A few Tod Browning films.

Drifting (1923), directed by Tod Browning. Browning loves the exotic, and here he goes full oriental in a crime melodrama that dazzles with its sets and costumes, but unsettles with its easy orientalism. It also unsettles with a thrill moment near the end when a horse and rider climb a steep set of steps and just at the top, they tumble off the steps and hurtle down probably thirty feet or more. This was before there were restrictions against harming animals. Anyway, what we have here is a portrait of China as the source of opium, and I suspect the title refers to the state of mind one might have while feeling the effects of opium. One character, the prostitute Molly Norton (Edna Tichenor), spends her screen time drifting while her friend Cassie commiserates with her condition. Two shady Americans are in Shanghai, Cassie Cook (Priscilla Dean) and Jules Repin (Wallace Beery), trafficking in opium when another American, government agent Captain Arthur Jarvis (Matt Moore) appears disguised as a mining engineer. Jarvis is in a remote village to stop the opium trade. He finds himself with two women who fancy him, Cassie Cook and the daughter of the local drug lord, Rose Li (Anna May Wong), who steals the show. The final scene when the battle between the poppy growers, the villagers, and the Chinese government troops is spectacular with the red-tinted screen (sorry I found only a couple of lesser screen captures of this part of the film) and flaming buildings. The film does hold interest, but it is not one of the best Browning silents I have seen. J. Farrell MacDonald takes a turn as a sort of comic relief, playing Murphy, Jarvis’s sidekick, who sets his hat at fifteen-year-old Rose Li. As we expect from Browning, the film does offer instances of the weird. 

 

White Tiger (1923), directed by Tod Browning. The eponymous White Tiger is that wrath that sits inside a person making him or her do criminal things. Here it sits inside Sylvia and Roy Donovan (Priscilla Dean and Raymond Griffith), brother and sister separated while children and later reunited (although they do not know their true identities) through the nefarious huckster, ‘Count’ Donelli (aka Hawkes played by Wallace Beery). Donelli too has the White Tiger inside. The three of them use a mechanical chess player in order to dupe wealthy people and steal their jewels. As things move along, they find themselves on the lam, hiding in a country cottage with another fellow, Dick Longworth (Matt Moore). Here their distrust of each other makes life awkward, until things get out of hand, identities are revealed (I neglected to say that Donelli, aka Hawkes, was responsible for the death of the siblings’ father!). All this is typical for Browning – see for example, Outside the Law (1920) or The Blackbird (1926). We have false identities, betrayal, the hint of incest, a wax museum, a few touches of the uncanny (the number 13, a black cat, and so on), unsavoury characters, claustrophobic settings, the usual Browning world. Unfortunately, the action is somewhat less than coherent. This may be the result of lost bits of the film, I don’t know. The film is, however, essential for Browning completists!

 

More Tod Browning, The Unknown (1927). In this one Lon Chaney plays Alonzo the Armless Knife Thrower. Alonzo's passion is for Nanon (Joan Crawford), daughter of the circus owner. Nanon has a great fear of men, especially men's hands. This makes her repel the advances of the circus strong man, Malabar. She feels safe with Alonzo because he has no hands - or arms. She thinks. It turns out that Alonzo not only has arms, but that he hides them because of his double thumbs on one hand. These thumbs would identify him as a deadly felon, and so he pretends to be armless. Anyhow Alonzo is smitten and to assure Nanon will continue to show affection for him he secretly blackmails a surgeon into removing his arms. When Alonzo, now truly armless, returns to the circus expecting to marry Nanon, he finds that she has overcome her fear of men's hands and has agreed to marry Malabar. Needless to say Alonzo does not take this news as good news. Quite the contrary. Nastiness ensues. Once again, we have Browning indulging his love of circuses and outsiders and strange characters. This is a cautionary tale!

 A few John Ford films.

Hell Bent (1918), directed by John Ford. This is one of many Ford silents with Harry Carey playing a bad man reformed by a woman, here Bess Thurston (Neva Gerber) whose brother Jack (Vesper Pegg) loses his job and joins the villainous band of outlaws headed by Beau Ross (Joe Harris). We have much galloping, some impressive stunts, wry comedy, and gay innuendo. The opening is especially noteworthy. Here we have western novelist looking at a painting by Frederic Remington, “The Misdeal,” and this painting transforming into live action. Later in the film, above the bar in a saloon, we see another Remington painting. The paintings inform not only the western themes, but also Ford’s painterly visual style here and throughout his career. The bad guy, Beau Ross, also references the historical figure, Mazeppa (Byron wrote a poem about him in 1819), who was tied naked to a horse and then ridden until he was close to death. Something similar happens to Cheyenne Harry (Carey) here. We also have Beau and Harry crossing a barren desert, a scene reminiscent of Ford’s later Three Godfathers films. Landscape is essential to the sweep of the film. Although some 20 minutes of the film are lost, what we have is engaging and worth a look for western and Ford afficionados. The scene in which Harry rides his horse into the saloon, upstairs and into Cimmaron Bill’s (Duke R. Lee) bedroom is worth the price of admission. Later Bill and Harry duet drunkenly with “Sweet Genevieve, My Genevieve.” Despite the film being silent, the duet works. This film lacks the experimental aspects of two other Ford films shot around the same time, Straight Shooting (1917) and Bucking Broadway (1917).

