How about some Kurosawa for Christmas.

Scandal (1950), directed by Akira Kurosawa. This is Kurosawa’s It’s a Wonderful Life! Well, not really, but it does take place over Christmas, and we have decorated trees and presents and festive goings-on. Oh, and we do have the importance of stars, although none of them have the name Clarence. As we would expect from Kurosawa, the story is deeply human. The plot is straight forward and even relevant to what we have today, a press focused on sensation and celebrity rather than truthful news. The opening scene finds artist Ichiro Aoye (Toshiro Mifune) painting in the mountains. A young woman, the well- known singer Miyako Saijo (Yoshiko Yamaguci), happens by. She has missed her bus and Ichiro offers to give her a ride back to the hotel where, coincidentally, both are staying. At the hotel, the two share a drink on a balcony, and while there a paparazzi takes their picture. This picture, along with an article about their affair, appears in the tabloid Amour. They are not having an affair. They are outraged, and Ichiro decides to sue the paper. At this point the film shifts focus from the singer and painter to the lawyer Hiruta (Takashi Shimura), who needs money to pay his daughter’s medical bills. She has tuberculosis. Hirutu also has a drinking problem. He takes a bribe from the publisher of Amour, a bribe intended to make him intentionally lose the court case. The film, then, is about honour, honesty, and the difference between a free press and a licence to fabricate and lie. We also have the joy of seeing Mifune ride a motorcycle with a fairly large decorated Christmas tree tied behind the driver’s seat. 

 

Sanjuro (1962), directed by Akira Kurosawa. This is the second film that follows the exploits of "thirty-year old" flower samurai, Sanjuro. Here he calls himself "camellias." And these flowers work their way into the plot. This time Sanjuro finds himself in a feudal town where corruption among high officials reigns. Nine young men, naive young men, are setting out to save their town from the corrupt official they think is the chamberlain. Sanjuro overhears them talking and he steps forward to advise them they are wrong. From what he has heard, he surmises that the superintendent, not the chamberlain, is the corrupt one. Anyway, the film involves Sanjuro maneuvering through various factions with the gaggle of nine young men following him like a line of ducklings. Then there is the chamberlain's wife who tells Sanjuro that he is an "unsheathed sword," and advises him not to go about killing people. All this is quite charming in a way Yojimbo is not. The humour is somewhat broader than in the earlier film, and everything goes along quite smoothly until the final showdown. This showdown is a show-stopper. The young men are impressed with Sanjuro's skill with his sword, but he tells them they are idiots as he turns and takes up his wandering life once again.

 

Drunken Angel (1948), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa liked doctors. Doctors appear in this film, the next year’s Quiet Duel, and Kurosawa’s last film with Mifune, Red Beard (1965). Drunken Angel is Kurosawa’s first film with Toshiro Mifune who plays Matsunaga, a well-dressed yakuza who is standing in for the Big Boss who is serving a prison sentence. The doctor is Senada (another Kurosawa stalwart, Takashi Shimura). The film opens with Matsunaga arriving at Senada’s place to have treatment for a gunshot wound to the hand. Thus begins an uneasy friendship between these two unlikely people, both conducting a love affair with alcohol. The setting is a sump in a run-down section of post-war Tokyo. This oily pond with its bubbles of methane and garbage serves as a visual metaphor for conditions in the war-ravaged place. Disease rises from the sump, and Matsunaga has tuberculosis, although his sense of masculinity leads him to deny the disease. As always with Kurosawa what matters has to do with humanity, individuals who may represent something about the times, the country, but who remain distinctly individuals with their desires, their defeats, their melancholy, their relationships, their flaws and their dignity. The film has a tough sense of enclosure that suits the depiction of lives on the edge. These people live shadow lives and the camera work makes this clear. The final scene is as grisly as any in Kurosawa's films. The music - The Cuckoo Waltz and the Jungle song - are masterful counterpoints to the action.

 

Stray Dog (1949), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Most of Kurosawa’s films are in my collection, and I have seen them all. At least, I thought I had seen them all. Watching Stray Dog, however, was a surprise. I do not recall having seen it before, more’s the pity. This is an excellent crime thriller with some terrific suspense sequences and likeable characters. It is also so much more. The films deals with obsession, with social conditions in Japan just after the Second World War, with extremes of poverty, with family, with rain and with sunshine, and most especially about the effect of war upon those who survive the battles. The protagonist, rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), finds himself chasing the man who has stolen his pistol. In effect, he finds himself chasing his own shadow. The two men are doppelgangers, one a policeman and the other a petty criminal. Aided by his mentor, Detective Sato (Takashi Shimura), Murakami comes of age, loses his innocence, and learns about family and friends. As always, Kurosawa is deeply humanistic. The film moves briskly and yet covers much territory. Kurosawa captures the intense heat of the July in which the action takes place. At times, watching people perspire, fan themselves, wipe their brows and faces, lounge about in an enervated manner virtually transfers the conditions we view beyond the screen. Early in the film we have a lengthy sequence in which Murakami, disguised as a vagrant veteran (he is, in fact, a veteran), wanders the ravaged city experiencing a world he might well have entered after his years of service had he not become a policeman. This sequence is directed by Kurosawa’s friend, Ishiro Honda, best know for his work on the later Godzilla series. I could go on about the tracs of Hitchcock I see in the fim, but suffice to say this is an impressive and important work in Kurosawa’s canon.

 

Yojimbo (1961), directed by Akira Kurosawa. We watched this film again last evening. It has been a long time since we saw it last. The combination of deep focus, tight close-ups, wide screen panoramas, intriguing characters who wander into caricature, frantic action, and humour still entertain. This film may not have the intricacy or richness of Seven Samurai, but it does succeed in pleasing. And it has been and continues to be a huge influence on later films. Toshiro Mifune as Sanjuro the wandering samurai/ronin delivers a wry, laconic, weary, and complex performance. His shoulder shrugs and his scratching and his toothpick tell us more about his character than his words. He is a bodyguard who kills those he is hired to guard. The film manages to celebrate this samurai's heroism while also showing the terrible cost of a life of violence. His adversary is a young man with a gun, and their showdown proves the mastery of the older man sans gun. The elegance of the old way seems preferable to the fire-power of the new world that is about to end the ways of the samurai. This film is not as intricate as Rashomon or as morally penetrating as Ikiru or as grand as Seven Samurai, yet it is Kurosawa's most successful and influential film.

 

Dreams (1990), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Also doing some directing here is Ishiro Honda, he of Godzilla fame (most notably the Mount Fuji in Red vignette). The film begins with a wedding and ends with a funeral. In between the first and final vignettes, we have six other vignettes that follow the “I’ character (a surrogate for Kurosawa himself) through a series of dreams. In all of the dream sequences death takes a part, most darkly in the first one that focuses on the Fox’s Wedding, and most lightly in the final one “The Water Village.” In all dreams, the myopia of human action rings loudly, most loudly in “The Water Demon,” and “The Tunnel.” The focus is on the ill-advised use of nuclear power and the unthinking ravaging of the environment. But what makes this film so stunning is its interest in form. What stands out for me is the Vincent Van Gogh sequence in which we see a young Kurosawa admiring a series of paintings on a gallery wall before he enters the world of these paintings – literally as well as figuratively. The experience of the film is something like this. We have eight “paintings” only paintings into which we find ourselves immersed. The colours are vivid and the compositions strikingly posed. Visually, this film is as astounding as anything you will see. The film offers an immersive experience. The first and final sequences are bright and colourful to point out, I imagine, an optimism against the waning of the light. A couple of other dreams are equally bright and colourful – “The Peach Orchard” and “Van Gogh” ones. Then we have the less bright dreams – “The Tunnel,” “The Water Demon,” and “The Blizzard.” The dreams are a mixture of memory and folktale, with a dash of Dante thrown in for “The Water Demon” one. Kurosawa here foregoes the action of his famous samurai films and gives us a slow contemplative take on dreams and human stupidity.

