Russell Hayden and Ann Savage in "Saddles and Sagebrush", and "The Flight That Disappeared", with Craig Hill and Paula Raymond

Last night we saw Ann Savage again, in another Western,"Saddles and Sagebrush"(1943). Russell Hayden stars as "Lucky Randall", the new gunslinger in town. Local land baron "Krag Savin" (William Wright), the town crook, sees Lucky in a fight and tries to hire him as a henchman. But Lucky is a White Hat, not a Black Hat like most quick-draw specialists in the movies. He witnesses Savin shoot an old man in cold blood and wants nothing to do with him. The old man is "Lafe Parker", owner of the Parker ranch. He's come to town to confront Savin for stealing all the cattle grazing land. Lucky Randall sides with Parker and his daughter Ann (Ann Savage). This puts him at odds with Savin, who sends his thugs out to kill Lucky. Meanwhile, Lucky sends a telegram to the county assessor's office, requesting documentation of ownership of all the land Savin has stolen. Savin hears about this, and knows that the documents will prove he's a thief. All the land he holds was taken by force, which was often the way in the Old West.

Savin sends his men out to stop the Wells Fargo stage that is carrying the land ownership documents. They kill the driver and steal the mailbag, but Lucky hears about it and calls on his ranch hand friends, who happen to be Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. They arrive to help Lucky stop Savin, and on the way they sing a couple of swingin' tunes. Wills was known as the King of Western Swing, and I believe I wrote about him and his band before, likely a couple of years ago when we were watching a lot of George O'Brien movies. I'll just state it again, even if you don't like country music (which I am not a fan of), I guarantee you'll like Western Swing, especially as it's performed by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Their songs have melody and harmony to spare, and could even be called, in my opinion, precursors to the music of Van Halen and the Beach Boys. Yeah, that may be stretching it, but give a listen and you'll agree. In pop, which both VH and the Beach Boys were, melody and harmony are everything (not riffs or shredding), and three or four part vocal harmonies are the icing on the cake. Bob Wills and his band make the harmonies sound effortless, which led to the Four Freshman, which led to the Beach Boys, which led to Van Halen. Point made. (yeah, I know it's still a stretch)

Great comic relief is supplied by Lucky's sidekick "Cannonball" (Dub Taylor), and the whole thing looks great. There's a fantastic Western set at the Columbia Studios lot, and all the other outdoor locations were filmed in Santa Clarita. "Saddles and Sagebrush" has the production values of a major Western, though at 52 minutes, it barely qualifies as a feature film by our standards (I think we said 49 minutes is the cut-off). Ann Savage is all-the-way sweet and innocent here, in Doting Daughter mode, and I think we like her best like this, even though she made her mark playing Evil Incarnate. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Saddles and Sagebrush". It's a Saturday Afternoon Matinee Western of the very best kind. It's highly recommended (a must-see for Ann Savage fans), and the picture is razor sharp. ////

The previous night we found a sci-fi called "The Flight That Disappeared"(1961), which was billed in the IMDB synopsis as an alien abduction flick. That turned out to be inaccurate, but it was still doggone good despite having the production values of a TV show. "Tom Endicott" (Craig Hill) and "Marcia Paxton" (Paula Raymond) are seated together on the plane, one of the last propeller airliners (a DC-8) still flying. In the air, they make small talk, as do the other passengers. There's a physicist on board, "Dr. Carl Morris" (Dayton Lummis), the inventor of a weapon called the Beta Bomb. He's scheduled for a conference in Washington DC, to discuss it's potential use. Morris says it must never be used, except for defense, but the elderly gentleman seated across the aisle implores him to drop it on the Soviet Union. This is one of those Cold War/Red Scare paranoia plots. Endicott and Paxton come clean with one another and admit their real identities. He's a rocket scientist, shes a mathematician. It turns out they're working on the same project as Dr. Morris, but it's all compartmentalized. The three of them wonder if they're headed for the same conference, but it's top secret so they wont know til they get there. 

But then, something happens in the cockpit. As the plane is climbing above a storm, the pilot finds he can't level off. The climb continues out of his control. Soon they're at 30,000 feet, then 40,000, unheard of for a prop plane. The pilots and the passengers need oxygen. They top out at over 50,000 feet, and everyone aboard passes out.......except for the three scientists who are involved with the Beta Bomb.

Finally, the airplane comes to land in the clouds, and the Shakespearian voice of "The Examiner" (Greg Morton) is heard. He's kind of like a spiritual Central Scrutinizer, who tries the three in a Neutral Zone court of law (it exists Beyond Time), for crimes against humanity. "We who have not yet been born are jeopardized by the weapon you have invented". The scientists are sentenced to remain in limbo for All Eternity by the workshirt-wearing Examiner. But then Tom Endicott spies the airplane, resting on a rocky plain within the clouds. The trio make their escape, but then........there's a plot twist that caused me to upgrade my verdict from Two Solid Thumbs Up to Two Bigs. You'll see why. Even though, as many reviewers have noted, it's similar to an episode of "The Twilight Zone", I still recommend "The Flight That Disappeared" for the depth of it's script and that plot twist at the end. The picture is razor sharp. ////

Well, as Kurt Warner once said, "how about them Rams?" I'm glad I didn't watch the game because it would've given me a heart attack. I've detailed my problems with watching the big games of beloved sports teams and have likened my situation to that of Jerry West, who used to leave The Forum and drive around during close Laker playoff games. But I'm glad we made it to the Super Bowl, which I always watch regardless of the health risks, haha. This one promises to be a classic, with Joe "Cool" Burrow leading the opposition. The Bengals are in their first Super Bowl in 32 years. 

It'll be a great game, and this time I can't lose no matter which team wins. My parents were from Cincinnati, and I've always had a soft spot for their teams (I'm a huge Reds fan), but of course the Rams are my favorite sports team, period. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this one. That's all I know for now.

I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Preston Foster in "The Last Mile", and "Jungle Flight", with Ann Savage, Robert Lowery and Barton MacLane

Last night we watched another prison drama, this time with an anti-capital punishment message. Though it was released 90 years ago, "The Last Mile"(1932) is as hard hitting and frank as any such film would be today, and maybe more. It's brutal and grim. The first half hour is spent in the confines of Death Row, where the prisoners bemoan the fate of the next one set for execution. The sound of the electric chair being tested can be heard through the wall. The new kid on the cell block is a guy who didn't do it. They all say that, of course, but we've been shown he's innocent. His cell is next to that of "Killer Mears" (Preston Foster), an unrepentant con who provokes the Death Row guard. The guard is a bully to begin with, so their fights make matters worse for everyone. We also see the tedium the men experience as they sit around waiting to die. In the movie, executions take place about every three weeks, and I assume it was that way in real life, back in the early 20th century.

The new guy has filed for a stay, and is waiting for his mother to talk to the governor. But after an inmate named "Berg" (George E. Stone) is electrocuted, Killer Mears can take no more. He strangles a guard through the bars of his cell, grabs his gun, and breaks out. Then he unlocks the other inmates. They take all the Death Row guards hostage, and an Attica-type standoff is underway. Mears threatens to kill every guard at an interval of time, unless his demands for escape are met. He wants a car and a head start of four hours, but the warden won't give in to his demands.

Preston Foster plays Mears, in a performance that looks like real life. He has no qualms about doing what he's promised (killing guards), the only question is if the warden will give in. The situation is tragic for the new guy who is innocent, because now he's implicated in the standoff. His hoped-for exoneration could go out the window. When Mears starts dumping guards' bodies out a window, the formerly anti-death penalty warden goes hard-line. He has the tower guards turn their machine guns on the cell block, and says "if that doesn't work, we'll blow the wall out with a bomb." 

It's noteworthy that "The Last Mile" is a pre-Code film and was therefore not subject to MPAA restrictions. I have found, through watching pre-Code films, that the cultural attitudes of people a century ago were no different than they are today. The death penalty has always been a hot-button issue, and it must have been especially hot when they were revving up The Chair every month. At any rate, while "The Last Mile" is a powerful film, it is also depressing, especially during the first act when the inmates are philosophizing in their cells. That part of the film is staged like a play, and the emotion is raw. It's interesting to consider how our lives are somewhat shaped by Hollywood, and Hollywood was shaped by the Hayes Code. Therefore, 1932 seems like an eon ago, because it was pre-Code, but it was actually only 28 years before I was born. After the Code came a stylistic Sea Change, to the glamorous Golden Era, where movies became mythical and the stars bigger than life. But in the pre-Code era, real life was being depicted long before the "realistic" cinematic style of the 1970s.

I give "The Last Mile" Two Big Thumbs Up (and Two Huge for the performance of Preston Foster), but I only recommend it for the non-feint of heart, because of it's head-on look at the starkest of issues. The picture, because of age, is damaged, but if you're game it's worth seeing. A powerful, important film. ////  

The previous night, we saw Ann Savage again, in "Jungle Flight"(1947), this time as a Nice Chick who happens to be married to a murderer. Robert Lowery co-stars as "Kelly Jordan", the pilot for an air freight company based in Florida. Jordan and his partner "Andy Melton" (Robert Kent) fly ore and equipment out of Barton MacLane's mining camp in Central America. Melton is the daredevil of the two pilots, always taking chances in the dangerous remote location because he wants to make money. The men are paying off the planes, which they bought, and Jordan has run up a gambling debt that's put them in a very deep hole. So Melton flies at night, he flies on one engine, he flies through a deadly mountain pass; anything to keep the cash coming in. But one night he's overloaded and the freight shifts in-flight. He crashes and is killed. That leaves Jordan to try and revive the company.

He's hanging at the hotel when a slinky blonde walks in. She's "Laurey Roberts" (Savage), a nightclub singer from Florida. Only that's just a front. She's not a singer but a woman on the run. Laurey is married to "Tom Hammond" (Douglas Fowley, Kim's Dad), a convict who's just been paroled. She latches on to Jordan, and asks for a seat on his next cargo flight. Anything to get away from Hammond, who she knows will try to track her down. Jordan agrees to take her : "but I'm going to a mining camp. That's no place for a nice young woman like yourself. And besides, I thought you were a singer?" "Oh, well...I don't have any shows coming up, and I could really use some money." She offers to be the cook for the camp, but her cover story is starting to unravel. Meanwhile, Tom Hammond has committed a murder since he got out of prison, but we don't know that yet. At the mining camp, MacLane accepts Laurey after some gruff MacLane-style grumbling ("Dames don't belong in mines!"). She falls in love with Jordan, but then Tom Hammond buys a pack mule to take him through the jungle. He'll stop at nothing to find her. He's armed and dangerous, but he's messing with Barton Maclane, who by now has become quite fond of Laurey's cooking. 

Hammond is traced to the camp and arrested by "Police Captain Costa" (Duncan Renoldo) of La Cuesta (the fictional mining town), but he implicates Laurey in the murder, which of course she had nothing to do with. Captain Costa, taking no chances, decides to arrest Laurey as well as Hammond, but as they are being extradited to Florida, Hammond knocks Captain Costa out during the flight. Their plane crashes in the jungle and they are stranded. Kelly Jordan goes in search of the wreck to save Laurey.

