Cherry picking The Fabulous Forties

I recently polished off Mill Creek's Fabulous Forties 50 movie box set and was quite surprised by the lack of filler or outright duds. That's not to say it didn't benefit from a complete absence of mediocrity as evidenced by the presence of films featuring bland fictional characters like Dr. Kildare, The East Side Boys, Dick Tracy and Ronald Reagan, but there were a surprising number of near classics and interesting anomalies. So with apologies to Kim Jee-Woon, here are The Good, The Bad, The Weird and The Honorable Mentions of The Fabulous Forties set...

The Good

Guest in the House (1944) 

My love affair with director John Brahm continues in this unsung little psychodrama that was made just prior to his masterpiece, Hangover Square. The main attraction is an over-tightly wound performance by a young, scrumptious Anne Baxter as Evelyn Heath, the patient/romantic interest of Doctor Dan Proctor (Scott McKay). As the story opens, Doctor Dan has brought Evelyn home to meet the family for the first time as a prelude to marriage. However, an early indicator that all is not well in Evelyn-world comes when a young female relative attempts to stroke Evelyn's cheek after complimenting her on her beauty and Evelyn recoils in revulsion and yells at the child not to touch her. Nope, nothing wrong here at all. The story drags on a bit early as characters are introduced, but once the machinations kick in by Baxter's character, the fun begins. Ralph Bellamy, who was one suave gent in his prime, plays the elder, married brother of Dr Dan and spends the movie trying to deflect some very unwanted attention from Evelyn. The melodramatic aspects of the film reaches campy levels on occasion but Brahm's stylish, atmospheric direction keeps it from spinning out of control and almost makes you forget the entire film takes place only in the family's house.

Score 7.5/10

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Previously on my list of shame of unseen greats, the incredible cast alone merits an immediate watch but this is also an excellent blend of noir and melodrama with an intelligent script by Robert Rossen. Both Kirk Douglas and Van Heflin take on uncharacteristic roles - normally they would have been given each other's part - but they're both still outstanding. Lewis Milestone's direction is competent but it's the script and actors that make this one a classic.

 Score 8.0

The Red House (1947)

This is an understated American gothic thriller with some disturbing psychosexual overtones that stars Edward G Robinson. Despite Delmer Daves very perfunctory and uninspired direction, the film works mostly because of the taboo undercurrents in the script that exist between Robinson's farmer, Pete, and his adopted daughter, Meg, who is played with doe-eyed earnestness by Allene Roberts. Roberts is very good in this role and spends a great deal of the movie looking wounded with tears threatening to spill out of her eyes at any given moment due to her character's confusion over Pete's behavior. It's surprising that such a young inexperienced actor is able to hold her own when sharing the screen with Robinson. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Lon McCallister who gets blown off the screen repeatedly whenever he's in a scene with Robinson and is easily the weakest presence in the film. Julie London and Rory Calhoun co-star in early roles and are both quite enjoyable as the bad boy and wanna-be bad girl. And finally, the great Judith Anderson plays against type as the compassionate sister of Pete. The movie does well in building up the mystery and tension between Pete and Meg and is surprisingly frank at one point when Anderson's character asks Meg if Pete has put his hands on her. Strong stuff for 1947. There were problems, however, in the creation of atmosphere. The day for night shooting was readily apparent to the point of distraction and there were wasted opportunities at the end when we finally get to the red house and it just doesn't look that imposing or scary. Overall though, the film is an engaging old-school, gothic melodrama with really good performances by Robinson and Roberts.

Score 7.25

D.O.A. (1950)

Fast-paced noir that never takes its foot off the pedal as Edmond O'Brien seeks to find out who poisoned him and why. Simple, straightforward storytelling with the only flaw being an annoying slide-whistle when the ladies walk by.

Score 7.5

The Last Chance (1945)

Believable story involving two WWII POWs who escape from a train in Italy and attempt to make their way to the Swiss border. The realistic nature of this one caught me off guard, but unlike Rossellini's War trilogy, there are some Casablanca-like sentimental moments that will bring a tear to your eye as well. The fact that there are no big recognizable stars is a plus and the settings seem to be the real locations, again echoing Rossellini's work. It misses a couple of opportunities to go very dark, but is nevertheless far from the average feel-good war movie of the era. Films like this are the reason I buy Mill Creek sets.

7.75

The Bad

This is the Army (1943) 

I know it's not fair to pick on a propaganda film from this era whose heart's in the right place, but this was one of the most overly sentimental, dull, unimaginative and yet overblown productions I've seen. Ronald Reagan, who may have had charisma for a politician, is a complete charm void as an actor and helps scuttle the film towards the end that features a smarmy romance and a climactic musical number involving a bunch of army guys marching around to an uninspired Irving Berlin tune. The shockingly offensive minstrel number (I know, it was a different time, but when one of the characters asks rhetorically "Who says minstrel shows are outdated?" you know stuff like this was way past its expiration stamp even then.) just one more nauseating thing to be endured in this wildly dated affair. I can get on board with a little blind patriotism and can even overlook a some era-appropriate racism, but wow. Ironically, the only real entertaining musical number comes from Joe Louis' African-American pals who unfortunately have to display their considerable skills against a stereotypically offensive mural backdrop.

Score 3.0

Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941)

I usually get annoyed when people criticize a film for what it isn't, but I will now proceed to do just that. However, I do think a film about a dedicated teacher should spend more than a few seconds showing that person actually teaching or interacting with her students in some meaningful way. Films like Stand and Deliver and Mr Holland's Opus show their respective teachers making a connection and actually teaching. In Cheers for Miss Bishop, the school and students are merely a backdrop for the titular character's love life. It's just a given that she's a great teacher but we never see why and it seems unrelated to her personal life to a large degree. I have nothing against romantic movies but this one seemed a bait and switch focusing solely on the soap opera aspects to the exclusion of all else. Plus, the character is just not that engaging nor her affairs that intriguing to hold interest for a story which spans almost her entire adult life. Martha Scott as the lead is fine, I blame the lazy, Harlequin script on this one. 

