them. It's one of those European productions -- in this case, Italian -- where the producers hired a couple of recognizable American actors as the leads in order to make gullible Yanks think it was a Hollywood movie. John Cassavetes (McCain) probably took the job to finance Husbands, while telling Peter Falk (Adamo), "What the hell, it's easy money and we spend a few weeks in Vegas shooting guns." They, Britt Ekland and "guest star" Gena Rowlands (Mrs. Cassavetes) pretend to take it seriously, and are probably the only actors who dubbed in their own dialogue, typical on Italian movies where it always seems like the voices are coming from somewhere other than the set.

There's plenty in Machine Gun McCain that wouldn't fly today, like a typical boy-meets-girl scene of the time where McCain's attempted rape of Irene actually turns her on and leads to marriage the next day. McCain's plan to set off several bombs throughout Vegas to distract cops from the robbery would be condemned for inciting a round of homegrown terrorism. Probably the most interesting thing in the movie is how the Mob, still controlling Vegas in 1969, has more or less the entire population on their payroll, as everybody from cab drivers to college students are given photos of McCain and Tucker after the couple pull off the robbery. 

Machine Gun McCain is no Godfather, but fits the bill if, like me, your wife is away and you're in the mood for some entertaining trash made by professionals who can at least keep the camera in focus. (By the way, if you're interested in seeing a movie that shows the genuinely ugly gangster life, watch the 1971 Michael Caine drama Get Carter. It's too good for this blog.)

BONUS POINTS: Machine Gun McCain is the only movie I've ever seen where the credits admit it was "freely adapted from" rather than "based on" a novel, while the cinematographer is listed under the old school appellation of "cameraman". In fact, I don't think I've ever seen that word in any other movie.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 71

 A trip into the time machine to 1929 and 1930, dropping in on Germany and England, while making two stops in the USA. 

§173 ST.G.B. BLUTSCHANDE (1929):  Or, in plain English, Section 173 of The Criminal Code: Incest. So much for the "innocent" days of silent movies. (The literal translation of the German "blutschande" is "blood shame.")

 Martin Hollman and his late wife's adult daughter Lisbeth (from a previous marriage) fall in love. The local amtmann (i.e., bureaucrat) refuses to grant them a marriage license, citing the incest law, despite the couple not having a blood relation. When informed that Lisbeth has a pea in the pod, the outraged amtmann arrests them, and, following a trial, puts them in separate slammers. Reunited after several years, Lisbeth again gets pregnant. Despite the support of the villagers (including the local pastor), the amtmann once again arranges for their arrest. Lisbeth decides a walk in front of a speeding train is preferable to another jail jolt. 

Clearly, this silent drama would never have been made in Hollywood. Like the 1919 German production about homosexuality titled Different from the Others, §173 St.G.B. Blutschnade is a sympathetic take on its subject matter; while the couple might be in the wrong legally, even the town pastor recognizes they've done nothing untoward morally, including having two kids outside marriage. Lisbeth recognizes the societal hypocrisy when getting a post-prison housemaid job for a rich woman and her unfaithful husband. The wife encourages her adult daughter from a previous marriage to seduce and marry her own stepfather in order to "keep the money in the family."

A fascinating movie for its time, §173 St.G.B. Blutschnade is also kind of a slog to sit through. While the first two reels move at a good pace, the following 70 minutes drag; more than once I hit pause to see how much time was left. It's also an occasionally odd mixture of surreal imagery and over-the- top acting, especially from the nefarious amtmann (which might be deliberate, the easier to hate him). Still, §173 St.G.B. Blutschnade worth a viewing to be reminded how Hitler destroyed Germany's innovative movie industry in a few years' time. Hey, that reminds me, remember that American amtmann who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples? Good things we've come a long way since 1929 Germany, amirite?

THE VERY IDEA (1929): After a German drama about incest, it's time for a palate cleanser with a Hollywood a proto-screwball comedy about... eugenics! Get ready to laugh, America!