There aren't as many fireworks as you might expect from such a story, especially one directed by our friend Sam Newfield, who cranked up the tension in all those hard-boiled Noirs he made with Hugh Beaumont. Maybe it's because he was working for Paramount this time instead of PRC, and perhaps they wanted to play up Ann Savage as a sweetheart (and victim), and dialed back the battling machismo. On a side note, we only recently thought it ludicrous that Savage would ever play "nice", but here she is, doing it with aplomb and once again showing her range. She wasn't named a Hollywood Legend for nothing.

But yeah, even Barton MacLane is subdued compared to usual. The only tough guy worth his usual salt is the perpetually crooked Douglas Fowley as Hammond. He always plays a nasty sort. None of this takes away from the story, however, which in the early going focuses on the pilots and their efforts to make their air freight company successful. Curt Bois, who played the pickpocket in "Casablanca" (a pivotal role in that film because he starts all of Bogart's trouble), has an amusing part here as "Pepe", a freight loader for the company who dreams of becoming a pilot himself. He provides comic relief. Newfield loves Ann Savage as much as we do, however, and has his camera on her most of the time. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Jungle Flight", which needs a restoration. The picture is soft and greyed-out. Still, it's watchable so don't miss it, it's very highly recommended. //// 

That's all I know for tonight. I wish you a nice weekend, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Ann Savage in "Renegade Girl", and "Prison Mutiny" starring Edward Norris and Milburn Stone

How about an Ann Savage Western? Last night we watched her in "Renegade Girl"(1946), as "Jean Shelby" a Missouri woman and Confederate Army sympathizer, who - with her brother Bob - gives the rebels information on Union troop movements, which she learns by cozying up to soldiers. Lately she's been helping Quantrill's Raiders, a notorious band of outlaws who fight "out of bounds" on the Confederate side by raiding Missouri towns at random. As the movie opens, she's detained on her ranch by "Major Barker" (Jack Holt), a Union officer who's after Quantrill. I have to step in to say, wouldn't Major Barker be a great name for a dog? But back to the story, Barker wants Jean to reveal the whereabouts of her brother Bob. She refuses, pulls a gun and escapes. Barker next asks a local Indian, "Whitecloud" (Chief Thundercloud), for the same information, offering him one hundred dollars if Bob Shelby is captured. Whitecloud says "Bob Shelby hiding on Shelby ranch", so Major Barker sends troops there to arrest him. But Jean gets there first, and spirits Bob out of harm's way. He's weak from a previous bullet wound, and they have to stop before they reach the Quantrill camp.

The Union troops are angry at Whitecloud because Bob Shelby was not at the homestead. But Whitecloud is angry as well, because now he won't get his hundred dollars. He goes in search of Bob Shelby himself, finds him alone on the trail (Jean has gone to get him a doctor), and kills him. Jean comes back to find Bob dead, and enlists "Captain Fred Raymond" (Alan Curtis), the Union troop leader, to help her find Whitecloud.

It's a great setup, with the Union and Quantrill's Raiders squaring off against each other, Jean in the middle in her quest for revenge against Whitecloud, and Whitecloud on the outside. Everyone wants him dead. Jean also promises the Raiders that she'll marry the first one of them who turns Whitecloud over to her. Our buddy Edward Brophy (who did that great Irish Professor turn in "Roaring City" with Hugh Beaumont) plays "Bob Crandall" an older Raider who takes a fatherly interest in Jean. He tries to protect her from "Jerry Long" (Russell Wade), a Raider who's dead set on marrying her, whether he captures Whitecloud or not. In fact, Long won't leave Jean alone. He's got his paws all over her at every opportunity. What he doesn't know is that Jean is in love with Captain Raymond, the Union officer who is also helping her. There will be a showdown between Long and Raymond eventually.

How great is Ann Savage? Watch her in this movie, as a ladylike but tough Civil War-era horsewoman (the role is melodramatic), and then watch her in "Detour" as an all-out Ruthless B-Word (the role is the all-timer for a Femme Fatale in Film Noir). That's what I call range. She was a fantastic actress who could've (and should've) been an A-lister, but then we wouldn't have had her in all these great B-movies. I loved "Renegade Girl", with it's layered plot and fine cast. As a bonus, it was filmed, in part, at Corriganville. Ray Corrigan is also in the movie, as William Quantrill himself. "Renegade Girl" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, and a must-see recommendation. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

The previous night, we saw a minor classic from Monogram Studios, "Prison Mutiny"(1943), starring Edward Norris as "Johnny Gray", a Beverly Hills rich kid and former BMOC who's also a reckless lawbreaker. He's a punk who thinks - because of his status - he can drive like a wild man, talk back to the cops and get away with it, and as the movie opens, he's right. But then, after getting out of another speeding ticket, he's waylaid by a gang of bank robbers. They're hiding in Beverly Glen, and when Johnny drives by they block his car and get in. Then they force him to be their getaway driver.

Well, when the gang is caught, it looks like Johnny is with them, and because of his reputation, the prosecutor thinks so too. In reality, Johnny's just a smug playboy. Hard crime is not his thing. But the bank robbers frame him, and he gets ten years in San Quentin. In there, Johnny has to harden up fast. He's celled with a tough con named "Kane" (Jack La Rue). The prison conditions are horrible. The warden condones disciplinary tortures like making men stand in place for twelve hours. Kane plans to break out, with three of his fellow hard cases. After sizing Johnny up, and finding out he's tough after all, Kane agrees to let him in on the breakout.

But Johnny, despite his attitude, has been claiming his innocence all along. He gets a break when the warden is fired, and replaced by "Frank Sanders" (Milburn Stone), an ex-guard with a reformist agenda. As warden, Sanders abolishes all the draconian punishments. He sees promise in Johnny and uses him to promote his program. Johnny remains sullen because he was wrongfully convicted. He doesn't want any favors from do-gooder Warden Sanders. But then, he meets Sanders's friend and neighbor on the Quentin property, "Amy Duncan" (Joan Woodbury). Surprise, surprise, he knew Joan in college. She had a crush on him then. At first, he won't give her the time of day, but when the warden gives him an outdoors job, planting flowers in the prison administration courtyard, he has to come in contact with Amy, and her sweetness begins to wear him down, until his tough exterior is too much for him to carry.

There's a moving subtheme, involving a prisoner who's about to be executed. He sees Johnny planting flowers through the bars of his cell. "All I want is to see one bloom before they send me to the Chamber." This also affects Johnny. He dedicates himself to bringing up a bloom before the scheduled date. After the execution, he's a changed man. He apologizes to Amy, for treating her so poorly. Warden Sanders is impressed, and makes Johnny the captain of the prison baseball team.

But that causes a problem with his cellie, the hard-nosed Kane, who's planning a breakout, and thought Johnny was in on it. Now, he thinks Johnny's gone goody-goody with the warden. Johnny's trapped between two worlds. How will he get out?

There's also a second prison break being organised by the members of the bank robbery gang. They get shot to pieces by the tower guards, and one gang member, on his deathbed, confesses that Johnny was framed and should never have convicted in the first place. That's all I can reveal about the plot, but - if you can believe it - there's a whole 'nuther act after that. And all of this in a 63 minute movie, no less. This is one of those short films that we used to see a year ago, where there's a Ton of Stuff going on, comparable to a feature length movie. Remember how we were proclaiming the genius of 1940s screenwriters, and their ability to weave stuff into an hour long format? This is one of those scripts, big time.

The acting is also top-notch for a B-movie, with Milburn Stone, Edward Norris and Jack LaRue all standing out, and Joan Woodbury providing emotional contrast. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Prison Mutiny". Like "Renegade Girl" it's far better than the budget would indicate. A-list quality for both films, and both with no-fat scripts. "Mutiny" is equally recommended (very high), and the picture is slightly damaged but razor sharp. /////

Man, we've been having some really good ones of late. I'm glad, too, because I'm still dealing with residual stomach pain. It feels like it's starting to go away, but oh boy.........when you get something like this, and you're used to good health, it's a little scary. When they say "don't Google your symptoms", they mean it.

Well, onward and hopefully upward. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

James Brown and Merry Anders in "Police Dog Story", and "The Case of the Frightened Lady", starring Marius Goring

Just a couple of short reviews this time, as I am still recovering from the bout of food poisoning detailed in the previous blog. But at least we have two movies!

Last night, a crime classic from director Edward L. Cahn. James Brown and Merry Anders (who we just saw paired in Cahn's "When the Clock Strikes"), are back again, this time in "Police Dog Story"(1961). If you like dog movies, this is a great one, even for a low budget film. "Wolf" (Wolf) is a gorgeous German Shepherd who runs wild in the hills of Los Angeles. He's scavenging for food and driving the police department nuts because of all the phone calls he generates. An officer shoots Wolf with a "hypodermic rifle", to tranquilize and capture him. This gives reporter "Terry Dayton" (Anders) an idea. She's been writing about Wolf's exploits in the wild. Now she says "why don't you make a police dog out of him"? The cops are unsure. Wolf is feral and combative. He doesn't trust humans and maybe can't be trained.

"Norm Edwards" (James Brown) is a veteran patrolman. His ex-partner "Bert Dana" (Barry Kelly) knows Norm worked with dogs in Korea. He suggests Norm give Wolf a tryout. The dog trainer at the academy stresses love and rewards are the key to Wolf's success. Norm at first doesn't want the job, he thinks Wolf is just a project to promote Terry Dayton's career. "That dog can't be rehabilitated, he's been on his own too long". Norm is proved right when Wolf escapes the compound. He jumps the fence but then falls into a gully. Norm rescues him with a rope, and it is then that Wolf comes to trust him. Because of Norm's prior experience with police dogs in the Korean war, Wolf learns quickly and outpaces all the other dogs in the training school. He graduates with honors and is now on the beat. Wolf shows his mettle (and talent), as he subdues muggers and thieves. Then he and Norm are assigned to an arson investigation involving warehouse fires.

To Norm's surprise and horror Bert Dana is involved, his former partner, who suggested Wolf to him in the first place. Dana is on the take from the arsonist, a "Mr. Wellman". Wellman is a crooked businessman who's got the insurance scheme all figured out. He forms "front companies" to buy warehouses, then he stocks them with cheap merchandise, after which he burns them to the ground. The insurance companies pay the claim, Wellman gets rich. You'd think they'd suspect him after the second fire, but that's what the front companies are for. It just looks like an arsonist hitting random warehouses.

Anyhow, Norm is flabbergasted when he finds out about Bert Dana. He implores his old partner to get out of Wellman's grip. "I'm sorry Norm, but I need the money", Dana tells him. "Thirty years on the force, and what do I got? Nothing. Besides, we aren't hurting anybody. The insurance companies make a fortune to begin with". Norm feels torn. He knows he should report Bert to the captain in charge of the case, but Bert once saved his life, so he's loyal. He pretends not to know about Bert's involvement, while at the same time going all out to stop Wellman.