4.75

The Town Went Wild (1944)

Utter predictability is death to comedy and I could see every comic beat coming a mile away in this 40's screwball picture. The movie plays it safe as well teasing the audience with a possible incestuous relationship we know will never materialize. The characters are overly broad and the situation not as clever as it thinks. Even my love for Edward Everett Horton didn't help me through this groaner. The only joke punch that landed with me was the lodge member with the incredibly huge moose head-hat.

Score 4.0

The Weird

Li'l Abner (1940)

I was ready to hate on this thing like no one's business when I began watching. I'm not a fan of any of Al Capp's work and a live action version of dumb, grotesque hillbillies cavorting around the fictional land of Dogpatch seemed anything but appealing. But a weird thing happened about halfway into this, I actually started to enjoy and even admire it. Like Altman's Popeye, the film meticulously recreates the cartoon's world in every ridiculous aspect and the actors go for broke as well in their portrayal of the incredibly goofy characters. Mona Ray and Johnnie Morris as Li'l Abner's parents, Pansy and Lucifer, are particularly good and weirdly convincing. Though the movie is as dumb, obvious and predictable as its source material, it nevertheless has a certain charm and entertainment value.

5.75

That Uncertain Feeling (1941)

Burgess Meredith steals married Merle Oberon away from her husband, Melvyn Douglas. That's how weird this Ernst Lubitsch comedy is. Oberon's character, Jill Baker, gets convinced by her psychiatrist that she's bored with her marriage and she decides to have a fling with snooty artist Alexander Sebastian (Meredith). I'm not entirely sure what the message of the film was suppose to be (having a fling with a short pretentious snob will make your marriage stronger?) but I kind of liked its nonsensical wackiness. Plus, the leads were really enjoyable particularly Oberon who never fails to captivate.

Score 6.5

The North Star (1943)

This one is strange in a variety of ways. First, it's an American studio propaganda film with Russian characters as the heroes. Second, it begins as a very lighthearted, feel-good musical before the Nazi's show up and put the brakes on the fun. Third, it was later deemed subversive by The House Un-American Activities Committee (ya, but weren't we allies with the Soviet Union when the film was made?) 

Setting aside the over romanticization of the peasant's lifestyle in the movie, it is a fairly accurate and rare take on the Nazi invasion of the USSR. The self-imposed scorched earth policy and the examples of Nazi brutality actually did occur and I was surprised that this movie went there after starting off so light and breezy but it certainly made its point effectively. As far as the commie "subversiveness" goes, you really need to break out a large magnifying glass to see it. The only things I noticed were a brief shot of the hammer and sickle flag and one or two uses of the word "comrade". I think what probably irritated Tailgunner Joe and his boys was a reminder that we couldn't have beaten the Nazi's without the heroic Ruskies.
The quality of the film is well above average with some able direction by Lewis Milestone who also made All Quiet on the Western Front and the previously mentioned The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. The cast is solid also with Anne Baxter, Walter Houston, Dana Andrews and Walter Brennan in the lead roles. Although it falls victim to a bit too much sentimentality and a traditional-for-the-era ending, it's still a very interesting trip to a place and time rarely visited by western audiences.

7.0

Honorable Mentions

Pot O' Gold (1941) A poor but happy music shop owner moves to the city to help his rich but miserable uncle. Leading roles in movies like this were taylor-made for Jimmy Stewart. 7.0

 My Man Godfrey (1936) Mill Creek kind of cheated with the inclusion of a 30's movie in a 40's set but I'm glad they did as William Powell is very dry but likable and Carole Lombard is appropriately daffy in this enjoyable screwball comedy. 7.5

Shock (1946) Modest, somewhat predictable thriller, but when has Vincent Price ever been less than awesome? 6.75

His Girl Friday (1940) I can't stand Cary Grant, but Rosalind Russell steals this film and dominates throughout with her fast-talking and comic timing. 7.25

The Day the Clown Died

"It was bad, bad, bad. It could have been wonderful, but I slipped up."

-Jerry Lewis commenting on The Day the Clown Cried 

No cinephile among us can resist the lure of an obscure film. Whether it's rumored to be a masterpiece or epic failure, there's something irresistible about an unseen or rarely viewed movie. It's why new releases, no matter how critically panned, always get at least a few adventurous viewers. It's why old movies, no matter how commercially unsound, never fade away completely. Hardcore fans just love the road less traveled, even if it's purported to be bumpy.
Recently, I've been going through Edward L Cahn's directorial catalog focusing specifically on his prolific and diverse genre work from 1955 to 1962. In this 7-year period, he made just shy of 50 b-movies, mostly for AIP, including westerns, horror, sci-fi, crime and family dramas. Cahn's films will never be considered great, or even good, but they are expectation breakers that do surprise, albeit mildly, for their better than average pacing, structure and execution. What set his work apart from other run-of-the-mill low budget filmmakers of the era is his consistently solid technical skills. Despite his immense output, none of Cahn's efforts appear slapdash, muddled, padded or error-riddled as is often the case of cost-conscious genre films from this era. The stories are formulaic and somewhat predictable, but Cahn's It! The Terror from Beyond Space, which concerns a monster loose on a spaceship, predated Ridley Scott's Alien by two decades, and Invisible Invaders, featuring slow-walking, non-voodoo zombies beat George Romero to the punch as well. However, I think Cahn's biggest strength is his well-paced, lean and to-the-point style which probably stems from his early background as an editor on major productions in the twenties. There's often an efficiency in storytelling that occurs in Cahn's films that speaks to his directorial ability to pre-edit his work a la John Sayles. His technical gaffs are limited as well which is surprising considering the speed, quantity and inexpensiveness of these productions. Though the stories are often straightforward presentations of their given sub-genre and the budgets are limited, the quality of execution and streamlined style of Edward L. Cahn always makes his features eminently watchable and pleasantly engaging. To be sure, none of his films will ever make any 'best of' lists, including my own, but they continue to surprise by how terrible they aren't.

