I missed July, but here are a few films for August.

Salt of the Earth (1954), directed by Herbert J. Biberman. Written by Michael Wilson and produced by Paul Jarrico. Jarrico, Wilson, and Biberman were all blacklisted in the HUAC years. So were cast members such as Will Geer and Rosaura Revueltas. Most cast members were unprofessional actors. Upon release the film was censored and not seen by many until 1962. This is a film I think you should see if you have not already seen it. It resonates now more than ever. The story focuses on a zinc mine in New Mexico, its mostly Latino workers, their wives, and those who set out to break the Union that calls for strike action after a mine accident. The workers call for safety measures, and for pay equal to what the white miners make. This story is based on the 1951 strike against the empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico. Both race and gender are at the forefront of this remarkable film. The company owners exploit the Mexican-American workers and are about to break the strike when the miners’ wives step up and take control. This is remarkable for a film made in 1954. The film is neo-realist in its look and has several visual echoes of early Soviet cinema. It is, perhaps, not without its faults, but it remains a compelling visual statement and call for equality and justice.

Highway 13 (1948), directed by William Berke. This low budget Lippert film benefits from its cast of familiar character actors from old geezer Clem Bevan and Mary Gordon who plays his wife to Dan Seymour as an Insurance Investigator. The two main characters are Robert Lowery as truck driver Hank Wilson and Pamela Blake as his girlfriend Doris Lacy, daughter of Pops Lacy (Bevans). Also prominent is femme fatale Mary Hadley played by Maris Wrixon. The plot has to do with a series of mysterious truck crashes, a couple of which result in deaths. Who is responsible? Why are these crashes occurring and why to they occur down the road from Pops Lacy’s garage and diner? As things develop in this 58-minute thriller, Hank finds himself accused of murder, and his relationship with Doris threatens to fall apart because of Mary’s machinations. I watched the film because I like Clem Bevans, and I was not disappointed. Admittedly, this film is a cheapie, but it has its charms and it also has Clem Bevans. The mystery villain or villains are pretty well hidden until the finale.

 

The Killers (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak. Yes, that musical score by Miklos Rozsa is familiar; it turns up a few years later in the Dragnet TV series. And yes, this film is deservedly considered quintessential noir, with its doomed hero, its femme fatale, its expressionist lighting and camera angles, and its dark and pessimistic view of the world. Burt Lancaster, in his first screen role, is the Swede, Ole Anderson, an ex-boxer who has, perhaps, taken too many punches. He falls for femme fatale Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner, in her first major role). Kitty is a double-crossing woman who is in league with crime boss Big Jim Colfax (Albert Dekker). Anyway, the film begins with a magnificent set piece. Two hitmen, played by William Conrad and Charles McGraw, arrive at a small diner in New Jersey. It is after dark. These two are looking for the Swede; they intend to kill him and make no secret of this to the people in the diner, including the owner, the cook, and customer Nick Adams (yes this part of the movie follows the Hemingway story). It is noteworthy that these two thugs show nothing but disgust with both the black cook and the person they have been hired to kill, the Swede. This is America where human life, especially human life that deviates from solid white North American stock, is cheap. Anyway, before too long we meet the Swede who lies in his boarding house bed waiting for the arrival of his killers. He stoically remarks that he once did something wrong, and he now waits for the consequences. The consequences arrive when the two hitmen open the Swede’s bedroom door and proceed to fill him full of holes. The rest of the film, like Citizen Kane, is structured with a series of flashbacks that detail the Swede’s friendship with policeman Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levene), his affair with Kitty Collins, his final boxing match, and his participation in a heist masterminded by Jim Colfax. Of course, we have double crosses and bad behaviour. The story is pieced together by curious insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmund O’Brien), a character who brings to mind the journalist in Citizen Kane who tries to track down the significance of Kane’s final word. This version of The Killers is simply a touchstone for film noir.

 

The Killers (1964), directed by Donald Siegel. This is a remake of the 1946 Robert Siodmak film, a film that at first was slated to be directed by Siegel. In 1964, Siegel got his chance. His film was to be the first full-length movie made for television, but it was deemed too violent (in the wake of the Kennedy assassination) and shown theatrically instead of on TV. The opening sequence in which two hitmen, Charlie Strom (Lee Marvin) and his sidekick Lee (Clu Gulager), arrive at a home (school?) for the blind, beat up a blind woman in order to get information, find the person they are looking for, Johnny North (John Cassavetes), and fill him full of holes, sets the tone nicely. This film offers a cynical and unpleasant look at the ways of humanity. Even the choice to have Johnny be a motorcar racer seems intent on highlighting a human drive for speed and danger and thoughtless driving headlong into catastrophe. The villain here – wait, everyone is a villain in this film. However, one of the villains is the oily self-serving Jack Browning (Ronald Reagan in his last film). Somehow seeing Reagan play this unpleasant and greedy criminal who receives his comeuppance at the end of a gun is satisfying. The film delivers Siegel’s no-nonsense, in your face direction. An amusing touch is the focus on the two hitmen, one of whom, Strom, wonders why the victim of assassination waited stoically for the killers to carry out their mission. Strom, not an insurance investigator as in the 1946 movie, becomes the person who investigates the murder, the murder he himself carried out. In the end, the unpleasant characters, including femme fatale, Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson), meet their ends violently.