Alan Camp, a firm believer in "breeding" the right kind of baby via the best genetic lineage, convinces his strong, handsome chauffeur, Joe Garvin, and Joe's beautiful girlfriend Nora, to provide a child for his friends Gilbert and Edith, who are unable to conceive. One year later, Gilbert and Edith return from a "vacation", ready to pick up "their" baby without anyone else being the wiser... over Nora's motherly dead body.

There are some odd things in The Very Idea. Obviously, the idea of eugenics being played for laughs. The eugenicist himself being about the only intelligent person here. And you can tell, too, it was originally a Broadway show, with its lengthy dialogue exchanges, dull direction, as well as adult sophistication that still surprises today. (The movie was banned in a few cities during its original release.) 

While the dialogue is often more silly than witty, The Very Idea provides some good laughs, mainly when Gilbert and Edith give different, increasingly outlandish reasons for their year-long disappearance. Scenes like these offer a rare opportunity to see how a Broadway star of a century ago -- here, Allen Kearns -- would have been onstage, since he seems to be playing to the balcony. (He made only three features.) One sad piece of irony is that Hugh Trevor -- the actor playing the perfect genetic specimen -- died in 1933 of complications following an appendectomy, which should make the eugenicist's thesis questionable at best. Taking the good and the meh into consideration, The Very Idea is a fascinating way to learn that a movie from 1929 could be more adult than your average contemporary blockbuster.

BONUS POINTS: Now if we're talking good genes, co-star Doris Eaton returned to the screen in the Jim Carrey movie Man on the Moon in 1999 after a six-decade retirement. She also gave regular dance performances at AIDS benefits, making her final appearance one month before dying at 106. 

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN (1929): An example of the silent/talkie hybrid genre that fascinates an ever-shrinking cadre of movie fans (hello, me!), the UK production The Flying Scotsman -- that's a train, not a superhero -- chugs along at a brief 59 minutes. In its first (silent)

half, Crow, the train's former coal shoveller, is fired by Old Bob, the engineer, for drinking on the job. As Crow vows revenge, his replacement Jim unknowingly starts dating Old Bob's daughter Joan. The following day, Joan learns Crow is going to hijack the train, hoping to kill Old Bob and Jim in the process, and is determined to stop him.

The most interesting thing about the first 30 minutes of The Flying Scotsman is that it marks the lead debut of Ray Milland (or, as the credits read, Raymond Milland). Perhaps making up for the silence, Milland's facial expressions are rather, er showy; he tones things down in the talking second half, where you can hear his familiar Cary Grant-like diction underneath the character's Cockney accent. 

But what really stuns today are Alec Hurley and Pauline Johnson (Crow and Joan) climbing along and atop of the speeding train without any special effects, cutaways, or process shots -- and Johnson is in high heels!  I bet they didn't even get a "stunt pay" bonus, either. While Hurley keeps the tough-guy expression, I think that's genuine fear in Johnson's face.

Outside of former stuntman Richard Talmadge, I don't know of any other actor, British or American, who would have agreed to this literally death-defying scene. (Hurley could have been killed as the train passed through the tunnel.) If you're at all interested in seeing what was expected of actors back in the day, go to YouTube and fast-forward The Flying Scotsman to the 40-minute mark and settle in. It would have made a great short subject.

BONUS POINTS: Watching two actors almost get killed just to get a good shot makes you have even more contempt for today's "stars".

LORD BYRON OF BROADWAY (1930): You've never seen Lord Byron of Broadway, but you know the story: talented guy uses people on the way up until the tables turn and he crashes back to the bottom. Songwriter Roy Erskin, who gets creative inspiration from breaking women's hearts, hits the bigtime with his stage partners Joe Lundeen and lovesick Nancy Clover. Roy is ready to throw it all away upon meeting Ardis, a classy dame his equal in two-timing -- and who he doesn't realize is Joe's estranged wife. One death later, Roy is back where he started, where Nancy is waiting for him. 