I have to be honest. When I see a single-digit number of user ratings in IMdB, especially for a film that's widely available on a streaming service, I am more than a little intrigued. A grand total of 5 people had rated Edward L Cahn's The Clown and the Kid before I got to it, thereby qualifying it as obscure enough to watch despite the fact that neither clowns nor boys are ordinarily my thing. On the surface, the film sounded syrupy and maudlin to cringe-inducing proportions. And I knew the extreme low budget-ness was not going to help matters. But Cahn beat my low expectations yet again with his simple, uncluttered storytelling and resourcefulness. Even though the movie does indeed brim with sentimentality, the director delivers an enjoyable, innocent, sincere drama that beats the heck out of any live-action stuff of a similar vein that Disney would do in the 60's. Michael McGreevey, who would later co-star in a lot of Disney television and movies, plays the titular kid, Shawn. Don Keefer, who plays Shawn's dad, is the early incarnation of Moko the clown. At the start of the film, Shawn and Moko are performing a sort of clown and pony show at a carnival when Shawn's dad decides to move to Texas due to his failing health so that Shawn can attend the same orphanage where clown/dad was raised. We know dad is not long for this world when his nitroglycerin pills make an early appearance. In 60's movie and TV convention, when you see the heart meds come out, the character taking them will be gone within three scenes one way or another. Moko-dad, who undoubtedly understood this rule, makes some early check-out preparations with Shawn while on their drive to Texas. This scene, which is certainly manipulative, never comes off as cloying even when Shawn asks permission to cry. A lot of the credit goes to the veteran character actor Keefer for his good sense of timing and ability to steer the scene emotionally. But the real star of the film, John Lupton, shows up only after Moko-dad has shaken off his mortal coil. In an interesting twist, Lupton plays escaped convict, "Pete", who stumbles onto Shawn and soon-to-be-discovered-dead dad when he tries to steal some food from their camp. Pete gently cons Shawn into accompanying him the rest of the way to Texas and father-son friendship ensues. Pete assumes the Moko role, more out of self-preservation than design, and he and Shawn seek out employment on the way to the orphanage. A female amusement park owner eventually enters the picture and there are kindly nuns plus a smart horse as well. It all sounds gag-inducingly sweet, I know, but Cahn keeps it from going outright schmaltzy and Lupton never panders with his performance. Lupton, like Keefer, was a journeyman TV and movie character actor with a substantial amount of experience. I was recently very impressed by him in Mark Stevens'  1957 underrated western Gun Fever in which he played a tubercular gunfighter turned miner who harbors a dark past. In The Clown and the Kid both Lupton and Cahn are better than the movie they are working on, yet neither uses it as an excuse to phone in their work. Maybe that's what I admire most about Cahn, despite having cheap tools and inferior material he still takes the job seriously and delivers an adequate product.

Score: 5.75/10

Herz So Good

If you were browsing Netflix Instant last year and passed on viewing this film based solely on its incredibly generic title and tagline, I don't blame you. "What are you scared of?" isn't exactly the most conceptually brilliant marketing line and the name Darkness was used earlier in the decade in another haunted house film starring Anna Paquin. So it's completely understandable that someone would opt for something fresher sounding and original.  But let me retroactively try to entice you into tracking this one down by first offering a few screenshots...

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The film, originally titled T.M.A. (and I have no idea what that stands for, yet it's still better than the unimaginative english release title), was directed by Juraj Herz who was part of the Czech new wave back in the late 60's. Herz's most critically acclaimed film, The Cremator, was made 40 years prior to T.M.A. and is a very unsettling look at a control-freak restauranteur and part-time mortuary employee who finds that he fits right into the late 30's Nazi party. That the protagonist (who is played beautifully by Rudolf Hrusinsky), appears a polite, unassuming, ever-smiling, pleasure loving, family man makes him all the more chilling as he increasingly rationalizes his growing megalomaniacal madness. The film is a brilliant understated work that reminded me thematically of Wolfgang Staudte's Der Untertan (Man of Straw) only with a much darker tone and the blackest of comedy leanings.

Born in 1934, Herz was obviously deeply disturbed by the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia during his childhood as it shows up in his work often, not only in The Cremator and his latest film Habermann, but in T.M.A. as well. In fact, the Nazi backstory wasn't in the original T.M.A. screenplay by Martin Nemec, but was subsequently added in by Herz and definitely elevates the movie to something more than the average haunted house tale.
The plot involves a Prague rock guitarist, Marek (Ivan Franek), who decides to return to his childhood home and start painting. This is probably not the greatest idea since he subsequently finds out his house has a worse pedigree than the one in Poltergeist and the townsfolk, with one notable exception of the local postwoman, are none to friendly. As Marek gets the house in order and begins painting, weirdness ensues from every quarter.
The film sports a solid Fulci-esque ocular intro intercut with Marek's band rocking out in a club. It also features some enjoyable sleaziness in the middle when Marek's bandmates visit him with a groupie in tow. Even the ending has a mystery twist, and if not for its haunted house aspects, the movie could be categorized as more giallo than horror. What kept me guessing and off balance, was the multitude of red herring characters and plot devices introduced in the first half of the film. There are creepy townies, a mysterious archivist, a one-eyed, asylum-dwelling woman, a man-tastic singer and her sleazy, party loving boyfriend/manager, a property where ritualistic human sacrifices were purported to have taken place, a house with the world's worst plumbing that was previously occupied by the SS, a haunted radio that only plays the Oh du lieber Augustin song and some gentle, spectral Down's Syndrome kids who appear intermittently. All of these elements may prove one too many for some, but Herz ties it all up at the end, albeit a little too neatly.
The direction is consistently strong and Herz is unafraid to move the camera around even going hand held when appropriate. He also mixes in some dutch angles, overhead shots and lens filtering, but sparingly, and never as an annoying gimmick that wears out its welcome as in much modern horror. There's an unnecessary gore scene in flashback near the end that felt inserted just for the sake of it and an unexplained disappearance of a body but otherwise, the film is a stylish and atmospheric horror/mystery.
For those whose only experience with Juraj Herz is T.M.A., I'd strongly recommend checking out The Cremator and his superb 1978 Czech adaptation of Beauty and the Beast:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW519mpOlA8

