Last night, we found another Ann Savage comedy from Pine-Thomas Productions, the folks who brought us "Midnight Manhunt", but unlike that film (a total blast), the yucks were scarce in "Scared Stiff"(1945). Part of it was due to the casting. Jack Haley, famous as The Tin Man, overdoes it as "Larry Elliot" a dumb, third rate reporter who's relegated to covering chess matches while everyone else at his paper is looking for a the scoop on an escaped murderer. When the chess match is cancelled, due to an all out brawl, his editor sends Larry to Grape City in Central California, to cover a festival at a winery. At the train station, he runs into "Sally Warren" (Ann Savage), an antique dealer he's got a crush on. She's heading out to look for acquisitions, but she's getting off at Grape Center, not Grape City. Larry tags along, and ends up in Grape Center by mistake. On the bus, he's playing chess against an Eskimo who lives in Alaska and sends him his moves through the mail. The man sitting next to Larry is dead, murdered with a chess piece. Naturally, Larry becomes the prime suspect. There's an obnoxious kid on board, a twelve year old genius, who - besides being a chess master - is conducting a study on "fear reaction". He follows Larry and Sally to a winery in Grape Center, but it's not the one Larry was sent to. He's in the wrong town. Two weird brothers run the joint, which has a secret room accessible only by a revolving wall. Somehow, the escaped murderer has found his way there. He's after a rare chess set (god knows why) but Sally has already found it at the winery. It belongs to the two weird brothers. The murderer is Barton Maclane, but he doesn't show up until midway through the movie, and then he isn't given much to do. The script is so inept it almost qualifies as bad/good. The real problem is the direction, which lacks energy, and Jack Haley - much as we love him - is just not the right man for the job as the slapstick reporter. I'd say it would be nice "if he only had the heart" for it, but then you'd shoot me.
I really wanted to like "Scared Stiff", and in a way I do, because it means well. I sat through it, but I am easygoing with movies, and you may not be in this case. But because it was so confusing and "stiff"ly directed, it erred on the side of bad/good just enough to make it watchable in my opinion. The Annoying Brat was played by Buddy Swan. Veda Ann Borg plays a blonde bombshell insurance agent. Like MacLane, however, her role doesn't match her talent. She's great in every other movie we've seen her in. Why hire actors like Borg and MacLane, if you're just gonna have them play cardboard characters? There's a creepy old couple who run the inn where everyone stays. You keep waiting for them to be outed as necrophiliacs or other such weirdos, but again, nothing happens. If the director had any talent, he'd have had a winner with this cast, but the guy strikes out. I'm still gonna give it Two Regular Thumbs, just because it's Well Intentioned as I said. And, it has our gal Ann Savage, who tries her best. But if you can make heads or tales of the plot, I congratulate you. The picture is soft and on the grey side. ////
In "Fear" (1946), our previous night's film, Peter Cookson stars as "Larry Crain", a med student who's just lost his scholarship. He's living in a rooming house, he can't pay his rent, his landlady is hassling him, so he takes a gold watch that was a gift from his father and sells it to a professor, who runs an illicit pawn shop out of his apartment. The professor is a skinflint, and only gives Larry eight bucks for the watch. The money doesn't even cover his back rent, so he treats himself to dinner at a local cafe, and ponders his next move. A girl named "Eileen Stephens" (Anne Gwynne) comes in for a bite to eat. She discovers she has no money in her purse, so Larry pays for her meal. He also overhears the conversation of some classmates, who are talking about the skinflint professor. "One of these days, somebody's gonna knock him off", one guy says. "He keeps all his money in a box". Larry gets the idea to rob him, then all his money problems will be over. He goes to the professor's apartment and conks him on the head with a fireplace poker. The professor dies, but Larry doesn't get away with the money, because just as he's trying all the keys to the strongbox, two other students knock on the professor's door. When he doesn't answer, they worry that something is wrong and alert the building superintendent.
Larry manages to sneak out, by hiding in a room that's being painted.