Sanshiro Sugata (1943), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Thanks to David McMillan, I am reading Stuart Galbraith IV's fulsome biography of Kurosawa and Mifune, and I am reminded that I have a copy of Kurosawa's first film as a director, Sanshiro Sugata. The copy I have I picked up, I think, in Shanghai, and it is visually okay, but the subtitles are, to say the least, incoherent. And the print that survives today is missing 17 minutes. Despite such things, the film is definitely worth watching. The story is straight forward, a brash young man wants to become a master of judo and he sets out to find a teacher. The teacher he finds lets him know that he needs to mature, to find self discipline and humanity. The young man does after a long night clinging to a stick in a swamp-like pool. He also meets a young woman whose father fights the young man in a contest between schools for the right to become teachers of the local police. The young woman has another admirer, a man in spiffy western clothes who also sports a slim moustache. This admirer fights the young man in a wind-swept field of tall grass in the film's climax. The young man wins, and he and the girl will have a future together. Simple. What makes this film interesting is its signs of the Kurosawa to come: its use of wipes, slow motion, nature (flower, water, clouds, wind, and so on) as emblematic of emotions, and striking compositions. The film is also a sly expression of Japanese wartime sensibility in that the young man represents the youth and vigour of the country's spirit and his main adversary has just a touch of the "west" about him. Finally, I like the local train at the end.

The Idiot (1951), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Adapted from Dostoyevsky's story, this film was initially 265 minutes long, but Kurosawa's studio demanded a shorter version, and what we now have is a 2 hour and 46 minute film that no doubt suffers from the drastic cut in running time. Apparently no copies of the longer version now exist. The Idiot as we have it has its virtues, but on the whole it does not work for me. The plot has ellipses that are confusing, and the central character depends on a certain nervous mannerism with his hands that begins to grate on me as the film goes on. The other characters are admirably presented, and I especially like Taeko, the film's femme fatale; she reminds me of Gloria Holden in Dracula's Daughter! The film uses many close-ups for reaction and emotional tension, and I think these work (I imagine Sergio Leone saw this film). The constant presence of snow and wind also resonates, and I especially like the shots in which tall snow banks and icicles serve as menacing mouths about to swallow the characters. We have what we expect from Kurosawa, careful and arresting compositions and intensely presented characters. All in all, this film registers Kurosawa's profound humanity and this is fine. However, his profound humanity finds more satisfying expression in the same year's Rashomon.

 Just a few films to begin December.

The Batwoman (1968) directed by Rene Cardona. This Mexican production is one of the worst films I have seen. Its ingredients are promising with underwater filming, a monster that resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a crazed scientist hell bent on crossing a human with an amphibian, the scientist’s minion named Igor, a laboratory ship called Reptilicus (the title of a 1961 film about a monster that terrorizes Copenhagen), and of course a scantily-clad Batwoman. Sadly what we have is a badly acted, poorly choreographed, wandering narrative about the draining of wrestlers’ pineal glands. This film is a cross between a luchador film (a film that features masked wrestlers – e.g. Santos contra los zombies, 1962) and the Adam West television series from about the same time. Clearly the Batman television series is an influence here with the Batwoman’s costume and her sleek black automobile. This film, however, sorely lacks the camp element we have in the tv series. Special effects are rudimentary. Yes, the mad scientist has a crazed laugh and a split face (think Batman’s Twoface), and the monster looks good enough for the Black Lagoon, yet none of this has any zip or polish. 

 

Ballerina (2023), directed by Chung-Hyun Lee. This Korean revenge flick is in the John Wick vein, although here the kick-ass hero is female, the former body guard Okju (Jeon-Jong Seo). Okju’s friend, the ballerina Min-hee (Park Yu-rim), is killed by thugs who run a drug ring and prostitution place, and Okju sets out to mete out justice to the perpetrators. If you can stand the dark reddish lighting in many scenes, and the gaudily decorated apartments, and you enjoy watching a woman toss about and generally thrash scores of men, then this film may be for you. As these things go, Ballerina serves up the requisite body count with a couple of touches that you may not see elsewhere. For example, Okju’s arsenal is quaint and includes a vintage six-shooter, an old derringer, and a flame thrower. This last serves Okju well in the film’s finale. Her main adversary is a fellow named Choi Pro (Kim Ji-hoon) who does a mean workout, accomplishing feats of calisthenics a wonder to behold. Choi also has an independent streak that does not serve him well. In his first round with Okju, he finds himself defaced – really. This film and films like it seem connected to the zeitgeist; the violence here should be unsettling rather than entertaining. By the way, I notice a John Wick spin-off titled “Ballerina” is coming in 2024. Ballet and mayhem are the order of the day.

 

The Killer (2023), directed by David Fincher. Here is a film to add to the neo-noir catalogue. It is dark and clear-eyed in its direction, moving along with a linearity rare in films these days. It begins with a botched hit in Paris, then moves to a failed attempt by the hitman’s client to remove him, and then on to the hitman’s journeys to wipe out his adversaries. These journeys take him from Paris to the Dominican Republic, to New Orleans, to Florida, to New York, and to Chicago, before he returns to his lavish lair in the Dominican Republic. The end. Oh, and on these journeys, he manages to remove four people. The film has little dialogue, but much monologue in a voice over that takes the noir convention to the extreme. Like some noirs, this film is a procedural, meticulously, if absurdly, following the nameless (well he has many names to go with his many passports) hit man (Michael Fassbender) as he sets out to remove those who would do him harm. There is a brutal fight with a fellow called The Brute in a Florida condo, and there is a delicious dinner engagement with the hitman sitting opposite a cue tip-shaped woman, The Expert (Tilda Swinton), listening as she does most of the talking. This is a watchable take on the genre, a take that veers towards parody. What interests me is the way the meticulousness of the director vies with the meticulousness of his protagonist.

Barbie (2023), directed by Greta Gerwig. Everyone has seen this half of Barbenheimer, but what the heck. What’s left to say? It’s a hoot. The first ten minutes or so are worth the senior’s price of admission. Here we have a brilliant parody of Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and this sets up the rest of the movie’s take on capitalism and consumerism as the Almighty. The rest of the film is clever and even ingenious, and we leave the theatre with confidence that Barbieland is safe from patriarchy, and the so-called “real World” continues on in its same old way, although patriarchy has to be more sneaky in its use of power. The film is chock full of cotton candy and bubblegum pink and soft shades of blue and yellow and pale green, and dance numbers reminiscent of Vincente Minnelli and the heyday of Hollywood musicals. The dollhouse sets and toy décor of Barbieland are impressive. The script is surprisingly effective. The film tries to be critical of corporate America, but with Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel, it is difficult to be overly cross with him and his minions, who are fuddy-duddies. After all, Mattel, along with Warner Brothers, did foot the bill here. The film also tries to bring diversity to Barbie’s world, but in the end the blond white woman is front and centre. More attractive to me is the unseen narrator who provides a clever meta touch. So what to say? That’s entertainment.