Scores

T.M.A. 7.25
The Cremator 8.50
Beauty and the Beast 7.75

Sunshine (Award) on my shoulder

Thanks to Dusty over at the Playground of Doom blog for throwing some light in my direction and nominating me for The Sunshine Award*. It's always a pleasure to receive such attention from a like-minded cinephile, outstanding writer and all-around, good egg.

10 Questions 

1. Favorite actor/actress who is not a household name?

Nick Damici from Mulberry Street, Stake Land and the upcoming Somos lo que hay remake. Damici, in addition to being a fine actor, has an old-school tough guy look very reminiscent of Charles Bronson or William Smith and is anything but the omnipresent generic pretty-boy of modern day cinema.

Émilie Dequenne - a Belgian actress who made an impressive debut as a desperate underclass working girl in the Dardenne brother's Rosetta and followed this up playing royalty in Christophe Gans' fantastic genre mash-up Brotherhood of the Wolf. She continues to mix it up nicely doing horror like 2010's, The Pack, mysteries like 2006's, Fissures and more serious stuff like The Girl on the Train from 2009.

2. Favorite Animal?

The California King Snake -

There are a lot of rattlesnakes in Shasta County where I live. However, there are none where I work and it's due to this guy, who is a natural predator of the rattlesnake, but not a danger to people. Thanks for keeping me safe on the job California King snake, you do indeed rule. 

3. Favorite non-alcoholic beverage?

Almond chocolate milk - mmm, low calorie and delicious.

4. Favorite music?

I've got pretty eclectic tastes which is probably why movie soundtracks take up the majority of my ipod space. Everything from Bollywood to 70's Italian genre cinema.

5. Favorite TV show? 

Robin of Sherwood (1984-1986)  The weird thing is I don't like any of the Robin Hood cinema adaptations at all. This Richard Carpenter creation did it right though by filming on location, using Clannad's music and throwing in just a pinch of mysticism for flavor. Plus, Ray Winstone is the coolest Will Scarlet ever. Yes, the cheap film stock is grainy as hell, but it's still enjoyable despite this and quite different than any other incarnation of the story.

6. Favorite sport?

Baseball to watch, bowling to play.

7. Movie that most people love that I dislike?

Gone with the Wind is so melodramatic but still incredibly dull and plodding. Inglorious Basterds was a tonal mess with a ridiculous climax and the most unbelievable WWII film ever made.

8. Favorite short film?

Suspicious (1994) An urban legend-like, shaggy dog story that works thanks to Michael Rooker. Don't believe the insanely low rating on IMdB, this short is solid.

9. Passion?

No doubt about it, it's film. I'm averaging about 700 a year and watch virtually no TV nowadays. I've been getting into a lot of older films of late and am amazed by how much quality stuff I still haven't seen.

10. Favorite soundtrack from 2013?

Haven't seen any films from 2013! However, my favorite soundtrack of all time is from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Night of the Comet are two of the funnest pop soundtracks.

Blog Picks

There is no shortage of great movie blogs written, but the first two of the choices below are so good, they inspired me to start up my own humble effort.

1. Hans' Quiet Cool is an intelligent, incisive and gloriously esoteric look at the heyday of European genre cinema. 
2. Emily's insightful, humorous and very entertaining Deadly Doll's House of Horror Nonsense delves into some of the most obscure gourmet fromage horror films you've never heard of.  
3. Brian's Rupert Pupkin Speaks features some great lists of forgotten movie gems by knowledgable guests and Brian himself.
4. K.H. Brown's incredibly comprehensive Giallo Fever blog has covered about every giallo film ever made and many other Euro treasures as well. A great resource if you want to dig deep into the genre.
5. Although the posts are few and far between both Dean Brierly's Fifties Crime Films and Sixties Crime Films are quality looks at under-seen crime films from these decades.
6. The Euro-western genre is covered in extensive detail by Tom B. in Westerns... All' Italiana!
7. A blog that's relatively new to me, but I love the choices of films reviewed thus far is Jeffrey Canino's Nessun timore.
8. An old favorite, written by the Mill Creeps podcaster and GGtMC contributor Aaron is The Death Rattle blog.
9. Mykal covers many of my favorite classic sci-fi films from the golden age at the Radiation Cinema! blog
10. Another blog I'm new to written by a guy named Jeff who has outstanding taste in old movies (sounds familiar) is The Stalking Moon.

Thanks to all who take the time and make the effort to share their love of cinema. Some of the best movies I've viewed in recent years have been because of your writings.

*S.A. Rules -

Participation is strictly voluntary.

1. Include the award’s logo in a post or on your blog.

2. Link to the person who nominated you.

3. Answer 10 questions about yourself (use these or come up with your own).

4. Nominate 10 bloggers to pass the award on to.  (This is as much about sharing as it is about receiving.)  

5. Link your nominees to the post and comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

Clean My Shoes, Oscar Madison!

