Some Fritz Lang for November

Fury (1936), directed by Fritz Lang. This is Lang’s first American film, and like his magnificent film M (1931), Fury deals with justice, revenge, mob rule, and human ugliness. The plot is loosely based on an incident that took place in 1933, the same incident that is the basis for the later film Try and Get Me (aka The Sound of Fury ,1950). Lang’s film has an unusual structure, the first half or so dealing with common man Joe Wilson (Spencer Tracy) and his fiancé, Katherine Grant (Sylvia Sidney) who are working to save money for their wedding. Joe finds himself mistaken for a kidnapper and murderer and jailed for trial. The next turn in the narrative presents the local townspeople growing more and more furious and then forming a mob. The mob attacks the police station and burns it down with Joe inside. We have yet another narrative turn when we discover that Joe has not perished in the conflagration. He turns up at his brothers’ place and initiates revenge. Twenty-two members of the mob are indicted and put on trial for murder. The film has Lang’s cynical take on humanity in full form. Perhaps not the most visually impressive of Lang’s films, Fury nevertheless delivers a dark work in purposeful black and white photography. This is a chilling portrait of human stupidity. People are quick to judge and easily brought to frenzy by a few rabble-rousers. The scenes in which the mob attacks the precinct are eerily familiar after the events of January 6, 2021.

 

Woman in the Window (1944), directed by Fritz Lang. This is Lang’s dry-run for the following year’s Scarlet Street. Woman in the Window has its moments. It opens with a scene in a lecture hall, the psychology professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) intoning about the various types of murder, premeditated, accidental, manslaughter, etc. On the blackboard behind him we see the name Freud. This is a clue to the focus of the film on the good professor’s psychological state and also on his middle-aged libido. If we miss the point, then the following scene with the professor having drinks with two friends at his club underlines the theme of middle-aged men who worry about their waning sex lives. Professor Wanley, indeed. Suffice to say, the film has ingredients of noir such as a woman in the night (not, however, the standard femme fatale), a man trapped by his own missteps, rainy nights and dark streets, and a thug on the make. And yet, this concoction makes for more of a melodrama than a menacing noir, and a somewhat light melodrama at that. Robinson’s professor is a mixture of timidity, resolve, naivete, loyalty, and anxiety. He bumbles along, at times incriminating himself in front of his two friends, one a doctor and the other the District Attorney who is on a murder case that has everything to do with Professor Wanley. Did I forget to mention that a murder takes place, and the murder involves that woman in the window and the professor? Lang handles everything with a sure directorial hand, even the somewhat wry ending.

 

Scarlet Street (1945), directed by Fritz Lang. Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a mild-mannered, unassuming, cashier who has worked at the same place for twenty-five years. He has a harridan for a wife, and to find solace from the drudgery of everyday, he takes to painting on Sundays. This is the second of Lang’s films with Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea. Both films have something to do with painting. Here the painting proves more of a plot catalyst than in the previous film. Late one night, Cross encounters two people, a man and a woman, quarreling on a dark street. The man strikes the woman more than once, and Cross intervenes. Thus begins his descent into darkness. This woman, Katherine ‘Kitty’ March (Bennett), proves much more fatal than her counterpart in Woman in the Window. She and her beau, Johnny Prince (Duryea), set out to bilk poor Mr. Cross for all they can. As things go along, they discover that Cross’s painting, painting Cross thinks are worthless, prove to be a cash cow beyond their wildest dreams. Kitty soon passes herself off as the artist, while hapless Christopher toils away painting one work after another. As one character notes in a comment about Cross’s paintings, “he has no perspective,” and this is true both of his painting and his grasp on life. This milquetoast proves no match for Kitty and her abusive boyfriend. As you would expect, things keep on going south, until we have death and dissolution. Things do not end well for Mr. Cross or for the other two. This is noir at its darkest. We also have wry jokes, such as the apartment Cross rents for Kitty, an apartment once lived in by one Diego Rivera. Yes, that Rivera. Christopher Cross is no Diego Rivera, although once Kitty claims to be the creator of these his paintings the art world finds them worth lots of money. Greed, duplicity, desire, and failure are at the heart of this film.

