A few silent films.

The Son-of-a-Gun (1919), directed by Gilbert M. Anderson (i.e. Bronco Billy Anderson). Bronco Billy rides into town, buys drinks for everyone except for a kid who happens to be in the saloon with his Dad’s ranch foreman, an unsavoury fellow who is leading young Buddy Brown (Paul Willis) astray. The townsfolk come to think of Bronco Billy as a detriment to their community and they drive him out of town and to the next county. There Bronco continues to buy drinks all round. Back in Bronco’s old country, Buddy’s Dad has to sell cows in order to get money to pay for his daughter’s medical treatment. Dad sends Buddy to the next county with the foreman and some cows. Once Buddy sells the cows and has money, the foreman begins once again to lead Buddy astray, this time so he can get the money from him. A crooked poker game causes Buddy to lose the money, but Bronco arrives to save the day. Bronco takes the money and Buddy back home where Buddy’s father promptly shoots Bronco. The end. This is not a particularly distinguished silent western.

 

The Monster (1925), directed by Roland West. A mix of horror and comedy (mostly comedy), this Lon Chaney film is fun. Chaney plays Dr. Ziska, an inmate of a “sanitar-rium” who has, with other inmates, taken over the place. Into this grand and spooky old house come three innocents, Johnny Goodlittle (Johnny Arthur) would be detective, Amos Rugg (Hallam Cooley), and Betty Watson (Gertrude Olmstead). The plot has something to do with Dr. Ziska’s mad plan to transfer a woman’s soul to a man so he can find the secret of life. Helping him are an assortment of crazies. The film has lots of atmosphere, with a howling wind and pelting rain, and shadowy rooms and secret doorways and useful dumbwaiters, and more curious of all, the large mirror that slides down onto a road from an overhanging tree. This mirror serves to frighten drivers into crashing off the road. Those who are unfortunate enough to crash (Betty and Amos, for example) find themselves abducted and carried away to the sanitarium. An allusion that appears more than once here is to Fuseli’s famous painting, The Nightmare (1781). Perhaps a tad slow, the film nevertheless is entertaining. Tubi has an excellent print.

 

The Prairie Pirate (1925), directed by Edmund Mortimer. This is a well-made western melodrama that will strike some viewers as pleasant precisely because it is so dippy. Harry Carey stars as Brian Delaney who returns home one day to find that his cabin has been ransacked, and his sister Ruth (Jean Dumas) is dead. She has left a note behind saying she was being attacked by bandits and she would not allow them to take her alive. We have seen all this earlier. The bandit Aguilar (Fred Kohler) and his men break into the cabin and find Ruth. She manages to shoot two of the bandits before climbing into the crawl space beneath the cabin where she takes her own life. Aguilar has all this time been lighting cigarillos, taking a puff or two, and then twisting what is left before dropping them. When Brian returns to find the ransacked house and his sister, he also finds the tossed twisted cigarillos. He takes these as a clue to the identity of the person responsible for his sister’s death, and he sets out to find this person. In order to find the criminal, he takes on the identity of the “Yellow Seal” and goes about robbing saloons, taking only their ashtrays so he can locate the twisted cigarillo butts. For some reason, this makes him a bandit worthy of a $1,000 bounty. Dippy. Anyway, the rest of the film has to do with a slimy saloon owner Howard Steele (Lloyd Whitlock) and his hold over the compulsive gambler, Don Esteban (Robert Edeson). Steele wants either to take over Don Esteban’s ranch or marry the Don’s daughter Teresa (Trilby Clark). Meanwhile, the Yellow Seal has saved Teresa from being assaulted by another bandit, and in saving her, he of course finds himself attracted to her. Then we have Steele in cahoots with Aguilar, and some riding, some impressive stunt work, a bit of shooting, and the Yellow Seal saving Teresa from an unwanted marriage. All of this is fun, if rather unbelievable. But heck, it is a movie.

Between 1918 and 1923 Chaplin's films all came from his own studio, First National. Shoulder Arms (1918) is perhaps the most noteworthy of the films produced at First National, but on the whole the First National films are not my preferred Chaplin. In any case, we watched four of these films last evening: Sunnyside (1919), A Day's Pleasure (1919), The Idle Class (1921), and Pay Day (1922). Highlights are the brick catching scene in Pay Day (amazing), the dream sequence with the nymphs in Sunnyside (clever and very funny), the inebriation sequence in the rain in Pay Day (Chaplin had played tipsy since his music hall days and he does so in many of his films; his performance while supposedly under the influence is always good for a laugh), and the road tar sequence in A Day's Pleasure (slapstick at its most graceful). In The Idle Class Chaplin plays two roles, something he did in a few films. All four films pit the working class against the wealthy, and we know where Chaplin's sympathy lies. 1923 marks the end of Chaplin's shorter films.

A couple more Chaplin films: A Dog's Life (1918) and The Pilgrim (1923), both directed by Charlie Chaplin, and both for First National (the first and last films for this studio). A Dog's Life co-stars Scraps. The title of the film may refer equally to Scraps the dog or to the Tramp since both lead a dog's life, scrapping for bits of food wherever they can get them. Edna Purviance also co-stars as Charlie's love interest. This film offers laughter with a tear, Chaplin's signature tone. Much of the action takes place in a speakeasy where Edna sings and flirts with men to relieve them of their money. Of course she is not made for this kind of life. As for The Pilgrim, this also co-stars Edna Purviance, her final film with Chaplin. Here Charlie is an escaped convict who steals the clothes of a fellow who is swimming in a river. The clothes prove to be those of a pastor and, you guessed it, Charlie makes his way to Texas where he arrives in a town whose denizens are expecting their new pastor. Charlie thinks to abscond with the Church collection, but he meets Edna Purviance and he reforms, even thwarting another thief from making off with Edna's mother's mortgage money. The local sheriff thinks twice about arresting Charlie and instead takes him to the Mexico border where he encourages Charlie to stay in Mexico. Charlie straddles the border as the film ends. Along with these films, we watched How to Make Movies, a short film Chaplin made to introduce and celebrate the creation of his own studio, First National.

Wolfblood (1925), directed by George Chesebro and Bruce Mitchell. What caught my eye was the name George Chesebro, Here he is leading man and director. I know him from the hundreds of B westerns in which he played the bad guy or a member of the bad guy’s gang. I was also intrigued to see that this was a werewolf film. Well almost. The story is set in “the vastness of the Canadian forests,” and has many stock shots of lumberjacks going about their business. Dick Bannister (Chesebro) is foreman of a lumber business that is experiencing trouble from its rival Consolidated Lumber. The owner of Bannister’s outfit, Edith Ford (Marguerite Clayton), comes to the forest with her doctor fiancé Eugene Horton (Ray Hanford). To simplify: Edith finds herself attracted to Dick, Eugene is jealous, Eugene finds Dick wounded one night (he has been attacked by villainous Frenchman Jacques Lebeq (Milburne Morante), Eugene saves Dick’s life by giving him a blood transfusion using a wolf for the transfusion, the result is that Dick is now thought to be the Loup garou. He is not. So much for the werewolf theme. The film is competently organized, but contains nothing particularly noteworthy aside from the crazy blood transfusion, and this comes halfway through the film. It is, however, interesting to see George Chesebro as the romantic lead.