Wouldn't the 70's TV sitcom reprise of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple have been so much better if Felix and Oscar had been hit men? And wouldn't Henry Silva have made a much more interesting clean freak than Tony Randall? And wouldn't it have been great if they'd have had to go on a road trip together to France to rub out a potential mafia stoolie? Just think of the comic hijinks that would have ensued as an angry Silva frustratedly explained to an apathetic Klugman that he likes it clean just before they go in to kill a guy. What's that? You want to see such a show? Unfortunately, that version of the TV show never existed, but there was this little French film from 1965...

Based on the novel by Pierre Lesou, who also wrote the Melville adapted Le Doulos three years earlier, Je vous salue, mafia! (Hail, Mafia) is a serious, low key, existential trip involving two seemingly disparate hit men assigned to silence a potential mob informant in Marseille. Complications arise, however, when the mafia kingpin in jeopardy from the possible testimony is unexpectedly released from jail and calls off the contract. Ubiquitous 70's TV star, Jack Klugman, plays mafia soldier, Phil, who has personal reasons for wanting in on the hit and talks his way into the contract over the obvious disapproval of fellow button man and prospective partner Schaft (Henry Silva). The two men ultimately team up and fly to Paris to meet their contact (Micheline Presle) who has made arrangements to expedite the hit. Meanwhile, their target, Rudy Hamberg (Eddie Constantine), who has already eluded one attempt on his life, makes his own preparations.

I initially watched this film knowing only the title and that Silva and Klugman starred. I wasn't expecting much and the poor quality of the print I was viewing only served to dim any optimism. But by the end of the film, I was stunned at just how strong the story, atmosphere and characters were especially in the the last act which provides a truly sublime and fitting denouement to the proceedings. The plot is simple yet deceptive in its subtle execution. Developments that will serve as complications are casually introduced into the story in such an ordinary, slice-of-life fashion that their import can almost be missed amongst the banality. While the leads do everyday things like shave, bathe, read the paper and dine out, the plot still inches ever forward toward the inevitable. The stripped down, moody style of the film feeds right into this slow walk to oblivion with high contrast, stark, yet very bright, monochromatic photography, a crazy jazz soundtrack and a desolate rural setting in the final act. Silva and Klugman's hit men characters are the principle focus of the film and though they are anything but a squabbling Odd Couple, there is a fundamental difference in personal make up. Silva's Schaft is the erudite type as evidenced by his book loans to Klugman's Phil and his occasionally donned, thick-framed glasses. Despite admitting to speaking "not one word" of French, Schaft nevertheless uses the correct enunciation when giving directions to places like Dijon while Phil apathetically struggles with the foreign pronunciation. Phil, despite hailing from the same neighborhood in New York as Schaft, appears much less polished and more low class than Schaft by virtue of his bull-in-a-china-shop attitude, rumpled look and penchant for horse racing. Klugman's hangdog, schlubby physical appearance feeds right into this persona. There seems to be differences in personal philosophy between the two as well. At one point, Silva's character states simply "I like clean"  meaning he prefers the orderly, clear cut, structure and code of the mafia hit man. Klugman, who apparently disregarded the rules when he insinuated himself into the contract for his own reasons, doesn't appear to care about this, but nevertheless wants Silva's approval. This conflict between the two men causes an undercurrent of tension throughout the film that only surfaces in the beginning and near the end culminating in an almost Jules and Vincent-type time-out just before the hit when the characters stop and verbally hash out their differences. It's a climactic moment in the relationship that occurs just prior to the climax of the plot itself and serves its purpose well given how the story plays out.

There are some bumps early in the film including a few mediocre supporting performances by very minor characters, some choppy editing and a Manos-style, metronome-like section in an otherwise solid jazz score. The target's mistress and accompanying subplot were completely disposable as well. But these flaws were brief in duration, and believe me when I say, all is forgiven by the end of the final act when everything comes together perfectly to bring home one of the strongest and most satisfying endings I've seen in a crime film.

Score 8.25/10

Brahm's Concerto #1

The man above is the late movie and television director, John Brahm. In 1944, he remade a film originally done by the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, called The Lodger. In 1998, director Gus Van Sant also remade a film by Hitchcock called Psycho. Most people have heard of Van Sant's remake. Most haven't heard of Brahm's or his amazing follow up, Hangover Square. That's a shame. 

I know I'm beating a dead horse, or more accurately, stomping on the cremated ashes of a syphilitic mule, but I was really irritated by the Psycho remake. Maybe it's because I'd since seen someone do a far superior job of remaking one of the Hitchcock's films, maybe it's because the movie was such a discordant attempt to simultaneously update and nostalgia-fy a classic, but whatever the case, the Psycho redux was a mess. There were basically three glaring flaws with Van Sant's redo. Most importantly, the decision to film in color instead of the original's black and white fundamentally changed its gothic horror feel and not for the better. It's surprising just how little any added color it takes to change the stark and moody atmosphere of the original. Van Sant not only changed it, but exacerbated the situation by turning the hue contrast up to 11. The technicolor-like wardrobe choices were especially distracting and wildly out of place. Secondly, the anachronistic qualities of the film were often disconcerting and lacked the original's timeless quality. This was not unexpected as Van Sant was simultaneously matching shots from a 60's film in a 90's world. But why does Lila Crane sport a 90's Walkman, Norman Bates wear an 80's Zubaz shirt, and the local sheriff's wife make a call from her modern home phone by picking it up and ringing a 50's switchboard operator Mayberry-style? Was Van Sant trying to do a Pulp Fiction-like retro nod? If so, it was a huge misfire and just as distracting as the color blitzkrieg. If not, it was an egregious blunder someone should have pointed out early on in the filmmaking process. The third bad decision was the cast. Filling an iconic role is a losing proposition at best if you're a mediocre screen presence and Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche are tired, bland smirk-iness personified. Even the ever reliable Viggo Mortensen and William Macy look like they'd given up and were just going through the motions. The only actor who looked the least bit interested and actually gives an original cast member a run for the money, is Julianne Moore in the Vera Miles role. She actually brought some energy and emotion to the role and occasionally kept me engaged. But her presence wasn't enough to hold my attention for long due to bizarre casting choices like Flea and James Legros whose odd presence took me right out of the film. Ultimately, all the errors in judgement should be placed squarely at the feet of Van Sant who seemed to paradoxically want an exact duplicate of Hitchcock's Psycho that was nevertheless significantly different from it. Subliminal images, were they in the original? Van Sant set himself up for this contradictory failure by playing it safe and following precisely in Hitchcock's footprints - except when he decided to throw in some trivial but irritating weirdness that did nothing but annoy.  The only correct move he made was to re-use the Bernard Herrmann score, which of course, John Brahm could have told him was the right choice.