 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936), directed by George King. Tod Slaughter plays the eponymous character and he performs with relish, lots of cacking and hand wringing and eye-rolling. Production values for a cheapie are quite good. The story is told in flashback, a modern day barber in Fleet Street regaling his customer with the story of the nineteenth-century Demon Barber. Sweeney Todd is in cahoots with the woman baker whose shop is next to his barbershop. She helps him dispose of the bodies. She also fancies herself more than his partner in crime, and she grows jealous when Mr. Todd steps out with Johanna Oakley (Eve Lister), daughter of wealthy ship owner Stephen Oakley (D. J. Williams). Being the villain he is, Todd has Mr. Oakley in his debt and to offset the debt, he offers to marry Johanna. This is Victorian melodrama at its most melodramatic, with a dash of the gothic thrown in for good measure. The film has an interlude that takes place in Africa that stretches things out and allows us to get to know the story’s hero, Mark the sailor (Bruce Seton). Mark is in love with Johanna, but he does not have enough wealth to enable him to marry her. You can see where this is going. The film is worth seeing for Slaughter’s theatrical performance. Step aside Johnny Depp.

 

Dragnet (1947), directed by Leslie Goodwins. Dragnet before Dragnet, this cheapie has Inspector Geoffrey James from Scotland Yard (Henry Wilcoxon) arriving in New York to investigate a jewel heist. Before he arrives, a body has been discovered on a beach. The beach also sports a shack owned by a local beachcomber. Anyway, we have lots of goings on including florescent dye found on the dead man’s clothes, a shady female, a mysterious fellow in a hat, a stewardess from a plane somehow involved in the plot to smuggle jewels into America, a life preserver, and much sleuthing. The actors are amiable. The script has its moments. The action keeps things moving along. The comic relief supplied by police sergeant Martin (Ralph Dunn) and restaurant server Molly (Maxine Semon) is passable. Sergeant Martin thinks the label on the dead man’s jacket that reads Harris Tweed is the man’s name. Anyway, this wee film is okay as a time waster. As for the title, it refers to police Lieutenant Ricco (Robert Kent) calling for a dragnet near the end of the film when the murderer’s identity becomes known. The film has little or nothing to do with the Jack Webb Dragnet, although at one point Lt. Ricco tells Molly to “stick to the facts.” He neglects to say “Mam.”

Black Magic (1949), directed by Gregory Ratoff and Orson Welles. By all accounts this is a ludicrous film telling the story of 18^th century magician, hypnotist, narcissist, and charlatan Cagliostro (Orson Welles). Power hungry Cagliostro falls for the beautiful Lorenza (Nancy Guild) who is a double for Marie Antoinette. Because she looks exactly like Antoinette (minus the beauty mark), Madame DuBarry (Margot Grahame) and the wicked Demontagne (Stephen Bekassy) who has executed the young Cagliostro’s parents, have a plot to replace the real Marie Antoinette with the look-a-like Lorenza and take control of France. So, Cagliostro, who has been trained in hypnotism by the famous Dr. Mesmer (Charles Goldner), finds himself embroiled in the plot to take over the country. The convoluted plot is silly, much of the acting over-heated, and the events of history distorted (to put it mildly). The script is not particularly compelling. What does work, for me at least, are the set designs and costumes both of which are lavish reminding me of von Sternberg’s The Scarlet Empress (1934). In fact, the lavishness here rises to the level of camp. The credited cinematographers, Ubaldo Arata and Anchise Brizzi, are unknown to me, but their work here is noteworthy for its lighting, especially in the first half of the film.

Lady Gangster (1942), directed by Robert Florey. Faye Emerson stars as Dot Burton aspiring actor who agrees to take part in a bank robbery and ends up arrested. She does manage to get the gang’s money and hide it before she goes to jail. Much of the film takes place in the women’s prison where Dot finds trouble with the Deaf Annie (Dorothy Adams) and snitch Lucy Fenton (Ruth Ford). A highlight of the film is the visitor who turns up at the prison to see Dot. This visitor is Dot’s “sister,” the catch being that Dot does not have a sister. No, this visitor s actually the robbery gang leader Carey Wells (Roland Drew) in drag. Aside from this bit of high performance, the film is pretty predictable. Dot has an on again, off again relationship with radio personality Ken Phillips (Frank Wilcox), and we know things will work out favourably for this troubled couple. Performances and sets and photography are all fine for a low-budget film of 61 minutes. Nothing out of the ordinary here, but the film serves to make the time on the bike trainer go by nicely. Oh, and Jackie Gleason has a small part as a kindly member of the gang  of robbers.

Letter of Introduction (1938), directed by John M. Stahl. Aging actor, John Mannering (Adolphe Menjou) returns to New York where an aspiring young actress, Kay Martin (Andrea Leeds) accosts him with a letter of introduction. This letter reveals that Kay is Mannering’s daughter from his first marriage. (He has been married four times.) They both agree to keep Mannering’s paternity a secret, although I am not sure why. He is about to marry another young woman and I guess he does not want her to know. This woman, Lydia Hoyt (Ann Sheridan), soon leaves Mannering, but he and Kay continue to keep the secret. Finally, Kay and Mannering are cast in a Broadway production, but on opening night Mannering arrives both late and inebriated. Disaster. Oh, and I neglected to say that another fellow, Barry Paige (George Murphy) has fallen in love with Kay, but Barry has embarked on a tour with his dance partner, Honey (Rita Johnson), and plans to marry her. An entangled web. Eve Arden clomps about too as a friend of Kay and Barry. She is also a friend of Edgar Bergan who, along with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, entertain the audience with several routines that are something like interludes in the action. Director Stahl manages to hold this mishmash together, and the film is amiable mostly because of the performances. None of what goes on makes a lot of sense, but if you suspend disbelief…