Milton Berle and Willie Best in "Whispering Ghosts", and "The Vanishing Shadow", a Chapter Serial (Happy Halloween!)

Ghost comedies seem to be what's left of our unseen horror fare and last night we found a good one: "Whispering Ghosts"(1942) starring Milton Berle as a crime-solving radio show host who gets challenged to solve a murder. As it opens, a woman named "Elizabeth Woods" (Brenda Joyce) has inherited a boat from her uncle called The Black Joker. The problem is that The Joker is a rotting hulk and her uncle was murdered on board, which is why she inherited it in the first place. The ship itself is worth nothing, but Elizabeth has been told by her lawyer that there may be diamonds hidden aboard, so she's definitely interested in finding them in addition to wanting her uncle's murder solved. For assistance, she and her boyfriend turn to "H.H. Van Buren" (Berle), who solves impossible crimes on his radio show that even the police can't figure out. Van Buren agrees to take her case and heads to the ship with his Man Friday "Euclid Brown" (Willie Best). Right away, spooky stuff starts happening. Ghosts appear, bats and crows fly around, a crazed old wench and pirate board the ship (Renie Riano and John Carradine). There's actually a trained crow actor named Jimmy the Crow!

It turns out that a member of Van Buren's radio staff has hired Carradine and Riano to scare off Van Buren and Euclid, so that he can get the diamonds himself. But Van Buren doesn't frighten easily because he's seen every trick in the book. He knows they're a couple of actors and uncovers their hiding place on the ship, where they're using a projector to create ghosts, and a microphone and speakers for the noises. But then a hoodlum named "Mack Wolf" (Abner Bieberman) shows up. He's a real criminal but Van Buren think he's a hired actor, too. Wolf wants the diamonds and has a gun; he ain't foolin' around. There's a dog collar that everyone seems to think is important, but we don't learn why till the end.

The movie is clearly a vehicle for Berle, and when he and Willie Best are doing their thing, the action zings along. Uncle Miltie was great with one-liners and he's young here and on top of his game. Willie Best was an A+ version of the wide-eyed Negro assistant. The scenes with John Carradine and Renie Riano are eccentric and highly theatrical. The ship makes a great haunted house, with cobwebs in the rafters and voodoo priests peering in the windows. A huge, mounted fish has an eye that follows you everywhere. Poor Euclid is scared out of his wits, in classic Mantan Moreland/Sammy Morrison fashion. Toward the end, the murderer of Elizabeth's uncle appears and starts trying to kill the others. We only see him in shadow until the last minute. Meanwhile, Van Buren and Elizabeth have found clues on the ship, in her Uncle's bible and on the dog collar. There are diamonds aboard, but in a place you'd never expect. This flick is well directed and it moves, which is a good thing because it's 71 minutes long (an eternity by our standards). The fact that it's a 20th Century Fox release might have something to do with the quality. It's Berle's movie but with a very strong supporting cast, especially Willie Best, and the production values are a step up, too. But overall, it's the jokes that give it energy. Berle can sling with the best of 'em. Put it all together and it adds up to ten, even if the mystery is hard to follow amid all the tomfoolery and appearances of different characters every five minutes. I'm tempted to give it Two Huge Thumbs, but let's stick with Two Bigs and a high recommendation. The picture is very good.  ////

The previous night we started another chapter serial in lieu of an unseen horror movie. Who knew these serials were so good? This one can pass as Halloween material, because it starts with a Mad Scientist working in a great Mad Scientist lab, with all the buzzing electronic gear and requisite bubbling test tubes. It's called "The Vanishing Shadow"(1934), and the scientist actually seems legit (i.e. not Mad). He's working on robots when he's visited by a younger colleague, "Stanley Stanfield" (Onslow Stevens), who offers him a secret proposal. They discuss it in hushed tones; we aren't told exactly what it is, only that it's an invention of some kind and Stanfield is working the bugs out. Stanfield then drives away and sees a young woman, "Gloria Barnett" (Ada Ince), standing in the street, trying to cross. But there's traffic and she almost gets run down by a hook and ladder truck. Stanfield stops his car and saves her, pulling her from the road. 