 

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), directed by Martin McDonagh. A film many of you will have seen, The Banshees of Inisherin is a gloriously evocative film that sets the Irish Civil War (the year is 1923) against another smaller conflict taking place on this fictional island off the west coast of Ireland. The location shooting of this rugged yet pastoral land is magnificent. One of the delights of the film is the look of land and sea. Amid the strained relationships on this island, an array of animals – small donkey, cows, horse, dog – go about their daily existence stoically and silently. Also silent, for the most part, is Colm (Brendan Gleeson) who no longer wishes to be friends with Padraic (Colin Farrell). The ending of this friendship constitutes the plot here, a plot with just a bit of flamboyance, the cutting off of Colm’s fingers so he can drive home the seriousness of his intention of ending the friendship. The film is contemplative, raw, and even funny despite the dreariness it depicts. The island setting allows a combination of open landscapes with claustrophobia. As tension between the two former friends escalates, the surrounding cast becomes something of a creepy chorus, not helping the situation by their gossip and nosiness. Perhaps the one sliver of hope lies in Siobhan (Kerry Condon), Padraic’s sister, accepting a job on the mainland and departing this small and festering island.

 How about some more noir for November.

The Glass Wall (1953), directed by Maxwell Shane. This man-on-the-run noir thriller stars Italian actor Vittorio Gassman as a Hungarian refugee hoping to find a new life in America. The film begins with the arrival of a boatload of refugees to Ellis Island. Happy faces abound, except for one, the stowaway Peter (Gassman). He is detained and told he must return to Europe. Frantic to stay in the new world, Peter jumps ship and the chase begins. First, he stumbles across the down and out Maggie (Gloria Grahame) who helps him. The two of them set about trying to find Tom (Jerry Paris), the clarinet player and former G.I. whose life young Peter saved during the war. Tom can sponsor Peter, if only Peter can find Tom. Obstacles abound as Peter wanders the mean streets of New York, mostly at night. At one point, Peter finds refuge with Tanya (Robin Raymond), a kindly exotic dancer whose family is from Hungary. Then we have a final set piece in the United Nations building, a sequence that looks ahead to Hitchcock’s set piece in the same building. Cinematography is by Joseph Biroc, and his location shooting in night time New York is impressive. The post-war America here is a mixture of hope and despair. 

 

Black Widow (1954), directed by Nunnally Johnson. Wide screen, colour, mostly interior shots, mostly daylight make this an unlikely film noir. And yet this is typical noir in its story of an innocent man caught in a web and nearly brought to ruin by a conniving femme fatale. What we have here is a noir crossed with a whodunnit. The detective is C. A. Bruce (Georg Raft). The innocent man is Broadway producer Peter Denver (Van Heflin). The loyal wife is Iris Denver (Gene Tierney). The fatal woman is ‘Nanny’ Ordway (Peggy Ann Garner). To round out the cast, we have the sarcastic actor Carlotta Marin (Ginger Rogers), her rather limp husband Brian (Reginald Gardiner), the nervous uncle Gordon Ling (Otto Kruger), and the brother and sister, John and Claire Amberly (Skip Homeier and Virginia Leith). The wide screen and open spaces of the interiors belie the situation in which well-meaning Peter finds himself. We have the familiar man-on-the-run laced with a cast of questionable characters. Given the backdrop of the theatre, we can expect that most of the characters are performing in order to hide their true selves. This is a cleverly constructed noir, complete with voice over and unpleasant undertones of a world gone wrong.

 

Nightmare (1956), directed by Maxwell Shane. This is a remake of the same director’s Fear in the Night (1947). It tells the story of Stan Grayson (Kevin McCarthy), a clarinet player in New Orleans who finds himself in a pickle when he wakes from a dream in which he killed someone, and then begins to think the dream was actually a reality. He seeks help from his brother-in-law, the detective Rene Bressard (Edward G. Robinson). At first, Bressard dismisses what Stan tells him as just a dream. Stan, he says, needs to take a breath and calm down. As things transpire, however, Bressard begins to think that Stan has indeed killed someone. Poor Stan appears to be guilty of murder. Golly, how is he going to get out of this rather dreadful situation? There was that guy in the next apartment who dropped by Stan’s to see if his lights were still on. There was a woman. Then there is that book by Sigmund Freud on Hysteria. Oh, and the mirrored room, reminding me of Welles’s Lady from Shanghai. All of this plays out well, and we have a nice late noir.

 

The Tattered Dress (1957), directed by Jack Arnold. In this one, high-priced New York defence lawyer, James Gordon Blane (Jeff Chandler), comes to a small town to take on the case of wealthy Michael Reston (Phillip Reed). Reed’s wife Charleen (Elaine Stewart), has been roughed up by local bartender, and Reston proceeds to shoot down this man in cold blood in front of witnesses. Open and shut. Well, lawyer Blane manages to convince the jury to acquit Reston, partly by his dramatic cross-examination of local sheriff Nick Hoak (Jack Carson). Blane humiliates Hoak, a local celebrity because of his former glory days as a football player. After the acquittal, Hoak arranges a set-up that targets Blane for bribing one of the jurors, Caro Morrow (Gail Russell). Thus we have the man caught in a trap motif of noir films. Arnold, ever reliable, directs with a sure hand and the wide-screen cinematography is impressive. The acting here is also noteworthy, Carson being especially effective as the sadistic sheriff. The courtroom scenes are good, and the recurring shot of the statue of justice outside the courthouse reminds us just how that blindfold of justice results in much misjustice. Arnold may be best known for a film such as The Incredible Shrinking Man, but he knows how to tell a story deftly and he knows how to handle his actors. His other film with Chandler, Man in the Shadow (1957), is also worth a visit.

 

Appointment with a Shadow (1957), directed by Richard Carlson. This is a noir with a difference. It tells the story of an alcoholic, Paul Baxter (George Nader), whose addiction has lost him his job as an ace newspaper reporter and has nearly lost him his relationship with Penny Spencer (Joanna Moore). Think films like The Lost Weekend (1945) or Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Here Paul finds himself witness to a police shooting in which ugly criminal Dutch Hayden (Frank DeKova) is killed. The truth, however, is that Dutch is alive and well, the man killed being a patsy set up by Dutch and his moll, Florence Knapp (Virginia Field). Paul sees Dutch and is now the only person who knows that the man killed by the police is not Dutch, and of course no one will believe Paul when he tries to tell the police that Dutch is not dead. No one includes Penny’s police brother, Lt. Spencer (Brian Keith). Soon Paul finds himself the object of Dutch’s attention and things get challenging for the inebriate now sober. The wide screen works well here with shots of Paul and just out of arm’s length a bottle or sometimes several bottles. Nader gives a convincing performance, and the film gives us that sense of dread and darkness we associate with film noir.

 

Murder by Contract (1958), directed by Irving Lerner. This noir is about a contract killer, Claude (Vince Edwards), who is about as cold as they come. He has much in common with the hitman in David Fincher’s The Killer (2023); he is unemotional, calculating, focussed, and patient. He is a misogynist who remarks: “I don’t like women. They’re not dependable. I don’t like killing people who are not dependable.” After proving himself in his assignments in New York, he takes on a job in Los Angeles. Arriving there he meets two men who will look after him until the job is over. These are George (Herschel Bernardi) and Marc (Phillip Pine), and you can bet things won’t end well for them. Things won’t end well for them because things go awry for Claude. Guess why things go awry. Well Claude’s target here is a woman. Claude, like the nameless killer in Fincher’s film, shoots the wrong person. Oh-Oh. What’s a fellow to do to set things right? Claude plans to finish the job he has botched and finds himself caught like a rat in a culvert. Ugly ending to an ugly person. Lucien Ballard does the black and white photography crisply. The film has a minimalist sensibility, and the lean guitar score is impressive. The sunny expanses of Los Angeles overturn the familiar dark wet narrow streets prevalent in this genre.