 

Up the River (1930), directed by John Ford. When Ford made this film, The Informer was still five years away. The Informer brought Ford into greatness, although some might say it was The Iron Horse (1924) that signalled greatness. In any case, Up The River is not the film one would screen to illustrate Ford's full skill as a filmic artist. Still, the film has its virtues and it does exhibit some Fordian touches. We have the marches and singing men that Ford delighted in presenting right up to his self-parody in The Horse Soldiers (1959) when the confederate kids in their spiffy uniforms march in defiance of Northern soldiers. We also have the trio of men (see Ford's 3 Bad Men 1926 or 3 Godfathers 1948 or others) who share values and aid and abet each other. We have the ritual of prison life (Ford likes the ritual of military life and ritual in general), and we have the touch of sentimentality that Ford always struggles to contain. The three main characters are likeable rascals. Up the River does not have the visual beauty of later Ford films, but it does position its characters well, using corridors and fences and bars and gates and fences and space carefully. In short, the film is about the fine line between being framed and being free. Oh, and I dare not forget the zebra!

The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), directed by John Ford. This is Ford’s only foray into screwball comedy, with Jean Arthur and Edward G. Robinson taking the romantic leads. Already this is strange! The plot turns on mistaken identity, the mild-mannered clerk Alfred F. Jones being misrecognized as ‘Killer’ Mannion, the gangster who has just escaped from prison as the film begins. We also have the familiar gaggle of newspaper reporters who often report “alternative facts.” Lots of misinformation gets tossed about, something that takes centre stage in Ford’s next film, The Informer. Fordian touches include Robinson, as Jones, getting drunk and singing loudly, and the stuff about police and prisons that turns up in earlier Ford films Up the River and Born Reckless, both 1930. The film, however, has a Capraesque quality with little guy Jones finding, after tense goings-on, success and happiness. The film does swerve into violence at the end when Mannion’s minions take their boss Mannion for meek Mr. Jones and plug him repeatedly with a tommy gun. All in all, this is amiable, but hardly top tier Ford.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940), directed by John Ford. Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland fashion a lyrical film version of Steinbeck’s novel of the Great Depression. At times, Toland’s lighting gives us scenes in which the people are ghostly beings, shadow people, whose lives have seen the darkness drawing down. The lighting and compositions constantly take us to the pain and confusion experienced by people dislocated from their homes, sent on the road looking for work, and confronting greed and corruption among those who hold control of the economic system. The film is perhaps a tad preachy, but its preaching is powerful and moving. There are some great Ford moments, such as the scene in the small café where the owners give Pa Joad (Russell Simpson) a break on the cost of a loaf of bread, and two candy sticks for the children. Henry Fonda as Tom Joad has never been better. His face, circled with darkness and shining in the dark, is the face of the people, the dirt farmer existing and surviving by the skin of his teeth. John Carradine as Casy, the failed preacher, has also never been better. The rest of Ford’s stock company also perform well, even with Ford’s tendency to excess and caricature. This is a film with a message, and the message has to do with the corrupt way of capitalism, the exploitation of workers, and the growing divide between the rich and the poor. Plus ca change … As Ford films go, this one is near the top. Peckinpah reprises some of the early parts of this film for Junior Bonner. Among the many uncredited actors are Bill Wolfe, Tom Tyler, Jack Pennick, Jack Perrin, and Rex Lease. Jane Darwell as Ma Joad also deserves mention for her heart-felt performance.

How Green Was My Valley (1941), directed by John Ford. The past tense in the title lets us know the past is a fine country, but that time changes all that fineness. The Welsh valley of the title was once green and pastoral, and then it became black and polluted by the relentless coal mining. The story is something of a coming-of-age tale focusing on Huw Morgan (Roddy McDowall), as he looks back on his younger years in the changing valley. Huw has four stout brothers and a sister, a long-suffering mother, and a stern father. The four stout brothers and the father work in the mine. When the mine owner reduces the miners’ wages, the brothers talk of unionizing, whereas the father thinks such talk smacks of “socialism.” Meanwhile the new preacher has caught the eye of Angharad (Maureen O’Hara), Huw’s sister. We have much singing and much sorrow. One of Huw’s bothers dies in a mine accident, two others leave for foreign lands (Canada!), Huw has an accident that leaves him bed ridden for a long time, Angharad marries the son of the mine owner and moves to South Africa, until she leaves her husband and returns to the valley. The preacher is drummed out of the parish by vicious gossip. Finally, we have another mine disaster and the father, Gwyllym Morgan (Donald Crisp), dies in young Huw’s arms. So much anguish. So much nostalgia. And yet so much faith in family. Shot in black and white by cinematographer Arthur Miller, the film consists of exquisitely composed scenes, and a fine sense of place. Like the later The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, this film is about time and change and the importance of education. The desecration of the valley through coal mining is what Huw leaves behind, taking family lessons and family dignity with him.

3 Godfathers (1948), directed by John Ford. Here’s another Christmas story, rather sentimental and unbelievable. This is a western take on the story of the 3 Magi. This is also the fourth time the story had been filmed, two earlier versions, in 1916 and 1929, being directed by Ford. This 1948 version serves as homage to Harry Carey who had starred in the 1916 version and who was part of Ford’s stock company. He died in 1947, just before filming for this picture began. Anyway, what we have is one of Ford’s most beautifully photographed films. The location shots in Death Valley are as impressive as anything we have on film. The actors, familiar members of the Ford company, are sturdy. We have the 3 bank robbers, Robert Hightower (John Wayne), William Kearney (Harry Carey, Jr.), and Pero Roca Fuerte (Pedro Armendariz). Other familiar members of the company include Ward Bond, Mildred Natwick, Jane Darwell, Ben Johnson, Jack Pennick, Hank Worden, and Francis Ford. The film shows Ford’s sentimental side at its most maudlin. The musical score rings with familiar Ford tunes such as “Shall We Gather at the River” and “Streets of Laredo.” What stands out here is the look of the film. It is, in short, stunningly beautiful. 

