Last night's movie had an inventive setup. In "The Price of Fear"(1956), Lex Barker stars as "Dave Barrett", the owner of an L.A. dog track. Mobster "Frankie Edare" (Warren Stevens) wants in on the action and has bought out Lex's partner (by coersion), but Lex tells him to stick it. "I run an honest operation, I'll never let you take over. Even if you were to force me out, the cops would close this place down in a second. They know all about you, Frankie".
Frankie isn't used to being told no and doesn't take kindly to Barker's rebuff. After Lex leaves the meeting, he has two of his henchmen tail the former Tarzan. Lex gets in a cab. He sees the henchmen following. The cab driver tells him he "don't want no trouble", so Lex gives him twenty bucks to pull over. He's gotta high tail it cause the men are gonna kill him, so he jumps in a car, parked by a phone booth. The keys are inside (the car's owner is using the phone), so Lex steals the car and drives off to safety, leaving the henchmen in the dust.
What he doesn't know is that the car was just involved in a hit-and-run, and the woman in the phone booth was the driver. She was calling to report the accident - after her conscience finally got to her - but when she sees Lex steal her car, she immediately knows she has an alibi. So instead of reporting the accident, she just reports a stolen car, knowing that when they catch Lex Barker, he will be blamed for the hit and run.
When Barker escapes the henchmen, it really pisses off Frankie, who then sets up the murder of Lex's dog track partner to make it look like Lex did it.
Barker is now on the hook for two crimes he didn't commit - a hit and run (leaving an old man dead) and the murder of his dog track partner. Pretty clever stuff, Mr. Screenwriter.
At his arraignment, he meets "Jessica Warren" (Merle Oberon). She's the car's owner, and while we know she did the hit and run, the police don't and neither does Lex. He's in a real jam, being accused of the two crimes, but then his detective pal "Sgt. Pete Carroll" (Charles Drake) comes in with the news that Lex couldn't have done both the hit and run and the murder, because they happened at the same time. This is proven by forensic evidence - the accident victim's watch stopped when he was hit.
So which is it? Is the DA gonna prosecute him for the hit and run, or the murder, and if they think he did one of the crimes, who did the other? We know the answers to both of these questions, and Sgt. Carroll is trying to help clear Lex entirely, but in the meantime he decides to get friendly with Oberon. At first we can't understand why. She's the hit and run driver, and it looks like Lex at least suspects her of it; he insinuates as much by telling her he's got an ace card up his sleeve in case the prosecutor tries pinning any of the crimes on him. So to the audience, it looks like Lex is playing her.
But then he begins to fall for Oberon, and this is where I had a hard time suspending disbelief, because she's got guilt written all over her face and body language. She's an investment banker with an elite clientele, and has a lot to lose if caught. But she's not good at hiding it, and it's implausible in the highest that Barker - a sharp cookie - doesn't also see this, even though he didn't see her when he stole her car.
Their developing love affair will prove problematic to the flow of the movie, because it adds unnecessary melodrama to what began as a tight crime flick, but I can see what the writer was trying for. He wanted to isolate Frankie the mobster, to pit the innocent (Lex Barker) and the cowardly (Merle Oberon) against the evil character. When Barker and Oberon fall in love, Lex stops contesting the hit-and-run, choosing instead to defend himself against the murder charge which was framed up by Frankie. The hit-and-run could get him a manslaughter conviction, but we're supposed to believe that he thinks that charge will sort itself out, or that he's waiting for Oberon to confess to it, or something. What happens is that Frankie, believing the two are now allied against him, tries to turn Oberon against Lex, first by bribing her, then by threats. He seems aware she's guilty of the hit and run, but nothing is ever stated outright and it's all very convoluted.
It's still a good movie, with a lot of twists and turns, and tense finale on a train. There are red herrings too, including a major plot thread about the search for the missing taxi driver who can prove Lex's innocence in the hit-and-run. The search involves three parties : Lex, the pairing of Frankie and Oberon, and Sgt. Carroll. Everyone wants to find this guy, and it takes 15 minutes (which is long in movie time), but when it's resolved it means nothing in the big picture.
Man alive, this is where directors are of huge importance. I mean, in "99 River Street" which we saw and reviewed a couple weeks ago, we mentioned the high implausibility of much of the plot, but at least director Phil Karlson didn't throw in any dead ends, stuff that may seem noteworthy on an emotional level, but goes nowhere in the story. It's not enough just to shuffle your puzzle pieces. You've also gotta know in what order to reassemble them, and not to cram in ones that don't belong there. Still, we loved the premise to "The Price of Fear", and we appreciate what director Abner Biberman was trying to do by emphasizing Merle Oberon's guilty conscience. He doesn't paint her as villainous but as a weakling, a word she uses to describe herself at one point. Remember, her trouble begins with an accident, which isn't her fault. It's only when she runs from that accident that she gets herself in hot water, legally and morally. Then she makes a brief attempt to do the right thing by calling the police, but gives that up too when she sees she has an out in Lex Barker. So she's not evil, just spineless. Her decisions ultimately drive her to the depths of despair, and yet she still can't bring herself to tell the truth, because she's too scared of going to prison, which she wouldn't have faced if she'd stayed at the accident scene to begin with. This is what Biberman is really exploring, what it must be like for such a person and what must go through that person's heart and mind.