 Some more noir for Noirvenber.

The Breaking Point (1950), directed by Michael Curtiz. This is something of a remake of Hawks’s To Have and to Have Not (1944), and both are versions of a story by Ernest Hemingway. The Breaking Point was undervalued and rarely seen for years because its star, John Garfield, was implicated in the Red Scare of the late 40s and early to mid 50s, and the film was not promoted by Warner Brothers. In any case, this is an impressive film from a somewhat under rated director. Here Curtiz gives a masterclass in camera movement, blocking, and mise en scene. The early scenes in the Morgan house set the tone efficiently (Curtiz is always efficient – see Casablanca, maybe the most efficient film ever made) and slyly. We get the layout of the house, members of the family, and the dynamic of a family on the economic edge. What Curtiz brings to all his efficiency with camera movement and blocking of scenes is an interest in character, and the people here are complex; they have interior lives communicated through both camera and bodily and facial gestures. As for the story, this is a daylight noir. It involves a sailor returned from the war to find life difficult, if not downright impossible. Harry Morgan (Garfield) finds himself scrambling to make a living with his fishing boat off San Diego. He gets himself into trouble, first with human trafficking and then with gangsters who have robbed a racetrack. Along the way, he meets this film’s femme fatale, Leona Charles (Patricia Neal), loses his friend and partner, Wesley Park (Juano Hernandez), and nearly loses his wife, Lucy (Phyllis Thaxter) and two kids. Harry survives the mayhem, but barely and not without the loss of a limb. The final shot of the film is devastating, an empty pier with just a young black boy standing hopelessly and bewildered, shown in a long crane shot. This boy is Wesley’s son who has come to meet his father. No one bothers to notice him and inform him that his father is not coming home. Hawks’s version of the story is jaunty when set beside this grim examination of post-war angst.

 

The Enforcer (1951), directed by Bretaigne Windust and (uncredited) Raoul Walsh. This film is distinguished by its fractured narrative. The story is told in flashback, and flashback within flashback. The story concerns organized crime, and contracts and hitmen, and a voice over the phone. Joseph Rico (Ted de Corsia) is in jail, a witness in the trial of crime boss Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloane). Rico does not make it to trial. He falls to his death trying to escape from custody. Crusading District Attorney Martin Ferguson (Humphrey Bogart) now has a problem. Can he find another witness by combing through all the evidence the police have amassed? His investigation takes us back in time. We meet a gang of hitmen who answer to their boss, Rico. Rico, in turn, gets his orders over the phone. The is a taut procedural, having something of the feel of a documentary. Much of this is thanks to the uncredited Walsh who reshot some of the film, especially the intense ending. We also have a bit of a mystery thrown in, a mystery that turns on a dead woman’s brown eyes. This is an impressive film.

 

Without Warning! (1952), directed by Arnold Laven. Carl Martin (Adam Williams) is an unassuming gardener who also happens to be a serial killer who prefers blond young women. His weapon of choice is a pair of garden shears! This is a well-done thriller that is surprisingly prescient. It plays out as an early version of CSI, following the painstaking work of the police and forensic people as they seek to find out who is committing a series of murders. The murderer, Carl, is consistent in the women he targets and in the timing of the murders. He is also something of an amateur. Although not, strictly speaking, a noir, this film does reflect the postwar angst and paranoia. It moves along quickly and efficiently, and has enough tension to hold the viewer’s attention.

 

My Name is Julia Ross (1945), directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Lewis made two well-known noir films, Gun Crazy and, one of my favourites, The Big Combo. He also made a bunch of other low-budget winners. My Name is Julia Ross is an early film by Lewis that merges the likes of Rebecca with Gaslight to deliver a noir-gothic mix that will satisfy your taste for the unusual, but somehow familiar. Julia Ross (Nina Foch) is looking for work as a secretary. She finds a job with the pleasant elderly woman, Mrs. Hughes (Dame May Whitty). She goes to work in a London house where she is to board as well, and wakes two days later is an isolated house in Cornwall, wearing clothes that sport a monograph with the letters MH. It turns out that MH is Marion Hughes, wife of Ralph Hughes (George Macready). Julia/Marion finds herself held prisoner, and saddled with a husband who seems to have a screw loose. He especially likes knives. Lewis gives us walls, windows, bars, gates, doors and a creepy stairway to let us know Julia’s plight. I must say the plot holds well, and poor Julia appears to be heading for her death. Will she escape? Will she drink poison? Will she jump from the window onto the rocks below?  I suspect we might piece things together early in the film, but Lewis keeps things tense and firmly under control so that we suspend disbelief and enjoy the machinations of kindly Mrs. Hughes and her wacko son. This is a satisfying small film.

 

Obsession (1949 – AKA The Hidden Room), directed by Edward Dmytryk. Made in England while Dmytryk was in exile from HUAC, Obsession ia about an urbane doctor whose wife has a series of affairs. Reaching the “last straw,” the doctor plans the perfect murder of his wife’s latest lover. His plan is to dissolve the man in a bath of acid, but the little dog Monte manages to thwart the clever doctor’s scheme. The doctor, Clive Riordan (Robert Newton), is suave to the point of creepiness. His wife Storm (Sally Gray) is slinky. The American love, Bill Kronin (Phil Brown) is suitably hapless. Into this mix comes Inspector Finsbury (Naunton Wayne), a cerebral adversary for the cool Dr. Riordan. The film has tension, perhaps best exemplified in the Doctor’s intention to try out his acid bath on cute little Monte. Especially clever are the borders the Doctor provides for his prisoners, Bill and Monte, borders beyond which their chains will not allow them to pass. Prior to this film, Dmytryk had made impressive noir films in Hollywood – Murder, My Sweet (1944), Cornered (1945), and Crossfire (1947), for example – and he brings his flair for this sort of thing to Obsession.

 

Undertow (1949), directed by William Castle. This little thriller with a noirish sensibility arrives from William Castle before he became the king of schlock in the 1950s. It is an efficiently paced man-on-the-run film with impressive location shooting in Chicago. The story is familiar: GI returns to the U.S. after seven years military service, meets an old friend in a Reno casino, plans to marry his old flame, befriends a woman he happens to meet on his way to Chicago, and finds himself the suspect in the murder of his intended bride’s uncle. People are not who they appear to be, although being familiar with this sort of thing, we know who is not who they pretend to be. The cast is serviceable with Scott Brady taking the lead as Tony Regan, former soldier and former criminal now hoping to go straight and run a resort in the High Sierras. Others include Tony’s friend Danny Morgan (John Russell), his other friend Detective Charles Reckling (Bruce Bennett), his girlfriend Sally Lee (Dorothy Hart), his new friend Ann McNight (Petty Dow), and briefly an unnamed detective played by Rock Hudson (billed as Roc Hudson). Tony is in deep hot water, but he manages, with Ann and Charles’s help, to swim to shore.