Rio Grande (1950), directed by John Ford. The is the last of the Cavalry trilogy and the first of Ford’s films to star Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne. It was shot in Moab, Utah. The film has all the Fordian touches: children, lusty men singing, majestic landscapes, male humour often turning on fights, dramatic stunt work, careful compositions, fluid camera, and a rather complicated use of Native Americans. O’Hara, playing Kathleen Yorke, wife of Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (John Wayne), is reminiscent of the Hawksian woman, a woman in a largely male environment, and a military one to boot. She manages successfully to control events, and in the film’s final shot we see her standing with her husband and Lt. General Philip Sheridan (J. Carrol Naish) watching the troops parade as the sounds of Dixie ring out. Sheridan and Yorke had been responsible for burning her family's home during the Civil War. She twirls her parasol and moves to the sound of the music and she impishly smiles. Also noteworthy in this film is the ‘Roman riding’ undertaken by Harry Carey, Jr., Ben Johnson, and Claude Jarman. The story has something in common with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in that Col. Yorke must find a way to stop a band of hostiles from running amok. He also has to rescue a wagon-full of children who are held prisoner by the hostiles. We watched the film on the spur of the moment, as it were, and I was pleasantly surprised. This is the film Ford made in order to receive the go ahead from Herbert Yates at Republic Studio to make a film Ford had wanted to make for some nine years: The Quiet Man. Rio Grande may have been a job of work for Ford, but it sits well with his world; it has action, nostalgia, sentiment, and the bravery of men! It also has Maureen O’Hara!

 A few films from 1957.

Man Afraid (1957), directed by Harry Keller. The cinematography by Russell Metty is notable. The film is a minor example of the genre, although it has good intentions. The plot has the Reverend David Collins (George Nader) and his wife Lisa (Phyllis Thaxter) discovering an intruder in their son’s bedroom one night. In the ensuing scuffle, David inadvertently kills the intruder, Frankie Simmons (Bob Herron – uncredited). Frankie’s father, Carl (Eduard Franz), is understandably upset. In fact, he is so upset that he begins stalking young Michael Collins (Tim Hovey). Carl appears throughout the film with his cigarettes and bedraggled appearance, and he never speaks. His silence gives him and the film a creepy feeling. The situation is dire for the Collins family, and the film attempts to explore the effects of a traumatic situation on each member of the family. The setting with the church bazaar and the nearby ocean is also effective.  Rita Shaw as the Collins family maid is formidable. As noir films go, this one gives us a setting and milieu that differs from the more familiar dark wet city streets. 

 

Monster from Green Hell (1957), directed by Kenneth G. Crane. A combination of radiation-created monster flick and African safari movie, Monster from Green Hell is a low budget affair about giant wasps that have arrived in eastern Africa from a rocket that has crashed landed after its trip beyond earth’s atmosphere. The giant wasps are wreaking havoc on that part of the world, but not to worry, Dr. Quent Brady (Jim Davis) is on the case with his potent hand grenades. We have familiar stock footage for the scenes in Africa. The wasps are stop motion things not particularly well presented. Then we have the uncomfortable paternalism of the Americans as they move into deeper darker Africa! The film moves along fairly briskly for its 71 minutes even though not a lot happens. We do have a scene in which a wasp defeats a giant snake. But really, not a lot happens. The characters have little or no dimension. Yet somehow, the film manages to hold interest. Perhaps it is that dire warning about the dangers of exposure to radiation. This film, like so many back in the `1950s, sees radiation as causing whatever it touches to grow larger: wasps, ants, leeches, Gila monsters, fish, even humans.

 

Back from the Dead (1957), directed by Charles Marquis Warren. Perhaps the title gives things away; what happens here is preposterous. We have a Satanic cult, possession, human sacrifice, and a setting worthy of Rebecca. We have ocean waves crashing, a big house or two, mysterious and fatal women, and a narcissistic fellow with an accent who tries to control the women in his life by persuading them he is a special person, endowed with powers unavailable to mere mortals. Peggy Castle as Mandy becomes possessed by the spirit of her husband’s first wife, Felicia. Ms Castle performs admirably in her dual role. Marsha Hunt plays Kate, Mandy’s sister, and she performs even more admirably as she sets about trying to discover what is happening and bring back her sister who has been unceremoniously possessed by dear once-departed Felicia, now seemingly returned. As these films go, this one is worth an indoor bike ride.

 

The Vampire (1957), directed by Paul Landres. This film combines the vampire with the werewolf in a rather down-home story about the good Dr. Beecher (John Beal), father and smalltown physician who is kind to his patients, deferring payment when his patients are poor. One of his patients is the mysterious scientist, Dr. Campbell (Wood Romoff) who dies leaving Dr. Beecher a vial of pills. Beecher’s daughter, Betsy (Lydia Reed) mistakenly gives her father these pills instead of his usual migraine pills. As a result, Beecher find that at 11:00 p.m. he turns into a wild man who seeks the blood of anyone nearby, including the elderly Mrs. Dietz (Hallene Hill) who is out waking her dog. We have seen this plot before (remember poor Larry Talbot), but this film has its merits. The musical score is good, and it is pleasant to see so many familiar faces in the cast, people such as Colleen Gray, Kenneth Tobey, Dabbs Greer, Herb Vigran, James Griffith, and Paul Brinegar. The film has its moments, for instance Beecher stuffing Dabbs Greer into a furnace. As vampire films go, this one is a hybrid. We do have those two small marks on the necks of a couple of victims, but no fangs appear for our viewing pleasure.