 A few from October.

Island of Lost Souls (1932), directed by Erle C. Kenton. This is an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), with Charles Laughton as the redoubtable Doctor. Wally Westmore’s makeup work stands out in this one. The film also stands as one of the most devastating examinations of colonial brutality and hubris that we have. Moreau remarks at one moment on the feeling of being God. His macabre scientific quest to make animals human results in the House of Pain, and in a set of rules that include not letting blood and not eating meat. Moreau rules his island by fear, with his snapping whip and pistol. This is Paramount’s entry into the early 1930s horror sweepstakes, and it has elements of White Zombie of the same year and Frankenstein from the year earlier. The creation of the island jungle with peering faces between the fronds is impressive. The film’s only soundtrack consists of the howls and screams and groans of pain we hear from the creatures the bad doctor vivisects. This is a chilling portrait of the evil of power-hungry colonialists. Charles Laughton is smarmy and sinister. His creation of Lota, the Panther Woman, is his greatest achievement, or so he thinks. The presence of Lota allows for the film to suggest libidinous acts, forbidden attraction, and so on and so on. We also have Bela Lugosi, barely recognizable beneath his facial hair, hirsute beyond excess. “Are we not men?” he intones as only Bela Lugosi can intone.

 

House of Dracula (1945), directed by Erle C. Kenton. The opening scene of this film shows a bat flying toward the window of a bedroom in which a fetching female sleeps uneasily. The bat hovers outside the window, and then morphs into a tall gentleman in tails and a top hat. This is Dracula (John Carradine). My first though was – where did the top hat come from? This silliness sets up a film filled with silliness. Not only does Dracula make an appearance, so too do Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s monster. Instead of Igor, the assistant with the humped back, we have Nina (Jane Adams), Dr. Edlemann’s assistant with the humped back. Those familiar with the horror films of the 1930s might also recognize Jekyll and Hyde in the character of Dr. Edlemann (Onslow Stevens). The plot, such as it is, has Dracula and the Wolf Man seeking the aid of Dr. Edlemann; both say they wish to be cured of the curse that plagues them. Dracula, however, really just wants to seduce the fetching female he saw in the film’s first scene. This is Miliza (Martha O’Driscoll), the doctor’s nurse. The local town’s people are a ragged lot eager to burn things. Then there is the stalwart Police Inspector Holtz (Lionel Atwill). The gang’s all here, and having fun. I neglected to credit Lon Chaney, Jr. as Larry Talbot and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein. This is the final installment in Universal’s cycle of horror films that began so well with Frankenstein and then Dracula, both in 1931.

 

The Undying Monster (1942), directed by John Brahm. If you are looking for a film with atmosphere, an atmosphere dripping with dread, an atmosphere expressive of uncanny things, then this is the film for you. The first of three ‘horror’ films Brahm made for 20th-Century Fox in the forties, The Undying Monster is a werewolf story with more interest in place and people than in the werewolf itself. Lucien Ballard’s sharp contrast cinematography, lighting, and low angles give the film an expressionistic look as good as we have. Clearly, Fox was setting out to rival the horror films coming from Universal Studios, and in Brahm they found the director who could deliver the goods. Darkness pervades the action, darkness and starkness. The plot involves an old family curse (ho-hum) and we have the requisite large mansion by the sea with mysterious butler and housekeeper, a suspicious doctor, a police detective from London who knows a thing or two about science, his sidekick who here is (unconventionally) a lively woman who thinks she knows a thing or two about the occult. Then we have the brother and sister whose family suffers the curse. The mixture may be familiar, but the execution (if I may) is most satisfying. This is a good film to begin the October festival of film.