 

Scandal Sheet (1952), directed by Phil Karlson. The film derives from Sam Fuller’s novel, The Dark Page (1944), and it has Fuller’s gritty, cynical take on the newspaper business, already turning into more of a scandal sheet than an outlet for legitimate news. Broderick Crawford is Mark Chapman/George Grant, editor of the New York Express, a newspaper whose readership is climbing because of the lurid stories it publishes. The opening scene has reporter Steve McCleary (John Derek) and photographer Biddle (Harry Morgan) joking about not being able to get a picture for the front page because the woman whose murder they are investigating has too much blood on her face. The plot has Chapman finding himself in trouble when his wife, a woman he has abandoned years ago, turns up at a Lonely Hearts Club gathering and recognizes her long-absent husband who has not changed his name. As things turn out, the poor woman meets her end when she and Chapman scuffle in her seedy hotel room. Chapman tries to cover up this mess, but his attempts to do so lead to him murdering a hapless old reporter who happens upon the truth of Chapman’s identity. The story gives us a sense of the newspaper business as morally suspect, interested only in sales. Surprise! The scandal here is what lies behind the news, not the news itself. As noir films go, this one is more than serviceable. Crawford gives a sweaty, paranoid, loud-talking performance. In other words, he gives the kind of performance we expect from this actor. John Derek and Donna Reed as the two young reporters offer a bit of hope in this examination of an America losing its way.

 

The Thief (1952), directed by Russell Rouse. Here is a noir with a difference – it has no dialogue. None. No one speaks from beginning to end. The effect is a film that both works and does not work. It works because the sounds, especially the ringing of a phone and the protagonist’s laughter/crying near the end, serve to heighten tension, accentuate the main character’s loneliness, and inform us of the haunted situation the main character finds himself in. It does not work because some interactions between characters, especially the one between Allen Fields (Ray Milland) and the girl down the hall (Rita Gam, in her first film), strike us as impossible without some spoken words between the two. The film also calls for patience on the part of the viewer. The plot has Dr. Fields, an award-winning nuclear physicist, passing secrets to the enemy, most likely the Russians, and becoming more and more conscience-stricken as the unanswered phone calls keep coming. Fields is a noir anti-hero who finds himself caught in a web of intrigue. We surmise from his reactions to the ringing phone and to his gathering of secret intelligence and to his paranoid (for a good reason) reaction to people, that he desperately wants to extricate himself from the situation in which he finds himself. All in all, this is an interesting experiment, but one hardly to find acceptance by a general audience.

 November (Noirvember) has arrived.

The Green Cockatoo (1937), directed by William Cameron Menzies. Here is a little gem from a story by Graham Greene. Menzies brings an expressionistic sensibility to the film, especially in the scene inside a derelict building. The story has something of a film noir turn when young country girl Eileen (Rene Ray) arrives in London late one night to find herself embroiled in gangster goings-on, and then on the run from the police who think she has murdered someone. This someone is Dave (Robert Newton), a bad egg who has double crossed three thugs who now want him rubbed out. Rubbed out he is, but not before he runs into young innocent Eileen. Before cashing in his chips, Dave asks Eileen to take a message to his brother, Jim Connor (John Mills), a song and dance man who works in the nightclub known as The Green Cockatoo. Eileen and Jim go on the run trying to avoid both cops and criminals. What distinguishes the film are the small performances (e.g. the elderly bearded man Eileen meets on the train who rails against the evils of the city, and who leaves Eileen in the station with these parting words: “I cannot give advice; I am a philosopher”), and the expressive lighting and camera work. The fellow who plays Prothero the Butler (Frank Atkinson) delivers a memorable performance. This film looks forward to the more famous Graham Greene scripted film, The Third Man (1949).

Witness to Murder (1954), directed by Roy Rowland. This is a small, no-frills thriller in which career woman, Cheryl Draper (Barbara Stanwyck), finds herself witnessing a murder. She calls the police. They investigate. The alleged murderer is one Albert Richter (George Sanders), a writer and former Nazi. The film’s most startling scene occurs when Richter launches into a diatribe against weak muling and puking humans, a diatribe he speaks loudly and in German! Anyway, the police think the single woman is just being hysterical. Richter sets out to prove that she is nuts. Things get dicey and Cheryl even ends up in a mental institution. Her stay there is traumatic, but short. Mostly, the film is noteworthy for John Alton’s noirish cinematography and the performances of Sanders and Stanwyck. Sanders is at his creepy best, and Stanwyck manages to invest her character with a strength that belies the usual attitude (the attitude manifested in the various reactions to the hysterical female by the police and medical people) toward weak women. Cheryl sticks to her conviction that what she saw, she actually saw. She is not about to be detoured, waylaid, or patronized. All in all, a nifty little gem that was made to compete with another film, Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

 

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), directed by Otto Preminger. This tension-filled noir features Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews who previously starred together in Preminger’s Laura (1944). Andrews plays detective Mark Dixon who has a mean streak; he likes to knock bad guys about, a trait that threatens to get him into trouble, a trait he apparently inherited from his criminal father. And get into trouble he does. He accidentally kills a guy named Ken Paine (Craig Stvens), and instead of just calling in the incident, he concocts an elaborate plan to cover up Paine’s murder. This plan manages to implicate Paine’s father-in-law, the innocent Jiggs Taylor (Tom Tully). And, of course, Dixon finds himself attracted to Jigg’s daughter Morgan (Tierney). We have the familiar noir situation with our hero caught in a tangled web. Dixon’s fear is that he takes after his father who was a criminal who set another criminal, Tommy Scalise (Gary Merrill) up in business. Scalise is now in Dixon’s cross hairs. Scalise has a habit of sniffing from a nasal drop. He comes across as sexually ambiguous. All this, Dixon’s conflicted personality, Morgan’s trust, Jigg’s innocence, Scalise’s henchmen (lead by Steve, an uncredited Neville Brand), tight close-ups, dark rooms and streets, make for a memorable noir. The film ends on a subtle note as a door closes on Dixon.

 

The Second Woman (1950), directed by James V. Kern. The 1940s and 50s saw Hollywood take an interest in psychoanalysis, and The Second Woman is definitely a film that takes interest in the mental state of the protagonist, Jeff Cohalan (Robert Young). Cohalan is an architect who lives in a modern house on the rocky coast of California. His fiancé has died in a car crash about a year before the main action of the film takes place. He meets a young woman who is a certified financial accountant. This is Ellen Foster (Ellen Drake) who is visiting her aunt. Once Cohalan meets Foster strange things begin to happen: an expensive piece of china is broken, Cohalan’s rose bush dies, his horse breaks a leg in his stall, his dog dies, and a painting somehow fades. Why is all this happening, and who is behind the strange goings-on? Meanwhile Cohalan and Foster begin a romance, Foster also begins detective work to find what’s behind the mysterious happenings, and Cohalan finds discomfort and disappointment in his work. A local doctor takes an interest in Cohalan and asserts that he suffers from paranoia. Things look pretty bad when someone tries to kill Foster. Cohalan will have to take things into his own hands to find out what is happening. Foster, however, is not about to cease trying to help. We have shades of Hitchcock’s Rebecca here in the location and the psychological machinations. Not a bad little noir.

