Last night's film was "Women's Prison"(1955), which, despite the title, was not as exploitative as you might think. It was, however, very brutal and depressing. The great Ida Lupino plays "Amelia Van Zant", the women's superintendent at a co-ed prison in which the men and women are separated by a thick wall. I don't know who the genius was who thought up this arrangement, but apparently there were such prisons, and as you can imagine, the men are trying to sneak into the women's wing, and the women don't mind if they do. Now, that's not what the movie is about - as I said, its not an exploitation flick - but it does present a problem when a husband and wife are incarcerated on two sides of the same slammer. "Glen Burton" (Warren Stevens) knows a way into the ladies' side via the roof and the laundry chute, and he wants to see his wife "Joan" (Audrey Totter) because she's getting out soon, and - besides the obvious love and hubba-hubba- he wants to tell her where his robbery loot is stashed (under the stairs at her Mom's house) so she can use the money to hire a lawyer and get him sprung, too.
But they both have a problem, because Miss Van Zant is a psycho witch. You know how some actors should be arrested for their performances, like Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, because they're too realistic and therefore you figure the actor was like that in real life? About a year ago we saw Martin Sheen and Tony Musante in a film called "The Incident", and we remarked that both actors should've been imprisoned after the movie because their performances were.......well, just disgusting. Repulsive. Ida Lupino does the same in this film, so if you like her don't watch this movie because you'll never see her in the same way again. She should've been arrested for this performance, because the chacrater is beyond evil. As the movie opens, poor "Helene Jensen" (Phyllis Thaxter) is being processed at the prison for accidentally running over a child. True, she was driving past the speed limit, but as you can imagine her life is destroyed already by the guilt she feels, and Lupino makes her torment worse by having her thrown into solitary for a minor infraction on her first day in the prison. She comes out of The Hole half nuts, and the other gals try to set her straight: "Don't mess with Miss Van Zant, she's crazy". But it gets worse.
Howard Duff plays "Dr. Crane", the prison's kindly physician who has to clean up Van Zant's messes, every time one of her disciplinary actions goes too far, which is often. When she puts Helene in a straitjacket, which nearly suffocates her, Dr. Crane tells her he's had enough. "One more of these cases and I'm gonna report you to the prison board." He asks Miss Van Zant, who's a registered psychologist, if in fact she's a nutcase: "have you ever considered that you hate these women, not because they're convicts, though you look down on that too, but because every one of them has known love and you haven't"? He's inferring that she's severely repressed, which makes her even angrier, and she tries to tear him a new one but he's a big dude and dead serious. "I've already told the warden about Helene Jensen", he says. "Soon you'll be looking for a new job."
Helene survives the straightjacket incident, which lets Miss Van Zant off the hook, and she's soon back at her sadistic ways, but what she did to Helene is nothing to what Joan Burton is gonna get when her husband Glen breaks in to the women's side again, using his secret entryway. He gets away with it, and we see them making out in the laundry room. Cut to weeks later, and Joan learns she's pregnant, so they must've done more than just kiss, but now she's frantic because in a few months, there'll be no way to hide it from the guards. So, she tells the sympathetic Dr. Crane, who - because the pregnancy will be known anyway as her belly starts to grow - reports it to the warden. "You have a pregnant woman in custody."
The warden knows he could lose his job if this is found out by the prison board, so he passes the buck to Miss Van Zant, since she's in charge of the women's section. "If I go down, so will you, and you'll never have a job again." This sends Van Zant into a homicidal frenzy, where she tortures Joan Burton. At this point, I can't recommend that you watch the movie unless you have a strong stomach, and not because the torment is overly graphic in terms of what is shown, but because of the implied brutality. It's godawful, and as I say, Lupino should've been sentenced to prison for her acting job. But what happens is that the inmates stage a revolt, and Van Zant gets what's coming to her, and at the same time, Glen Burton has snuck over to the women's side yet again, this time with a gun, after he finds out what Miss Van Zant has done to his wife.