The general idea could have worked as a noirish picture in the '40s -- it kind of reminded me of Blues in the Night -- but Lord Byron of Broadway lacks the polish of later musicals and the star power required to put it over. The two mediocre Technicolor production numbers create only derisive chortles, while supporting players Cliff Edwards and Benny Rubin (of all people!) have more screen presence than the top-billed Charles Kaley and Ethelind Terry. If the names are unfamiliar, it's because Kaley never made another movie, while Terry returned to the screen just once seven years later as an extra. Today they'd call it cancel culture. In 1930, it was simply a case of You stink. 

Contemporary movie historians blame Lord Byron of Broadway's commercial failure on its cynical lead character. Me, I just think it was just not a very good movie, being the usual creaky, unsteady talkie prevalent at the time. So few people saw Lord Byron of Broadway that MGM could get away with recycling one of the Technicolor numbers in a 1933 short starring Ted Healey & the Three Stooges, and again a year later in another short starring Curly Howard with a different pair of stooges, without anyone noticing. But I noticed a stage curtain (above) that was originally in MGM's The Hollywood Revue of 1929. Again, I ask, how did I ever get laid?

BONUS POINTS: Something else I noticed: the uncredited voice of 36-year-old Jack Benny as a radio announcer, two years before his real-life radio debut.

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THE GREAT ROCK & ROLL SWINDLE

Want to see eight acts? It'll set you back
$7.50 ($5.50 for the nosebleed seats).

 During the waning days of psychedelia, something called "The 1950's Rock and
Roll Revival" took hold. Acts that hadn't been on the charts in over a decade were suddenly touring America on the same bill.

Hippies wanting to relive their adolescent and teen years were now able to see their former favorites live, perhaps for the first time, providing relief from Vietnam, Richard Nixon, and The Lawrence Welk Show. 

Over 50 years later, the urge to go back to what are thought to be "a more innocent time" exists in later generations. And so, this coming September, Brooklyn welcomes the CBGB Festival. 

A black & white photo captures the ambience
better than color.

For those unfamiliar with the initials, CBGB was a small concert venue in Greenwich Village. Originally specializing in Country, Blue Grass, and Blues (hence, the name), by the mid to late 1970s, it had become the number one punk club in the city, legendary for its bathroom as much as the shows. 

l was there once circa 1982, dressed in my finest black clothing, to see Marshall Crenshaw. While I remember the show, I don't recall using the facilities, although that might be my brain blocking the memory. 

The name CBGB Festival is somewhat misleading. First, it's being held in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at Under the K Bridge Park. Second, the only acts who appeared at the original CBGB are Patti Smith, Bikini Kill, Agnostic Front, and Circle Jerks.

As for the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks, what they have in common is that their current line-ups don't feature the original lead singers, making them something like the Beach Boys of punk. The other acts are comparatively new, such as Mannequin Pussy, Interpol, and Violet Grohl, the 20-year-old daughter of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl. Nepo punk-wannabe baby! 

Do you think the original Sex Pistols
would have put up with "Punk Royalty"?

In other words, CBGB Festival is pretty much CBGB in logo only. Another difference is the price of admission. Tickets start at the "affordable" $99(!) for "Young Punks". The three other tiers top out up at $799 for what they refer to as the "Very Very Important" section for "Punk Royalty", which is rather oxymoronic if you ask me. Among the many goodies provided for the VVIP are "Flushable, air-conditioned restrooms", which the real CBGB patrons would have destroyed before the night was over. 

Music aside, what interests me the most is the inclusion of Morrissey. His British nationalist leanings have caught flack from the press both here and abroad (you can even find a list of "The Ten Greatest Songs Hating Morrissey"). The backstage interactions with the famously progressive Patti Smith should be interesting, if not outright hostile. 

Morrissey -- the inspiration for
Mannequin Pussy?

Another problem for some ticketholders is that Morrissey, a take-no-prisoners vegetarian, has long prohibited the serving of meat-based products at his concerts. Will he put the kibosh on kielbasa upon hitting the stage at CBGB Fest? If so, this would be the most genuinely punk move of the night. 