 

Cage of Evil (1960) directed by Edward L. Cahn. This low-budget noir is predictable, a voice-over telling us at the outset that detective Scott Harper (Ron Foster) will go over to the dark side. Harper is a seven-year veteran of the police force hoping for promotion. His hot head, however, is a liability and he fails to achieve promotion despite doing well on the examination. Finding himself investigating a jewel robbery and murder, Harper begins a romance with the bad guy’s moll, Holly Taylor (Patricia Blair). She proves to be a femme fatale, and Harper finds himself drawn into the nefarious deeds of the baddies. You know things are not going to end well. The film has the elements of film noir: femme fatale, man caught in a web from which he cannot escape, gangsters, crooked police, and downbeat ending. Strangely, its daylight scenes in Los Angeles do not feel like noir. Conclusion: this is a noir and yet not a noir. Odd. And, as I say, the plot is predictable. All the players are earnest, and the 70-minute running time goes by briskly. I watched it while riding a stationary bike, and it was diverting enough.

 

The Young Savages (1961), directed by John Frankenheimer. A social drama from a time when such films were popular. Think non-musical West Side Story. If there is a problem with this film, it is earnestness. It tries to be hard-hitting, and for the most part, it is. The cinematography is gritty and has expressionistic flourishes; the location shooting in New York works well. Burt Lancaster is Hank Bell, a prosecutor with the D.A.’s office who finds himself prosecuting three thugs from the Italian street gang, the Thunderbirds. One of the kids is the son of Bell’s one-time girlfriend, Mary diPace (Shelley Winters). This kid, along with two others, murder a blind Puerto Rican boy in the film’s startling opening scene. Things appear cut and dried: these thugs murder the boy because he is Puerto Rican. Of course, the truth is more complicated, and it is the truth that Hank Bell wants to discover. The Puerto Ricans have their gang, the Horsemen. When we do learn the full context of the boys’ actions, we can see that life in the slums is a tangle of hate and fear and poverty and desperation. Such emotions are best communicated in the leader of the Thunderbirds, Arthur Reardon (convincingly played by John Davis Chandler). To complicate matters even farther, we have a minor plot dealing with the District Attorney’s campaign for Governor. The courtroom part of the film is dramatic and powerful. The plot moves to a satisfying, yet troubling conclusion.

 

 A story for Halloween:

     Snuffles and Whimpers of an October Night; or Halloween Fantasy

         Dad came into dinner with blood on his knuckles, blowing hard through his teeth.  Our neighbour four houses down the street, Mr. VanMeer, had waylaid him on his way home from downtown to solicit his help removing a large rock from the VanMeer's garden.  The rock was difficult to dislodge because it was so deeply planted in the soil and because so much grass and weed and who-knows-what had grown around it.  The garden was a mess of strange and bizarre looking foliage.  Trying to haul the rock from the ground, my father scraped the knuckles of one hand on a particularly nasty root of some kind.  He said it hurt so much that he cursed the old man who was just standing by watching, letting my father do all the work.  Under his breath, the old man returned my father’s curse, but not so quietly that my father couldn't hear.  I guess the old man mumbled something about old Jack o' Lantern giving my father some light for brains.  According to Dad, this just proved that old man VanMeer was tetched.

         This incident took place sometime in the spring.  Mr. VanMeer had said he was planning to transform his jungle of a backyard into a more formal garden.  Dad said he could care less about Mr. VanMeer and his garden; he didn't like the old coot.  Fact is, no one on the block much liked Mr. VanMeer.  He was queer and, on the whole, reclusive.  My mother explained that he was elderly and lonely; his wife had died some years before and after her death Mr. VanMeer had become morose and silent.  His kids seldom visited. He didn't have much to do with his neighbours, and we rarely saw him.  Even his backyard was private, enclosed by a tall solid fence, the only yard on the block that was fenced off in this way.  As far as I know, no one had seen inside the VanMeer house for years and years, although people on the block would talk about his strange ways.  Dad cursed his bleeding knuckles and shivered as he remarked on the frigid air of the VanMeer backyard.  "Old Harry VanMeer is the devil himself," he remarked.  Then he laughed and he told us that the old coot, trying to smooth over bad feelings, had said he would give him a pumpkin in the fall.

         I suspect we all forgot this incident; I know I did.  But sure enough, when October rolled around my Dad received the gift of a pumpkin from old Mr. VanMeer.  Once again he was waylaid as he returned home, this time late one evening near the end of the month.  Mr. VanMeer called to him from the gathering dark, and placed in his arms a large and brilliantly orange pumpkin that came, he said, from his own garden, from right where the ugly brute of a rock that Dad had helped dislodge used to be.  When Dad came in, my sister, mother, and I were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner.  Dad plunked the great pumpkin down on the counter, and all of us stood around it admiring its size and colour. My mother gazed at it and reckoned it would make five pies or more; my sister and I looked at each other and we knew each of us wanted the pleasure of slicing the pumpkin's outer shell to make the wicked eyes and leering mouth of a jack-o'-lantern; but my father glared at the shining gourd as if somehow he couldn't do anything else.  He seemed transfixed. The rest of us stared at him, and I confess that I felt my skin lift into a roulade of goose bumps. The sight of my father staring with eyes glittering and unblinking at the huge pumpkin, as if he were bewitched, was eerie and unsettling.

         Some time passed--how long I don't know.  The seconds seemed to me to swing with excruciating slowness through the kitchen.  We stood engrossed, watching my father's glazed eyes.  Then my mother plucked his sleeve to get his attention, but he didn't move.  He just stood there rapt in the glow of the large pumpkin.  And then we noticed it--the three of us together, I think.  The kitchen took on an orange glow cast from the pumpkin that actually appeared to be palpitating.  The pumpkin seemed to be imbued with some living powerful force.  All of us could feel it, I think.  Certainly I could.  And clearly my father was reacting to this force.  Whatever was at work in that glowing pumpkin, it frightened me and I could see similar fright in my sister's eyes. Some wickedness was at work.

         "I'm getting rid of this thing," my mother said, and she grasped the rolling pin from the sideboard.  However, before she could raise it and squash the orange menace, my father suddenly lunged forward, and with a great guttural growl he seized the pumpkin.  He stood before us, his eyes blazing, his arms around the huge gourd.  Then he began to back away toward the pantry door.  As soon as he bumped into the door, he turned, opened it, crossed the small pantry, and sped down the cellar steps.  We heard some grunts from the basement, and then the door to the small workroom down there slammed shut.  Everything went quiet.  The kitchen seemed darkened now that the pumpkin was gone.  From below nothing could be heard.  The three of us looked at each other.  "I guess we should go down and see what he's doing," my mother said, and she began to usher us towards the pantry and the cellar steps.  

         When he had run downstairs, my father had not stopped to flick on the cellar light.  He had just descended into darkness. One of us flicked on he light, and then we proceeded to descend to the cellar.  Down there, we carefully went past the coal bin and the furnace to the back end of the cellar where the workroom was.  Back here the feeble cellar light hardly cast any glow, but we could see a bright orange light coming from beneath the workroom door.  My mother called out, asking if my father was all right.  No answer came from behind the closed door, but we could hear snuffling and whimpering noises.  Again the three of us looked at each other and I know we feared something terrible was going on behind that door.  My mother reached out and tried to open the door.  It was locked.  Again she asked if father was all right.  Again, no answer.  Again, those snuffles and whimpers.