 

The Girl in the Kremlin (1957), directed by Russell Birdwell. The preposterous plot has Stalin faking his own death before making his way to Greece to live in anonymous ease. He also has plastic surgery so no one will be able to identity him once he assumes the role of Count Molda. (Maurice Manson). He takes with him his nurse and paramour Greta Grisenko (Zsa Zsa Gabor). Meanwhile, Greta’s sister Lili (also played by Ms Gabor), hires private detective and once OSS member, Steve Anderson (Lex Barker) to locate her sister. Steve, in turn, seeks the aid of his one-armed friend, Mischa Rimilkin (Jeffrey Stone). These two, plus Lili, set out on a quest to locate the whereabouts of Stalin’s son, Jacob (William Schallert), hoping he can tell them where his father is. The film has lots of hokum and throwaway stuff, such as the shaving of a woman prisoner in front of the evil Joseph Stalin. I suppose it is trying to explore cold war dynamics, but it does this rather ineptly, even pointlessly. The director Birdwell was a friendly witness in the McCarthy ugliness.You can find this film in a DVD box set of supposed noir films, but this one has little noir and much baloney. The result is a film you can enjoy for its earnestness gone awry, and for its absurdity. Oh, and did you know that Joseph Stalin shot his son in the groin just as his son, Jacob, ran both of them off the road to their deaths? Here is a history lesson for our times.

 

Quartermass 2 (1957), directed by Val Guest. Based on an earlier television series, this Quartermass film is yet another Cold War warning about aliens infiltrating earth by taking over the minds of human beings. If it reminds you of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this is because it has similarities to that film, although here the aliens have managed to take over the minds of not only average citizens and soldiers, but also powerful members of the government. Chilling. Professor Quartermass has his work cut out for him when he sets out to eradicate the aliens. The aliens are huge blobs, sort of like giant kale that waver about until, mercifully, they catch fire. The film has a sensibility that is distinctly British – even Sydney James turns up – and this is refreshing. Quartermass is played by American actor, Brian Donlevy. I liked the scene in which Quartermass comes to the small village where workers at the secret facility live. We see signs that read, “Remember: Secrets mean sealed lips,” and “Talk about your job. Lose it.” The soldiers in their Nazi-like outfits are also effective. For a mid-fifties sci fi film, this is clever and well designed. It is the middle of three Quartermass films.

 A few silent films for June.

Lorna Doone (1922), directed by Maurice Tourneur. This adaptation of R. D. Blackmore’s 1869 novel is efficient, lively, nicely photographed and tinted, and over acted in ways familiar in silent cinema. The fight scenes are furious and exciting. The sets and locations work well. The story tells the rousing tale of a young Lorna (Madge Bellamy) kidnapped by the dastardly Doone clan, a band of robbers lead by the elderly disgraced nobleman, Ensor Doone (Frank Keenan). He adopts the young Lorna. When she is old enough, another Doone, the inebriate lout Carver (Donald MacDonald) wants to marry her. Lorna finds a saviour in the young farmer, John Ridd (John Bowers), someone she met before she was kidnapped years ago and who falls into her life again. These two have their ups and doones, including a frightening moment when Lorna appears to have been killed. But, finally this melodrama ends well, and everyone can rest easy knowing that doonseday has not arrived. While watching the film, I could not cease thinking of various ways to incorporate the word “doone” into the film. The characters are doone and out, or the action is doonright frantic, and so on. Worth a look.

 

Tartuffe (1925), directed by F. W. Murnau. I have several favourite film makers, and one of these is F. W. Murnau. Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), Faust (1926), and Sunrise (1927) are among the finest films ever made. The Last Laugh is remarkable for having just one intertitle. Anyway, here is Tartuffe, a worthy addition to Murnau’s filmography. Distinguishing features are: a movie within a movie and the breaking of the fourth wall. The movie within a movie works this way: an elderly man is slowly being poisoned by his housekeeper who pretends to be kindly and attentive, when she is clearly after the old man’s fortune. Along comes the old man’s grandson, but the housekeeper has convinced the old man that his grandson is a wastrel and an actor. Heaven forbid, an actor! To convince his grandfather that the housekeeper is a hypocrite, the young man puts on a disguise and plays the role of an itinerant showman who will screen a film in anyone’s home. He shows the old man and the housekeeper a film of Moliere’s seventeenth-century play, Tartuffe. This film within a film takes up most of the running time. Both the film of Tartuffe and the modern sequences that bookend the film of Tartuffe set out to expose hypocrisy. The housekeeper and Tartuffe are liars and hypocrites, and therefore suitable characters for our times. Tartuffe checks all, or most of, the seven deadly sins: gluttony, pride, greed, lust, sloth, possibly envy, and maybe wrath too. Certainly, the first five here are relevant. Now, the fourth wall collapses when the young man looks directly at us and mouths the words the intertitles tell us that he is going to expose the old woman’s hypocrisy. The camera work, as we would expect with Murnau, is clever giving us angles and close-ups and compositions that catch the eye and accentuate the action. We also have some amusing bits, especially in the first half of the film. Emil Jannings plays Tartuffe.

 

The Toll of the Sea (1922), directed by Chester M. Franklin. This is the second Technicolour feature film to come from Hollywood and it is a recasting of the Madame Butterfly story starring a 17-year-old Anna May Wong. Ms Wong could, and did, shed tears when necessary. She wears lavish costumes, as do many of the small cast of extras. The story is slight and familiar and the American man, Allen Carver, played by Kenneth Harlan, decides, largely because of his friends’ disapproval of his relationship with a “foreign” person, to abandon his Chinese wife and head back to America where his former sweetheart waits for him. Lotus Flower (Anna May Wong) mourns his departure, and then raises his young son after she gives birth. What makes the film worth seeing is the magnificent colour and the spectacular costumes. Not a lot happens, and therefore the viewer can concentrate on admiring the look of proceedings. This is an impressive use of colour some seventeen years before The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. The restoration is excellent, but the final reel is missing, not that we need it. The paintings used with the intertitles are also of interest.