If you're wondering why CBGB Festival isn't happening at the club itself, the dump closed its greasy doors in 2006. Today, it's the home of the high-end clothier John Varvatos, who peddles something called the "Tom Petty Fringe Jacket" for $4,000. If you want to get an idea of the real CBGB, you'll have to visit the Punk Rock Museum in -- natcherly! -- Las Vegas. General admission will set you back $49.99. 

Coincidentally, I've got $49.99 that says two of the Very Very Important Punks in the $799 seats will be Jeff Bezos and the missus, torn jeans and all. And if Kash Patel shows up, the other VVIPs better be careful when he starts hitting the Budweiser. No telling what mischief he'll get up to. Suing the Atlantic for a quarter billion bucks -- so punk!

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THE BIG ORANGE

Now you know why the New York Knicks' color
is orange.

 I knew I was saving my KN95 masks for a good reason! And, as with covid, the reason has come from another country. Only this time, it's allegedly an ally. Is Canada still holding a grudge against our most recent invasion of its land? That was in 1812, so I think it's time they let passe c'est les passe, n'est-ce pas?

I never thought I'd put "Milton
DeLugg" and "prescient" in the
same sentence.

If any non-New Yorkers are reading this, let me set your mind at ease: those photos and videos on your newsfeed have not been Photoshopped, airbrushed or otherwise tinted. While there was a faint haze in the air on Tuesday morning, by 5:00 in the afternoon I suddenly realized, Hey, this apartment smells like smoke! Down went the windows, where they have remained since.

On Wednesday morning, the haze was thicker -- you could look at the sun with very little squinting -- and the smell still hanging around like a relative still in your guest room long after you dropped hints about the next train back where they came from. 

This would have been scary enough.

But it was only after lunch the sky resembled something out of a 1950s sci-fi movie. The sun was gone, as was the grey haze; the sky was now a deep, smokey orange, casting a darkness across the city that would have had Puritans preparing for the Apocalypse. The photo from my wife's iPhone, taken through our living room window, doesn't do it justice, but it's better than the one I got from my Android. (That's the problem with "helpful" cameras that automatically "correct" the image's "faults".)

When the color on the map goes beyond
that of the worst listed condition, time's up.

Perhaps we would have gotten a better shot if we had gone outside, but that wasn't an option. Around the time the above photo was taken, New York officially had the worst air quality in the world. And when you've seen photos of Beijing at rush hour, brother, that's saying something -- like, Don't make me go outside!

To put it scientifically: the EPA's Air Quality index begins at 0, meaning Good. It goes to 300 for Hazardous before topping out at 500. Late yesterday afternoon, New York hit 484. These little town blues are choking away...

I took this a couple of hours before the orange
invasion, when things were merely gray.
Somewhere in the background is the
Queensborough Bridge; it was just as
invisible in person.

The usual Upper East Side life switched off as a result. Traffic on our block trickled to almost nothing. The pedestrians usually walking to the nearby park were nowhere to be seen. Birds went silent. The world was coming to an end, and what did we have to show for it? Speaking personally, Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions, sneakers for Pickleball which I still haven't played, and an uncorked bottle of Chateau Haut-Methee Bordeaux, 2015. I knew I should have opened it already!

As for the rest of the city, the Yankees called off their night game, Shakespeare in the Park cancelled its first two performances of the season, and even some Broadway shows were cancelled. Most shockingly, the WGA called off picketing for the rest of the week! 

Two out of three...

As I look out my window now (9:45 a.m. EDT) the sky is hazy, but similar to what you might
you might see on a warm summer day. But having already gone outside this morning for a muffin, I smelled the smoke even through the mask. Meteorologists predict things will get bad again this afternoon, and won't start to clear out until storms pass through this weekend. A shift in the wind will blow the smoke back to Canada where it belongs. They might consider it a third invasion, but, hey, they started it.

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MOVIE OF THE DAY: "APOLOGY FOR MURDER" (1945)

Maybe it's just my dumb luck, but I never met a woman who convinced me to murder her husband. It seemed to be all the rage in '40s movies, though, to the point where the studios were flirting with copyright infringement. 