         For several minutes we just stood there not knowing what to do.  My mother finally announced that she was going to call Frank Cooper, the local police constable and father of my friend Donny; she said that he would know how to help us.  But before we could move back through the cellar, the workroom door opened with a "BLAM!" It flew back against the outer wall with great force.  A bright orange light flooded the cellar, giving it a strange otherworldly glow.  And there in the midst of this light, standing in the doorway, was a hideous figure, my father or not my father, I couldn't tell.  It must be him, but his head was gone and in its place, as a kind of prosthetic skull, was the pumpkin, the same glowing pumpkin from the kitchen, but now with jagged holes for eyes, a triangular opening for nose, and a crooked gash with stumps of pulp for mouth and teeth.  The whole thing was a living malignancy.  The horrible shape stood there, and then a terrible cackle rattled the room.

         My mother screamed.  I think I started to cry, and my sister cringed in the corner.  Another great growl from the pumpkin head, and then it lunged forward.  I thought the creature was about to grab me and I thought I would be dashed to the floor in a flash.  But the hideous thing sped past all of us and ran up the stairs.  We heard the front door slam, and once again all was still. The three of us were paralyzed for several minutes.

         Well you can imagine my mother, sister, and I were in shock.  We didn't move too swiftly, but we did go upstairs.  Without speaking, we understood that it was no use looking for father in the workroom.  Whatever and however things had happened, we were certain my father was possessed by some hideous demon.  What we didn't know was where he had gone, when he would come back, or what to do to help him.  Finally my mother decided that she would have to call Frank Cooper.  Frank, as you might expect, was somewhat puzzled when we told him the story of the pumpkin and Dad's disappearance.  He thought perhaps my father was having some early Halloween fun; the whole thing was a prank he said.  He assured us that Dad would soon come home, his usual self.  To tell the truth, the three of us began to second-guess what had happened.  Perhaps Dad's head wasn't a glowing jack-o'-lantern; he was only carrying the thing in his arms.  Perhaps the strange whimpers and snuffles and other sounds we heard weren't the sounds of a ghoulish demon; they were only familiar house sounds--creaks, cracks, clicks--amplified by our imaginations.  And perhaps the strange glowing light we saw wasn't coming from inside the pumpkin; it was only the blush of sunset coming through the kitchen and then the cellar windows. Perhaps Dad was his usual self after having tippled a bit.

         For an hour or so we were convinced that Frank was right.  But Dad didn't return.  All that night we waited in trepidation for Dad's return.  He didn't come.  In the morning, mother told me to go down to Mr. VanMeer's to ask him whether or not he had given Dad a pumpkin.  That way, she said, we would at least know we hadn't all dreamed the whole thing.  She added that maybe Mr. VanMeer could give us a clue as to Dad's whereabouts.  Needless to say, I didn't look forward to a visit with Mr. VanMeer, but off I went.

         The morning was fresh and I could see my breath as I made my way down the street.  Past the Weir's, past the McCoon's, past the Doyle's, to the sidewalk in front of VanMeer's house.  I went up on the veranda and over to the front door.  The doorbell was one of those with a thing like a key that you turned.  It made a loud ring, like the sound of a bicycle bell.  I waited.  No one answered.  I was about to ring the bell a second time, when the door opened by itself, slowly and with an elongated squeaking noise.  I craned my neck to see what I could, but inside everything looked grey.  I decided to beat it and turned to go, but before I could move away from the open door something gripped me by the shoulder.  I turned to see the familiar face of old man VanMeer.  I had known this man for years, but now he looked demented, like a wild and crazy person.  His eyes bugged out and rolled in his head, and saliva dribbled from one corner of his mouth. He was hunched and looked as if he had something under his shirt on his back. I managed to ask whether he had seen my father.

         "Yesterday even," he said, "I had occasion to give your father a present." And he cackled.

         "Yes," was all I could say.

         "A pumpkin," he went on, "a devilish pumpkin."  And his laugh sent shivers down my back.

         "We--my mom and I, and my sister--we are worried about Dad," I said.  "He hasn't been home since early last night, and we wondered if you had seen him."  

         "I?" he said, looking surprised.  "Not I."

         Then he turned to go inside his house, and as he shut the door I heard him say:

                          “Old Harry can deliver a curse,

                          No one does it worse.

                          You'll wear a pumpkin for a head

                          'Til jack-light brings you a-bed;

                          Only the young can restore

                          The head that always asks for more.

                          He who cringes beneath the tracks

                          Seeks the restorative whacks.

                          Under the tracks, look for the felon

                          Whose head resembles a large melon.”

The door closed.  I felt as if I had been given a clue.  But what did it mean?  As I walked back down the block, I mulled the whole thing over.  Who “cringes beneath the tracks?” We lived just one house away from the freight sheds and the CPR railway yards.  My father worked for the railroad, and I knew that he sometimes gathered with other trainmen in back of the freight sheds to gabble about work.  I also knew that if he had gone back of the freight sheds last night, someone would have reported him or brought him home.  After all, a man with a pumpkin for a head was not something you could ignore.  What, then, could "beneath the tracks" mean?  And what did "jack-light bringing someone a-bed" mean?  Then it came to me.  The only place that could conceivably be beneath the tracks was the cavern-like space underneath the freight shed itself.  The freight shed was built up on what might be called stumpy stilts, probably about 4 and a half  to 5 feet high near the south end and growing shorter and shorter towards the north end.  The kids in the neighbourhood played under there regularly, and we sometimes went there to smoke.  Regularly, we were ferreted out by Constable Cooper.  Perhaps my father had fled under the sheds, like an animal seeking the safety of its den.  Perhaps he was still there, sleeping; maybe he was ill or hurt or just plain humiliated and scared.  I would find out.

       Without going home and telling my mother, I went across the road and up to the freight sheds.  On the south end was an easy entrance to the crypt-like spaces beneath the building.  In I went - deeper and deeper into the quickly shrinking space.  The farther I went the darker it became.  Just when I thought I could go no farther, I was stopped by a low snuffling, whimpering sound, a sound that reminded me of last night.  I strained my eyes in the poor light, and sure enough I saw something crouched beneath a great wooden beam.  As my eyes focused, I was certain this was my pumpkin-headed father.  No longer did a light shine from that great gourd. I approached him carefully.  I wasn't sure whether he was crying or snarling deep in his throat.  Of course I could get no impression from the hideous jack-o'-lantern face except evil.  I decided to leave and tell mother that I had found him.

         Then something stopped me.  It was only a voice.  From somewhere deep inside that huge pumpkin head I heard a small voice say, "Help me!   Help me!"  I could only move closer.  I heard the words again.  "What can I do," I asked?  The answer came thinly but clearly: "Break the gourd."  I wasn't prepared for this.  "Break the gourd?" I repeated.  "Yes, break the gourd, smash it, destroy it, pulverize it. Just clobber it, please." Had I heard this correctly? And had the voice said “please”? Wonders will never cease.

         But could I actually do this?  The pumpkin rested on the neck of my father; it was his head. I acted mechanically, as if I were programmed, acting automatically, without urgency or will.  I left the den beneath the freight sheds, walked back across the street, and into our back yard.  In the garage I found a crow bar my father kept there; as long as I could remember I had been fascinated by this crow bar without having the faintest idea what it might be used for.  Now I dragged it back to the dens.  I retraced my way to my father's hiding spot.  He lowered his head as if in supplication. He was a lugubrious figure now, not terrifying in the least. Without a word, I heaved the heavy bar over my right shoulder and then swung it with all my might at the pumpkin head; I swung as if I was hitting a baseball hoping for a home run.  The crowbar struck the gourd with a squelch.  Pieces of orange pulp flew every which way.  I heard a piteous groan, and then I blacked out.