The Matinee Idol (1928), directed by Frank Capra. It is the time of year for a Capra film, although this is not the one you might expect. This early Capra is about a Broadway star, Don Wilson (Johnnie Walker) who meets a country girl while he is on vacation. He mistakenly finds himself taking part in the theatricals of a small group of thespians called the Bolivar players. Ginger Bolivar (Bessie Love), daughter of Jasper Bolivar, the head of this troupe, soon catches Don’s eye. He has introduced himself as Harry Mann (!), and so we set out to have a play of disguise and mistaken identity. The country troupe of actors prove so inept, they endear themselves to Don’s friends who produce the Broadway production in which Don stars in Blackface. He is something of an Al Jolsen figure. Once we get past this uncomfortable reminder of the ugliness of racism, we might find aspects of this production interesting. One of the country players is clearly gay. The unfortunate thing here is that another character makes fun of the gay person. I might also add that, despite Capra’s interest in the small-town person, here he makes these people amusement for the, ostensibly, sophisticated New York audience. The Capra sympathy for the common person is clear, although not quite without its down side. And Bessie Love in the main female lead is engaging, spunky and independent minded. All in all, this is not a film without its problems, but as an early Capra, it has its interest.

The Virginian (1914), directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Tubi has a pretty good print of this film, the first film version of Owen Wister’s novel. Things move along succinctly and smoothly here. The story is familiar, and the early cross0cutting between Molly, the Easterner, and the Virginian out west is effective. Outdoor shooting is good. The elements of the western are here with cattle drives and cattle rustling, lynching of thieves, saloon antics, cowboy romancing, Natives attacking, and, of course, the shootout between the hero and the villain, here the Virginian (Dustin Farnum) and Trampas (William ‘Billy’ Elmer). As early westerns go, this one is impressive. The compositions by DeMille are catchy. At one point, as the Virginian and his pal Steve reminisce, we have a superimposed image to let us see what they are thinking. We have seen superimposed images before in Melies, but not for purposes of letting us see into the minds of characters. There are also extended sequences, the longest having to do with Steve and the Virginian swapping babies while their parents take part in a party and dance. 

The Man from Beyond (1922), directed by Burton L. King. If you are looking for a silent film that will engage you, give this one a miss. The main attraction here is Harry Houdini who stars as the man from beyond, Howard Hillary, who has been encased in ice for 100 years. Thawed out, Howard comes back to civilization from the frozen north to find himself at a wedding. He notices the bride and takes her to be the woman he was to marry before he was iced over. Consternation. Thinking him out of his mind, his hosts have him incarcerated in an insane asylum. Of course, he escapes despite the straight jacket and barred windows. Meanwhile Felice Strange (Jane Connelly), the women who was to be married before Howard crashed the wedding, is on the run from her fiancé who has proven to be a cad. Felice takes a row boat on the Niagara River. Yes, you can see what’s coming. Howard comes to the rescue, but not before the two of them just about topple over the Niagara Falls. If all this sounds exciting, then I fear I have failed because, sadly, it is not. The whole thing is supposed to have something to do with reincarnation, the power of love and such balderdash. In its favour, the film is a curiosity.

 

 

 A few films to begin the new year.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), directed by Taika Waititi. This film is a mish-mash of such films as Rambo, Thelma and Louise, Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Searchers, and perhaps even Where the Wild Things Are. It has the feel of a good fairy tale. And it has two main characters who, despite their curmudgeonly demeanor, charm us. Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is the foster kid with an attitude who aspires to be a rap artist and who is forever making up haiku. He is overweight. He is, in short, charismatic. His fellow traveller in the New Zealand bush is Hec (Sam Neill), a misanthrope of few words and much scowl. Together they strike out against the establishment in a very satisfying manner. The look of this film is also worth admiring, awash in light and offering splendid vistas of the New Zealand outback. The film is funny and serious. It has a bit of Mr. Fantastic in it.

 

Jojo Rabbit (2019), directed by Taika Waititi. As A. O. Scott in the New York Times notes, this film is in the vein of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. It takes on the same sensitive subject, and infuses it with charm and, for the most part, lightheartedness. The film does have shocking moments, and it also uses its humour for bursts of violence; for example, when young Yorki (Archie Yates), a butterball of a young soldier (11 years old), sees his friend Jojo and drops the bazooka he is holding effectively setting it off. The film brings Wes Anderson’s palette to the screen presumably to emphasise innocence, youth, and hope. Not everyone will appreciate the tone of this narrative of the Nazi horrors. Its focus on children and women, however, carries its own unsettling message. At the heart of the film is young Jojo’s relationship with his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler. Playing off this imaginary friend is Sam Rockwell’s burnt-out soldier who also happens to be gay. There is cleverness here. Aside from the main characters, others remain stereotypes, but this seems appropriate in a satire. I mention satire, and yes this film is satirical, but not in a militantly ironic manner. This is, after all, a comedy, and appropriately for a comedy, we have dancing to finish things off. I have not outlined the plot. Suffice to say we have a loving, and apparently single because of the war, mother who secretly harbours a young Jewish girl behind the walls of her apartment. Once this mother's young son, Jojo, discovers the secret, an uneasy friendship begins to develop.

 

Blackkklansman (2018), directed by Spike Lee. This is a major contribution to the conversation about race in America today. Set in the early 1970s, the film manages to speak to conditions we see today and the continuing racial injustice in America. The final shots using contemporary news footage are chilling, disturbing, and powerful. Just as powerful are the clips from early Hollywood films such as Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind that point out the lengthy history of racial insensitivity in culture production. The narrative is a somewhat rambling account of a Black policeman in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who in the 1970s manages to become a full-fledged member of the Ku Klux Klan, even having extended conversations on the telephone with David Duke, grandmaster of the KKK. The film is funny, unsettling, and melancholy. The melancholy emanates from the clear understanding that what we are watching is both bizarre and yet actual. This is an important film.

Mapplethorpe (2018), directed by Ondi Timoner. This biopic of the artist Robert Mapplethorpe is a tepid affair, and Mapplethorpe himself has little depth and less likeability. The film glosses his relationship with Patti Smith, and she leaves the scene earlier than she did in actuality. We get the obligatory scenes of interaction with family, with lovers, with New York nightlife, and so on. We also get scenes of Mapplethorpe taking pictures, instructing his subjects to hold themselves tighter or spread their knees, or take their cocks out of their trousers. All this seems rather perfunctory. The photographs themselves, especially as the end credits run, are impressive. But the film gives us no insight into how the artist captured light or conceived of his subjects beyond compositional objects. Even the controversial aspect of Mapplethorpe's work gets thin treatment. Of course the Aids epidemic arrives near the end, but again, we have little in the way of the actual grimness of what transpired.

Another Mother's Son (2017), directed by Christopher Menaul. The film tells the story of Louisa Gould, a woman living in the island of Jersey during the Nazi occupation. With the aid of her family, she hides a Russian prisoner of war for about three years before quislings give her up and she ends in a concentration camp in Germany. The story is based on actual events and people. As you might expect, the action pulls at the heart strings. There is not much in the way of spectacular action; things move along at a quiet pace with much riding of bicycles. And yet the tension gathers and the characters resonate. The Russian soldier has to practice social distancing along with the others, except for close family gatherings. And so this seems an appropriate film to watch these days. The cast is uniformly good, the scenery lovely (although it was shot in and around Bath, not on Jersey), and the story compelling.