 

The Lodger (1944), directed by John Brahm. First made in 1926 by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger visits us again in this 1944 feature directed by Brahm. The Hitchcock film has the famous glass ceiling/floor through which we see the Lodger pacing restlessly in his room above stairs. The Brahm, film has the gothic effects of labyrinthine streets, wet and foggy, and canted angles with harsh lighting, reflections and shadows. The expressionistic sensibility here is impressive, as we would expect from Brahm. The story is a fictional account of Jack the Ripper, told mostly from the Ripper’s point of view. The staging is elaborate. Complete with dance numbers fronted by Merle Oberon, the female lead who becomes the centre of Mr. Slade’s (the Ripper’s) attention. This is a monster movie without a monster in the sense of a creature such as a werewolf or a vampire or a mummy or a homemade creature. What is stunningly effective is the end of the film when Mr. Slade finds himself cornered with his back to a large window that leads out to the river Thames. With knife in hand, eyes wide and piercing with fear and rage, Mr. Slade confronts his adversaries as they crowd closer to him. Here the seemingly mild-mannered gentleman reveals the beast in him without the benefit of special makeup. As many have pointed out, this film blends the later Hammer Horror atmosphere with Psycho, ten to fifteen years before the Hammer films began to appear and before Hitchcock’s famous thriller. Laird Cregar as Mr. Slade manages to be powerful, sensitive, beastly, gentlemanly, attractive, and repulsive. This is a masterful performance. Cregar made just one more film before dying at the age of 30.

 

Hangover Square (1945), directed by John Brahm. A slim Laird Cregar plays classical composer/pianist George Harvey Bone in his final film. Made to follow the success of Cregar’s previous film, The Lodger, this film has many of the same actors and offers a similar period atmosphere. Whereas water is the important element in The Lodger, fire takes the prominent role here. Mr. Slade in The Lodger finds water soothing, inviting, and restful; indeed, he takes his final rest in the Thames. George Bone, on the other hand, uses fire to burn away his frustrations, to release his libidinous energy. Both films play with scandalous (for the time, anyway) sexuality and fire and water offer clues to this sexuality. In Hangover Square we also have the road works with the deep trench and the Guy Fawkes bonfire (40 feet high, if I remember correctly) as reminders of the workings of the id. Like many films made in the mid 20th century, Hangover Square takes an interest in the workings of the mind. In other words, Freud and his talking cure play a role here. Cregar, as always, is impressive, if somewhat gaunt. Linda Darnell is suitably irritating as the vamp who sucks Mr. Bone’s creative energy until he has one of his ‘fits.’ The two films Brahm made with Cregar are all worth viewing for the performances, the mis en scene, and the ambiance of terror.

 

Tarantula (1955), directed by Jack Arnold. During the 1930s Universal Studio has the famous five: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man. During the 1950s, Universal had Jack Arnold. Arnold made some if the best creature and horror films  of that decade, and Tarantula is one of them. Perhaps not as impressive as The Incredible Shrinking Man or The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Tarantula nevertheless has clever special effects and a story that resonates. The story foregrounds population growth (rather funny given the location of the story in small town Arizona), and the possibility of food shortage to feed the burgeoning number of people on the planet. Professor Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll) has concocted a nutrient that causes animals to grow at an accelerated pace. Of course, one of these animals, a tarantula, escapes and goes on a rampage in the Arizona desert. Mayhem ensues until Clint Eastwood flying a jet equipped with napalm arrives to sort things out. Along the way, we have a country doctor who suspects strange goings on in the desert (John Agar as Dr. Matt Hastings), and a young woman scientist who assists Professor Deemer (Mara Corday as Stephanie ‘Steve’ Clayton). Finally, we have three cases of acromegalia in humans, including the good Professor. The film has quite an effective opening with a man wandering the desert. When he turns to the camera, we see a distorted face. The film is about acromegalia or giantism run wild. It is also not a film for those with arachnophobia.