         When I came to, I was in my bed, a hot water bottle at my feet.  My mother came in shortly, and I asked what had happened.  She said I had fainted over by the freight sheds and Frank Cooper had carried me home.  "But my father," I said.  "Oh, not to worry," she replied.  "He's in bed too.  For some mysterious reason, he came home with a terrible migraine headache.  We called the doctor, and he's been to look at both of you.  What you both need is rest."  I asked about the pumpkin.  "What pumpkin?" she returned.  "You know.  The one old Mr. VanMeer gave to father."  "You must be dreaming," she said as she left the room.

         Much later that day, I got up.  Sure enough, my father was all right, just grumpy.  Whatever had happened seemed over and done with now.  Life returned to normal.  That evening, not long before my sister and I were to go to bed, we heard the doorbell ring.  I followed my father to the front door, and I saw as he opened it old man VanMeer standing just outside on the veranda. He held something in his hands. I stared and I was sure I saw him grin as he handed my father a huge vibrantly orange pumpkin.  And as he turned to go, I saw the old man look me in the eyes and toss me a wink.  Then he turned and left. Shutting the door, my father said, "Look what old Harry VanMeer brought us."

 October is nearly at an end. Here are a few films.

The Mummy (1932), directed by Karl Freund. Karl Freund is a superior cinematographer whose credits include Fritz Lang’s brilliant Metropolis and F. D. Murnau’s amazing The Last Laugh. He also directed a number of films, The Mummy being one of them. The Mummy is one of Universal’s horror franchises, and it offers excellent special effects along with a hokey story. The titular Mummy is Imhotep/Ardeth Bay (Boris Karloff) brought back to life after 3700 years by a British archaeologist who stupidly reads out loud from the Scroll of Thoth an incantation that once Isis used to bring Osiris back to life. This time the incantation revives Imhotep. Imhotep goes on a quest to find and revive his long-lost love, Ank-es-en-Amon. He finds her in the person of Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), a young woman whose parents are British and Egyptian. Helen bears an uncanny resemblance to the ancient Egyptian princess. Go figure. If this all sounds orientalist, it is. At one point, a British archaeologist remarks on the audacity of the Egyptians wanting to put ancient artifacts from Egypt in a Cairo Museum. And then we have Helen Grosvenor lamenting that modern Egypt is not the “real Egypt” of antiquity. If this all sounds predictable, it is. Predictability is, however, not the point. The photography, special effects, make-up are all top notch, and Karloff makes an effective antagonist with his unblinking eyes and gaunt figure. Ardeth Bay is, by the way, an anagram for ‘Death by Ra.’

 

The Wolf Man (1941), directed by George Waggner. Coming ten years after Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein, The Wolf Man is the studio’s second attempt at a werewolf film, and it proved to be highly successful and influential. Even dopey Lon Chaney as Larry Talbot manages to strike a chord as a rather simple man who finds himself caught in a horrific web of circumstances. Perhaps not as atmospheric as the earlier Universal films, The Wolf Man does have the low-lying mist among the stylized trees, the large, even cavernous, mansion, the shadows, and the montage of wild imaginings as Larry begins to go bonkers – all things we are familiar with in earlier features of this kind. We also have an impressive cast that includes Claude Rains as Larry’s father, Ralph Bellamy as a local policeman, Evelyn Ankers as the love interest, Bela Lugosi as ‘Bela’ the fortune teller, and the most creepy Maria Ouspenskya as Maleva who gets the last word: "The way you walk was thorny through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over. Now you will find peace for eternity." At first, I thought that Larry’s peeping Tom routine near the beginning when he spies on Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers) through his father’s telescope was just an ill-advised bit of fluff, but now I realize that it serves to indicate something deeply gone awry within this seemingly simple prodigal returned to the family home after some 18 years. This film sets the template for later werewolf films with its silver-topped cane, full moon, pentagram, and so on.

 

Cry of the Werewolf (1944), directed by Henry Levin. This is Columbia’s contribution to the monster flicks that Universal popularized in the 30s and 40s. It has something of the atmosphere of the Val Lewton films such as Cat People (1942). The werewolf here is a woman, Celeste LaTour (Nina Foch), who is a gypsy princess. The studio saved money on make-up and special effects by using a German Shepard to play the werewolf, and this sort of works. The plot is straight forward. Celeste suffers from the same malaise as her mother did, lycanthropy. She tries to keep her affliction a secret by savaging the good doctor Charles Morris who has discovered the secret of the LaTour family. The doctor’s son, Bob (Stephen Crane), comes home and begins to investigate his father’s murder. He begins a romantic relationship with his father’s assistant, Elsa Chauvet (Osa Massen). The two of them are on the trail of the werewolf, and therefore targets of Celeste. Barton McLane plays Police Lt. Barry Lane who investigates. All the players take things seriously. Matters play out as we would expect. Bob save Elsa and Celeste receives her quietus.

 

House of Dracula (1945), directed by Erle C. Kenton. The penultimate of Universal’s series of horror films in the 1930s and 40s, House of Dracula brings Dracula (John Carradine), the Wolfman (Lon Chaney, Jr.), and Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) together in the house of Dr. Franz Edlemann (Onslow Stevens) for a delightful romp. The opening scene has a flying bat transform into the Count, who sports, along with his cape and dapper clothes, a top hat. I saw no hint of a top hat on the bat! Anyhow, this is how the fun begins. Dracula has come to Dr. Edlemann’s house ostensibly to seek a cure for what ails him. Soon another arrival comes seeking a cure for another dreaded ailment; this is Larry Talbot, and we all know what ails him. Larry is sincere in his desire for a cure, but the Count has come to seduce Edlemann’s nurse, Miliza (Martha O’Driscoll). Add to the mix a female Igor, here Edlemann’s assistant, Nina (Jane Adams) and local police inspector with his artificial right hand, Holtz (Lionel Atwill), and you have a cast of stalwarts. Others, such as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, make quick appearances in bits of film swiped from earlier films in the series. One dream sequence stands out here as a filmic tour de force. By 1945, these Universal horror films were running out of inventiveness, but this one has its pleasures, despite the melancholy decline of the good doctor Edlemann. I especially liked the hunchback assistant, Nina. Happy Halloween everyone.

The Manster (1959), directed by Georg P. Breakston and Kenneth G. Crane. Perhaps the first Japanese-American co-production, this film is a precursor to The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971), although here the two heads result from the injection of a serum concocted by the zany but kindly scientist, Dr. Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura). Dr. Suzuki injects a few people with his serum, including his wife, his brother, and the American journalist Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), a sort of lower-budget version of Larry Talbot. Larry is on assignment in Japan when he meets the not-so-good doctor Suzuki who serves Larry spiked tea and then injects him with the serum that is supposed to result in a new kind of creature. Lurking here may be the shadow of radiation poisoning. Anyway, the serum has the effect of altering Larry’s personality and sending him into a mid-life crisis before it actually transforms him into a two-headed monster. Before this happens, Larry goes on a binge with alcohol and women. His wife from New York arrives to see what is happening to her husband, and she arrives not long before he develops a third eye on his right shoulder. Yes, that’s right – an eye on his shoulder. This signals the emergence of a head from that shoulder. Ultimately, this head grows to – well you have to see this to believe it. If you are a fan of 1950s horror films, then you have to see this one. The production values are quite good for this sort of film.