Tonight's movie was a low-budget Horror Classic from "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures. Not finding anything from Northridge Libe, I reached into my own vault at home and came up with "Bowery At Midnight" (1942), starring Bela Lugosi. As the movie started and the title was displayed, I thought to myself, "wow - that really is low budget, when you can't even afford to call it "The Bowery At Midnight". So, they saved some dough on the "The", and just plain "Bowery At Midnight" it is. :)
You've probably heard of (The) Bowery in New York. It's like their version of Skid Row. The movie opens therefore with an escaped prisoner entering a soup kitchen, run by the kindly Bela Lugosi. Inside, several homeless men are enjoying their soup, and in walks the escapee, who is out of his jail clothes and wearing an old suit. Bela serves him personally, muttering to the man that he recognizes him from the newspapers, but not to worry because he won't report him to the cops......
.....Just so long as the man agrees to join Bela's criminal enterprise.
Look : it's Bela Freakin' Lugosi! Did you really think he was gonna run a soup kitchen out of the goodness of his heart? Get Real! He's Count Dracula for cryin' out loud! His heart has had a stake driven through it! I mean - c'mon you guys - I can't believe you didn't see this comin' a mile away.. :)
So "kindly" Bela of the soup kitchen in (The) Bowery is really an arch criminal, and it turns out that this escaped hoodlum is not the first crook he's enlisted in his schemes. He's actually got a whole basement full of 'em, as in "The Previous Crooks Are All Dead And Buried In The Basement Of The Soup Kitchen". What he has, see, is a Third Guy, a Thug Enforcer, who "gets rid" of the gullible down-on-their-luck crooks who become involved with Lugosi, once they have served their purpose. The crooks help him rob jewlery stores, then they are "offed" by his hitman, and buried in the basement.
How charming, am I right? (...and you thought Bela was the soul of charity....)
Well, along comes a Nice Young Man, a psychology student at the local university. He is working on his thesis, a study of the breakdown of mental processes that lead some to the criminal life, or to homelessness.
He proposes his plan of study to his Professor - that he will pose as an unfortunate patron of the soup kitchen in order to speak candidly with men who dine there. On a side note, his girlfriend just so happens to work there as a nurse.
His Professor approves of his plan of study, but you have to wonder why.
Why? Because his Professor is also Bela Lugosi! He is leading a Double Life!!
On the one hand, he is a Master Psychology Professor, highly respected and with a loving wife at home. On the other hand, he is a Master Criminal - a jewel thief - posing as the kind-hearted administrator of a soup kitchen, feeding the poor.
And with a basement full of dead crooks, his former assistants.
After a botched heist, undertaken in Broad Daylight (as opposed to narrow daylight) the cops are now on his tail. Bela forgot the title of the doggone movie, for cryin' out loud : "Bowery At Midnight". You dummy Lugosi! You're supposed to commit crimes at Midnight, not in the afternoon. Jeez.
So that messes up his whole trip, and there is a brief side plot about a policeman who is ambitious to become a detective, and he becomes one, and is now gonna capture the Master Criminal, as he has discovered Bela's dual identities.
Man! Can you believe all the stuff that's going on in this 62 minute movie? It's so low budget that not only can't they afford the "The", but there is no music either. None, as in no soundtrack at all. So the film comes across as somewhat dry in the dramatic sense, as we are all aware the music is used in films to heighten emotions. But one thing is for sure, they did not skimp on the screenwriting, and it just goes to prove yet again one of my Pet Tirades, that screenwriting was King in the 1940s
So anyway, the detective is now after Bela, but Bela's got a worse problem. You see, he has had a doctor working for him this whole time. It's not quite clear why the doctor works for him, or what he does (besides what Bela tells him to do). He nominally works for the soup kitchen, but really he spends all his time in the basement, disposing of the expendable criminals that Bela's hitman has killed.
But what Bela doesn't know, is that the doctor has a secret. He appears to be a Basket Case, a nervous wreck, a shell of his former self, but he is really a genius.
Because he has somehow Re-Animated all of the dead criminals and has them in a sub-basement, located below the basement graveyard. So the nutty doctor has outwitted even Bela Lugosi.
And they say there is nothing new under the Sun. My Goodness.
Needless to say, Bela meets his end not by being apprehended by the detective, but down in the doctor's sub-basement, at the hands of his re-animated zombies.
If it sounds like One Heck Of A Movie, then it is! I mean, it's mega low budget, and the shots and acting are more than a bit stiff. The sets are plain and the camerawork is more or less immobile. But once you start watching it, you can't stop, and I think that this was the appeal of the best of the "Poverty Row" Horror Pictures. Google "Poverty Row" for more of an overview of the minor league studios that were grouped under that moniker. They had no money, but they were very inventive, at least in their better pictures.
I mean, you've gotta be a fan going in. If you aren't, you are gonna go, "this is just a notch or two above a Z grade picture". But on the other hand, it is inventive and baseline professional, and it's got Bela Lugosi.
And it's October, and so you have to watch a quotient of Horror Movies, and so you win even if it doesn't seem like it at the time. "Bowery At Midnight" gets Two Thumbs Up on that basis. See it.
That was more or less all the news of the day. This blog has turned into the Movie Report, but remember that it was predicted that was gonna happen. It's better than having it be The Tirade Report, right? Though that will happen from time to time, too..... :)
Elizabeth, you are perhaps right about Fall being the best time for hiking. I have always thought Summer is the best time because of the heat and stark shadows produced, for photographs. But I am a Heat Nut, so it figures I would say that. We don't have the kind of Autumn colors you get, as seen in your FB photo this morning, and the colors we do get come later, in late November/early December. But I agree about the Fall as far as the vibe goes. There is something about the angle of the Sun and the quality of light that results, and the wind rustling and leaves falling, that brings the Spirits out. And when you are out on the trails in that environment, soaking in the Spirit Of Autumn and that intangible quality of the natural world, it is indeed The Best as you say.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morn. :):)
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