Lex Barker is also good. He's the Thinking Man's (and Woman's) Hunk, usually playing intelligent characters and never seeming overly impressed with himself. Warren Stevens was often cast as authority figures, be they Generals or executives, but he's great here as the smirking Frankie, who always manages to stay one step ahead of the law. Finally, the tragic Gia Scala makes an appearance as the daughter of the accident victim.
Two Solid Thumbs Up for "The Price of Fear". It's recommended. /////
Now then, in regards to the previous night's film, to paraphrase the old proverb : be careful what you search for, you just might get it. For the heck of it, I thought I'd get a jump on Halloween season. In the past, I've always waited till October 1st to begin pounding horror movies and tv shows, and of course they can (and should!) be watched at any time of the year (and I do that), but I'm speaking of really bearing down on them, giving them full preference toward the goal of making Halloweentime a horror spectacular.
But I went to the 99 Cent Store yesterday, to pick up a AA battery for my Atomic Wall Clock (which spins around like crazy when you recharge it), and I saw the Halloween costumes and decorations on display as they always are by September 1st, and I thought "if the stores can start early, so can I". In short, I thought a little preview couldn't hurt.
Now, I've seen every horror movie I can think of (except the "ironic" ones from the turn of the Millenium, and the awful torture-oriented ones), including the B-Grade horror flicks of the Golden Age, which are some of the best of the bunch. Because of this, I've had trouble finding something new, so this time I searched for "Poverty Row Horror", thinking of our success with "The Last Alarm" from Monogram Studios just the other day. I thought "well, if the Row can make a top notch crime film, maybe they did the same with horror".
I should've considered "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" before I went any further.
"The Drums of Jeopardy"(1931) sounded promising. A Mad Scientist (Warner Oland) seeks revenge on an aristocratic Russian family, who he believes killed his daughter with a cursed Indian necklace. Good stuff, right? Anything with a Mad Scientist has got to be good, it's in the rule book. On a side note, the movie is adapted from a 1920 novel of the same name by Harold McGrath. There was also a silent version produced in 1923. Coincidentally or not, the scientist is named "Dr. Boris Karlov". Of course, the real Boris, born William Henry Pratt, rose to fame with "Frankenstein" in 1931, the same year "Drums of Jeopardy" was released. But he'd been appearing in films since 1918, and according to Wiki he began using his stage name in 1911, when he was performing in Canadian theater. There's no indication that author McGrath was aware, in 1920, of an obscure actor named Boris Karloff, so it's all very strange as to how that name, in two slightly different spellings, came to be used twice. In any event, in the movie "Dr. Karlov"'s daughter "Anya" (Florence Lake) is engaged to "Prince Nicholas Petroff" (Lloyd Hughes), whose San Fernando Valley accent belies his Russian heritage. Wanting to impress her, he gives Anya an old Petroff family heirloom as a gift, a necklace that was locked away in a closet. The necklace was brought back from India by great-grandpa Petroff, a nobleman, and holy Jeff Spicoli, the doggone thing is cursed!
It's known as The Drums of Jeopardy, and whoever wears it, dies.
As you can imagine, Dr. Karlov is none too happy when his daughter keels over. But the thing is, Prince Nicholas didn't mean for Anya to die, he's just a nitwit who didn't know what he was messing with. He wasn't aware of the necklace's deadly power, but this serves as no excuse to Boris Karlov, who vows not only to do away with the Prince, but to kill his entire family in the bargain.
To facilitate his revenge, he heads down to the basement, where his Mad Scientist lab is housed. There he concocts a special poison gas, which he weaponizes into hand-size capsules, like grenades. One by one, he tracks the Petroff family down, then traps them in a cubby hole he's created beneath the floorboards of his home. "Poof"! - in goes the gas capsule, goodbye Petroff family member. They try everything, from defiance to fleeing and finally to pleading with crazy Dr. Karlov, but it does no good. His mind is set on killing 'em all, even the cops can't talk him out of it.
Sounds good on paper. And to be fair, it could've been just me. I was tired when I watched it, and the print was pretty bad. But I mean, c'mon - Warner Oland looks like he's trying to stifle a laugh throughout the entire movie, and those supposed "Russian" accents are a joke. Also, it would've helped if they had more laboratory scenes. The lab, and Karlov in his goggles, look great at the beginning of the movie, with beakers bubbling and Tesla coils sparking away. But then they turn him loose to chase down the Petroffs and we don't get to see him at work very much after that.
Maybe I'll watch it again at some point in the future, as I say, I was nodding off and many fans give it an A+ despite the print quality. But for now, I'm still gonna trust my first instinct, which was that it sucked.
Two Thumbs Down then, unless you wanna deem it "so bad it's good". In that case, I'll settle for Two Regular Thumbs Up, in the name of Boris Karlov (or Karloff, whichever you prefer).
And that is truly all I know at the moment. I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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