When the professor is found dead, "Police Captain Burke" (Warren Williams) gets involved. He has a detective bring Larry to the station, but only to reclaim his watch, because the dead professor was running an illegal pawn shop. Slowly but surely, however, Captain Burke turns the screws on Larry by insinuating he committed the murder. Burke does a Columbo on him (or Clodumbo, if you prefer Mad Magazine), where he never comes out and accuses Larry of anything, but the way he words his questions and conversation are right up to the edge of accusation. This drives Larry crazy because of his guilty conscience. In the meantime, he's received a 1000 dollar check for an article he's written for an academic magazine, about how important men should be above the law. This doesn't sit well with Captain Burke, who questions him on his philosophy.
By now, a suspect in the murder is in custody. It's the painter of the empty apartment Larry hid in. He was the only other person who can be proven to have been in the professor's building that night. We know he didn't do it, but for some reason he confesses anyway. Larry is thinking he's gotten away with the murder, and he starts dating Eileen Stephens. He gets more and more arrogant in his personal conduct, until Captain Burke questions him one final time, in the deceased professor's apartment.
"Fear" is based on Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment". I haven't read it, but I'll assume the adaptation is faithful. I thought it was quite well done, except for one twist. I won't tell you what it is, nor when it comes, but you'll know it when you see it. Maybe it's in the book, and if so, I'll let it go. But in the movie, it kind of changes everything that's gone before, and I didn't like it, even though it made for a......well, I shouldn't say. I don't think we've seen Peter Cookson before, but he was very good as the self-centered Larry, who - if he had waited one more day, til his check came - wouldn't be in his current mess.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Fear". It's in the Hitchcock mold. It's also highly recommended, and the picture is almost razor sharp. ////
That's all for tonight. The big news today - huge news, actually, but sad, is that Jim Svejda has announced his retirement from Classical KUSC. If you've been reading the blog for a while, you've seen me mention Svejda from time to time. I've been listening to his show regularly for 25 years, and there's hardly been a weeknight in all that time when I haven't tuned in for at least a few minutes. The thing is, classical music has been in my life even before The Beatles. Some of the first melodies I can remember hearing were from my Dad's old Scarlatti and Chopin records. He also played piano for a while. So, even before my life was transformed by "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", I already knew things like Bach's Minuet in G major (a famous melody now attributed to Christian Petzold), or Mozart's Piano Sonata #16 K545, another famous one.
During my teens, I didn't listen to classical music (or didn't seek it out), but by the time I was 24, I was putting KUSC on late at night, and then leaving it on at low volume as I slept. I resumed that practice when I was 37, and at a certain point, can't remember exactly when, I never turned the radio off. I mean that almost literally. Inside my Tiny Apartment, I have KUSC playing all the time (at low volume when I'm sleeping or watching movies, etc.) I had it on all the time at Pearl's house, too. One of our treats in the evening was to listen to Jim Svejda after dinner. His familiar theme music began at 7pm on the dot, and I always tried to be there when he signed off at midnight ("on behalf of engineer Steve Seavey, this is Jim Svejda.....good evening"). And as I say, most nights I was listening in between for an hour or two, sometimes for the whole show. As other fans will attest, Jim Sveja has been like a family member or best friend in our lives. He's like Vin Scully; he's always been there. He also happens to be, in my opinion, the greatest DJ who ever lived (yeah, even greater than The Real Don Steele). For certain he's the most knowledgeable about classical music.
I was fortunate to meet Jim, at an in-store appearance by Hilary Hahn, the violinist. As you probably know, I'm a huge HH fan, and when she played a mini-concert at The Apple Store in Santa Monica in 2009, I was there. Jim Svejda was also there, to introduce Hilary, and with him was the son of composer Arnold Schoenberg, who's concerto she had just recorded. I didn't know Jim Svejda was going to be there, and was surprised when I saw him. I had to say something, so I got up and shook his hand. What came out was "thanks for your show, Jim. You make every day a great day". He thanked me, but it was the response of Schoenberg's son that I'll always remember.
"That should be written in stone", he said.
And I agree, so I'll do it now. Imagine a stone tablet, and I have a chisel in my hand. I'm chipping the words I said at The Apple Store, with a slight paraphrase :
"Thanks To Jim Svejda. He Made Every Day A Great Day".
There will never be anyone like him, so be sure to listen while you still can. His last show will be Friday, February 18th, from 7 to Midnight.
I hope you had a nice day, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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