One day, Wolf bites Wellman when he comes to the station to be questioned. Wellman knows the police have nothing on him, so he threatens to sue them over the dog bite. They can't afford the bad publicity, especially because the public knows, from Terry Dalton's reporting, that Wolf was a wild dog in the past. So they make the decision to quarantine him, then later to put him to sleep. This causes Norm to confess to his captain that he knew about Bert Dana's involvement all along.   

The police dog program will be doomed if Wolf is destroyed, so Norm begs for one chance to catch Wellman. During his undercover investigation, Wolf escapes from his cage and hops the fence again. He runs back to the hills, but he's devoted to Norm by now, so he sets out to rejoin his friend and master. Using the police dog techniques he's learned, he follows Norm's scent twelve miles until he finds him at a warehouse, trying to trap Wellman in another arson. By this time, Bert Dana has had a reckoning. He's there too, and out to stop Wellman himself. That's all I will tell you about the plot, but you know the conclusion will depend on Wolf, and I promise you, you won't be disappointed. I loved "Police Dog Story" and give it Two Big Thumbs Up. If you love Dog Movies, this will be one of your favorites. It's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. //// 

The previous night, we saw a terrific British murder mystery of the Agatha Christie type. "The Case of the Frightened Lady"(1940) stars the great Marius Goring and Helen Haye (not Hayes), as "Lord" and "Lady Lebanon" respectively, the Grand Dame and son of a noble English family. They live in an enormous mansion, naturally. The frightened lady of the title is "Isla Crane" (Penelope Dudley-Ward), Lady Lebanon's niece and secretary. As the movie opens, she runs down the stairs, thinking someone is trying to kill her in her sleep. There's a shadow on the wall. Two large and creepy servants seem to be stalking her.

Lady Lebanon tells her, "you've got to get a hold of yourself", and for the time being, she settles down. Lord Lebanon charms her with his piano playing. But somebody has put a bolt on the outside of her door, to trap her in her room. The next night, a costume party is held, at which the maid's boyfriend is murdered. He was the Lebanons' chauffeur. The maid is a married woman. Scotland Yard comes in, and at first they suspect her husband. He too works for the Lebanons, as their gardener. And he's got a nasty temper. But suspicion soon shifts to Lady Lebanon's doctor (Felix Aylmer), a cold hearted-schemer who seems to be blackmailing her Ladyship. The chauffeur was strangled with a scarf from India. Lord Lebanon tells detectives he served with the doctor in Bengal. "He probably brought the scarf home with him", says the Lord. But then the doctor is strangled, so that clears him.

There's a room in the house that is permanently locked. An architect hired for renovations finds a hidden passageway. What is going on that Isla Crane must not find out? And why has Lady Lebanon insisted that her son must marry Isla? The answer is in the blood, as the Lady keeps repeating, meaning the family genetics. There's a very subtle secret being revealed, that didn't sink in for me until the next morning. It's actually pretty creepy (not to mention weird), but it explains why Lady Lebanon is so determined to keep it "all in the family". "The Case of the Frightened Lady" is a Deluxe Version of the all-suspects-under-one-roof genre. It's an upgrade on the Ten Little Indians formula because of the expanded psychological theme and plot, and in this case a much larger budget. Every actor stands out, including the little known Roy Emerton as the intrusive houseman "Gilder". Marius Goring delivers, as always, a standout performance. He deserves to be known as one of the great actors to come out of England. But also, in a smaller role there is Felix Aylmer as the doctor. Watching him here, as a man who's only after Lady Lebanon's money, it's hard to remember that he also played "Mr. Emmanuel", that saint of a shopkeeper, who - in the movie of the same name - risked his life to help a child in Nazi Germany. Man, those Brits can act.

Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Case of the Frightened Lady", an exceptional mystery. It's also highly recommended, and the picture is very good. ////

So there you have it, a disparate pair of good films. That's all I know for this evening, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Richard Conte in "The Big Tip Off", and a little Stomach Trouble (somewhat gross)

Tonight's blog only includes one movie, because for the last two days I underwent the excruciating experience of food poisoning. Mine was different than a most cases, because from what I've read, food poisoning comes on within hours of eating the poisonous food. Mine took a couple weeks, and may have been started by coffee. I do stupid things, like drinking it in the morning without breakfast, then having another cup in the evening around 7pm, again on an empty stomach. I've been doing it for years, it started when I was with Pearl and on the go-go all day (wake me up before you go-go because I'm not planning on goin' solo), and it never bothered me. Anyhow, after Pearl passed away and I was at home, I started buying a cheaper brand of coffee to save money. At Pearl's, Starbucks was always provided. Well, in December, after I'd been drinking this new brand for three months (Barrisimo, from Aldi, the "Breakfast Blend"), I started getting mild to medium cramps after my evening cup. Keep in mind that I always use milk, never drink it black, but my evening cup is what's leftover in the pot from morning. I drink it cold, and by that time, it's been sitting around for several hours.

I keep a journal (been doing so since 1999), and in it, by late December, I wrote "stomach hurts" at least three times in various entries. As noted, most times it was mild cramping, but enough so I felt it when I stood up. It would linger as I went for my walk, then dissipate as the evening came to a close, but these cramping sessions had the cumulative effect of causing my abdomen to feel tight after a couple weeks. By now, we're talking around January 1st. I thought, "drink more water. Water solves all problems" I did that, and my abdomen seemed to loosen up, but not all the way. It still felt like something was going on down there. I kept on with my evening cup of cold, been-sittin'-around-all-day coffee at 7pm, and I found if I drank it slowly, just sipped it, I could avoid the cramping after-effects. I was drinking lots of water by then (and I'm normally big water person anyhow (less so in the winter), but even though the cramps lessened, I still had that residual tightness in my lower abdomen.

Now, fast forward to Thursday night. This is two nights ago, the night of my last blog. It was 7pm. I drank my evening cup, faster this time because I wanted to do my walk, then come back and finish my blog. I also drank it on an empty stomach. The night before, I had a dinner of packaged chicken, with black beans and a salad loaded with veggies (I eat salad every day). The plastic pouch holding the chicken had a small hole in it, just enough for some of the sauce to leak out, but I said "what the heck". It was only the size of a pencil poke. I didn't wanna throw the chicken out over that. And, it may have had nothing to do with what happened, but I mention it just in case. Also on the night before, I pigged out late night on salsa, chips and cheese. I mean, way too much. You know how it is with chips and salsa........and cheese. So, my stomach had already been stuffed with too much food about twenty four hours before the decisive cup of coffee on Thursday evening.

On that night, during my walk, I began to feel my abdomen tightening up, and that by-now familiar sensation of mild cramping. Only this time, it didn't stay mild. By the time I got home, it was fair-to-middling, but I sat down to finish the blog anyway. It was the one where I signed off with David Lynch's birthday. By that time, it was hurting enough that I figured I'd try lying down. That always works when your stomach hurts, doesn't it? Oh boy, not only did it not work, it just made the pain worse. 10pm is normally my movie time, but I knew that wasn't gonna happen this night. Instead, I got up off the bed, put on my p.js and turned the lights out, then I went right back to lie down again, hoping the cramp would go away.

It didn't, and by 11pm, it was really hurting. By midnight, it was excruciating. No matter which way I turned, seeking relief, it just made the pain shift and get worse. To make a long story short, I was in bed for the next 36 hours, until this morning, with only very brief trips to go pee or to sit up and sip water. The water gave short, barely perceptible relief, but would then backfire into worse pain than before. I was praying, "please God, make it go away." Somewhere in the middle of the night on Thursday, I got up and vomited. Sorry for the graphic detail. This actually did provide some relief, not entirely but enough so that I thought I was on the road to recovery. I was able to drift off and get an hour or two of half-sleep, but by morning on Friday, the pain was back and was doubling down on it's investment. Now, it hurt so bad that I thought I was gonna have to go to the emergency room. But then I thought, "I won't be able to drive there, and even if I could, I'll be in a room full of covid patients, waiting for hours to be seen." So, I toughed it out, on into Friday afternoon, when I experienced another need to vomit. This time, it provided no relief whatsoever. I squirmed around, trying to find the prone position that caused the least agony. Hours passed. Thank God for KUSC, playing softly in the background.

By now, it was dark. Evening went into night. The pain caused me to Zen out, to try to overcome it. That didn't work, but it gave my mind a chance to think about Zen philosophy, which made more time pass, if slowly. Midnight........1:40.......2:27.......3:16. More prayer. "Please God, make the pain stop." Then, around 4am, I felt the rhythmic muscle movements in the stomach that tell you're gonna throw up. This was my third time, and it was a whopper. It must have cleared my stomach of the remainder of the acidic coffee, because finally, an hour after that session was over, the pain began to recede. I fell asleep and awoke this morning at 10am , totally dehydrated and wrung out like a wet dishrag, having sweated through my pajamas. The pain was almost gone. I only felt a small twinge upon standing up straight. After drinking water all day, my stomach is almost back to normal. Even the low-level tightness I'd been feeling since December has abated, hopefully for good.

I think the coffee was the culprit, and the effect cumulative. I did some Googling and found out that cheaper brands are more acidic, as are lighter roasts. The chicken dinner with the hole in it may have played a part, but it was no doubt the coffee that had been causing the mild cramping weeks earlier. Needless to say, I'll be switching brands and going back to dark roast. My sister also told me what a Starbucks barista told her, that when coffee sits for more than half an hour it becomes highly acidic because it's been exposed to oxygen. Also, no more coffee on an empty stomach.

I guess at almost 62, I've gotta be more careful what I eat and drink, so I'm gonna try to cut back on the chips and salsa, too. And, if I buy a dinner with a hole in it, I'll just toss it out. I never, ever wanna go through an experience like that again. It was worse than toothache pain, to give you a comparison.

So that's my story. Sorry to gross you out, but writing about it helps. ////

Now for the movie: "The Big Tip Off"(1955) stars our old pal Richard Conte as "Johnny Denton", a newspaper columnist who wants to increase his readership. He's been banging away on his typrewriter for a long time with not much to show for it, except a reputation as a decent guy who's helped raise money for charity through his columns. One day, a childhood friend comes to visit him. "Bob Gilmore" is the head of some unspecified business foundation, and has done very well for himself. He wines and dines Johnny and offers him a job, at much higher pay than he's getting at the paper. But Johnny doesn't want a handout. What he wants is to become a big name columnist.

Right around this time, he gets a phone call. It's from a mob informer, offering him a tip. "Hey Denton, if you're looking for a scoop, be at 43rd and Main tonight at 9." "Why, what's there?" "Don't ask questions, just be there. And don't tell anybody about this call." Johnny shows up at the appointed time and place, and witnesses a gangland killing go down. As the first man on the scene, and the only witness, he has a scintillating story for his column. That issue of the paper sells like hotcakes. His publisher is pleased, but the cops are not. "You obviously got tipped off to that mob hit, Johnny. Who told you?" His answer: "as a reporter, you guys know I don't have to reveal my sources." When he gets a second tip from the same anonymous caller, and sells even more papers as a result, it causes a sensation. The cops threaten to put him in jail. Johnny says, "Go ahead." And they do. But his friend Bob Gilmore springs him out. Remember that Gilmore is loaded with dough. Now, Gilmore is really advising Johnny to take his job offer. "C'mon, Johnny, you're flirting with a prison sentence. It's time you got out of this racket."