 

The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927), directed by G.W. Pabst. This melodrama follows the fortunes of the titular character, Jeanne Ney (Edith Jehanne) after her diplomat father is killed in the Crimea. Jeannne is in love with Andreas Labov (Uno Henning), a Bolshevik implicated in the death of her father. Jeanne goes to Paris to stay with her uncle Raymond (Adolf E. Licho), and his blind daughter, Gabrielle (Brigitte Helm). Before she leaves Crimea, Jeanne is harassed by the slimy conman Khalibiev (Fritz Rasp). This character chews scenery with the best of scene stealers. He is a lecher, a thief, a fraudster, and a murderer. The film will impress viewers who remember it was made in 1927. The camera is fluid. We have long tracking shots with the camera following running persons, and moving to take in various locations inside and out. The camera work here is very impressive. The lighting too impresses. Light and shadow compliment action and emotion. The scenes on the train are nicely done. Although this cannot match Murnau’s The last Laugh (1924) for silent storytelling, The Love of Jeanne Ney does tell its story with a minimum of intertitles.

 

The Beloved Rogue (1927), directed by Alan Crosland. This is a swashbuckler that stars John Barrymore as high-living poet Francois Villon who was around in the 15^th century during the reign of Louis XI. We have some good bits with a catapult, a flogging, a perilously hanging basket, a dangerous climb up the side of a high tower, and a gargoyle upon which M Villon sits. What makes this film exceptional, however, are the sets designed by William Cameron Menzies, the medieval streets and turreted buildings and lavish interiors, all caught by a camera that sits in various positions, including above and below the various places in which the action takes place. The costumes and characters reminded me of a later distinguished swashbuckler, Michael Curtiz’s The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. The plot too has similarities with Villon courting Charlotte de Vauxcelles (Marceline Day) who is betrothed to the villain of the piece, Thibault d’Aussigny (Henry Victor) who is under the thumb of the other villain, Duke of Burgundy (Lawson Butt). Louis XI is played by none other than Conrad Veidt. Villon is presented as a hail fellow well met who loves “France earnestly, Frenchwomen excessively, French wine exclusively.”

 How about some monster films for June?

Gorgo (1961), directed by Eugene Lourie. Often referred to as the British Godzilla, this film combines both Godzilla and King Kong. Like the latter film, this one focuses on greed and exploitation. The two men who capture the infant Gorgo (not knowing he has a parent), are encouraged to pass him over to a couple of scientists/paleontologists, but they sell him to a circus that sets up in Battersea Park, London. The plot is simple: two fellows who run a salvage boat find and capture a creature that comes to be known as Gorgo. This creature, as it turns out, is the child of a much larger parent who comes looking for his/her child. When mama or papa Gorgo reaches London havoc ensues, and we have the pleasure of seeing familiar places crushed by the large creature. Down goes Tower Bridge, down goes Big Ben, down goes the British Museum, and so on. Bullets, tanks, rockets, bombs, nothing is able to stop the raging parent. But heck, he or she just wants baby back and at the end the two walk peacefully back into the sea from whence they came. Nature gets its own back. These creatures, by the way, appear to have been unearthed by a volcanic eruption in the sea, not by radiation. I say this because the volcano appears also to have killed some large fish things that look like something created by radioactive activity. These monstrous fish appear briefly early in the film. All in all, this monster movie has its charms.

 

Gamera: The Giant Monster (1965), directed by Niraka Yuasa. I won’t say much about this Daiei Studio kaiju rival to Toho’s Godzilla because it is the least interesting of these films I have seen. It clearly takes it cue from the Godzilla series in that we have a giant creature, this time a turtle (!), unearthed from under the Arctic ice by an atomic explosion, that wanders about knocking down large buildings. Gamera makes its way to Tokyo where it wreaks havoc in a not unpleasing way. To give the story a bit of human interest, we have a young boy who befriends the monster and wants to see it saved. And so it goes, humans shooting various weapons at Gamera, Gamera breathing fire and eating fire too, people running about, and mayhem everywhere.

Atragon (1963), directed by Ishiro Honda and Shue Matsubayashi. An undersea empire called Mu that is guarded by a giant snake-like creature decides to conquer the world. Captain Jinguji (Jun Tazaki) has other ideas. Captain Jinguji and his crew have secreted themselves on an isolated island, and there they have built a new submarine that can fly as well as dive beneath the sea. The submarine is dubbed Gotengo or, in the English version, Atragon (“Atomic Dragon”). The submarine also has a nifty drill for a prow. And so a battle rages above and beneath the sea, with a goodly number of buildings razed to the ground. Characterization is minimal, and we do not see the sea creature a lot. There are a couple of spies, and the Muans are pretty good at turning the heads of their enemies purple. All in all, this is a rather tepid entry in the kaiju series from Toho. I was reminded of the Flash Gordon serials with Buster Crabbe. 

 

Space Monster Wangmagwi (1967), directed by Hyeok-jinn Gwon. If you value your time, then strongly consider giving this Korean entry into the kaiju genre a miss. The eponymous monster’s name is the best thing about this film. As for the monster, he or she or it has very bad teeth and a protruding tongue. Aliens in shiny suits and helmets drop the monster on earth not far from Seoul, expecting the creature to wreak havoc and eat earthlings. Well, the monster does wreak a little havoc, but I did not see any eating of earthlings. Oh, a young boy does make his way into the creature’s ear and later his nose, irritating Wangmagwi no end. The young boy also finds that Wangmagwi holds a young bride in his left hand, a reminder of King Kong. So we have King Kong crossed with Godzilla in this attempt to capture the monster-starved viewer. The said viewer, however, will find little nourishment in this film. Some films are so bad, they can be fun, and perhaps this film will be badly amusing for some. 