It turns out they have a connection: the scientist, "Professor Carl van Dorn" (James Durkin). "My father was a business partner of his," she tells Stanfield. He answers by telling her something he thinks she'll find shocking. "I hate to say this, but your father's a bad man. He caused the death of my father by trying to steal his invention." They come to a stoplight and a sinister looking older gent stares her down. OMG! He's her father "Wade Barnett" (Walter Miller), the man they were just talking about. Barnett's an investor who screws inventors in crooked business deals. He's a powerful, dirty player, and needless to say, Stanfield doesn't like him. But then Gloria surprises him by saying she can't stand her Dad either, and wants nothing to do with him. They ignore him at the stoplight and drive away. All of this is to set up an alliance between Stanfield and Gloria Barnett and a probable romance, too. Her father is their common enemy. Later that day, Stanfield goes to visit Barnett, to tell him to lay off and leave the two of them alone, but a henchman takes a gun out and a schtruggle ensues. The gun goes off, the henchman is shot dead, and Stanfield is blamed - then framed - by Barnett, and because Barnett is a big player in the business community and has pawns in the city government, Stanfield is as good as convicted. He has no choice but to flee.

The next day, he surreptitiously visits Professor van Dorn and thrilled to see that van Dorn has incorporated his invention with one of his robots. Now we're gonna find out what it is.

What it is, is an invisibility device, worn around the waist like a belt, that renders the wearer invisible. Voila! Now that van Dorn has perfected it for him, Stanfield won't have to worry about being framed (well sorta, because the cops are now pounding on van Dorn's door looking for him), but when he puts on the belt he disappears, right before the cops bust into the lab.

But there's still one bug to be worked out with the device: though the wearer is invisible, his shadow can still be seen. In this case, it leads the cops to believe he's somewhere in van Dorn's lab, then on the roof, but though they follow his shadow through the building, Stanfield himself can't be seen. The first episode was great (gets Two Bigs), and featured car chases throughout the East Valley. "The Vanishing Shadow" has twelve 20-minute episodes and I see many more chapter serials in our fyoochum.  //// 

Hey guess what? I did it! I found dvd copies of "The Great Pumpkin" and "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad." I found 'em at the very last minute at the Northridge and West Valley Libes, so the annual Halloween tradition lives! Rarely can you find a copy of Great Pumpkin on October 29, so I really lucked out. Last night I watched the Mr. Toad half of that movie (a theatrical release by Disney in 1949), and tonight I watched the Ichabod half (way too scary!). I'll watch Charlie Brown tomorrow, late on Halloween night, after I go Trick or Treating! I've been keeping this three-show tradition for about fifteen years now. Anyhow, Happy Halloween! My next blog will arrive late on Tuesday night because I will be going to see The Who at the Hollywood Bowl. I know it's really only half of The Who, but it's the songwriting half, the main half, and it'll be the first time I've ever seen 'em.  I'm not a gigantic Who fan, but Quadrophenia is one of the greatest albums ever made and belongs in the Louvre of rock music.

And that's all I know. My blogging music is Zeit by T. Dream once again and my late night is "The Flying Dutchman" by Wagner. May your Halloween pillowcase be filled with treats and no rocks. I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

John Abbott in "The Vampire's Ghost", and "House of Mystery" starring Clay Clement and Joyzell Joyner

Last night's movie was "The Vampire's Ghost"(1945) another flick we've seen before, and this time I didn't have to guess; I knew it in the first two minutes. No matter, it's a good one, but I've noticed something about the various genres of the black and white era: while the studios made enough Westerns to last the modern-day Youtube viewer a lifetime, and enough crime flicks, mysteries and Noirs to keep you busy for many years, with Horror and Sci-Fi, they only made about a year's worth (if that much; more like 6-8 months apiece) before you gotta start scouring the barrel and then watch re-rons. Why the relative dearth of horror and sci-fi? In comparison to Westerns, I can understand the ratio. Westerns are good for general audiences and sell lots of kids tickets too, for matinees, whereas Horror might not be for everyone. But they also made a shipload of crime flicks that kids wouldn't have been admitted to. So again, why the short shrift on Sci-Fi and Horror? Also, here's something I just found out, via Wiki: did you know that the Hayes Office put a moratorium on Horror movies in the late '30s? I couldn't find the particulars in the Wiki article (duration, exact dates, etc.) but they put the kibosh on a ton of stuff, so maybe they didn't like all the monster movies that were coming out at the time.

Here's another question for ya: whatever happened to Monster Movies? I don't mean general horror, or even psycho movies with guys like Freddy Krueger and Jason, but good old-fashioned Monsters. I mean, is that a great word, or what? Monster! What the hell is a Monster, anyway? I mean, yeah, I know what one is (Frankenstein, the quintessential), but I'm talking about the word Monster. Who came up with it? I think I like it because it has 'ster on the end, which aligns it with hipster, prankster, lobster, mobster (c'mon, think of some more). But yeah, the whole 'ster thing is pertinent; it makes Monsters sound cool. But I still don't understand why they didn't make a zillion horror flicks like they did with the other genres. 