Jellyfish (2018), directed by James Gardner. This is Gardner's first film and it is sobering, to say the least. In the tradition of British realist film from the likes of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, the film gives us a glimpse of a dreary life, the dreary life of Sarah, 15-year-old caregiver to her bipolar Mom and adult protector to her younger siblings. Set in Margate, the film gives us not only a life under duress, but also a place seeking an elusive improvement. The shots of a tawdry arcade and down-at-heel seaside and less than attractive abodes provide an unsavoury mise en scene. Margate here aspires to the condition of Brighton, an aspiration unlikely to be fulfilled while Sarah is there. Sarah's life is relentlessly downbeat, yet compelling. This is a noteworthy first film. Let's hope Sarah can harness all the anger and sorrow and become a stand-up comic.

Assassin (2015), directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. This film looks as if it is going to be an example of wuxia, a martial arts film. However, it is something else indeed, a mood piece with a plot that is both simple and daringly opaque. Unlike most martial arts films, or films in general these days, Assassin moves at an excruciatingly slow pace, with moments, long moments, of silence and stillness. The few bursts of action punctuate the stillness forcefully. Mostly we have beautiful people in beautiful costumes placed carefully in beautiful sets or in beautiful landscapes. The plot has the eponymous character exiled in order to prove herself a ruthless assassin, and the film places the viewer in something of an exile too. Do we have the patience to see the film to its end? Well, we do, and we did. And the assassin, Nie Yinniang (She Qui) proves herself a woman with heart and compassion. She wanders off with the maker of mirrors.

 A few John Ford films.

Bucking Broadway (1917), directed by John Ford. This early Ford western has Harry Carey playing Cheyenne Harry in a comedic vein. The film has many touches we associate with Ford, male camaraderie and enjoyment of song, a close relationship between an older man and a younger man, and exquisite compositional detail. It also has one unfortunate scene in which Harry buys new clothes only to see a Black man wearing a similar outfit, prompting Harry to return the clothes in disgust. Back to composition. At one point, we have a shot that anticipates the famous doorway scene(s) in The Searchers. The plot has Harry proposing marriage to his boss’s daughter, Helen Clayton (Molly Malone), only to have her run off to New York with the oily horse trader, Eugene Thornton (Vester Pegg), who sports a villain’s large moustache. Anyway, Harry has given Helen a small heart that he has carved and told her to send it to him if she is ever in trouble. She sends this to him, and Harry makes his way to New York. Soon after the other cowboys from the ranch also arrive with a load of horses. What follows is a raucous melee, not in a saloon, but in the posh hotel where Helen and Eugene are have their engagement party. The film is played for laughs. As early films go, this one is worth it for the cinematography and for an early glimpse at Ford’s interests as a film maker.

 

Hangman's House (1928), directed by John Ford. The film is perhaps noteworthy as the first film in which a young John Wayne appears, uncredited. He is a member of the audience watching a horse race, and in his enthusiasm he breaks down a small fence. The horse race, by the way, is a forerunner of the race in Ford's much later The Quiet Man. The story is less noteworthy than either the race or the appearance of young Marion Morrison. It tells the story of a young woman forced into a marriage with a man she does not love, a man who is a cad. Of course she loves another young man. Throw into the mix another man who is exiled in the Foreign Legion and who returns to take revenge on the cad who had married the young woman. This cad, by the way, is an informer. Oh, did I say the story is set in Ireland? This is something of a dry-run for Ford's later The Informer, complete with touches of German Expressionism. I found the film rather tepid, but it looks fine. The camera moves fluidly on occasion, and the compositions are worthy of the director.

 

Upstream (1927), directed by John Ford. This one concerns the theatre and its players who occupy a boarding house during the season. Some are successful, some are not. Some are serious actors, others are performers such as a song and dance act Callaham and Callaham or the sister act who are actually mother and daughter. Our main focus is on young actor from a famous family, Eric Brashingham (Earle Foxe), his girlfriend Gertie Ryan (Nancy Nash), and knife thrower Juan Rodriguez, aka Jack La Velle (Grant Withers). Nancy loves Eric, Juan loves Nancy, and Eric loves himself. Anyway, Eric surprisingly makes good with the help of the older actor Campbell Mandare (Emile Chautard), and lands the part of Hamlet in a London production. He triumps in the part and leaves his former friends behind. They struggle on, and Nancy and Juan plan to marry. They do marry and during their wedding ceremony, Eric returns for a visit just for the publicity. His return offers Ford the opportunity for one of his visual flourishes and Eric appears in the cloud of smoke created by the camera that takes the wedding photos. The whole thing is fluff, except this is Ford, early Ford yes, but Ford nonetheless. His visual flare is evident not only in the scene of Eric’s less than triumphant return to the boarding house, but also in other scenes such as the one in which Eric imagines himself playing Hamlet as he looks in a mirror. Ford gives us an intimate view of life as performance. 

 

Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), directed by John Ford. Ford’s first colour film is lush and lovely to look at, but its rah rah patriotism strikes the wrong cord for me. The story has to do with the American Revolution and the goings on in an upper New York community just before the Battle of Saratoga. The Tories, led here by eye-patched John Carradine as Caldwell, are a vicious lot and employ the savage Natives to do much of their dastardly work. The Natives are hard-drinkers who like to set things on fire. If the Native happens to be a Christian, our hero’s friend Blue Back (Chief Big Tree) for example, then this Native is just fine. Our hero is Gilbert Martin (Henry Fonda) who has come to this out of the way valley to build a home; he brings with him a young bride, the rich girl Lana (Claudette Colbert), who at first finds country living intolerable. As the film goes along, Lana becomes a faithful, hard working pioneer woman, perhaps helped by the example of the widow McKlennar (Edna May Oliver), a no nonsense, independent and stubborn woman who orders everyone about, even the Natives who, while holding whiskey jugs, try to burn her house down. The film has familiar Ford touches, community solidarity, the importance of church, humour, eccentric characters, and a cast sprinkled with Ford favourites: Ward Bond, Jack Pennick, Arthur Shields, Francis Ford, Russell Simpson, Tom Tyler, along with those I have already mentioned – Fonda, Carradine, and Big Tree. The final shot where the flag of the new fresh country is placed atop the church has something of a chilling feel now when the separation of church and state seems on the verge of breaking down. Visually and thematically, this is clearly a Ford film; it is, however, a lesser Ford film. It appears in the same year as Stagecoach and Young Mr. Lincoln, and a year before The Grapes of Wrath. These three films are all a cut above Drums Along the Mohawk.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), directed by John Ford. This film showcases Ford and John Wayne at their best. We have seen it multiple times and no doubt will see it again. The cinematography by Winton C. Hoch is justly famous. The Frederick Remington-influenced look of the film is gorgeous. Wayne’s portrayal of a 43-year veteran of the cavalry, Captain Nathan Brittles, is terrific; he even manages to shed tears when C-Troop gives him a retirement present, a silver watch and chain with a sentiment on the back. The familiar Ford actors are here: Victor McLaglen, Harry Carey, Jr., Ben Johnson, Mildred Natwick, Arthur Shields, and in small uncredited roles, Paul Fix, Harry Woods, Jack Pennick, and Francis Ford. We have the usual Ford interest in male camaraderie, ritual, and tradition. We have a mixture of comedy, romance, sentimentality, and western action. The action here is interesting in that the main action of the film occurs when Brittles sets out to stop a war rather than indulge in one. “Old men must stop wars,” he says to his old friend Pony that Walks (Chief John Big Tree, another Ford stalwart). Ben Johnson as Sergeant Tyree has never been better, and his riding here is extremely impressive. Tom Tyler turns up as Corporal Mike Quayne, a wounded soldier who insists on giving the report on what happened to his patrol despite his injury. Old soldiers, eh Mis Dandridge. Olivia Dandridge, by the way, is played by Joanne Dru, another actor who appears in other Ford films, notably Wagon Master (1950). The film has many memorable moments: 
“Watch them grammar!” Lieutenant Pennell accepts Brittles’s offer of chewing tobacco as they watch from a hiding place the murder of Karl Rynders, the sutler, and the gun runners, “It’s been known to turn a man’s stomach.” Then we have the death of Trooper Smith, aka Rome Clay (Rudy Bowman), who commends “Captain” Tyree before dying. Of course, there is Sergeant Quincannon (McLaglen) in civvy clothes and brawling with those who come to take him to the guardhouse. The film has much to delight, not least its anti-war sentiment. Most impressive, however, is the landscape of Monument Valley that gives the film an epic look.