 

The Mysterians (1957), directed by Ishiro Honda. At the outset of this film, a huge and mysterious robot appears and wipes out an entire village. Humans manage to destroy this thing, but shortly after they do, an alien spaceship arrives. The aliens, who look remarkably like humans, say they are peace-loving beings who just want 3 square kilometres of land to park their craft on for a while. Oh, and they also want a crowd of earth women to mate with. For some reason I did not grasp, they seem unable to procreate with their own kind. Humans balk at the thought of sending their women to mate with these aliens, but the aliens take a few women anyway. And soon they are asking for 70-some kilometres of land. You get the picture. An all-out war erupts and we have the destructions of tanks and planes and buildings and soldiers and flying saucers. Of course, radiation comes into the action, and talk of the H-bomb. This is a Gojira-like effort from Honda, director of several Godzilla movies. We have the doomed hero who, for a while, sides with the aliens, but eventually learns better. We have the message that humans need to be careful how they act. This is a cautionary tale and warns of the misuse of science and the destruction of the planet if science goes unchecked. The colours are catchy and the wide screen photography effective. The special effects are what you might expect from sci-fi films of the 1950s. The look of the film may have dated, but the cautionary message remains pertinent.

 

Destroy All Monsters (1968), directed by Ishiro Honda. Here is another kaiju film from Honda, and it tries to outdo earlier films with a host of monsters from Godzilla to Rodan to Mothra to Gorosaurus to Manda and more. Eleven monsters show up here. All the monsters are contained on Monsterisland as the film begins, but a group of aliens with a lair underground has taken control of the monsters and let them lose on the world. There goes the United Nations building in New York, oh oh, and there goes the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. London, Beijing and Moscow fare no better. Humans must get the monsters under control and set them against the aliens. All this is colourful and catchy. The film not only has an impressive array of monsters, but it also has trips to a lunar base, journeys underground on earth, and battles galore. What the film does not have are characters with personality or dimension. The plot is thin too. What it offers is an extravaganza of monsters knocking things – buildings, ships, airplanes, other monsters – hither and yon. This one lacks the nuclear angle or any other socially aware angle. Even the aliens are harmless-looking and remarkably human-looking. For those who enjoy rubber-suited behemoths kicking things about, this one is for you.

 

Godzilla vs Gidan (1972), directed by Jun Fukuda, Yoshimitsu Banno, Ishiro Honda. This one is like a comic book, complete with speech balloons for talk between our hero Godzilla and his sidekick Anguirus. The human protagonist, Gengo Kotaka (Hiroshi Ishikawa), happens to be a comic-book artist, who has created a couple of monsters, one a Homework Monster and the other an over-protective Mother monster. Anyway, Gengo finds himself and a small group of others trying to rescue a fellow from the bad guys who are building a Godzilla theme park. These bad guys are alien cockroaches who have taken the form of humans wearing excessively orange clothes. In their efforts to take over the world, they enlist the help of two monsters, King Ghidorah and the eponymous Gidan. Ghidorah has three heads, and Gidan has a belly that contains a slicing buzz saw. These guys are impressive, and so too is their battle against Godzilla and Anguirus. While the small group of humans destroy the cockroach aliens, Godzilla and Anguirus defeat the two bad monsters and send them flying back to space. Keeping with the ecological warnings of some of the 60s Godzilla movies, the film lets us know that the aliens come from a planet that has destroyed itself through excessive pollution and also nuclear carnage. The word “camp” seems appropriate for this one. It has some hilarious moments.

 

Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975), directed by Ishiro Honda. This one not only has Godzilla and his mechanical adversary Mechagodzilla, but also Titanosaurus. The three of them duke it out while knocking buildings in Tokyo left and right. It seems the aliens from the third planet of the Black Hole are back to try and conquer earth. They enlist the aid of Dr. Mafune (Akihiko Hirata) and his daughter, Katsura (Tomoko Ai) because the doctor has learned how to control Titanosaurus, and his daughter, after dying and being revived by the aliens, is turned into a cyborg who controls Mechagodzilla’s brain. Interpol is on the case, and we have some running about an island forest along with the battle of the giant creatures. Titanosaurus steals the limelight with his tail that can expand to become a fan that waves and created a wind strong enough to knock Godzilla for six. As for Mechagodzilla, he can lose his head and still remain a formidable foe, emitting a beam from the small round ball that remains. All in all, this is good fun.

 

Godzilla Minus One (2023), directed by Takashi Yamazaki (also visual effects). Celebrating 70 years of Godzilla, this film is something of a throwback, clearly referencing Honda’s 1954 film while also giving us reminders of other films in the long-running series. The effects here are exceptional. Allusions to such films as Jaws, Dunkirk, War of the Worlds, and of course other Godzilla movies give us much to admire. But what is more impressive is the human story, or stories, here. The main character is Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuki Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot at the end of the Second World War who feigns engine trouble in order not to carry out his suicide mission. This act, along with a second act of seeming cowardice when Godzilla first appears, haunt him throughout the rest of the film. Much of the story involves the makeshift family Koichi becomes part of in the aftermath of the war in the ruins of Ginza in Tokyo. The strength to survive despite hardship and ruin are at the forefront here. The cast of characters is nicely drawn. Indeed, it is the human element that is so compelling in this film about a huge monster capable of hurling battleships hither and yon, and knocking down tall skyscrapers with ease. This is an impressive contribution to the Godzilla films.