Anyhow, to our movie: English actor John Abbott stars as "Fallon", a casino owner in a central African colony who happens to be a vampire. At first, nobody notices. Only the natives suspect him, because after he moved to the jungle and opened his nightclub, dead bodies began appearing on the roadsides with teeth marks in their necks.

The white administrators in town scoffed at the vampire claims ("primitive superstition"!), but the native drums kept beating, and their message was "watch out for Fallon"! Safari leader "Roy Hendrick" (Charles Gordon) likes Fallon, and doesn't believe the claim either. He's seen what a wild animal can do to a human body, even drain it of blood. But when Fallon starts seducing his girlfriend "Julie" (Peggy Stewart), he likes him a little less. Then Roy finds the antique wooden box containing dirt from Fallon's grave, which he needs to stay alive. Earlier in the film, there was a sailor, "Captain Barrett" (Roy Barcroft) who lost his money and his boat to Fallon in what he believed was a rigged card game. A punchout ensued, and Fallon won because he's 500 years old and vampire strong. But Captain Barrett wanted revenge and came back later to challenge Fallon to a one-hand-takes-all card game. He rigged the deck and won, with the help of "LIsa" (Adele Mara), Fallon's exotic dancer. Captain Barrett got all his money and his boat back, but Fallon then killed him and Lisa. Now the jungle drums are pounding double time. The natives are scared witless, and Roy Hendrick's dad and the village priest intervene on Roy's behalf, because Fallon now has Roy in a trance and is turning his girlfriend into a vampire.

The priest takes Roy to a church to pray, and that breaks the spell. But Fallon still has Julie.

It's very atmospheric, with good photography and drumming, and a mesmerising performance by John Abbott as Fallon the Vampire, who must lay in full moonlight with grave dirt under his head to be restored. Another thing we liked about it is that - while we love Count Dracula and that type of vampire - this movie dares to be different, showing the human side of the Toothmeister, with no special effects or bats. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Vampire's Ghost." The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The night before we had "House of Mystery"(1934), a pre-Code mashup of genres including adventure movie, thriller comedy and old dark house whodunit. It begins in flashback mode in India, where archaeologist "John Prendergast" (Clay Clement) - who's turned drunken and gold crazy after being initiated in cult rituals of the goddess Kali - is kicked out of a bar after spouting off to some fellow explorers who condemn him for abandoning science. Enraged, he storms back to the cult, where his lover "Chandra" (Joyzell Joyner) awaits him. Inside the sanctum, he blasphemes the cult's Hindu leader, which results in the leader putting a curse on him and all the archaeologists on his team: "Whoever seek gold from Kali shall die!"

Flash forward 20 years, and that's exactly what has happened. Everyone in Prendergast's party has died since then. Only Pren (as he now known) remains alive, but he is crippled and confined to a wheelchair. Two of his associates' surviving relatives have located him and are demanding their share of the gold loot he took with him from India. An old biddy named "Hyacinth Potter" (Mary Foy) gets a lawyer, who contacts the other surviving relatives, including a lesbian couple (remember, this is a pre-Code movie) and they track Pren down. He now lives in America with Chandra, in a (you guessed it) Creepy Old Mansion. Pren admits to having the gold, but tells the others and their lawyer that it's cursed. "If you want it, I won't withhold it from you, but I suggest you spend one night in this house before you accept your shares, because the gold comes with a price. I've already paid, as you can see," he says, pointing to his crippled legs. 

He's trying to show them its not worth it, but old lady Hyacinth wants her gold, and no amount of protest by her wimp of a human-dictionary husband (a total nerd) is gonna stop her. In his dictionary, her picture would be next to "Harridan". Looking for guidance, the lesbians suggest a seance (pronounced see-ahnce). The youger gal "Stella" (Fritzi Ridgeway) performs it, using Pocohontas as her spirit guide. But in the middle of the seance, the lights go out, and her companion "Mrs. Carfax" (Dale Fuller) is dead of a broken neck. There's a gorilla in the corner of the room, but he couldn't have done it; he's stuffed. You know, taxidermied.

We're in Ten Little Indians territory now. One of the potential inheritors is an amorous insurance salesman who has the hots for Pren's nurse "Ella" (Verna Hillie). The salesman is good for some "who wants to buy a policy" yucks. This is where the flick turns into a light comedy. Someone else gets murdalised and by now, a trio of coppers show up. But these guys make the Keystones look sharp-witted; they're dumber than The Three Stooges and led by a skinny, tall drainpipe of a detective, who has a big schnozz and speaks in "listen, see?" wisecracks. But he ain't never gonna solve the case. Also in the house is a plumber, who for some reason is working around the clock. But he's so dumb he can't even form a coherent sentence. He can't possibly be the murderer.