***

What does Henry Bemis have to do with this discussion? Simple, if you look up John Brahm's name in Wikipedia, it will tell you he was known primarily for directing 12 episodes of the original Twilight Zone including the classic episode, Time Enough at Last with Burgess Meredith as the bespectacled bookworm. Brahm also directed one of the finest of the original Outer Limits episodes, The Bellero Shield, and one of the best Thriller episodes, The Watcher. In fact, most of  his latter career was spent directing TV including, not surprisingly, over a dozen episodes combined of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. And therein lay the irony, the man who remade a Hitchcock classic that was, by most accounts, better than the original, wound up directing TV episodes for the man he once bested. I wonder if Hitch would have let Gus Van Sant work on his shows...

The Lodger was originally a black and white silent thriller made by Hitchcock in 1927. It starred Ivor Novello in the title role as a mysterious man who rents a room from a London family at a time when a serial killer known as The Avenger is stalking blonde women in the city. Like many films of the era, it is quite melodramatic and stage-y featuring overly long reaction shots from the actors. Even conceding the early limitations of a medium in its adolescence, Hitchcock's original falls well short of Brahm's remake in many respects. First and foremost is the cast, particularly Laird Cregar in the titular role, who makes Novello's lodger character in the original look absolutely wimpy and safe by comparison. Cregar's bulky 6'3", 300 pound frame alone makes him more imposing, but add to that his striking visage, bulging eyes and a voice that's sounds like a cross between Vincent Price and Orson Welles, and it makes for one of the biggest character role mismatches in cinema history. Cregar's acting skills, whether speaking or not, are also far superior to Novello's. It's one thing to have the tools, another to employ them well, and Cregar does in a magnetic and subdued performance. The other players in the remake are made up of some great Fox all-stars of the time including Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Sara Allgood and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. This group complemented Cregar perfectly, especially Oberon who also blows her original counterpart, June, out of the water in terms of screen presence, sex appeal and acting skills. Secondly, the story was re-written by Barré Lyndon with Jack the Ripper himself as the serial killer, a character implied by the original's Avenger, but never expressly stated. It's sounds like a small change but that historical character brings much more gravitas then the near-beer, stand-in version of 1927. There are also major changes to Cregar's character that work much better in building suspense, and the story's ending is far superior to the original's upbeat, yet tepid, weak tea. The remake was professionally produced by Robert Bassler with elaborate studio sets that simulate nicely the foggy London streets. The Victorian era garb is exquisitely reproduced adding much to the atmosphere as well. Brahm's direction takes full advantage of all these elements, wisely emphasizing Cregar's physicality, but never forgetting to build atmosphere with many nice overhead and street level shots of the city's set. In short, it's a magnificent production that improved on numerous components of the original while keeping the basic story and upgrading the thriller aspects. The remake of The Lodger was such a large commercial and critical success that Fox essentially put the same team together including producer Bassler, writer Lyndon, stars Cregar and Sanders, and director John Brahm to make another film in a similar vein the following year. Brahm had just outdone Hitchcock, with Hangover Square, he topped himself.

With heavy elements of noir and gothic horror, Hangover Square (1945) was Brahm's somewhat tonal sequel to The Lodger. Laird Cregar returned to play another sympathetic but flawed protagonist, George Harvey Bone,  an up-and-coming, London classical composer who suffers from stress related, fugue-like blackouts triggered by auditory dissonance. The film again co-stars George Sanders, this time as a Scotland Yard M.D., who initially helps Bone but subsequently suspects him of murder. Linda Darnell plays a very manipulative, noir-ish femme fatale that takes advantage of Bone and Faye Marlowe plays the good girl/sponsor who introduces Bone to her symphony conductor father (Alan Napier).

The other major star of the film, which goes uncredited but gets more screen time than anyone, is fire. Most critics mention the three major blazes that break out during the film (two of which are phenomenal both in terms of the story and visually) but fail to mention what a ubiquitous character fire is from first frame to last. The opening shot of the film is the flame from a street vendor's chestnut roasting cart and there are gas lit streets outdoors and candle lit interiors. There's even a construction pit outside Bone's residence with kerosene lanterns ringing it like Victorian era traffic cones. It's no coincidence that Brahm uses, and indeed, emphasizes flame or fire imagery at every turn. Not only does this work thematically to remind the viewer of the hellishness of Bone's obsessions, it also provides some fantastic gothic/noir atmosphere in virtually every scene. 

Brahm must have done some meticulous storyboarding as each shot is beautifully framed and composed. Brahm made use of high contrast shots, shooting from overhead, ground level and even some nice sweeping shots to highlight the urban sets and maintain visual interest. Over and over again, an otherwise ordinary scene would be enhanced by an interesting camera point of view or movement.

The film was cinematographer Joseph LaShelle's next project after he won the Academy Award for Laura and his work here is peerless as well. The lighting had to have been a struggle but everything was photographed clean, crisp and well illuminated, even in a scene where Sanders is intentionally photographed in deep shadow with Cregar well lit. 