 

War of the God Monsters (1985) directed by Kim Jeong-Yong. Here is a low budget Korean kaiju film that uses lots of stock footage taken from the Japanese TV series Return of Ultraman. The story is slight. Climate change has resulted in the Arctic ice melting, and as the “ice walls” crash into the sea, a number of weird and very large creatures are released to do havoc among humans. Only one human, Dr. Kim, knows what is happening. He lives with his young daughter in an isolated place by the sea. The film begins with a young woman reporter arriving in this isolated place to do a story on Dr. Kim. Perhaps the best thing about this rather modest entry into the kaiju genre is the interaction between the three humans, Kim, his daughter, and the reporter. The rubber-suited creatures are hokey. Yes, they are colourful and also very odd looking, one of them is a huge twin-like ghostly thing with the head of a bat (I think) between the two ghostly parts. If I haven’t described this clearly, well that is because the thing is just downright nutsy. Then we have the large chicken thing and the huge rhinoceros thing, and a few others for good measure. One of the viewer reviews on IMDB has the headline: “Forget that this is a movie and just let it happen to you.” I think this says all that needs to be said.

 Some British films. For more Pressburger and Powell films, see January 11, 2024.

49^th Parallel (1941), directed by Michael Powell, screenplay by Emeric Pressburger. Among other things, the film is a travelogue, taking us across Canada from west to east, from north of Churchill, Manitoba to Winnipeg. At one point, characters walk from Winnipeg to Banff where they enjoy ‘Indian Days.’ These characters are a group of German sailors who have been stranded in Canada after their U-Boat has been sunk in Hudson’s Bay. They are trying to make it across the 49^th parallel to the U.S. because the U.S. is still neutral in 1940. This provides the simple plot. These peripatetic characters meet a cross-section of Canadians from German Hutterites to First Nations people, to Scots, French Canadians, and English. The Canadians are invariably nice. The German sailors, with one exception, are not nice. As the action goes along quite a number of people are killed. To accentuate the action, we have the rousing music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. This is the only time I have seen the name of the composer in the cast list at the film’s beginning. The cast includes such stalwarts as Laurence Olivier as Johnnie the Trapper (using a pronounced French accent and wearing the requisite checked shirt), Eric Portman as Lieutenant Hirth, the fanatic leader of the German sailors, Anton Walbrook as Peter, leader of the Hutterite colony, Glynis Johns as Anna, a young woman in this colony, Leslie Howard as Philip Armstrong Scott, chronicler of First Nations history, and Raymond Massey as Andy Brock, a Canadian soldier. By the way, Raymond Massey’s brother Vincent (first Canadian-born Governor General – 1952-1959) provides the opening voice over narration. The film’s editor is David Lean. 49^th Parallel is an early wartime propaganda film, but it is so much more. The characters are rounded and the story compelling. Having German sailors as protagonists is a bold stroke. Yes, these sailors are cruel, violent, and fanatic (with that one exception). They are also the characters we follow from beginning to end.

 

The Red Shoes (1948), directed by Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell. Powell has remarked: “For ten years we had all been told to go out and die for freedom and democracy; but now the war was over, The Red Shoes told us to go out and die for art.” This film that uses a story by Hans Christian Andersen to inform its plot examines the life in art, art as taking precedence over all else. Yes, ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) and composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) fall in love and attempt to make a life together, but this attempt is doomed to fail because of the pull of art, and because of the powerful influence of Svengali-like head of the ballet company, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook). What impresses most in this picture is the fabulously colourful cinematography of Jack Cardiff and the almost surreal sets and designs of Hein Heckroth. Red, blue, and green, but especially red, are intense in their pull. They draw us into a painterly world of art as life itself. When asked why she wants to dance, young Victoria replies: “Why do you want to live?” These people live for art; art is life for them. Here art is collaborative. We may have the romanticized conductor and the prima ballerina, but behind the scenes are a bevy of designers, craftspeople, makeup artists, and so on who are necessary to the final production. This is like film, really! This film, like the ballet it depicts, is a lavish production; it will dazzle your eyes. The central dance sequence, the titular Red Shoes ballet, joins cinema and dance in a surreal expression of the possibility of art. It is beautiful to the point of hallucinatory. This dance sequence, and others in the film, are gorgeous. The performances are believable. Everything works.

Crackerjack (1938) – aka The Man with 100 Faces), directed by Albert de Courville. This pleasant British comedy/crime caper begins aboard an airplane where a robbery takes place. The robbers are after diamonds. They accomplish their daring and novel feat only to find that the diamonds they were after are not among the loot. But those diamonds were on that plane. What happened? It seems master thief ‘Crackerjack’ outwitted the thieves. Not only did Crackerjack steal the diamonds right in front of the thieves, but he also, like a modern day Robin Hood, uses the ill-gotten gains to help the needy. Once back on solid ground, one Jack Drake (Tom Walls), aka Crackerjack, meets with old flame Baroness von Haltz (Lilli Palmer) and romance flourishes. He also insinuates himself into a costume ball held by the wealthy Mrs. Humbold (Muriel George), only to steal Mrs. Humbold’s very expensive pearls. And he steals them right from round her neck. As one of the titles of this film indicates, Crackerjack is a man of disguises and he uses these to elude capture. Did I mention that he is also a successful author who turns his own capers into fiction for the common reader? This is all good fun. Lilli Palmer is always a delight and she wears some lavish gowns. Tom Walls is an unlikely leading man, but somehow this works. Brisk and bright, this film is well worth a visit.