So it really must be as Pren says: the deaths are the result of the relatives' lust for gold and are related to the Kali curse. Hang on a sec.....there's another gorilla coming. He just walked through the wall from a secret panel and - look out! Man, stop doing that, you big ape! You're scaring me. Who's running this show, anyway? Is it Pren? It can't be; he's crippled. Is it one of the surviving relatives? Or is it Kali, the six-armed demon goddess?

"House of Mystery" is one of the better films of this type and is especially recommended for its humor, especially from the skinny copper who's a riot. Two Big Thumbs Up, the picture is soft but watchable. ////

That's all for this evening. Are you going to any Halloween parties this weekend? Me, I'm just trying to obtain a copy of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" from the Libe. That's an annual tradition of mine; it cannot be Halloween without Charlie Brown (actually, ya gotta have "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad", too. I watch that and Great Pumpkin every year.) My blogging music is "Zeit" by Tangerine Dream, late night is "Rienzi" by Wagner. I hope you've had a nice Friday night, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)     

Patricia Neal and Helmut Dantine in "Stranger from Venus", and "S.O.S. Coast Guard", a Chapter Serial starring Bela Lugosi

Last night we found a sci-fi, "Stranger from Venus"(1954), that Wiki says is a low-budget remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". After watching, I had thought it was an imitation, or "in the mold of" as opposed to a remake, but it's easy to see why they say that: both films star Patricia Neal, and both have a handsome alien who arrives on Earth via spaceship to warn humans about the folly of atomic weapons. Unfortunately, while "Stranger" is good in places, and features an excellent lead alien in Helmut Dantine, it could be subtitled "The Day the Movie Stood Still" because it's ultra-slowwww. It runs 74 minutes but needs twenty cut out. Lemme give you the basics: it begins with people calling in UFO reports in a small English village. The lights of the ship blind Patricia Neal while she's driving, causing her to crash. She appears to be dead in the wreckage, but then a strange man arrives at the scene. Meanwhile, in the village, at an Inn, the owner and his daughter are serving a few regulars when the strange man enters. We only see him from behind. He orders a beer but then says he doesn't like the taste. The owner's daughter, who works as the Inn's waitress, remarks to her father that the chap seems weird and they keep an eye on him but he just sits there. Then, a local bursts in to say that "Susan North has been in an accident!". "Susan" is Pat Neal. Then the strange man speaks up, telling the patrons not to worry. "She was dead but I revived her." They look at him like he's crazy, but then Susan walks in, proving what he's told them. She remembers nothing of the accident, and feels fine.

The Inn's owner is now suspicious of the man, and the other locals think he's a kook and possibly dangerous. A doctor in the joint takes his pulse and finds none. "Either I'm drunk or you're dead," he says. That's when the man announces he's from Venus, and when they finally accept that he is a Venusian - after the cops try to arrest him and he repels them with a force field - he is brought before some politicians and military officials, at his request, to lay the lowdown on them of what he is doing on Earth: "I came to issue a warning, that you are endangering our planet with your foolish testing of atomic weapons. The mothership from my planet is coming to pick me up, but before I leave I am instructed to implore you against their further use, or we will have no choice but to destroy you." It's basically the same spiel Michael Rennie gave, but this guy didn't bring a bigass, laser beam shootin' robot with him.

During the interludes, which really slow the flick down, he falls in love with Patricia Neal by a beautiful British MGM Studios lake, strewn with lily pads. There, he tells her his secret; that he can only breathe Earth's atmosphere temporarily. If he stays too long he will die and simply vanish.

Of course, the generals and politicians plan to trap the Venusian mothership when it arrives, by pulling it down with giant magnets. Silly humans, always antagonistic. But the alien can read minds, and he tells them "you just want to back engineer our ship so you can make one and dominate your own planet." He warns them again against such foolhardy plans, but being Veddy Britttttttisshh, they won't listen. No one is gonna out-stra-teeger-ize the Brits, not even Big Eyed Beans from Venus. Or Helmut Dantine.