This is one grim movie, so watch it if you can handle it, but it's also highly recommended because all kidding aside about Lupino, acting wise it's tremendous. There are many, many supporting characters, featuring every personality type you can think of, and every actress is individually great. The message is prison reform, and what kind of idiot puts men and women in the same slammer, even if there is a giant wall between them. Sometimes the guardians are worse than the prisoners, so thank goodness for Howard Duff. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Women's Prison". The picture is razor sharp. ////
Now then, in this day and age, when all you have to do is think of something and it pops up on Facebook, we had some serendipity along those lines with Ken Maynard, in whose last two films we missed the strong presence of Tarzan, his trick horse. Maynard's film "Whirlwind Horseman" was featured in our last blog, and while we enjoyed it, it was the second Maynard vehicle in a row in which Tarzan's abilities were not on display. Well, someone in Webland must've read our lament, either Zuckerberg or Ken Maynard himself, because two nights ago we received a Tarzan Special - "Hell-Fire Austin"(1932), which appeared in our Youtube recommendations. Boy was it great! ; classic Maynard, and it has Nat Pendleton too, the early and burly character actor who specialised in playing Big Dumb Smart Guys who were Kinda Stoopid. As the movie opens, Ken and Nat are in the Army in Noo Yawk, but about to be discharged. Nat knows that Ken was a rodeo star before the service. He asks if he can follow Ken out west when he leaves to resume his career.
Ken agrees to let Nat tag along, and they hop a train to Californy, where the first thing they do, when they de-train at the Alabammy Hills, is to dine-n-dash at a roadside cafe, by staging a Major League Punchout, after eating a five course meal at the owner's expense. This shenanigan gets them in trouble with the Sheriff and his honchos, and with a businessman who learns that Ken is the top rodeo rider in the country. Ken and Nat are caught for the dinner rip-off, and are sentenced to 60 days breaking rocks. While doing their time, they are met by "Judy Brooks" (Ivy Merton) and her Uncle (Lafe McKee), who happen to be riding by the rockpile. Sweet Judy is training "Tarzan", a new horse who, she tells Ken, has promise. He takes to Tarzan immediately and vice versa. Nat tells Judy that Ken is a champion rider. He demurs, because he's in Aww Shucks mode, but then "Mark Edmunds" (Alan Roscoe) , who holds the deed to Judy's ranch, gets him paroled so Ken can ride for him in an upcoming high stakes horse race. Ken insists that Nat be set free too, cause we need him for comic relief.
But when Edmunds, who covets Tarzan, finds out that Ken likes Judy Brooks, he does a 180 and tries to prevent him from riding in the race, a cross country extravaganza. All of a sudden, he doesn't want Ken and Tarzan in the race, because they will win and Ken will own Tarzan, and Judy will be able to pay off her ranch. Including the horse race, which takes up the final quarter of the film, this is a big time Tarzan movie, in which Ken Maynard is introduced to him and they become buddies, which is like the Lone Ranger being introduced to Silver. There's also some stunt riding that has to be seen to be believed, likely by Yakima Canutt. As for Nat Pendleton, he was a singular comic talent who was a college wrestler before becoming an actor, and as noted in blogs of yore, he was in a thousand movies in the early 30s, always playing the big, polite, dumbfounded galoot who isn't as dumb as he seems. The real star of this one is Tarzan, though. It's a horse movie all the way. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Hell-Fire Austin". The picture is very good. ////
And that's all I know for this evening. I'm still working on the Elvis book, and I'm also browsing an academic book about Charles Ives' Concord Sonata, called "Essays After a Sonata" by Kyle Gann. Because the Concord was so revolutionary (read: abstract), before publishing it, Ives - an unknown composer at the time (he made his living as an insurance executive) - sent out 200 copies of the Concord score, along with a similar amount of copies of a self-published book called "Essays Before a Sonata", to various music critics and professionals, including other composers. It was his way of giving advance notice as it were, of announcing himself by saying "my name is Charles Ives and I've written a sonata that's a little different." He was trying to prepare a place for himself in the classical world, so that the critics wouldn't just toss his music aside without giving it a fair chance. He knew he'd written something monumental, but he also knew that if he didn't explain it beforehand (because it was weird), that busy critics and composers, whose help he needed in getting launched, might read a few measures and dismiss it as musical nonsense. That's why he wrote a book consisting of various essays, dissecting the movements of the sonata. The entire venture took over nine years, from writing the first note to getting the Concord published. It wasn't recorded until 1948, and probably took that long for a pianist to learn how to play it, lol. Just kidding, but there's a live version on Youtube with a guy playing a tremendous version, and if you watch it you'll see what I mean. This guy plays it from memory, which is even more astounding. At any rate, Gann's book - the one I am reading (or browsing because it's a long and involved read, and I'm still working on Elvis), has the reversed title to Ives' book, of "Essays After a Sonata", and he analyzes the impact of the Concord all these years later, a century after its completion. I got into Ives about 15 years ago, and bought the Concord on CD (on Naxos) back then. If you listen, give it a fair chance. You may come to think its awesome. It has that effect on people.
I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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