As in Brahm's version of The Lodger, Cregar again puts in a great, sympathetic performance and is strongly supported by Sanders, Darnell, and surprisingly, a 17-year old Faye Marlowe in her first role in which she shows some incredible poise for a newcomer among veteran actors. Cregar's believability as a composer is aided immeasurably by his ability to actually play the piano and Brahm takes full advantage with several shots of Cregar's hands on the right keys matching the score. Darnell is drop dead sexy especially in her first cabaret number and does some subtle acting considering her character's one dimensional scope.

What elevates the film to an unequivocal masterpiece, is the 11-minute concert at its climax. I have never seen anything approximating this sequence in film. Bernard Herrmann's brilliant composition is somehow woven seamlessly into the plot as Bone plays the completed concerto while the same music simultaneously comments on the finale's events. The composition being played is scored perfectly to the events that unfold despite a change in pianist - twice! It's tough to explain and really needs to be experienced to fully understand and appreciate what Brahm and Herrmann pulled off, but this is one of the greatest endings in cinema - beautifully conceived, shot, scored, acted, edited and executed. The movie elements are so varied and intricate in this final scene, yet Brahm smoothly puts them all together and makes them flow with the Herrmann score perfectly.

In 2009, some guy named Ansel Faraj did a remake of Hangover Square. I think I'll skip it.

Scores: 

Psycho (1960) - 8/10

Psycho (1998) - 4/10

The Lodger (1927) - 7/10

The Lodger (1944) - 8/10

Hangover Square (1945) - 9/10

Hangover Square (2009) - ?/10

Around the World with Cameron Mitchell (part II)

And now on with the Cameron Mitchell world tour...

South Africa

Highlights: ESP-y Cam, baggy-cide and shower curtain-fu.

OK, Part I of the trip ended with some high-fallutin' Swedish art house cinema, so let's change it up by moving on to a gritty South African slasher from 1981, Percival Rubens' The Demon. In it, our boy Cameron stars as a pillow-thrashing, seemingly constipated, irritatingly ineffectual clairvoyant. The story gets out of the gate very quickly with a giallo-like predator kidnapping a girl after attempting to take out her mother in disturbing fashion with a Glad sandwich baggy. Slightly unstable psychic Colonel Bill Carson (Mitchell) is subsequently called in by the missing girl's parents to track down the killer, or find their daughter - it depends on which parent you ask. Carson attempts to accomplish his tasks by immediately tearing up the missing daughter's bedroom pillow, because apparently, that's just how he gets the job done. The story then switches to two pretty nursery school teachers/cousins/roommates and follows them (as does the killer, sort of) while they go about their lives.
The most interesting thing about The Demon (also written and produced by Rubens), is the sub-genre and story conventions that it breaks. The killer is shot mostly in third-person and appears liberally throughout the film sans mask, although he does in fact own one, but oddly chooses not to dawn it until his battle with the final girl. Similarly, he does not wear his special pre-NoES metal fingernail gloves (as seen in the movie poster), until the last act but instead opts for his weapon of choice, the sandwich bag. Speaking of which, the final showdown is a pretty enjoyable head-scratcher as the heroine gets naked to distract the killer with her diversionary bathrobe and then gears up in a shower curtain and cap before going mano a mano with him. I don't think I've seen this strategy employed before but I rather liked it, inexplicable as it was. Another broader break with convention involves a darkly humored plot twist that abruptly ends a story thread I was certain would continue to the climax. It was a ballsy move by Percival on one hand, but on the other, it makes the entire plot line somewhat superfluous and stretches character believability beyond the breaking point. Nevertheless, it was these types of unusual choices that made the film more intriguing than the average slasher. Of course a lot of the sub-genre's tropes are present like the much welcome nudity of the two female leads who are far better looking than the typical 'some nudity required' actresses that usually show up in these things.
The main problem with the film was that the sporadic pacing, lackluster dialogue and the uninspired soundtrack often killed the momentum and atmosphere the filmmakers had initially struggled to build. The beginning and ending of the story moved right along as the killer attempted to commit bag-icide, but there were stretches in the middle with the lead girls, especially when with their respective boyfriends, that are yawn-inducing. They were decent enough actresses but I think the script left them floundering with mundane lines at times. Mitchell himself seemed stiff and uncertain about what he was doing which is odd because I've seen him with much more confidence in much worse films. The composed music was predictable, strictly by-the-numbers stuff and did nothing to create mood or unease. Even the pre-recorded songs were incredibly on-the-nose, like Lipps Inc's, Funkytown played in the local disco or The Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight that's overheard through the walls of an urban building.
Overall, the film is only slightly above average horror with a few interesting moments but an uncertain performance by Mitchell. I wouldn't recommend to any but ardent fans of slashers.

6/10

Philippines 

Next stop, Manila, where Mitchell plays Harry Dodd, a sea captain who attempts to ferry a holiday cruise liner filled with martial arts fans to a legendary island so scary even the Japanese army wouldn't occupy it during WWII. Raw Force, aka Kung Fu Cannibals from 1982, is a low budget cheese-fest that has a little of everything including Filipino cannibal monks, captive naked women, martial arts zombie/ghosts, a nagging, do-ragged yenta and Hitler's greedy cousin. The elements of comedy, action, soft-core, and horror change like the weather and give the film a somewhat enjoyable train wreck quality as it carelessly jumps from one genre to another at will. It's a dumb, fun romp that mandates viewers check their brains at the door for maximum enjoyment. And although writer/director Charles Murphy's opus lacks the polish of a film by someone like Andy Sidaris, it's not for lack of enthusiasm. Even Mitchell looks to be having a good time in this seat-of-the-pants trash-fest playing the crabby, cantankerous captain who is constantly sparring with the ship's whiny, female, uber-Jewish owner, Hazel Buck, played with gusto by Hope Holiday. Despite some rough editing and the shipboard blackout-like comedy scenes which tend to overstay their welcome, the film moves along quite nicely frequently shifting genres and characters before atrophy can set in. I was happy to see that Mitchell's Dodd and his harpy boss Hazel were along for the ride throughout the movie as they give it some much needed anchoring with their bickering presence and there's a nice payoff to their characters at the end. Though the film doesn't quite live up to the awesomeness or production value its poster would suggest, it's still an enjoyable whacky B-film.