Picture the dingy office of Sigmund Nuefeld, the president of PRC Pictures. Surrounded by clouds of cigar smoke, Nuefeld is sitting across the desk from his brother, director Sam Newfield. (If you don't want to be accused of nepotism, make the name change just a little less obvious, bub.) They're discussing the studio's next round of releases. 

SIGMUND: I was thinking -- remember Double Indemnity?

SAM: What, with Stanwyck and whatshisname, Freddie Murray? 

SIGMUND: Fred MacMurray. Yeah. It made a mint. Why don't we just do another version?

SAM: A remake? Paramount owns the property.

"Hey, didn't MacMurray and
Stanwyck meet on the stairs, too?"

SIGMUND: No, not a remake. Just -- the same, only different. Dame puts the moves on some sap, gives him a song and dance about her mean rich husband. Convinces the sap to knock him off so they can collect the shekels and run away. Only instead of an insurance agent, the guy's a reporter. And the Edward G. Robinson part, the insurance investigator who smells a rat? We make him the newspaper editor who smells a rat. 

SAM: Sig, you're a genius. Say, you've got Hugh Beaumont and Ann Savage under contract. Squint your eyes and they look like Murray and Stanwyck.

SIGMUND: MacMurray. Think you could finish it by Friday?

SAM: Gimme an extra C-note and you'll have gift-wrapped on Thursday.

SIGMUND: Whaddaya trying to do, break the budget?

One of the most shameless unofficial remakes ever made, Apology for Murder entertains whether you've seen Double Indemnity or not. In fact, it may be even more entertaining if you have, just to marvel at how they got away with it by making the smallest of changes.

Don't do it, Hugh! She isn't worth it!

Like instead of the sap cracking the husband on the skull before making it look like he fell off a train, the sap in Apology for Murder cracks him on the skull before making it look like he drove off a cliff. Oh, and the sap is typing his confession when his boss walks in on him at the office in the middle of the night rather than speaking it into a Dictaphone when his boss walks in on him at the office in the middle of the night. Things like that kept the Paramount lawyers away from the door.

I knew there was a reason why I once referred to Hugh Beaumont as the Poverty Row Fred MacMurray. Not only is there a physical similarity, they sound pretty near the same as well. He even keeps calling Ann Savage "baby" the way MacMurray does Stanwyck. They probably could've traded their roles in Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons without anyone noticing the difference.

The grief-stricken widow poses for a
shutterbug.

Come to think of it, that leads to another similarity --  the initial shock of seeing a baby-boomer icon of family sitcom fun as a killer. But a key difference is that MacMurray, in Double Indemnity, is a sleazeball right from the get-go, more than happy to start an affair with a married woman, even if it means sending the husband on a one-way trip to the morgue.

Beaumont, on the other hand, as affable newspaper reporter Kenny Blake, is led to believe that Toni Kirkland (Ann Savage) is single until their affair gets red hot. Kenny looks for an out, but once Toni flashes those baby-blues, pickers her lips and gives him the ol' song-and-dance about her terrible husband, they start brainstorming their matricide machinations. 

It's hard for a reporter to maintain his
objectivity when he's the real killer.

Once hubby is over the cliff, things start to go awry. Kenny's editor assigns him to cover the husband's death, which, despite having the aura of an accident, has more than a whiff of murder. Something of a drinker already, Kenny really becomes friendly with Jim Beam when the boys from Homicide pin Harvey's death on a business associate, Craig Jordan. While Toni is delighted that Craig is going to take the rap all the way to the gas house, Kenny is conscience-stricken. 

Adding insult to psychological injury, his editor discovers that Toni's having an affair with her lawyer, Allen Webb. "Anyone who'd go for a phony like her," the editor confidently tells Kenny, "can't be very bright." Ouch! (In one of those only-I-would-notice things, Kenny's editor is named Ward, which was Hugh Beaumont's character on Leave it to Beaver. To those who say there are no coincidences, I say... Eh.)