But Johnny has used his new success to sponsor a charity for a local Catholic grade school, where he's befriended one of the nuns (Cathy Downs). "I can't back out now", he tells Bob, and even induces Bob to help the cause. Bob agrees to donate a huge sum to what will be a telethon, with Johnny hosting. Bob makes Johnny promise to quit the column after the telethon is over. "Then you can come work for me and relax."

But something has happened in all this time. Bob's girlfriend "Penny" (Constance Smith), who he's not real serious about, has fallen in love with Johnny. This doesn't cause a problem until she goes missing. Bob says she took a vacation, so Johnny waits for her to come back. During this time, the nun becomes suspicious of Bob Gilmore's foundation. "At this school, we've worked with a lot of charities. I've never seen his on any of the lists."

That's all I'm gonna say about the plot, but it's a good one, in what I would characterize as a crime film within a moral context. The charity plays a big part, and is very important to Johnny. Richard Conte is one of our go-to guys, you can't go wrong with anything he's in. "The Big Tip Off" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, and a very high recommendation, the picture was good but not razor sharp. ////

So there you have it. With the next blog, we'll get back exclusively to movies. Go Rams tomorrow. I hope you had a nice day and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)     

George Sanders in "Appointment in Berlin", and "Waterfront" with John Carradine and J. Carrol Naish

Last night's motion picture was "Appointment in Berlin"(1943), in which the ever-stylish George Sanders plays "Keith Wilson", a wing commander with the RAF who, in 1938, becomes outraged when he hears about Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Taking to the street, he goes on a tirade denouncing the government. After painting swastikas on a building as a publicity stunt, he's arrested and charged with anti-British activity. He wonders what has happened to his great English homeland. Why the pact with the Nazis? Where are all the patriots? He finds the answers when an Intelligence Agent springs him from jail.

"We had to do it", the agent tells him. He gives Wilson a rundown of the comparative number of armaments between Germany and Great Britain. 40,000 planes to 900. Ditto for tanks. The Brits are trying to catch up, but the Germans have a ten year head start. "If we'd hadn't signed the Munich Agreement, what do you think would've happened?" As an aside, through this dialogue the screenwriter is explaining and excusing the reasoning of Prime Minister Chamerlain, who has traditionally been vilified by historians. Back to the story, after providing him with the German vs. British information, the Intel man recruits Wilson for counterespionage. His mission will be to infiltrate the propaganda circle of Joseph Goebbels, by way of a Prussian aristocrat. But first, they have to make him look bad. As of now, Wilson's in the news as a staunch anti-Nazi. He can't go undercover with that kind of reputation, so Intelligence stages an op, in which Sanders gets "arrested" trying to sell British military secrets. When asked why at his "trial", he states that it's payback for the way he's been treated (i.e., when he was originally jailed for speaking his mind).

He does a short stint in prison, to make it look good, and when he's let out, he now looks legit as a man who would work with the Nazis. His assignment calls for him to get close to "Ilse von Preising" (Marguerite Chapman), the attractive sister of "Rudolf von Preising" (Onslow Stevens), a deputy to Joseph Goebbels. The von Preisings are Prussians. Ilse is a cosmopolitan who spends half her time in England. It's still early in 1939. War has not yet been declared, so Rudolph comes to England to visit Ilse. Wilson is introduced to them at a party. Because he's charming (he's George Sanders, after all), Ilse takes to him. Soon, they're an item, but Rudolph doesn't approve of him. Part of his job is to be suspicious; he works for Goebbels, so Sanders has to prove his bonafides by badmouthing the Brits in his presence. Pretty soon, brother Rudolph is trying to recruit Wilson as a propagandist. This is just the way British Intel hoped it would play out.

The thing is, that Ilse doesn't like the Nazis. "It's not right the way they're pitting Germans against their relatives in England." To say nothing of all the other Evil Stuff they're doing. But anyhow, her position obviously displeases her brother, who by now has brought Wilson to Berlin. Wilson's job is to write anti-British screeds and read them over the radio. They are broadcast to England to appeal to the pro-appeasement crowd, the folks who want annexation with Germany in exchange for "peace". But what Rudolph doesn't know is that Wilson is speaking in code. Because he writes his own speeches, he includes key words according to a number system. The words, taken separately, add up to informational sentences, regarding German troop movements and a potential invasion of England. These coded messages, delivered in pro-German sounding speeches, will actually allow the Brits to prepare for and ward off the invasion.

Now, because his sister is so anti-Nazi, Rudolph von Preising is still not entirely sold on her boyfriend Wilson. Wilson talks a good game, but Rudolph wonders if he's hiding something. Wilson gets caught out when he arranges to meet an underground Dutch resistance propagandist, "Greta Van Leyden" (Gale Sondergaard). Now, he's going to have to escape Berlin. Two American reporters agree to help him. That's all I can reveal about the plot, but it's a good one, well-developed with many twists, including one involving the von Preislings. The acting is fine all around, including a turn by Alan Napier ("Alfred" on Batman) as "Col. Patterson", the Intelligence officer. I give "Appointment in Berlin" Two Big Thumbs Up. At 77 minutes, it's the perfect length for a movie of this type, with no unnecessary subthemes. It's highly recommended, and the picture is good but not razor sharp. ////   

The previous night we saw an excellent spy flick from PRC, the legendary Poverty Row studio. In "Waterfront"(1944), J.Carrol Naish plays "Dr. Carl Decker", an optometrist in San Francisco. He's a German/American who's spying for the Nazis, but he gets robbed on the wharf as the movie opens. A random drunk rolls him and steals a code book that has important messages. The next night, his contact "Victor Marlow" (John Carradine) comes looking for it. 

Learning it's been stolen, Marlow goes to the waterfront and finds the hoodlum who mugged Decker. After the hood coughs up the info, that he sold the code book to a guy named "Kramer" (Edwin Maxwell), Marlowe shoots him and dumps him in the bay. This angers Dr. Decker, who's trying to keep a low profile because he's in America. "You can't go around shooting people, you'll get the police involved!", he tells Marlowe. "We're here to learn secrets, not kill people." Marlow says "you can do it your way and I'll do it mine." Now, he's on a mission to get the code book.

Marlow needs a place to stay, so he goes to a boarding house run by "Mrs. Hauser" (Olga Fabian), a woman with relatives in Germany. When she tells him she doesn't have any rooms available, he threatens to sic the Gestapo on her parents. "You can have my room", she says in resignation. "That's better", Marlow tells her. "You'll learn that cooperation has it's benefits." Yeah, like not getting shot. In his search for the book, Marlow keeps picking people off. This infuriates Dr. Decker, who considers himself Spy Number One on the West Coast.

Kramer, another spy, wants five thousand bucks to give the book back. Why he would steal it from a fellow spy is anyone's guess. Maybe he, too, wants to make Decker look bad, or maybe he figures he can get away with blackmail because he's 6000 miles from Berlin, but whatever the reason, Marlow shows up, takes the five grand that Decker paid, and shoots Kramer. Then he gives Decker his Five Gees back, but not the code book. John Carradine is appropriately sinister, gaunt and all in black, as the villainous Marlow, but J. Carrol Naish was never a guy to take things lying down. In his career, he's played his share of baddies, so as Decker, he's not gonna let Marlow get away with all this intimidation. When he's finally had enough, it's his turn to pull a gun. Will he shoot Marlow and attract the cops, or.......

That's for you to find out. "Waterfront" is more about the atmosphere than the location of the code book. For a PRC movie, they have a good set of the foggy wharf at night. I assume it's a mock-up; they wouldn't have had the budget to actually go to San Francisco, would they? Anyway, there are creepy old dive bars and a creaky wooden pier. It looks authentic in an Expressionistic way, and J.Carrol and Carradine give their all. You might laugh once or twice when Marlow pulls out his Mauser pistol (which will end up giving him away). The director uses it like a punch line to Marlow's threats, so the way it appears in the frame is almost funny. Between that, and the rivalry between Carradine and Naish, there's more than enough reason to like this movie. Me, I loved it, but then I love anything with the great John Carradine, especially when he was younger and still showing he could act. He's fantastic in "Waterfront", which gets Two Big Thumbs Up. Once again, the picture is soft, but the movie is a gem. Don't miss it! ////

That's all for this evening. Happy Birthday to the great David Lynch. I wish you Blue Skies and Golden Sunshine, All Along the Way, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Barton MacLane in "The Unknown Island", and "Mystery Plane", another Tailspin Tommy adventure (plus Budgie, R.I.P. Burke Shelly)

Last night's film was a sci-fi called "The Unknown Island"(1948). With a title like that, you know you're heading for the jungle and a pack of raging dinosaurs, but "Jurassic Park" this isn't (nor even "The Lost World"). What it is, is the best Barton MacLane movie ever made. He plays "Captain Tarnowski", a whiskey-guzzling sea dog who owns an old tramp steamer. As the movie opens, a couple seek him out in Singapore. The man is "Ted Osborne" (Phillip Reed), an adventurer and former WW2 pilot; the woman is "Carole Lane" (Virginia Grey), his fiance and financial support. While flying missions in the Pacific, Osborne photographed images on a remote island that look like dinosaurs. That's why he's sought out Maclane, who makes his living trapping wild animals. Carole Lane has the money to bankroll a trip to the island. MacLane has his eyes on her from the moment she walks into the bar, so he says yes. Also in the bar is "John Fairbanks" (Richard Denning), who was once shipwrecked on the same island. His experience has driven him to drink, but he confirms Osborne's story.

MacLane tells his first mate to make sure Fairbanks is on the boat, even though he's smashed to the gills. Fairbanks then cleans up his act. He's gotta be sober or he's liable to become a Dino burger. Before they get there, the native crew mutinies. MacLane stops them cold, and has a crewman keep them in line. But they are superstitious and liable to flee at any moment. Later, one native throws a knife at the first mate in an attempt to escape. The natives then commandeer the group's rowboat, but it gets smashed against the waves.

That leaves MacLane and the white folks alone with the savage beasts. He uses grenades to keep the T-Rexes at bay. They have human arms, which is fortuitous for the budget, this being a rubber suit movie. Fairbanks has now attracted the attention of Carole, who's grown weary of Ted Osborne's ambition. "All you think about is your pictures".

MacLane gets in numerous punchouts, and when he isn't fighting, or downing another shot, he's got his paws all over Carole, who constantly has to fight him off. Osborne never comes to her rescue because he's too busy filming dinosaurs (some fiancee he is), but Fairbanks does. Guess who Carole Lane winds up with? This is as good as it gets for a low budget adventure film. It's cheesy in the best sense, with a good script. MacLane finally builds a wall of flame, to trap a giant sloth, because he ain't leaving the island without a specimen. "That thing's worth a million dollars"! But the fire only burns the supplies. In an effort to save them, MacLane becomes trapped. Will Osborne or Fairbanks come to his rescue? You wouldn't blame them if they didn't, after all, he's been an overbearing lout for the entire movie.