 

 A few cheapies from the early days.

The Invisible Mr. Unmei (1951, aka Oriental Evil). Low budget mystery set in post-war Japan. Cheryl Banning (Martha Hyer) arrives in Tokyo to seek answers about the death of her brother. Apparently, his death was a suicide, but Cheryl thinks otherwise. She finds herself running about with a very tall British fellow named Roger Mansfield (Byron Michie). Unbeknownst to Cheryl, Byron is married (ostensibly) to a Japanese woman. Also unbeknownst to her, Roger is really not Roger. He is actually an unsavoury fellow named Tom Putnam who owes money to various people and who is in a jam and hopes Cheryl can help him get out of this jam. So we have lots of murky goings on.  This is an odd one. Oh, the Mr. Unmei of the title is an invisible spirit fellow who appears only to evil persons about to die. Unmei has a street beggar who helps Unmei by not picking up the cigarette stubs of bad people. The beggar does not pick up Roger’s stub. How did Martha Hyer find herself in this one? And who is Byron Michie? He appears to have just two screen credits, both with Japanese settings.

Captured in Chinatown (1935), directed by Elmer Clifton. This little thriller is really for dog lovers. The German Shepherd, ‘Tarzan’, steals the show. He does any number of tricks and saves the girl and opens doors and delivers messages and tosses waste into buckets and generally manages to control proceedings. The proceedings, by the way, involve a feud between two families, the Lings and the Wongs, and two of their children who, echoing Shakespeare’s famous couple, wish to marry. An expensive jade necklace proves to bring peace between the feuding families, but dastardly Caucasians enter the scene looking to purloin the necklace. And purloin they do. Add to this, two newspaper reporters, one of whom has the dog Tarzan, and you have lots going on. One reporter, the female, finds herself captured in Chinatown, although not by the Chinese. Despite what is supposed to be an exotic background, what happens is predictable. The novelty here is not so much the location as it is the dog. The aptly named Tarzan proves smarter than the humans he finds himself outwitting.

 

Fall Guy (1947), directed by Reginald LeBorg. This Monogram thriller has something of a noir sensibility. “Clifford” Penn (father of Sean Penn) plays Tom Cochrane a war veteran who is having difficulty adjusting to life after the war. We meet him as he flounders about a street at night clearly out of his head with narcotics. He collapses and the police find him with blood on his clothes and a bloody knife beside him. A cut has him returning to consciousness in a hospital bed where the police are ready to charge him with murder. Tom manages to escape from the hospital and make his way to his girlfriend’s place. Lois Walter (Teala Loring) happens to be staying with an old friend, Mac McLaine (Robert Montgomery) who is a cop. She usually lives with her uncle Jim Grossett (Charles Arnt). So begins the story of what happened to Tom. Much of this story comes in flashbacks. In short, Tom has been taken to a party and encouraged to drink by both Joe (Elisha Cook, Jr.) and the singer Marie (Virginia Dale). He also receives cocaine, although I am not sure how he receives this. Anyway, he passes out and when he comes to and goes to leave, he opens a closet door and a dead woman falls into his arms. He stuffs her back in and hastily leaves. Shortly thereafter, he collapses on the street where the police find him. With the help of McLaine, Tom does some sleuthing in an effort to remember what happened. Meanwhile the police, headed by Inspector Shannon (Douglas Fowley) are hot on his heels. Using quite a bit of stock footage, some of it from as early as 1933, the films sets out to solves the murder of the unknown girl in the closet. The darks streets and murky goings on we associate with noir are here, as is the poor sap under suspicion of murder. The actual culprit may be in the background, but I managed to spot him by halfway through this short film. Not bad for a cheapie. This also happens to be the first film produced by Walter Mirisch who will go on to produce films such as Some Like It Hot, The Magnificent Seven, West Side Story, The Pink Panther, and many more.

 

Ouanga (1936), directed by George Terwilliger. The title refers to a love potion used in Haitian voodoo.  This is not a particularly noteworthy film, except for the racial aspect. Klili Gordon (Fredi Washington) is a black plantation owner whose skin is white. She is in love with another plantation owner, the white man Adam Maynard (Philip Brandon). Adam, however, is going to marry Eve Langley (Marie Paxton). He has had a dalliance with Klili, but he now tells her he cannot marry her because of their difference in blood. She should stay with her own people. Meanwhile, Sheldon Leonard turns up as LeStrange, a black overseer who is in love with Klili. Klili, using voodoo, plans to kill Eve, and LeStrange, using voodoo, plans to kill Klili if she won’t have him. Klili rouses two dead men as zombies. LeStrange takes the talisman that keeps Klili safe from around her neck. And then we have the drums. The whole thing is quite distasteful, and the ending is very downbeat, so to speak. As films go, this one has, perhaps, historical interest.

Dead Men Walk (1943), directed by Sam Neufield. This is a PRC quickie that has both George Zucco and Dwight Frye. Zucco has a dual role as brothers Dr. Lloyd Clayton and Dr. Elwyn Clayton. Frye plays Zolarr, hunched assistant to Elwyn. Elwyn is the evil brother who dies and returns as a vampire. Lloyd is the good brother who tries to ferret out his evil twin while local townsfolk believe it is Lloyd who is the perpetrator of dastardly murders. Elwyn hates his brother and want to see him suffer. Accordingly, Elwyn preys on the innocent niece of Lloyd, Gayle (Mary /Carlisle). Her fiancé David (Nedrick Young) begins to think the good Dr. Lloyd Clayton is trying to murder his niece. Everything moves along well enough with a few favourably staged scenes, despite the low budget. The film owes its charm to echoes of earlier Universal films, especially Dracula (1931). Fern Emmet turns in a nice performance as local seemingly loony woman, Kate. She proves to be more savvy than people give her credit for. Zucco and Frye are, however, the stand-outs. Al St. John appears briefly as a local, and Forrest Taylor is the disembodied head that present the prologue. Both St. John and Taylor are stalwarts of PRC’s westerns.