A man can take just so much from a dame, so when Kenny decides to pay Toni a visit in order to catch her with Webb, guns are drawn. ("You raise murder to a high degree of efficiency," Kenny tells her almost admiringly.) In short order, all three are plugged, with Kenny living long enough to drive back to work in order to write his confession. Frankly, it was no more convincing when MacMurray did it in Double Indemnity.

The Brangelina of Poverty Row. 

Where Apology for Murder surpasses Double Indemnity is the stars' sexual heat. Lacking Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler's brilliant dialogue, Beaumont and Savage have to rely strictly on their own personal style, and it's more than enough. Fitting of their Hollywood status, neither resemble A-level movie stars; nor do the slightly grungy sets scream glamor. But as many a B-movie has proven, sexual steam rises higher when it mirrors real life.

Ann in a not-so savage moment.

Much of that heat is freely emitted by Ann Savage, the greatest of the Poverty Row bad girls. Just watch her here when she first realizes that Beaumont's the Class A-1 pigeon she's been waiting for. No words are spoken -- just the look in her eyes and a razor-thin, humorless smile telegraph what she has in mind. I've always had a thing for film noir dolls, the kind you don't know whether to kiss or kill. And Beaumont ultimately does both, muttering, "You're not to fit to live" as he pulls the trigger after she's shot him. 

Yet even as life drips from him, he lovingly whispers to her corpse, "Wait for me, baby. I won't be long." Despite being played for the king of fools, he still can't get over her. And apparently, neither could movie director Guy Maddin, having cast Savage in the lead of his black & white noirish release, My Winnipeg in 2007, a year before her death at 87. What a doll. 

PRC director Edgar G. Ulmer supposedly claimed that the studio's original title for Apology for Murder was Single Indemnity, which is either a good joke or a shamelessness unmatched even by Hollywood standards. But as film historian Michael Price pointed out, before the TV-era there was usually no way you could ever see your favorite movie again once it left town. These low-budget copycat releases helped you re-live the experience. (Today's studios, however, have no excuse.)

Taken strictly on its own terms, Apology for Murder is a fine hour's entertainment.  While the dialogue isn't as hard-bitten as Double Indemnity's, it's certainly well chewed by its stars. Jack Newfield's direction makes sure the pace never flags. Best of all, Hugh Beaumont and Ann Savage are no less mesmerizing than their A-list counterparts. Apology for Murder has nothing to apologize for.

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To read about another Hugh Beaumont shocker, Money Madness, click here.

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "TEAR GAS SQUAD" (1940)

From the time Al Jolson opened his yap in The Jazz Singer, the movie musical became one of the mainstays of American culture. My Fair Lady... Funny Girl... The Sound of Music... Tear Gas Squad...

Wait, what the -- Tear Gas Squad? You mean you don't remember that? Neither do I, hardly, and I just watched it the other day. Not that I was planning on watching a musical. Not with that title and its 55-minute running time -- technically, five minutes shorter than what a feature was considered back then. Never was such a baldfaced bait-and-switch perpetrated on ticket buyers.

It must have taken the writers longer to watch the final product than to have written it. Small-time crooner Tommy McCabe becomes a cop to impress Jerry Sullivan (a woman, so don't get any ideas), who comes from a family of policemen. A hothead by nature, Tommy is soon canned when he punches out fellow cop and romantic rival Bill Morrisey. But he redeems himself by catching the gangsters who killed his brother Joe.

Everybody sing! (If you're not too gasp-jammed.)

Yeah, that has "musical" written all over it. Or at least it does with the four songs McCabe sings. But the numbers he's given here don't even count as forgettable. It's as if they didn't exist to begin with. (One of them, performed at the chintzy tavern where he works, is called, "I'm an Officer of the Law." It's funny because his character has always hated cops. Get it?) 

The low budget is betrayed by the seemingly-endless stock footage during  police manhunts. (One sharp-eyed viewer over at imdb.com noticed the Warner Bros. water-tower, complete with logo, which gives you an idea of the care that went into this production.) Movies like Tear Gas Squad were made strictly to pump product into the studio-owned movie chains. Thank God the auto manufacturers didn't own repair shops -- the number of accidents caused by second-rate jalopies would have skyrocketed.