If you like Barton MacLane, and you like rubber dinosaurs, don't miss "The Unknown Island". As noted, there's more than just the Cheese Factor to recommend it. The script is well developed, the introduction in the Singapore bar and the voyage to the island are integral to the plot. There's more than enough action, and even a titanic beast-against-beast confrontation to set up the climactic finale. I give "The Unknown Island" Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is in Cinecolor, which I had to look up on Wiki. It's a two-tone process that was invented in 1932, and resembles a colorized black-and-white film. The colors are pastel, but it looks kind of cool, especially in a movie like this one. ////

The previous night, we watched another Tailspin Tommy movie, "Mystery Plane"(1939), which starts off with Tommy's personal history. The year is 1923. Tommy is ten years old. He idolises a barnstormer named "Brandy Rand" (George Lynn). Rand was previously a World War One flying ace, like Snoopy, and he performs stunts that only Snoopy would be capable of (not the Helicopter Ears, however). One day, when Brandy makes a parachute jump, he lands in a lake, and young Tommy rescues him with his rowboat. What a way to meet his hero. For a short time they are friends. Brandy's encouragement inspires Tommy to become a pilot himself. Fast forward to 1939. Tommy has risen to the top of his profession at Three Line airport, where he's also the manager. He's developed a bombing device for the military, but needs money to complete it. Fortunately, a young lady (Polly Ann Young, sister of Loretta) wants flying lessons. Her fee will cover the difference. Unfortunately, she's working for a pro-fascist spy ring. Her proximity to Tailspin Tommy allows her to get the details on the bombing device, which she takes back to her traitorous bosses. Now they wanna steal it, so they kidnap Tommy's girlfriend "Betty Lou Barnes" (Marjorie Reynolds), to force him to cooperate. To his dismay, he meets his hero Brandy at the hideout. After all these years, Brandy's a drunk who's now part of the criminal gang. 

Tommy is stunned by what's become of Brandy, but swears he won't give in. While drawing up a schematic of of the device on a drafting table, he plans a surprise punchout. His trusty sidekick "Skeeter" (Milburn Stone), helps him out of that jam. The trio get away in Tommy's plane, but the bad guys are following them in theirs. Piloting for the spies is none other than Brandy Rand, once Tommy's idol, now his enemy. Or is he? Suddenly, memories flash by in his head, of when Tommy rescued him in 1923. The Kid Who Looked Up To The Big Shot World War One Hero. Brandy feels ashamed of what he's become, and he......

Well, you'll just have to see it for yourself. So far - and we've seen two - the Tailspin Tommy movies have been terrific. Let's find the other two (and an earlier twelve part serial), and complete the series. "Mystery Plane" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, and a high recommendation for awesomeness. There's no mention of where this one was filmed (not Van Nuys this time), but perhaps Muroc Air Base or elsewhere in the desert, as there's actual bomb range footage used. The picture is a little ragged, but so what. It's the content that counts, and they don't make movies like this anymore. /////

That's all I know for this evening. I've been watching some live footage of the band Budgie over the last couple of days, in honor of their singer/bassist (and leader) Burke Shelly, who died last week at the age of 71. I remember the first time I heard the group, at Jon S.'s apartment in 1975, when he played me "Napoleon Bona, Part One and Two" from their "Bandolier" album. The song was super heavy, with riffs reminiscent of Black Sabbath, but the band had a sound all their own. I went on to buy "Bandolier" and other Budgie albums, and when I was 18, I loved their songs "Breadfan" and "In the Grip of a Tyrefitter's Hand". Metallica covered "Breadfan", and it turned out that Budgie influenced a lot of the 80s and 90s metal bands. I hadn't listened to them in ages, but I never forgot their melodies, and especially their lyrics. Guitarist Tony Bourge was a great player, and Burke Shelly could sing like a combination of Geddy Lee and Bon Scott, but in his own distinctive voice. The thing about Budgie, when I watch them now, is how musical they are. There are lots of groups who can bang out catchy riffs, but how many have songs that you remember 45 years later, when you haven't even heard them for half that time?

R.I.P. Burke Shelly. If you want to see how great these guys were, go to Youtube and search "Budgie live 1974". You'll find a 24 minute compilation of footage from shows like The Old Grey Whistle Test. Every song and performance is great. //// 

I hope your day was good, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

James Brown and Merry Anders in "When the Clock Strikes", and "Sky Patrol" starring John Trent and Jackie Coogan

Last night's film had an interesting premise and the style of a stage play. "When The Clock Strikes"(1961) tells the story of a man and a woman brought together by the pending execution of a murderer. "Sam Morgan" (James Brown, but not The Godfather of Soul) is driving down a lonely highway at night in a raging thunderstorm when he comes across a lady in the road. She's "Ellie Pierce" (Merry Anders), and in the opening scene, she gives him a phony story about where she's going. A tree falls in the storm, blocking the road and causing them to have to stop at a lodge. Of course it's the only one for miles around. There's a hint of "Psycho" in all of this, the blonde woman on the run, but it's only a stylistic influence. The plot takes off in another direction.

At the lodge, when Sam Morgan finds out Ellie's last name is Pierce, he is stunned. The town Sheriff is also on hand, at the bar, so Sam reluctantly confesses why he came there. A killer is going to be executed that night at twelve o' clock. It was Sam's testimony at the trial that convicted him. Sam now tells the Sheriff he wants to recant what he said in court. "I'm not sure he was the man I saw. The prosecutor twisted my words". Now he's feeling guilty that a possibly innocent man will be hung (hanging in 1961 is another weird touch). But when Sam finds out Ellie is Mrs. Pierce - the killer's wife - now he is doubly morose.

Except she isn't Mrs. Pierce. In reality, she's a dancer from New York, who knew the condemned man as a customer. She knows about the 160 Grand he hid from a bank robbery, and she's trying to locate it after he's executed. But get this : once James Brown finds out about the stolen loot, he's got a Brand New Bag in the motivational sense. Now, instead of trying to get the killer a stay of execution (because he feels guilty about the trial), now he wants in on the money. He and Ellie Pierce team up to find it.

They have to work around the lodge owner "Cady" (Henry Corden), a grumpy conniver who eavesdrops on everything that's going on. He's especially perturbed by the sheriff, who only ever orders one beer (what a cheapskate).

By now, the killer has been executed. Sam finds a key hidden in his belongings, which have been sent to Ellie at the lodge because she's registered as "Mrs Pierce". The key goes to a safe deposit box in New Mexico. Sam calls the bank and, using a fake name, arranges for the contents of the box to be sent to the lodge as well, hoping it will include the stolen money. He's posing as the killer's lawyer and tells the postman to deliver it to him personally, but the owner Cady overhears this too, and he intercepts the package, which does contain the money. Then the real Mrs. Pierce shows up, saying that her husband was a killer after all. "He murdered my father". The point is that Sam shouldn't feel bad that Pierce went to the gallows, because even though he may have been innocent of the murder he was convicted of, he sure as hell killed Mrs. Pierce's dad. He was a killer one way or the other.

But back to the lodge owner, he kills Mrs. Pierce to frame Sam and Ellie. Then he tries to run off with the dough. This leads to a Moral of the Story type of ending, in which Sam and Ellie learn that honesty is the best policy. The script is like a puzzle, assembled piece by piece. The story takes place almost entirely in the confines of the lodge, which gives it the structure of a play. There's very little action, much of the backstory is revealed through exposition. But it holds you because of the twists, and also the over-earnest acting. Is it deliberate? The line is fine indeed. The trouble with crime films, once you get to the early 1960s, is that irony is now involved. You've got black humor in the mix, and harpsichord music. Who knows where the hell those influences came from. Well, at any rate, it's directed by Edward L. Cahn, a Sam Newfield type who also made a lot of good cheapies. Merry Anders is good as the fabricating "Ellie Pierce". She has a touch of that "John Waters movie" sass in her voice, which is what I mean by deliberately overacting. Henry Corden is menacing in a bland way as the ornery lodge owner Cady, and James Brown fills the bill as the guilt-ridden eyewitness. Two Big Thumbs Up for "When the Clock Strikes". The script makes up for the lack of outside action, it's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. ////

The previous night we had a blast watching "Sky Patrol"(1939), one of four films about the exploits of "Tailspin Tommy Tomkins" (John Trent), who this time plays a captain in a precursor to the Civil Air Patrol. A young Uncle Fester co-stars as "Carter", the son of the squadron's leader, "Colonel Meade" (Boyd Irwin). As the movie opens, the Colonel is talking to Fester about his upcoming tryout for the squad. "You're going to be using the machine guns this time, so be sure to aim for the targets". Fester says he doesn't have it in him to shoot. "Guns mean killing. I don't want to kill anyone". "But sometimes you have to, son. We'll be dealing with smugglers and criminals in Sky Patrol. We can't let them overrun the country". When Fester goes up for his graduation flyby, "Tailspin" Tommy is his copilot. Fester nearly crashes while performing a dive bomb move, so Tailspin knocks him unconscious and flies the plane himself, performing barrel rolls and other amazing stunts. The onlookers on the ground think it's Fester who's flying, and when they land he gets a hero's welcome and graduates with flying colors. 

Now that he's a member of the Sky Patrol squad, he finds himself tailing an amphibious plane coming in off the coast of California. He radios in the plane's serial number, but the smugglers shoot him out of the sky. Fester parachutes into the Pacific Ocean and is picked up by the bad guys in a boat. Now he's their captive.

When Fester's plane is shot down, reports say he's dead, but Tailspin thinks he's still alive, and cooks up a rescue plan. Using an early form of radar, he locates the smuggler's boat, which is loaded with guns and TNT. With his trusty sidekick "Skeeter" by his side, Tailspin invades the boat but the two men are captured. This creates a role reversal in which Fester must now do the rescuing. To save Tailspin and Skeeter, he will have to use a gun, which he has been loathe to do.       

"Sky Patrol" is an hour of pure entertainment of the Saturday Afternoon Matinee kind. There's a lot of early stunt flying, all of which takes place at Van Nuys Airport, then known as Metropolitan Airport. Besides the heroics, it's fun to watch Jackie Coogan at 25 years old and try to picture him morphing 25 years later into the bald-headed weirdo from The Addams Family. He's almost unrecognizable until he breaks out that patented grin. Then you go, "there's the future Fester!". Other than that, his role is a serious one. Milburn Stone provides the comic relief as the verbally-challenged Skeeter, and Marjorie Reynolds is on hand for morale-boosting cuteness. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Sky Patrol". It's highly recommended and the picture is soft but watchable. ////

That's all for tonight. Go Rams tomorrow. I send you Tons of Love, as always!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)       

Pat O'Brien and Carol Landis in "Secret Command", and "Money Madness" starring Hugh Beaumont and Frances Rafferty

Last night we saw an espionage flick called "Secret Command"(1944). "Sam Gallgher" (Pat O'Brien) gets a job at a shipyard during WW2 through his brother "Jeff" (Chester Morris), a foreman. Jeff thinks Sam is a loafer. "I'll get you in, but you'll have to work the 4am shift." "I'll be here." "Yeah, sure you will." Sam surprises Jeff by showing up on time. He needs the job because he's got a wife and two kids. But what Jeff doesn't know is that it's all a ruse. Sam's really working undercover as a government agent.