6.25/10

Mexico

We travel back to the west, in more ways than one, in the 1971 Mexican production, El sabor de la venganza (The Taste of Vengeance) aka An Eye for an Eye. Not to be confused with the similarly titled Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent Spanish western from 1966, this film follows the newer, darker stylistic trail set by Euro-westerns of the late 60's and early 70's.
The story gets out of the starting blocks quickly as a father and son are ruthlessly gunned down on their ranch by some bad hombres. It turns out, the son Judd, (Jorge Luke) was not killed and his vengeance-minded mother Sara (Isela Vega) subsequently grooms him to be a gunfighter with the help of a seasoned, world-weary killer. This sensei character is, of course, played by Cameron Mitchell in a role that seems tailor-made for him. Although I was expecting it to be just a walk-on part for Mitchell, he actually plays a significant role and is the conscience of the piece. Vega, as the Lady Macbeth-type mother, is really solid as well and even brings a nice bit of brutal payback down on a would-be masher ranch-hand early in the proceedings. In fact, the most surprising thing about the film was the violence which was harsh, unflinching and down right cold-blooded on more than one occasion. Oft-times, and fittingly, it was the vengeance-obsessed, protagonist Judd who was the most egregious at doling out the merciless violence even going to the extremes of committing rape and shooting an innocent man in the back. Judd's metamorphosis into a soulless killer is predicted by Mitchell's character early on when he warns the mother "you don't want him to turn out like me" and fits in quite nicely thematically speaking. The director, Alberto Mariscal, may have been a little heavy-handed in bringing his point home, but then again, Mexican cinema is not exactly known for its subtlety, and in this instance, the over-the-top, cold blooded aspect of the the lead character, Judd, was its strongest feature and really drove the point home. Unfortunately, Jorge Luke, is fairly average in screen presence so the character's change is not as chilling as it could have been. The villains are likewise nondescript which lessens the satisfaction of seeing them get their comeuppance. The look of the film is not bad, and though it lacks the style of its Italian counterparts, Mariscal occasionally pulls off a nice camera angle. The ultra-closeups favored by most Latin cinema are very present but happily aren't overused. I wish the soundtrack had been more present as the film really suffers from the absence of any mood-enhancing music. Overall though, the film was a better-than-expected, gritty and violent surprise with a decent turn by Mitchell. It's a bit tough to find, but worth a watch if you enjoy Euro-type westerns.

6.5/10

United States 

Finally, we're back where we started in sunny Cali- whaaaaat? Cuba? No, not really, it's actually Los Angeles doubling for Havana with a couple of well-placed Spanish-language signs in the 1959 slight error in political judgement called Pier 5, Havana. In this too-timely political/crime thriller, Mitchell stars as Steve Daggett, a Miami businessman who has come to post-Bastista Havana to find his friend who disappeared during the revolution.
While most modern day American filmmakers remain cautiously neutral when it comes to the internal political upheavals of other countries, B-movie king, Edward L. Cahn, had no such compunctions portraying the Castro revolution as a heroic liberation of the island from the Batista regime. The fact that the cartoonish-ly evil baddies in the story are hell-bent on overthrowing the new leader and restoring power to Batista exemplifies the movie's, largely de-facto, pro-Castro bent. It's an instantly dated point of view and amusing in it's naivety but ultimately forgivable considering the US's fair weather foreign policy. Also unintentionally humorous is the newly appointed, pro-Castro, police chief of Havana, Lt Garcia (Michael Granger), who seems to serve as yankee businessman Daggett's personal guardian angel. Garcia's entire job seems to involve waiting around for Daggett to get in over his head and then pulling his fat from the fire. Who knew Castro's cops would be so helpful to the Americanos?
As much fun as I had with the wonky politics of the film, they really take a backseat to the Daggett character's story which involves finding his friend, reconnecting with an old flame and fighting off those nefarious Batista-ites. The crime thriller aspect was the real crux of the film with the recent Cuban revolution more backdrop than anything else. In this respect, and taking into consideration the movie's low budget B-ness, it really works quite well. The pacing is quick, action is peppered throughout, the love interest angle is interesting and the political intrigue is engaging enough to hold attention throughout. Director Cahn, who worked on over one hundred low budget pictures was extremely competent and knew just what was needed to move a story along while still keeping it intelligible and digestible. Mitchell, as the lead, is at the top of his game with an action oriented, hard-bitten character who is both tough and vulnerable. B-movie goddess, Allison Hayes, is also very good as the old flame and adds an element of smolder-y-ness. The only real downside are the villains who are a pretty generic bunch with the exception of Otto Waldis who plays the appropriately named Schluss. All in all, the movie is a technically well-crafted, fun little 68 minute political anomaly with Mitchell and Hayes as the highlights.

6.5/10

I hope you enjoyed our trip around the world with Cameron Mitchell. The guy acted in some very entertaining and often off-kilter movies in some pretty disparate places. This and the previous post are just a small sample of his sizable filmography. If you want to continue the journey, I'd also recommend the following:

Blood and Black Lace (1964) M. Bava

Minnesota Clay (1964) S. Corbucci

Death of a Salesman (1951) L. Benedek

Monkey on my Back (1957) A. De Toth

Flight to Mars (1951) L. Selander (For lovers of fine quality cheese only)