Was John Hamilton ever young?

Hey! Superman don't need no gun!

The thing that Tear Gas Squad has going for it is the supporting cast. Anyone who grew up in the '60s would get lockjaw from saying, "Oh my God, that guy!" Two future stars from Superman, George Reeves and John "Great Caesar's Ghost!" Hamilton appear as Tommy McCabe and Chief Ferris respectively. Reeves gives it his all -- you can tell that he thought this was a stepping stone to better things. Too bad he thought wrong. Hamilton does his usual "I'm in charge here" routine that he appeared to have patented some time during the McKinley administration.

"Stop! Or I'll shoot my
baby blues at you!"

The only time Buchanan
appeared to have bathed.

Hebert Anderson, who two decades later would play the father on Dennis the Menace, plays rookie Pliny Jones, even though he doesn't look like he could handle being a school traffic-guard, let alone a cop. A pre-Petticoat Junction Edgar Buchanan ("That's Uncle Joe, he's a-movin' kinda slow...") is Jerry's slob of a cousin Andy.  Buchanan spends all of his time with suspenders pulled over an undershirt, like all off-duty Irish cops in movies like these. He's so young (37) he'd be unrecognizable without his froggy voice. And even then, I didn't recognize him until his very last scene.

"What am I this time?"

Then there's Frank Wilcox, who would go onto... well, let's see. There's The Bill Dana Show, Bewitched, Perry Mason, Mod Squad, Mr. Ed, Mona McCluskey, Wild Wild West, Beverly Hillbillies... Had enough? You remember the guy -- an authority figure, whether it be a judge, doctor, banker or, here, cop. Resonant voice, no-nonsense manner, distinguished mustache. Probably second only to Charles Lane for appearing incessantly on prime time television. It's really something that he was believable in each role since you saw him as a different character every goddamn night of the week.

"Who you callin' 'cro-magnon'?"

"I'll just have a wee
drop o' the wee dram o' the
wee whiskey."

A couple of other familiar faces turn up, too, playing their usual types. Ben Welden, who, if he hadn't become an actor, would had to have become a two-bit crook. (In today's beauty-obsessed society, he'd have no choice.) Scottish-born Mary Gordon could play Irish (as she does here) or British (as Mrs. Hudson, the housekeeper in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies) although her accent never changed. A method actor she wasn't.

She's the most masculine of the three.

All of Tear Gas Squad's character actors completely overwhelm the lead players by their mere presence. Not that the stars aren't good. Morgan is a fine singer, although that Irish tenor style went out when Dennis Day retired, if not sooner. 

And you can't help but feel sorry for John Payne (as Bill Morrisey) since he's just too nice for Gloria Dickson's Jerry. I can't figure out why they're battling over her since she doesn't seem worth it. Jerry's been leading Bill on forever even though she has no intention of getting serious with him. In fact, she seems to enjoy watching Bill and Tommy go at it. (I've been there, guys -- forget her!) Add to this the fact that she happily lives with a houseful of cops who watch over her like Stasi agents, and you see this chick has some real issues. And she's not even that pretty, for cripes sakes. She must give off some serious pheromones. 

So if you have a thing for inane, schizophrenic, lower-case "e" entertainment, then by all means wallow in Tear Gas Squad's charms. If not, you can regard it as an audio-visual history lesson -- an example of a time when something had to be projected onto a screen for a couple of days. The strange thing is, if you added some new numbers and re-wrote the script, it would make for the next cult off-Broadway comedy -- Tear Gas Squad!: The Musical. Now that might be worth watching.

By the way, the tear gas squad doesn't show up until the final three minutes. Right before Dennis Morgan sings to Gloria Dickson while his horse looks away in utter boredom. 
                                            
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The original trailer for Tear Gas Squad. Everything about it is a lie. (The video may take a few seconds to appear.)