A year earlier, Sam was in a German prison camp. That's another thing his brother doesn't know. When he got out, he was recruited by the Feds for counterespionage, because he picked up lots of info in the camp. The Germans have infiltrated the shipyard. They have American names and speak perfect English in East Coast accents. He's there to rout them out. Some he recognizes from Berlin (pronounced Bear-LEEN). The Feds have given him a cover background with a ready-made family including "wife" (Carol Landis, a fellow agent) and two refugee kids. To all appearances, he's a family man making ends meet.

Shenanigans slow down the plot, such as punchouts with a co-worker, "Red Kelly" (the great Barton MacClane), which are meant to establish the two men as rivals-who-become-best friends, in the long held Motion Picture tradition. An Irish theme is involved, as it is in all Pat O'Brien pictures. He was the ultimate Irish-American actor and often played priests or cops. Irish heritage was stamped in his contract. So the rivalry takes up a fair amount of time (it's layered in), as does the light comedy hijinx from the pairing of Landis and O'Brien as man and wife. Because she's a fellow agent and the "marriage" is for show, at first she wants nothing to do with him. She makes him sleep in a separate room, which he doesn't like, but the friction of course will lead to romance, also in the Motion Picture tradition.

The point of the story is identifying and nailing the saboteurs. Equal time is spent documenting what it's like to work in a shipyard, and believe me, you wouldn't want a job there. I'd rank it second behind working in a steel mill. Man, those guys are some tough sons of b-words. Sam gets close to the German "American" workers who are out to blow the joint up, but before he can identify their leader, his brother Jeff is almost killed in a crane "accident". The culprits are rounded up, but other saboteurs remain loose. One sees Sam talking to a man from the security department, and recognizes him from the camp in Berlin. Figuring Sam as an intelligence agent, he goes to Sam's house with a gun. By now, the German saboteurs have rigged an aircraft carrier with enough dynamite to destroy the entire shipyard. Their leader turns out to be.......well, of course I can't tell you.

At Sam's house, Red Kelly shows up at the wrong time with some toys for Sam's "children". After several fistfights, he and Sam are now best friends. Unfortunately for Red, the gunman is still at the house. Their confrontation sets the stage for the shipyard explosion, planned for the following day. Will it go off as expected by the Germans, or will Sam and Carol Landis intervene?

There's a lot of actual shipyard footage in "Secret Command" that gives the film an authentic look. The workers are in the water under exceptionally dangerous conditions. The plot could've been tightened up by 7 to 10 minutes, but then we wouldn't have the "marriage" or the "buddy" subplots, which were designed to sell tickets, but also figure strongly in the ending. The movie was nominated for a "Best Visual Effects" Oscar and deservedly so. In fact, after watching, I couldn't tell where the effects were used, so they must've been seamless. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Secret Command". Bear with the aforementioned extracurricular stuff. The plot is well developed, it's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. //// 

Well, it's official : Hugh Beaumont is our new favorite Noir star. He's been great playing hard guys in one film after another, and the previous night he was an out-and-out psycho in Sam Newfield's "Money Madness"(1948), in which he tricks poor Frances Rafferty into marriage, then kills her elderly aunt in a scheme to launder money from a bank robbery. The movie gets off to a fantastic start, with Beaumont on a bus in the Valley. The bus driver says "next stop, Canoga Park!". Beaumont goes to a bank on what could be Sherman Way, to stash 200 Grand in a safe deposit box. Then he gets a job as a driver for Valley Cab. Everything's running like clockwork. His first fare is a drunk guy and his gal. Beaumont throws the drunk guy out and takes the gal for coffee. She's the young and impressionable "Julie Saunders" (Rafferty), who works at a malt shop and lives with her hypochondriac aunt.

The cunning Beaumont puts the make on Julie. He convinces her to marry him, then he does a 180 and tells her the marriage isn't legal because he's already married. He takes the money out of the bank and stashes it at the aunt's house. He's got every angle figured to make Julie look like a criminal. That way, she'll be afraid to turn him in. He tells her "a wife can't testify against her husband". "But you said the marriage wasn't legal". "Yeah, but the money is sitting in your auntie's closet. How are you gonna explain your way out of that"? The reason he didn't actually marry her is so he could keep all the money for himself. It's complicated to try and explain, better to let Beaumont do the talking. He's got the convoluted mind of a sociopath, and now he's going to poison the aunt. That will make Julie will look like an accomplice to murder, should she go to the police. "You served her the tea", Beaumont says. Boy is he evil in this movie. The problem kicks in when a lawyer (Harlan Warde) gets involved. Julie has to account for the money in the closet by saying her auntie was a miser. "She must have been saving for all those years". Beaumont is pressuring her to stick to the pre-planned story, but the lawyer - a handsome gent - is beginning to fall for Julie. "Who's this cabbie hanging around"?, he wonders.

Then, an old associate of Beaumont's turns up, one of his gang from the bank robbery. The guy wants his share of the dough, which throws a monkey wrench into the works. When he turns up dead, the robbery is rehashed in the news. An old picture of Beaumont is printed. The lawyer takes it to a photo lab for retouching. Voila! It's the mysterious cab driver. One last thing - Beaumont refers to his gun as "my little friend" not once but twice. Makes you wonder if DePalma, Oliver Stone, or Al Pacino (or all three of them) were fans of this movie, or Sam Newfield in general. "Money Madness" is one of his gems and gets Two Big Thumbs Up (Two Huge for Beaumont's performance). It's a must-see, though the picture is a little soft. 

And there you have it. Two more good ones to start off the year. I wish you a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)     

Glenn Langan and Adele Jurgens in "The Treasure of Monte Cristo", and "The Miami Story" starring Barry Sullivan

Last night's movie was "The Treasure of Monte Cristo"(1949), a good but misleading title for what is actually a crime film. Glenn Langan stars as "Edmund Dantes", a cargo ship's second mate. After disembarking in San Francisco, he plans to visit his family, but no sooner does he cross the street than he sees a woman being preyed upon by thugs. He comes to her rescue, then they go to a bar for a drink. She's "Jean Turner" (Adele Jurgens), who says she's the heiress to a fortune. "That's why those men were after me. My relatives want to put me in an asylum so I can't inherit the money". They're trying to declare her delusional so they'll get the money instead. However, Jean has an out. If she can get married before she turns 25 (in a few months), the dough will automatically become hers. It takes some convincing on Langan's part, and the promise of ten thousand dollars, but he marries her. The next thing you know, they're in a motel in Reno, and in love. That part seems abrupt, as just a minute ago, Langan had to be talked into the marriage (and in an aside, Langan and Jurgens met on this film and got married in real life. They're both buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Chatsworth).

Dantes goes to visit his family (they're Italian; he's adopted), and when he comes back, there's a lipstick message on the motel mirror. Jean has been kidnapped and taken to the asylum. When Dantes goes there to free her, he climbs the facade to the top floor of the building, a Victorian mansion. He enters through a window to find a man in the room. The man gets shot. It turns out he's a resident of what is not an asylum but a boarding house. Jean was never there. The whole thing has been a setup to frame Dantes for murder.

He tries telling his story to the San Francisco cops but they don't believe him. Now he's facing trial and the death penalty. Jean Turner is brought in for questioning and says "yeah I married him, but I'm not an heiress. I don't know why he'd say that. The wedding was impulsive, both of us were drunk. I don't even really know him."

Boy is she screwing him over. She's obviously part of the frame job. Dantes is withering in jail, awaiting a transfer to San Quentin. He's appointed a public defender (Steve Brodie), who gives him a deliberately poor defense. It turns out Brodie is in cahoots with Jean Turner. They know something about Dantes' background that he isn't aware of.

His Italian family help spring him from the joint. Now he's on the run to find Jean and make her talk. She implicates Brodie, but he's got a thug who overhears them. Would you believe the thug is played by none other than Sid Melton? He's dogging me! Well, at least he's not doing a comedy routine this time.

The "treasure" of the title has to do with Edmund Dantes' biological family. It's a subtheme explained toward the end, and it covers why Steve Brodie is framing him. The movie kept appearing on my "recommended" list for the last week, but I didn't click on it til now because I thought it was an adventure film (and nothing against that genre - I enjoy it - but we're doing Noirs at the moment). Despite the inaccurate title, it's a hell of a twisted story. Glenn Langan is excellent as the chivalrous sailor Dantes, who realizes too late that he's been had eight ways to Sunday. Adele Jurgens is a knockout as the blonde bombshell who fools him. And Steve Brodie is one of those actors who you know is gonna be the bad guy. He always plays that role, and the writers don't cloak his position. We know he's a crooked lawyer from the moment he confers with Langan. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Treasure of Monte Cristo". It's very highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. ////  

The previous night we saw another top-notch crime film, "The Miami Story"(1954), about a Mob boss who takes over that city. "Tony Brill" (Luther Adler) is so all-powerful that the Miami PD can't touch him. A congressional hearing is even held (narrated by real life Florida Senator George Smathers) to figure out how to bring him down. Nothing works. He's too good at covering his tracks. Brill learned from Al Capone's mistakes that you never leave a single loose end. Finally, a newspaper publisher and a group of business leaders meet with state law enforcement officials. One of them, a prosecutor, suggests bringing in an ex-Brill associate named "Mick Flagg" (Barry Fitzgerald), who's since gone straight. They put a persuasive ad in the paper that more-or-less forces Flagg to help them. He doesn't want to help; he's a family man living now in Indiana. His life will be on the line. But they offer him 50 Grand and tell him he'll be doing a great thing for Miami. When his son sees the ad, and discovers his true identity, he has no choice but to admit he was once a mobster. To make things right, he agrees to help the anti-Brill group. Then he goes to Miami to pose as a rival gangster.

Once there, Flagg meets a woman named "Holly Abbott" (Beverly Garland, one of our favorites). She's snooping around Miami in search of her sister "Gwen" (Adele Jurgens again). Gwen is the moll of Tony Brill. Flagg uses Holly to get closer to him. When Brill finds this out, he has Holly beaten up. She lands in the hospital, but sister Gwen has no sympathy. "I told you to stay out of my life", she tells her. In an aside, this role is more akin to the "tough broads" Jurgens usually plays. Mick Flagg responds by having the cops close down Brill's casino. Flagg is trying to show that he's got them in his pocket. Brill doesn't know that he's working undercover. Now Brill goes into Scarface mode and plays a trump card on Flagg. Keep in mind his pre-Miami background. I can't tell you what Brill does to make him flinch, but it causes Flagg to (almost) abandon the program.