Big News (1929), directed by Gregory La Cava. This is one of those fast-talking newspaper films, and it delivers pretty well. Robert Armstrong is Steve Banks, a newspaper man with problems: he drinks too much, and his wife, Margaret (Carole Lombard), wants a divorce. Steve, however, is following a story about narcotics and gangster Joe Reno (Sam Hardy). The film takes place in the newsroom and in Reno’s speakeasy. The newsroom sports an array of characters, most notably Vera (Cupid Ainsworth), the society columnist, and Hoffman (George Hayes, later known as Gabby). The plot involves the murder of the newspaper’s editor J. W. Addison (Charles Sellon). Of course, Banks is accused of the murder, and of course we know he is innocent. The script here is snappy, and things move along nicely. For a cheapie , this one passes muster.

The Fat Man (1951), directed by William Castle. J. Scott Smart is detective Brad Runyon, the titular hero. Runyon is the creation of Dashiell Hammett, and he has his charm. He reminded me of tv’s Henry Crabbe (Pie in the Sky, 1994). The film is noteworthy for its narrative unfolding in a series of flashbacks, and its inclusion of Rock Hudson and Emmett Kelly in key roles. In short, this is a whodunnit. Detective Runyon is searching for the killer of a dentist; the killer also stole an x-ray of someone’s teeth. The film is adequately shot with some nifty camera work, and the characters, although standard for the most part, are also adequate. We do have those clowns, one of whom is a sign of times we hope to have left behind. The Fat Man also does a bit of footwork on the dance floor. Other notable actors are Julie London and John Russell. Amiable, if not particularly memorable.

 The Thick-Walled Room (1956), directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Filmed in 1953, this movie was not released until 1956 because the studio considered it too provocative and critical of postwar American occupation of Japan and of Japan’s higher military establishment for heaping blame on lower-ranking soldiers for war crimes. On the surface, this is a war prison film with similarities to such films as Wilder’s Stalag 17 (1953), and Renoir’s La grande illusion (1937), although The Thick-Walled Room is more raw, even ragged. It contains touches of the surreal in a dream sequence, and it has flashbacks. Mostly it focuses on the broken lives of the inmates of a prison for soldiers, a prison guarded by American MPs. We follow the lives of a small group as they try to overcome the trauma the war has visited on them. The narrative, like the lives of the soldiers, is fragmented, in pieces as it were. One soldier grows a beard and when called upon to shave it, he remarks that he is growing it long, long enough so he can hang himself with it. Another solider actually tries to hang himself. These are lives broken. These men bear the burden of a war they did not start, did not want, and did not control. Although this film has little in common with Kubrik’s Paths of Glory, that film kept coming back to me as I watched The Thick-Walled Room. Both are powerful anti-war films. The Thick-Walled Room works as a prelude to Kobayashi’s masterpiece, the nine hour The Human Condition (1959-1961).

 

I Will Buy You (1956), directed by Masaki Kobayashi. It is World Series time now and so it seems appropriate to view a baseball story, or what is ostensibly a baseball story. This one tells of an array of baseball scouts  who chase a rising baseball star playing in what amount to the college ranks. We focus most closely on one of these scouts, Kishimoto (Keiji Sada), who provides intermittent voice over. What matters is simply money, nothing else. We see that people are commodities, loyalties are self-serving, money corrupts, and greed tops everything. Families are torn apart. Relationships sour. The player who has the attention of so many scouts is Goro Kurita (Minoru Oki), and he has been cared for by a fellow named Kyuki (Yunosuke Ito). Kyuki has trained and looked after Goro for the past four years. He seems to have nothing but Goro’s best interests at heart. He also has a gall stone that causes acute pain at times, often at convenient times to illicit the sympathy of others. Kyuki’s “disease” proves to be a metaphor for the state of the sport. It is a disease. Money is a disease. The film also touches on gambling. All in all, this is a dark vision of sport in which sport itself is a metaphor for the larger society. It is corrupt and fraught with duplicity. The film is, perhaps, a bit longer than it need be, but the acting is fine and for the most part the staging is excellent. For much of the film, our moral centre appears to be Goro’s girlfriend, Fudeko (Keiko Kishi), who sees how the quest for fame and money can change a person and not for the better.

 

Black River (1956), directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Taking a page from the noir script, Kobayashi gives us a tour of a slum dwelling near a U.S. Naval Air base. We get to know the inhabitants of this ramshackle dwelling, its landlady, and the nearby louts and gangsters who want to benefit financially from the demolition of this place so a new brothel can be erected! Pimps, prostitutes, gamblers, and dealers live here in the shadow of the U.S. military base. Indeed, the U.S. base influences the lives of these people, and not for the better. The group of people in the run-down building include layabouts, a young couple who ostensibly live off the young wife’s earnings as a hairdresser, although she is actually a prostitute, a communist who tries to organize the people and fight against the exploitation of the Americans who use their electricity but do not pay for it, and Nishida (Fumio Watanabe) a young engineering student who wants to be left alone to study. Nishida meets a young waitress, Shizuko (Ineko Arima) and the two clearly are attracted to each other. Unfortunately, local thug in sunglasses, Joe (Tatsuya Nakadai) also has eyes for Shizuko. Joe arranges for Shizuko to be set upon by a gang of hoodlums so he can “rescue” her. He does and then proceeds to rape her. She is devastated and asks Joe to do the honourable thing and marry her. He simply keeps her dangling, while knocking her about when the mood strikes him. So we have a love triangle of sorts amid all the goings on in this squalid place. Joe, by the way, has another young woman whom he mistreats. As you can see, this film is as noir as noir can be. The on-location shooting is effective. All the actors are excellent. And the climax is devastating. The end may not come as a complete surprise, but it does come with a punch.

 

The Inheritance (1962), directed by Masaki Kobayashi. This morality play begins with a well-dressed woman walking city streets, shopping. This is Yasuko (Keiko Kishi), former secretary of wealthy businessman Senzo Kawara (So Yamamura). As she walks the streets, she meets the late Kawara’s lawyer, and despite not liking the man, she goes for coffee with hum. Yasuko’s voice over leads us into the flashback that will tell us how Yasuko became the wealthy woman she is. The story turns on businessman Kawara who learns that he is dying of cancer. Once he dies, one third of his wealth is guaranteed by law to go to his widow, Satoe (Misako Watanabe). But what of the other two thirds? It turns out that Kawara has three children, none of them with Satoe, and none of them acknowledged, until now, by Kawara. He wants these children found to see if any or all of them are worthy of an inheritance. Those assigned the task of finding two of these children begin machinations to see the children do not inherit or if they do, then what they inherit will be shared with the one who has found them. In short, everyone around Kawara begins to try and get money for themselves, including Satoe who wants more than just one third of the estate. Meanwhile, Kawara turns his attention to his secretary, Yasuko. He tasks her with finding his third chid, a son. The son is a lout. His Dad, Kawara, is also a lout and he rapes Yasuko. You can, I suspect, see where this is going. Anyway, the film has a noir sensibility: voice over, a character trapped by circumstances, greed, city streets. Perhaps unlike noir with its claustrophobic placing of people in dark spaces, here we have lots of wide-angle shots that position people at a distance from each other. These shots nicely belie the false intimacy of the characters. This is a world rife with duplicity and self interest.