Hobson’s Choice (1954), directed by David Lean. This film opens with an eerie night scene inside a boot shop somewhere in the black country of Victorian England. It is dark and spooky, with unsettling sounds. Soon a dark figure appears, and then stumbles into the shop. This is the inebriated Hobson, proprietor of the shop. His eldest daughter, Maggie (Brenda de Banzie) appears and helps him off to bed. Thus begins Hobson’s Choice, a delightful comedy that never fails to surprise, just as this opening scene surprises us. The story has to do with what the Victorians called “The Woman Question,” and at the forefront are Hobson’s three daughters. Maggie is 30 and, according to her father Henry Hobson (Charles Laughton), too old and too plain to marry. She thinks otherwise. Breaking the class barrier and contemporary conventions, Maggie sets out to marry Henry’s best bootmaker, William Mossop (John Mills), and begin her own business with William, a business in direct competition with her father’s. As she says, she has the brains and William has the talent. In short, this is a film that focuses on a strong and intelligent woman who defies convention and wins. As for her inebriate father, he descends into an alcoholic haze until rescued by this same daughter who, in the film’s third act, saves him from himself by offering him – yes – a Hobson’s Choice. Everything here is crisp and impressive: the acting, the sets, the cinematography, the sound, the script. You will also see a young Prunella Scales (you might remember her as Sybil Fawlty) as the youngest daughter, Vicky. 

 

The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed. What to say about this oh so dark film noir. I cannot imagine not having seen this film. Its striking angles and shadows and images and spirals and spider like wires and hellish sewers beneath the streets of war-torn Vienna and charismatic Harry Lime lurking in the shadow of a street corner with a cat rubbing his leg and a zither sounding will stay in the mind. Robert Krasker’s cinematography delivers the essence of noir. Grahame Greene’s script examines the moral decline in post war Europe. Reed’s direction is potent. The acting is fine with Joseph Cotton’s Holly Martins performing the innocent abroad act nicely, Trevor Howard’s Major Calloway looking dapper in a tam and trench coat, Alida Valli’s Anna Schmidt effectively cool and closed (her departure at the end is chilling), and most memorably Orson Welles’s Harry Lime insinuating himself into the lives of innocents he manages to ruin. Welles is hardly in the film, although Harry Lime permeates all that goes on, but his brief appearance steals the show. Harry is the personification of the banality of evil, and the scenes of him scurrying through the sewers like a scared rat are powerful. This is as good as it gets in movie making. The scene high above ground in the Ferris wheel when Harry justifies his abhorrent racket in diluted penicillin chillingly stamps the moral collapse that is perhaps not just a post-war phenomenon. 

 

Cottage to Let (1941 – aka Bombsight Stolen), directed by Anthony Asquith. Here is a chipper wartime comedy/mystery starring the likes of John Mills, Michael Wilding, Carla Lehmann, and Alistair Sim. A number of people gather at a Scottish house that is being used for a military hospital and to house a couple of child evacuees. A downed pilot, Lieutenant Perry (John Mills), is being cared for here by nurse Helen Barrington (Carla Lehmann), daughter of the cottage’s owner. Young evacuee, Ronald (George Cole), fancies himself a Sherlock Holmes-type detective, and he goes about sleuthing. Then we have the mysterious Mr. Charles Dimble (Alistair Sim), who has rented the cottage not knowing it was co-opted by the military. Others involved in the goings-on include the Butler, the cook, scientist extraordinaire and owner of the house, John Barrington (Leslie Banks), his assistant Trently (Michael Wilding) and a few others lurking about. One of these several people is an agent of the Reich and member of a local Fifth Column cell. Which one? We have fun learning who the bad guy or girl is. Despite the fun, the film brings a serious eye to nefarious activities on the home-front. Sprightly, quick-witted, and engaging, A Cottage to Let is an efficient, well-directed film.

 

The Browning Version (1951), directed by Anthony Asquith. This is a film of great restraint, restraint in its action, in its camera work, in the emotions of its characters (for the most part). It tells the story of English school-master and teacher of classics, Andrew Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave). Early in his career, Crocker-Harris was a brilliant scholar and idealistic teacher who had begun a translation of Sophocles’s Agamemnon, a translation he never completed. In his own life, Crocker-Harris has his Clytemnestra in his wife Millie (Jean Kent). She has already killed him, Crocker-Harris says to fellow teacher and his wife’s lover, Frank Hunter (Nigel Patrick). Most of Crocker-Harris’s students dislike him and make fun of him when not within his watchful eye. One student, young Taplow (Brian Smith) does show some compassion, even giving his glum teacher a copy of Robert Browning’s translation of Agamemnon as a retirement gift. This sends Crocker-Harris into a round of sobbing, his only open display of emotion in the film. This is a film of intense feelings held in by stoic people trying to maintain decorum. Redgrave’s performance is nuanced and convincing. Asquith allows things to move along fluidly giving all his attention and ours, to the players. He offers a master class in how to bring a stage play to film.

 A fifth by Ray.

The Stranger (1991), directed by Satyajit Ray. This is Ray's final film; he died in 1992. The film tells the story of a long-lost uncle who returns to meet his niece after a 35 year absence. He has been out of communication with any family members since 1968, 32 years ago. He arrives on his niece's doorstep a few days after the niece has received a letter announcing his return. The niece has no memory of this uncle, and her husband is sceptical that this person is, in fact, her uncle. Once he arrives the family make several efforts to establish whether this stranger is truly the person he claims to be. Much of the action takes place in the family's living room where a selection of family friends comes to test the new arrival, and these tests become occasions for reflections on the nature of civilization, identity, politics, the class system, materialism, and so on. We might be reminded that the philosopher is often, if not always, a stranger to others. Ray's characters are attractive in their puzzlement, their humour, their humanity. Perhaps the key to these characters is the young son, Satyaki, whose openness, innocence, and desire to learn give him a special relationship with the Stranger. This is a quiet, yet intense film that suggests the simple "forest life" is the good life, and that all the so-called civilized values devolve into warfare, division, and an unfair separation of peoples into haves and have-nots. The final scene in the country brings Ray back to the world of his Apu trilogy made over thirty years before The Stranger. Told with delicacy and gentleness, this is a story for our times. I might add that the colours in this film are dazzling.