Brill also has a hitman (John Baer) who figures strongly in the plot. Baer is an expert marksman who will take on any job, no matter how risky. His loyalty makes him Brill's Golden Boy, but he's got a thing for Gwen behind the scenes. This makes him vulnerable to pressure from Mick Flagg. It's an interwoven story of intimidation and reprisal, between one bossman (Brill), who's used to calling the shots, and a sudden, unexpected rival (Flagg, who's actually working with the law). Barry Fitzgerald is implacable as the poker-faced Mick Flagg. Luther Adler gives a realistic performance as the middle-aged Tony Brill, paunchy but still powerful and not used to being challenged. And Bev Garland is first-class as always. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Miami Story", a gripping organized crime flick. It's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp.  ////

That's all for tonight. I'm working hard on my book. I trust that all is well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Two by Sam Newfield : "Motor Patrol" w/Don Castle, and "Western Pacific Agent" w/Mickey Knox and Morris Carnovsky

 Last night we saw Don Castle again, in "Motor Patrol"(1950), a crime flick about a car theft ring in Los Angeles. The movie is also a promotion for the motorcycle division of the L.A.P.D., who are thanked in the opening credits for their cooperation. In the first scene, a hit-and-run victim is reported dead. Motorcycle Officer "Larry Collins" (William Henry) responds to the location. He checks a nearby cafe to look for witnesses. One woman inside seems a little shifty, so another officer, "Ken Foster" (Castle) is assigned to investigate her. He discovers she's the girlfriend of a used-car dealer who's suspected of selling stolen vehicles. Foster then goes undercover as a hot car honcho from Chi-town (remember the Chi-Town Hustler?)

During the investigation, Officer Collins spots a stolen car. He chases it down on his motorcycle, but the driver pulls a brodie and Collins spins out. He's killed, so that's two hit and runs. With an officer dead, the cops are pee-oed. But then, something bizarre happens. A man named "Omar Shelly" runs the cafe. He's played by an actor named Sid Melton. Melton appears to be a comedian by trade, and maybe he had a stand-up act, I don't know. At any rate, after Officer Collin dies, a detective (Reed Hadley) visits Melton at the cafe. The story, which had been serious up to now, takes a five minute detour to go into an Abbott and Costello routine. It involves Sid Melton, a pay phone, an operator and a handful of nickels. Detective Hadley is the straight man. Is it funny? Err.....if you're being generous. Does it detract from the movie? You bet. Beyond either of those questions, it's profoundly off-the-wall. It would be like watching "Dragnet" and having Jerry Lewis cut in. Watching it unfold, I thought "who would insert this in a crime film"? But then it ended, thank goodness, and the plot kicked up a notch, as Don Castle infiltrates the stolen car ring. 

Of course, you know that at some point, they're gonna figure out that he's a cop. When they do, there's a great chase scene where Castle manages to keep his hat on, despite the fact that he's hauling ass on his motorcycle. The best reason of all to watch "Motor Patrol", however, is the location shooting. It's got some fantastic shots of 1950 Los Angeles, in and around what is now Koreatown and up at the police academy. For what it is, it holds your interest. The stolen car plot is tight and written with an attention to detail (filing off VIN numbers, knowing which models are no longer in production, things of that nature). Because of the authenticity, and the charisma of Castle, I give it Two Big Thumbs Up. The running time is 65 minutes, the picture is razor sharp. ////

The previous night, we watched "Western Pacific Agent"(1950) an excellent little Noir about a violent punk who rides the rails. Mickey Knox is "Frank Wickens", a prodigal angry son. As the movie opens, he's back in town to ask his Dad for money. "Pop" (Morris Carnovsky) won't give him any. "Not until you settle down and live honestly". Frank says "alright then, I'll get it myself". He knows about a payroll transfer that's gonna go down at the train station. He goes there and kills the bridge operator. Then he kills the money man. Now he's got a duffel bag full of bills, but they're all marked. He can't spend them without getting caught, so he bides his time by jumping trains. In the process he meets different hobos. He tries pulling a tough guy routine to protect himself - and he's good with a knife - but the tramps have seen it all. They "ain't skeered" of Frank, so he goes back to his dad, to ask for a place to stay. Carnovsky tells him to get out. By now, a railroad detective (Kent Taylor) is on the case. He puts out a flyer telling all the local merchants to be on the lookout for the marked bills. One of them, "Elmer", a cafe owner, discovers one in his cash register.

Wanna guess who plays "Elmer"? Yep - Sid Melton again. This time, his comic routine involves him being a nearsighted amateur detective. For some reason, Kent Taylor takes him on as an assistant. They stake out hobo camps where Frank the killer is hiding. This is Mickey Knox's movie. I don't think we've ever seen him before, but he's chilling as the sociopath vagabond Frank. His performance is A-list, as is that of Morris Carnovsky. As in any father-son crime story, there will be a showdown at some point. Frank has realised by now that his stolen money is worthless, so he's desperate. Pop Wickens has suspected all along that his son is the killer, and the daughter of the dead bridge operator knows this. She's "Martha Stuart" (Sheila Ryan), and she naturally wants Frank caught, but she also feels sympathy for Pop, his Dad, because Pop gave her father money when he didn't have a cent. She's conflicted about telling Taylor what she knows.

It's interesting - and I didn't see this until I checked IMDB - that the same guy directed both of these pictures. His name was Sam Newfield, and he has 277 credits to his name. This likely explains Sid Melton's presence in each movie (one wonders how many more Newfield films he's in, lol), but the thing is, Newfield was very good with actors, as we see not only with Mickey Knox (the prime example), but with Don Castle too, and Ann Savage and Hugh Beaumont in "Apology for Murder", which Newfield also directed. He seems to have worked exclusively in B or Poverty Row productions, but had the talent, perhaps, for greater things. Postscript : It's an hour later, and I just re-checked Newfield's IMDB bio. It says he's considered the most prolific director in the history of American cinema, so there you have it. "Western Pacific Agent" rates Two Big Thumbs Up with a very high recommendation. Like "Motor Patrol", it too has terrific location shots, this time in Long Beach (also 1950). The picture is good but not razor sharp. Still, don't miss it. ////

That's all I know and we're all caught up. I'm listening to Jim Svejda on KUSC, and I just finished reading "Coup in Dallas" by the late H.P. Albarelli. Have you ever heard of Pierre Lafitte, Jean Soutre, Jack Crichton or Otto Skorzeny? How about General Charles A. Willoughby? Give 'em a Google. The book is highly recommended.

I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

Don Castle in "The Invisible Wall", and "Spin a Dark Web", w/ Lee Patterson, Martin Benson and Faith Domergue

This blog is a day late. I'll get back on schedule with the next one.  

Last night's Noir had a redemptive theme, not usually pursued in the genre. In "The Invisible Wall"(1947), Don Castle stars as "Harry Lane", a WW2 vet with a gambling addiction. Before the war, he worked for a bookie named "Marty Floyd" (Edward Keane), in Beverly Hills. Now that he's back home, Floyd rehires him and sends him on his first job, to courier 20 Gees to Las Vegas. Floyd owes the money to some dame at the Flamingo Hotel, which - as an aside - is an actual location in the movie. It was brand new in 1947 and sitting by itself in the desert.

When Harry arrives, he learns the woman won't be there for another week. Floyd tells him to cool his heels, and keep  his gambling under control. He knows Harry is an addict. "If you have to make a bet, use your own money, not mine". That works for one night. On the second, Harry meets "Richard Ellsworth" (Richard Gaines) at the roulette table. Over a drink, Ellsworth tells Harry he has a mathematical system to beat the odds. Harry's interested. At first, the system works. The two men cash in. They're each up by over a thousand dollars. But by the third day it breaks down. Suddenly, Harry's lost all his winnings. Now he's dipping into the 20 grand he's supposed to deliver. He goes through 5 thou of that before he finds out Ellsworth is a con man. Wanting his money back - Mr. Floyd's money actually - he goes to Ellsworth's house to confront him. They struggle; Harry punches Ellsworth, who hits his head and dies. Now Harry's on the run, on a train.

He meets a woman named "Alice Jamieson", only that's not her real name, she's really Mrs. Ellsworth (Virginia Christine aka "Mrs. Olsen"). She was spying on Harry and her husband back in Vegas. She's glad Harry killed him, because she was gonna do it herself and now she doesn't have to. It turns out he framed her for a con job. She spent a year in prison. Now she and Harry are allies. Soon they fall in love. But Harry has two problems. 1) He owes Mr. Floyd the five grand that he gambled away, and Mr. Floyd doesn't take kindly to deadbeats. 2) He killed Richard Ellsworth, and the cops are looking for him. He can claim self defense, which Mrs. Olsen urges him to do. But he thinks the cops won't believe him, because of what he does for a living. One night, after they're back in Los Angeles, a blackmailer tries to put the screws on the couple. He wants twenty five thousand bucks to keep his mouth shut. The only chance for Harry is to plead his case to Mr. Floyd. But will that get the blackmailer off his back?

"The Invisible Wall" (a strange title that doesn't seem to have anything to to with the movie) is a nicely layered film, mixing romance, friendship and broken trust in the context of compulsive gambling. Particularly interesting are the con job scenes when Richard Ellsworth first meets Harry. He's so good at what he does that Harry is completely relaxed in his presence. It's as if he has a new best friend, who's roulette system takes the pressure off his addiction. Harry seems grateful to have met him. It's rare to see this level of geniality displayed in a film noir setting. Don Castle is good as the obsessive Harry. He's the Gable lookalike you might remember from last year's "Madonna in the Desert". Virginia Christine was a movie actress before she went to work for Folgers. In a bit of cinematic premonition, there's a scene where she asks for a second cup of coffee.

I give "Invisible" Two Big Thumbs Up. It's sympathy for the protagonist is different from the standard pity usually coaxed from these scripts. It's highly recommended even though the print is a little soft. ////

The previous night we watched a British Noir, "Spin a Dark Web"(1956), also having to do with gambling. "Jim Bankley" (Lee Patterson) is a young Canadian boxer living in London. He needs a job. His fellow Canuck "Buddy" (Robert Arden) works for a Mafioso named "Mr. Francesi" (Martin Benson). Buddy says he can get Bankley into Francesi's racket. "All you gotta do is follow orders". Bankley's up for crime, but nothing violent. Buddy says, "don't worry. You'll just be running errands".

"Mr. Francesi" (Martin Benson) is a nice Mafioso. He likes his spaghetti dinners (meat sauce and garlic), he bets on dogs and ponies (after he fixes the races), and he's got a boxer who's willing to take a dive. He doesn't wanna hurt anybody, and he even tells his "boys", "look - I don't-a wanna no more trouble. Be-a nice when-a you talk to our clients". By "clients", he means anyone who owes him money. And he's serious about the pleasant p.r.. He's a genuinely friendly guy. All he wants is to rake in the dough - which he's good at doing - but he's got a sister, "Bella" (Faith Domergue), who's as ruthless as he is docile.