 

Samurai Rebellion (1967), directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Director of the 9-hour masterpiece, The Human Condition (1959-61), Kobayashi here gives us a samurai film that focuses on the human condition under authoritarian rule. The protagonist is Isaburo Sasahara (Toshiro Mifune), is a dutiful samurai working for a feudal lord in 18^th-century Japan. He has a wife and two sons and he lives a quiet, peaceful life carrying out his duties. Then a change comes when the lord dismisses the mother of his child and heir because she dared to lash out when she found the lord dallying with another woman. The lord orders Isaburo to arrange for the marriage of this woman to his eldest son. This order causes a ripple in the Sasahara household, but the marriage takes place according to the lord’s wishes. Lo and behold, the bride Ichi (Yoko Tsukasa) proves to be gentle and efficient, and her groom Yogoro (Go Kato) finds himself in love. Things seem to have worked out well. Then, at the lord’s place, the new mother of the heir dies, and the lord cannot have the mother of his heir be the bride of a vassal. Consequently, he demands that Ichi return to the lord’s place to live. In short, Yogoro and his father refuse to send Ichi back. The lord then demands that both father and son commit suicide (seppuku). They refuse thus setting up a final confrontation. What strikes me about this film is its sensitivity to human emotions and its examination of power and its misuses. The desire on the part of the Sasahara family just to live peacefully comes up against the corrupt use of power and the forced adherence to a set of conventions that ignore human desire. The film gives us the architecture (literally) of restraint and control and confinement by rules. The acting is superb and the pace of the action measured. This is a graceful and powerful film.

 A few noir inflected films for November.

“Lights in the Dusk suggests what it might be like to stare at Bill Murray in a coma for 75 minutes” (Ed Gonzalez in SLANT).

Lights in the Dusk (2006), directed by Aki Kaurismaki. This is the story of hangdog night watchman Koistinen (Janne Hyytiainen), who has grand plans to leave his job and start a rival security company. Sadly, he has about as much gumption as a sloth. He finds himself courting, if this is the right word, a blond woman who comes across as mysterious and vacant. She is actually a femme fatale (think Gloria Grahame without the charm) who is working for a gangster. This woman, Aila (Maria Heiskanen), dupes poor Koistinen by drugging him, stealing his keys and the codes to the mall he watches at night, and passing these to robbers who steal a bunch of jewellery. To top things off, this woman plants a bit of evidence that indicates Koistinen is the thief, and he ends up spending time in jail. Once out of jail, he finds a job as a dishwasher. Oh, but this is only temporary, he says. He continues to have dreams that will never come to fruition. Suffice to say there is not much light in this film, but there is much dusk clearly turning dark. The riff on cinema noir has its deadpan moments, but for the most part this is not a film that works for me the way other Kaurismaki films do. As others have noted, the look of this film has something in common with Edward Hopper’s work.

Guilty Bystander (1950), directed by Joseph Lerner. This low budget noir stars Zachary Scott as alcoholic and former cop Max Thursday. Max’s ex-wife, Georgia (Faye Emerson), finds Max in a sleezy hotel owned by Smitty (Mary Boland). He is the house detective, but he spends most of his time drinking and sleeping. Anyway, Max and Georgia’s young son has disappeared and Georgia wants Max to find him. Thus begins a rather convoluted plot peopled with gangsters, losers, hypochondriacs, and molls. Scott is good at playing the alcoholic and Emerson is convincing as his ex. The film is shot in New York with its suitable dark and wet streets and subways and fire escapes and less than savoury hotels and apartments. In other words, this film is dark as noirs should be, despite the rather cheerful ending. Especially appealing, in a dark way, is gangster Otto Varkas (J. Edgar Bromberg) whose hypochondria is extreme. The plot turns on the identity of a mysterious person named St. Paul. I do not think it is particularly difficult to know who this person is among the various characters. Without divulging St. Paul’s identity, I will just say that the person gives a fine performance. As noirs go, this one is a small gem.

The Long Night (1947), directed by Anatole Litvak. This is a remake of Marcel Carne’s Le jour se Leve (1939), although the Fascist implications are muted here. The acting is fine, Henry Fonda as Joe and Barbara Bel Geddes as Jo Ann are convincing. Then we have Vincent Price as smarmy magician Maximilian and Ann Dvorak as Charlene. Charlene is a character who is under developed, and perhaps this is true to a lesser extent with the other characters. What we have is a noir, and the lighting and camera work make this clear, that focuses on star-crossed lovers. The main character, Joe, is a murderer who elicits our sympathy. As with many remakes, The Long Night offers nothing new. It is efficient and impressively constructed, but so was the original. We have some strange goings-on here with the police spraying Joe’s apartment with bullets, and Joe shooting Maximilian after relatively little provocation. From another perspective, the police action and the lying Maximilian give us something contemporary to chew on. Perhaps this film has Fascist overtones after all.

 

The Raging Tide (1952), directed by George Sherman. This noir may be Sherman’s best work, although much of the credit must go to Russell Metty’s cinematography. The film boasts excellent lighting and compositions, familiar with the genre. We do have dark city streets, but we also have the open sea and a fishing boat. The plot has gangster Bruno Felkin (noir stalwart Richard Conte) murdering someone in the film’s opening frames, then finding himself on the run. We even have a bit of voice over, something the film drops before long. Since all roads and other means of travel, aside from water, are covered by the police, Bruno hides away on a fishing boat owned by crusty Swede Hamil Linder (Charles Bickford, by golly) and his son Carl (Alex Nicol). Rounding out the cast are Shelley Winters as Bruno’s girl, Connie Thatcher, and Stephen McNally as Lt. Kelsey. The script has some fine moments, especially when Connie and Lt. Kelsey are onscreen. Conte’s Bruno is a stone-cold murderer with a soft heart, if you can get you mind around this. His time on the fishing boat makes him appreciate hard work, and he comes to admire Hamil, while seeing just how much of a sap Hamil’s son Carl is. Bruno serves as something of a mentor to Carl, both in a bad way and a good way. The plot has Bruno saving Carl, literally. As noirs go, this one is well worth watching.

For the Defense (1930), directed by John Cromwell.  Suave William Powell plays slick William B. Foster, a hot-shot defense lawyer who thinks he is above the law. He also thinks his girlfriend, Broadway star Irene Manners (Kay Francis), will stay with him despite his wish to remain unmarried. He is wrong on both counts. Something of an early film noir, For the Defense finds lawyer Foster caught in a tangle he cannot extricate himself from. His conceit catches up with him. Irene accidentally kills a man while she is driving one night. The man with her takes the blame, and Irene asks Foster to defend this man. This is where things go awry, as you would expect. Kay Francis and William Powell make a fine couple. The film has something to say about corruption in the judicial system, and it does this efficiently. Cromwell’s use of back projection is excellent, especially for a film made in 1930. All in all, this is a slim film that holds up well.

The Wild Goose Lake (2019), directed by Yi’nan Diao. A yellow-lit bus stop in the rain with two strangers loitering, one a dishevelled man and the other a woman in red who asks for a light. This is the opening of The Wild Goose Lake, and it drips noir. We have the anti-hero and femme fatale. These two are about to find themselves in trouble. Well, they already have found themselves in trouble as the flashbacks tell us. The film might have been called Wild Goose Chase, since these two soon find themselves on the run from a wild gang of motorcycle thieves and a bunch of wild policemen. This is noir and so things won’t turn out well, at least for one of these two. The sleezy grimy back streets of this Chinese city are the backdrop for most of the action, the titular Lake appearing only briefly. What we have is a society in decay, rough tenements, dank eating establishments, and an unsavoury hotel. Corruption and violence are a way of life. The picture of society here is not flattering. Nods to such films as Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973), Now, Voyager (1942), The Warriors (1979), and others indicate that this exercise in neo-noir fits in the dark end of the cycle. The characters are less than fully rounded, but the action is sufficiently furious to keep one from nodding off. Filmed largely at night, the action plays out in various shades of yellow street lighting and grey to black corners, a palette that is becoming all too familiar in recent films. Here it is handled with confidence.

Nightmare Alley (1947), directed by Edmund Goulding. Guillermo del Toro has remade this film, and not being able to see the remake, I thought to revisit the 1947 version with Tyrone Power as the hustler Stanton Carlisle. This is a noir with bite. Lee Garmes’s photography brings to mind the photographs of Diane Arbus, as does the film itself. In the world of this film, America is a carnival sideshow filled with hucksters, grifters, con persons, and geeks. Sound familiar? Sliver-tongued Stanton rises from a menial jib to being a mentalist and then something of an evangelist before descending rather quickly into hobo status and finally becoming a geek, a sideshow freak who bites the heads off chickens for a bottle of hooch. If Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932) comes to mind, then you are on the right track. As I watched Stanton’s rise, I kept thinking of Joel Osteen. The people in this carnival all suffer some sort of psychological damage, and the sparkling black and white photography outlines this in excellent fashion. This is both an unusual noir and a central example of the noir sensibility, presenting a world of psychological turmoil and tangled relationships coupled with selfish motives. It is not difficult to understand why del Toro chose to remake this film at this time.

 

Nightmare Alley (2021), directed by Guillermo del Toro. Here is film noir softened and sanded by time and trickery. The film looks dark enough and conjures up a time past out of time, but it lacks the sinister, creepy, and even vicious streak of Edmund Goulding’s 1947 version of the story. Bradley Cooper as Stanton Carlisle drifts through the action, a passive recipient of, for a while, good fortune. Tyrone Power, by contrast, plays Carlisle with a sinister lack of interest in anything but himself. Everything seems just a bit too studied, cool to the point of well-this-does-not-really-matter. Cate Blanchett, for example, plays Lilith Ritter with an iciness that aims for the femme fatale in sculpture. Even the riff on the carnival geek seems just a bit too calculated. We have a gallery of assorted players with familiar faces – Ron Perlman, Willem DaFoe, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn – but they come across quite simply as a gallery of familiar faces. Stanton Carlisle’s rise to spiritual medium is rather tepid, and I found it unconvincing that his patsies would fall for his patently artificial patter. All in all, this film is a disappointment. Oh, del Toro makes films always worth watching, and this one has its visual charms, but for a story so well suited to our times of fakery, lies, gullibility, and grift, it lacks the punch it ought to have, or could have, delivered.

 We are not far from Halloween, and so let's see if I can find a few appropriate films.

Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962), directed by Albert Zugsmith. Here is a shout out to Mark Bandola who suggested this film to me. Although the onscreen title refers to Thomas DeQuincey, what we see does not remind me much of the book I read years ago about an English Opium Eater. The director Zugsmith is the person behind such well known films as Sex Kittens Go to College, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, and Psychedelic Sexualis. These titles might suggest that Mr. Zugsmith likes things lurid. The first ten minutes of Confessions will confirm this. In these ten minutes we have a ship transporting women and girls from Asia to America (San Francisco, where else?) to be auctioned for money and or opium. The women are tossed about unpleasantly when the importers of these women spot an inspection ship on their trail. Everyone flees the ship, just before the inspection ship shoots and explodes it. The survivors make their way to shore and the men begin to round up the women who are trying to flee despite their shackles. Suddenly a group of local Asian men appear and begin to do battle with, well with everyone and anyone. Near the end of this melee, one of the locals runs after a fleeing young woman who is being chased by one of the sailors. The local catches up to the fellow and the fellow catches up with the woman. A fight ensues in which the local is knocked for six and the sailor finds himself engaged with a mysterious white horse. Once the horse dispatches the sailor, we cut to San Francisco’s Chinatown where a dark clad Vincent Price seeks something or someone. Thus begins the rest of the movie that concerns the auctioning of women, a tong war between those who want to stop the auction and those who want to profit from it. Almost all the action takes place inside cavernous dark buildings decorated with objects from the East. Price, as Gilbert DeQuincey, meets a young girl whom he decides to rescue; he also meets an older female small person who helps him navigate the labyrinthine rooms and corridors and sewers of this place. Both these females are in large cages that hang from the ceiling. We have dancing girls, opium smoking men, dark hordes – all a bit unpleasant. There are some remarkable moments of slow motion and also speeded up motion, and the piece is filmed by none other than Joseph Biroc, a master of noirish lighting. The set designs are good. All in all, this is a weird mishmash.

Son of Dracula (1943), directed by Robert Siodmak. I have seen this movie more than once before, but I had forgotten how closely it follows the conventions of noir (not surprising, considering the director). It has the hero caught in a web of intrigue and danger, a femme fatale, shadows and light that enhance the gothic atmosphere, deep focus, and more than a hint of madness. It also has a vampire. The vampire here is Count Alucard (Lon Chaney, Jr.). Now spell Alucard backward and what do you get? The film makes much of this spelling. In any event, the Count has arrived in the new world where he reconnects with a dark woman he had met in Europe. The two of them conspire to gain control of the woman’s large swamp-surrounded mansion, where they plan to live their immortal (after the Count turns the woman) lives feasting on the strong blood of the locals, good American stock. At least this is what the Count thinks. Unbeknownst to him, the dear lady has other plans. She plans to become a vampire, then turn the man she really loves into a vampire, have this man get rid of the count and then the lady and her love live happily ever after feasting of those strong blooded locals. This is perhaps an unexpected gem in Universal’s cycle of horror films from the 30s and 40s. The special effects have Alucard transforming from human shape to bat, and from human shape to mist and from mist and bat to human shape. 

Night of the Blood Beast (1958), directed by Bernard L. Kowalsky. This little thriller is produced by none other than Roger Corman, and it has his imprint. The costume for the beast is the same one Corman used for his film, Teenage Caveman, filmed just two weeks prior to the filming of Night of the Blood Beast. The interest for me lies in the film’s attempt to criticize humanity’s rush to destroy that which it does not understand. In this, it might remind us of The Day the Earth Stood Still, except for the fact that Night of the Blood Beast cops out at the end. The plot mechanism here is also of interest because it looks forward to Alien (1992). In Night of the Blood Beast, astronaut John Corcoran (Michael Emmet), crash lands on return to earth. He appears to be dead, but his blood cells show signs not only of life, but of alien life. It turns out John has become the incubator for alien creatures, and he eventually rises from the dead. Meanwhile a large creature roams about causing the few people in the vicinity to become fearful and plan to kill the creature. The revived John keeps exhorting the others to leave the creature alone and find out why it has come to earth. He pleads with the others not to be so quick to destroy. By the end, the creature has managed to assimilate one of the human’s vitals so that it can communicate with humans. It does so, but to no avail since we now learn that the creature’s plan to save humanity from itself is to take over humanity. Bye bye creature, hello normal human propensity to violence. The film has a rating of 3.5 on IMDB, but this is one of those ratings that suggest bad is good. 