Bankley gets the gig, and everything is hunky dory until a loose cannon thug named McCloud murders Francesi's boxer. Now Scotland Yard is on the case. Mr. Francesi doesn't like it, but he still plays nice, even with McCloud, who asks for money so he can get out of the country. Now, Jim Bankley was a friend of the boxer. He's dating the poor guy's sister (Rona Anderson). Here's where the conflict kicks in. Mr. Francesi and Bella tell the cops they know nothing about McCloud. Jim Bankley's never met him. So as far as he's concerned, the Francesi's are telling the truth. But because the dead boxer was also his friend, he promises the cops (and the sister) that he'll turn over any information on McCloud, should he find it. This puts him at odds with Bella Francesi, who seduces him. She distracts Bankley enough that he forgets about the case, and instead starts to rise up in the Francesi organisation. He was a radio and telephone technician in the Canadian army, so Mr. Francesi (pronounced Fran-CHAY-zee) has him rig up a phone tap that will allow him to rig the odds on a horse derby. The gang makes off with a big haul, but McCloud hears about it and returns to steal the money. Now Bankley knows Mr. Francesi was lying about knowing McCloud, and he doesn't trust Francesi anymore. This sets Bella Francesi against him, and she kidnaps the dead boxer's sister. I hope that all makes sense (read it real slow if it doesn't).

Besides Martin Benson's performance as the cordial Mr. Francesi, Lee Patterson also turns in a good one as the pliable but ultimately decent Bankley. "Spin a Dark Web"also gets Two Big Thumbs Up, and would make a perfect double bill with "The Invisible Wall". You can do 'em both in under two and a half hours, or if that's too much, watch 'em two nights in a row. The picture on "Web" is razor sharp. ////

That's all for the moment. We said we were gonna list some notable flicks from 2021, so (using our trusty movie list), lets run off a quick Top 25 (in no particular order) :

1) Cleopatra (probably the movie of the year)

2) West Side Story (or this one)

3) Christ Stopped at Eboli

4) We Dive at Dawn

5) Cottage to Let

6) The History of Mr. Polly (#5 & 6 are from when we went on a john Mills kick)

7) Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (loved it!)

8) Where Eagles Dare (ditto)

9) Quo Vadis

10) Becket

11) Cimarron

12) The Blue Max

13) A Man for All Seasons (another movie of the year contender)

14) The Shout

15) Mr. Klein

16) Mary, Queen of Scots

17) The Great Waldo Pepper (loved it!)

18) Never Let Go (Peter Sellers as a psycho mobster)

19) Don't Talk to Strange Men

20) Guns, Girls and Gangsters (we love Lee Van Cleef!)

21) American Graffiti (another contender)

22) The Old Dark House

23) Mr. Emmanuel

24) Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill

25) Target Earth (for Bill Raynor and Mr. Reeves)

That's just from a quick run through of the list. There's a ton of other flicks we could mention, and we should give a shout out to things like the Crime Doctor and Whistler series, and also other actors we binged on, like the great Ron Foster and Glenn Ford. For now, that's a doggone good list. And, I left out "Blaise Pascal" from the tremendous Historical Series by Roberto Rossellini. That one gets an Honorable #26.

That's all for tonight. Hope your weekend was good. I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Ann Savage and Hugh Beaumont in "Apology for Murder", and "Flight to Nowhere" with Alan Curtis

How about a Noir called "Apology for Murder"(1945)? "Gee, we're awfully sorry about that murder. We just feel terrible about it, and we wanted to call and apologize". Except it's not so funny when you have Ann Savage plotting to kill her wealthy husband, and playing Hugh Beaumont for a sucker in the process. Savage, as you know, is the ultimate Film Noir bad girl. When she's in the lead, treachery is afoot. Here, she's "Toni Kirkland", married to the much older "Harvey" (Russell Hicks). Harvey Kirkland is a businessman, involved in a corporate transaction so huge it makes the news. Beaumont is a newspaper reporter who's editor sends him to Kirkland's mansion for an interview. While there, he catches the eye of Toni. Her look says "come hither" and a lot more. Before Beaumont knows it, he's inventing a reason to come back to the Kirkland house and see her - alone. The next thing you know, they're involved in a red hot affair. That's when Toni springs it on him : "My husband knows all about us. He says he wants a divorce".

Beaumont thinks that's great. "It's wonderful news, Toni. Now we can get married. We don't have to sneak around anymore". But Toni isn't as thrilled. "It isn't wonderful that I'll be completely cut out of his will".

"But surely you'll get a divorce settlement".

"Yeah.....and it'll be peanuts compared to what I would be getting if we stayed married".

Can you say "Double Indemnity"? "Apology" has a similar plot, so similar that the title was intended to be "Single Indemnity" before the "Double" producers sued. At any rate, Toni suggests a solution to the problem. "If he happened to meet with an accident.......do you get what I'm saying"? Beaumont isn't the type for rough stuff. "I'm not up for murder. I'm not interested in your husband's money, and we don't need it. It's you I want. I'm in this for love".

But as Mr. Howell said to Gilligan, when he told Mr. Howell that he wanted to give away his lottery winnings to help people and make the world a better place : "Well, that's all very nice, Gilligan. Very noble and generous........but stupid"! If Gilligan's Island were on the air in 1945, Toni Kirkland would agree with Mr. Howell. She wants all her husband's money and feels entitled to it. "I've had to put up with that old man for all these years, and I'm not getting any younger myself. What do you think I married him for? It wasn't love, I can tell you that".

"But you love me, right"? Beaumont is so naive. "Of course I love you, but we need that money". By now she's worn him down, and she's giving him that "look" again, the one that says more than "come hither". He agrees to her plan, and even devises the accident. "We can stage a crash. I've been up this road many times now. It's got so many hairpin turns, no one would question if his car went over the side". They set it all up. Toni drives her own car halfway down the hill, She lifts the hood to make it look like it broke down, then she goes to a nearby house to call her husband to pick her up. Hugh Beaumont is hiding in the bushes. When Harvey Kirkland gets there, Hugh conks him on the head. He and Toni put Harvey back in his car, and push it over the hillside. Goodbye, Mr. Spalding. Home run.

But there's a problem. Just before they pushed him, Harvey's gardener drove by. His truck got stuck in a rut. Did he see them? Well, don't worry about it now. At the moment, the news is good. The gardener has gone to the cops to accuse another man, the business partner of Harvey Kirkland. "I seen them two having an argument before he went over that cliff". The partner is tried, convicted and is facing the electric chair. This bothers Hugh Beaumont, but it doesn't worry Toni. "Oh come on. We can't be responsible for a miscarriage of justice"! 

Now wait just a minute. Did I say "a" problem? Better make it two. All of a sudden, Beaumont's editor gets a bug up his rear. "I don't think that man is guilty. Kirkland was getting a divorce. I've seen the court papers. I think that wife of his has something to do with it". The editor wants Beaumont to dig in and get a scoop. He has to pretend to go along, but he says "I think it's a waste of time. That guy was found guilty in a court of law". When he deliberately produces no results in tracking down evidence against his gal Toni, Beaumont's editor takes it upon himself to get the story. He tells Beaumont : "You know, I went up that road myself. There's footprints up there that the cops must've missed. One of them is from a man's shoe. I think the wife did it, and I think she had some help". Now Beaumont is really sweating.

If that wasn't enough, he's now got competition. Toni has a lawyer who's promised to get her a full settlement. "You'll collect on the original will". She's very happy indeed about that, so happy that she has an affair with the lawyer, to make sure he'll deliver on his promise. Beaumont sees them in flagrante delicto, one night on an unexpected visit. Now he finally realizes Toni doesn't give a hoot about him and never did. All she wants is the money; she's a chiseler. This knowledge causes Beaumont to, at last, man up. He gets a gun, and........but that would spoil the ending. I can't tell you what happens except to say "Beaumont guts it out". You'll see what I mean when you watch, and you should. "Apology" may be a PRC production, but it's a good one, forget about the "Double Indemnity" comparisons. Ann Savage is positively savage as the amoral gold digger (what if her stage name had been "Ann Sweet" instead? It wouldn't have worked.) And, we're loving Hugh Beaumont as a Noir star. He's mild mannered in "Apology" compared to his turn in "Roaring City", but we think tough guys are his true calling, Ward Cleaver notwithstanding. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Apology for Murder", a minor gem of the genre. It's highly recommended though the picture is a little soft.  /////

The previous night, in an effort to continue in our recent aviation vein, we chose a film entitled "Flight to Nowhere"(1946), expecting it to be one of those "forced down in the jungle" movies like the legendary "Lost Flight". Instead, it could have been titled "Plot to Nowhere". or "Flight to the Land of Confusion". If you can understand what's going on, you're a better motion picture fan than me. Still, I actually enjoyed it for that reason. The story was so impenetrable that I took to that aspect as it's strong point. "Give in to the utter ambiguity". Alan Curtis stars as a charter pilot, who's hired by a Countess to fly her to Death Valley. It's not every day that that happens. She doesn't state why she wants to go there and he's not up for it anyway. He tries to talk her into a romantic evening instead. But the Countess is all business. She needs to get to Death Valley in a hurry. When Curtis in the end agrees (for a hefty price), she shows up with four friends in tow. Curtis doesn't like it. "This wasn't part of the bargain. it was supposed to be just you and me". She explains by saying they are new friends who just happened to be going to the same place. "I just met them at the hotel". Yeah sure.

During the flight, they hit a storm. Curtis flies above it, but the passengers need oxygen masks. One of them (Evelyn Ankers) passes out. Someone disconnected her air line. She's wearing a ring with strange looking hieroglyphics on the face. When they arrive in Death Valley, Curtis is met by an FBI pal, who tells him to be on the lookout for a stolen map. It seems a Japanese guy was killed in Honolulu for a map of a uranium mine. The Countess and her "friends" may be international racketeers..........

or they may be actors who were simply in need of a buck. And who can blame them? At least they give it their all. What I've described is just the first ten minutes of the film. You still have another 69 to go. Most of that time you will be in a hotel, watching Curtis get conked on the head. One IMDB fan suggested he be placed in concussion protocol. At some point near the end, most of the gang will fly with Curtis to Las Vegas. One of them has been murdered, but you won't remember who, because two of the passengers are tall guys wearing suits who need money. One of them gets offed but it won't be important, because by that time you'll be enjoying the movie for what it is - a semi-stylish distraction. In that way, it exceeds all expectations.

I'm not joking, either. If you want a movie where you can turn off your brain, this is it. You still have to pay attention, but only in a meditative way. If you do that, you'll have a great time via the sheer bubbling monotony. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Flight to Nowhere". When it's over you'll agree with me. Give it a whirl - in fact don't miss it! - it's highly recommended and the picture is almost razor sharp. //// 

That's all I know for tonight. I'm working on my book (I'm on the second draft), and I'm laying low so I don't catch Omicron. I hope you are well. Life is tough right now but we'll all get through it.

I send you tons of love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)