Death is a Number (1951), directed by Robert Henryson. A British film that mixes numerology, especially the number 9, with a Romany curse that dooms a family to end its line after the 9^th generation. Somehow an ancient non-existent Druid window also plays a part here. Told in a series of flashbacks that use stock footage, still shots, and some action sequences, the film tells of young man and racing driver John Bridgeman (Dennis Webb) who is cursed by the number 9, that number figuring in all sorts of ways in his life until he perishes in a racing car crash, the racing car that has the number 9 on its bonnet (hood). The special effects work here is experimental and not without interest. Note the ghostly outline of a mysterious figure, for example. The whole thing is perhaps a tad hokey, but coming in at just about 50 minutes, this short film will hold your interest. I found the bits about numerology at the beginning fascinating. So if you are looking to while away some time and find numbers of interest, this one just might be for you.

Count Dracula (1970), directed by Jess Franco. Once again, we have Christopher Lee playing the Count, and he does this well. As the film proceeds and he drinks more blook, he grows progressively younger looking. The narrative stays fairly closely to Bram Stoker’s novel, and we have the usual suspects doing what they do. Arthur Holmwood is missing, but Quincey Morris is here, along with Jonathan Harker and both Mina and Lucy. Herbert Lom takes a break from the Pink Panther films to play Van Helsing, and – one for the books – Klaus Kinski is on hand to play a mostly silent Renfield. All the players receive generous close-ups that become predictable as things go along. Special effects are minimal, but we do have those plastic bats swinging by strings outside Lucy’s bedroom window. As for the wolves, these are clearly quite lovely German Shepherds. The locations and sets are serviceable. All in all, this is a watchable version of the well-known and oft filmed story. 

The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), directed by Jean Epstein. Amazing. This is a film that draws on previous films by the likes of Murnau and Weine and Lang, but it is entirely itself. Based on Poe’s story, the film has Allen setting out to visit his friend Roderick Usher in the Usher mansion way out in anywhere land. Tod Browning must have watched this film closely because what we have anticipates Browning’s Dracula (1931) in many of its compositions and effects. Allen’s opening trip to the Usher mansion is laced with warnings of the strangeness to come with shots of bogs, and bare trees touching the sky and toads practicing piggyback, and mists and strange lights. Inside the Usher house is equally strange as Roderick obsessively paints his wife Madeleine as she pines and fades away. She appears to die, and the funeral procession just has to be watched to be believed as the coffin makes its way through a forest and bog to a cavernous crypt with large stairway into the depths. All along as the pallbearers makes their way we have an overlay of candles, a premonition of the fire to come perhaps. The camera shots are surreal as well as expressionistic. Luis Bunuel worked as Second Assistant in charge of interiors here, and I suspect he learned much from the experience. Perhaps a tad ponderous, the film nevertheless is quite simply amazing.

Vampyr (1932), directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. This is a vampire film that delights in the uncanny, in shadow and light and mist and mystery. Long, even astonishing, tracking shots emphasise the depths of consciousness, the seemingly endless strangeness in which our protagonist, Allan Grey (Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg here known as Julian West, a non actior who funded the film), finds himself. Disorientation is the order of the day as Allan tries to find out what or who is perpetrating acts of horror such as the sucking of the blood of young Leone (Sybille Schmitz) or the killing of her father. Behind all the terror is the ancient vampire Marguerite Chopin (Henriette Gerard) and her helper, a fellow known only as Doctor (Jan Hieronimko). Everything is filmed in a grainy fog, and the action is slow as if in a silent film. This simply adds to the creepiness. Whatever else this film may be, it fits alongside a film like Bunuel’s Le Chien Andalou in its exploration of both cinematic effects and the unconscious. We have establishing shots that fill the screen with gothic paraphernalia, crosses, coffins, shadows, skulls, poison bottles, ominous spaces, a scythe and fellow who may just be about to cross Styx. We have close-ups that register terror, fear, dislike, eroticism, and the uncanny. We have shadows that act independent of that which casts the shadow. We have a dreamscape. We have a film that offers a vampire film like no other.

The Devil’s Hand (1961), directed by William J. Hole Jr. Edgar Ulmer was the first director signed to this picture, but for some reason he dropped out or was replaced. The flim has something of the Ulmer sensibility dealing with the occult and dangerous goings on with an erotic angle. The plot has Rick Turner (Robert Ada) dropping into a doll shop thinking to buy something for his girlfriend, Donna Trent (Ariadne Welter). Here he meets shop owner Francis Lamont (Neil Hamilton), who happens to be a cult leader and voodoo specialist. He likes sticking needles into dolls, dolls that are the spitting image of actual people. Anyway, Rick sees a doll that clearly resembles Donna, and he decides to buy this, but Francis says it is not for sale and pitches another doll that depicts a beautiful blond woman, a blond woman who begins to turn up in Rick’s dreams for several nights until finally he meets her in real life. She is his neighbour in the apartment building where he lives. What a coincidence! She seduces Rick and brings him into the cult as a follower of Gamba, the Devil-god. The place where the cult followers meet has a nude statue of the beautiful blond woman whose name is Bianca Milan (Linda Christian, whose actual statue of herself is used in the film; it used to be in Tyrone Powers’s garden when Christian was married to him). This place also has an irritating drum/bongo player, two lithe and sexy dancers, and a roulette wheel of sorts with wobbly daggers hanging from it. Oh, and I neglected to mention that Lamont, at the beginning of proceedings, has pierced the doll of Donna with a long needle and she has ended up in hospital. 

The She-Creature (1956), directed by Edward L Cahn. Here’s a strange one, a mixture of so many things, low budget, yet capable cinematography, a cast of familiar actors (most prominently, Tom Conway, brother of George Sanders), a blending of genres (monster movie, occult thriller, romance, morality play about the evils of money), and a study of science vs the unknown. This mixture adds up to less than the sum of its parts. The creature of the title looks like a female version, badly assembled, of the Black Lagoon creature we all know and love. She appears to wear flippers, have straggly hair, and prominent breats, along with the flapping bits up and down her back. Chester Morris plays Dr. Charles Lombardi, hypnotist extraordinaire, who puts the beautiful Andrea (Marla English) into a state of regression into her deep past when she was actually a wild creature who emerged from the sea. Lombardi’s adversary is the good Dr. Ted Erickson (Lance Fuller) who has eyes for Andrea and dislike for the crazed Lombardi. Lombardi’s only motive in his weird ways seems to be fame and money. Rich businessman, Timothy Chappel (Tom Conway), also sees a way to make a buck by promoting Lombardi and his hypnotic ways. Chappel’s daughter, Dorothy (Cathy Downs) is Dr. Erickson’s fiancé, but she seems unperturbed when he ogles Andrea, and she quickly turns her attention back to her ex-boyfriend and inebriate Bob (William Hudson who is perhaps best known for The Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman). All of this is mildly amusing. The film ends with the words, “She’ll never be back, will she” followed by a large question mark. In other words, what Lombardi calls the “transmigration of the soul” just might be possible. Wow.