Finally, one scientist develops a conscience before it's too late. A punchout ensues, and Dantine calls the mothership off, just before the magnets pull it to the ground, at which point it woulda blown The Whole Shebang to smithereens. By calling off the ship, Dantine is now trapped on Earth and will soon lose his ability to breathe, but he's noble and cool with his decision, knowing that he sacrificed himself for the greater good of the solar system. It is good stuff if you can handle the glacial pace, so let's give it Two Big Thumbs Up. Dantine holds the screen, reading newspapers aloud in six languages. There's also a lot of interesting physics discussed (magnetic lines of force) and philosophical constructs, but the director didn't inject much energy and so, man is it ever slow. You've really gotta hang in there cause it has a good script, but at times it just drags with it's head down. Bottom line, it's recommended. The picture is wide screen and razor sharp.  ////

No movie the previous night, but we did start a new chapter serial from Republic Pictures, called "S.O.S. Coast Guard"(1937), chosen mainly because we're in search of Halloween material and it stars Bela Lugosi as a Mad Scientist who's invented a gas that disintegrates whatever it comes in contact with. The gas holds the promise of Vorld Domination!, but Lugosi is more interested in cash. He's negotiating, through a Veddy Britttish spokesman, from a yacht that's anchored past the twelve-mile limit, to sell the gas to the highest bidding nation. So far, a joint called Morovania is winning the bid. The Coast Guard intercepts one of the yacht's radio calls, and "Lieutenant Terry Kent" (Ralph Byrd) is sent out to detain it and whoever is aboard. At the time, they don't know it's Lugosi. He and his Captain see the Coast Guard approaching and make a run for it. They board a cargo ship with all of his henchmen aboard, but a schtorm front is opening up at sea. The (non) tiny ship is tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, Lugosi would be lost. 

As it is, the Coast Guard ironically comes to their rescue, again not realising a gang of criminals are aboard. They zip-line Lugosi across battering waves to the shore, but there, a sailor recognises him as the infamous "Boroff", Mad Scientist and disintegrator gas inventor. He runs down the beach and gets away, after shooting the guy who recognised him.

Once again in hiding, this time at a Los Angeles mansion, Lugosi (or Boroff if you prefer) and "Thorg", his zombified hulk of a right-hand man (Richard Alexander), who Lugosi has lobotomised, make plans for Thorg to swim out to the shipwreck to recover the supply of arnatite, the rare element that creates the gas. Thorg swims there, he's built like a defensive end, and after securing the crate with the arnatite, he takes an axe and starts chopping away at the wounded ship's mooring lines, which are the only things keeping it from sinking. Chapter One ends as the ship does indeed sink, with Lieutenant Kent and reporter "Jean Norman" (Maxine Doyle) trapped below deck. They, too are looking for the arnatitie gas element, and it looks like they're about to go down with the ship. But then Thorg sees them in the rapidly rising water and a Major League Punchout ensues. MLPs always account for at least two minutes of screen time in any given chapter in a serial. But we're off to a good start with this one, woodentcha say? We recently finished two others, "The Phantom of the Air" (which starred Tom Tyler and  had the best aerial stunts I've ever seen in a movie) and "Jungle Girl", which was also excellent and featured, in addition to Frances Gifford and Tom Neal, our old pal Gerald "Less Is" Mohr. Remember him?

Well anyway, that's all I know for tonight. The John Lennon novel by Jude Southerland Kessler is fascinating, because she recreates (from conversations with his relatives) anecdotes and real-life interactions from John's childhood, which we've never known much about. She's an excellent writer, and now I wanna read her other Lennon books (she wrote a trilogy) but they're all out of print and selling for outregisphilbin prices, and the Libe only has this first one. I'll keep looking, though. My blogging music tonight is "Ummagumma" by Pink Floyd. It's okay, definitely a product of it's time, but not my favorite period of the band. My late night is Richard Strauss's opera "Electra." I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love as always.   xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Alfred Grant and Daisy Bufford in "Son of Ingagi", and "The Bride and the Beast" starring Lance Fuller and Charlotte Austin

The last two nights, we searched for horror films we'd never seen, to get into the Halloween Spirit. The first one we found.......well, more on that later. We had marginally better luck last night, with a flick called "Son of Ingagi"(1940), a beauty and the beast tale with possibly the worst ape man costume in history. Notable for its all-black cast, the movie starts with newlyweds "Bob" and "Eleanor Lindsay" (Alfred Grant and Daisy Bufford) leaving the church after their wedding. Out front, they stop to talk to Eleanor's family lawyer, who reminds them to give him a call if they ever need him. "I specialise in divorce cases," he laughs, and they shoo him away, but soon they'll need him for another reason. They drive off, preparing to go to Honolulu the next day for their honeymoon, but that night at their house, when they want to be alone, a dozen of their goofy friends crash the pad and throw a raucous party, complete with band and farcical, pro-bachelorhood songs. Then the party is interrupted by an explosion: KA-BLAMMO! The steel foundry where Bob works is destroyed . "Oh no," he laments. "I've just lost my job and we're gonna lose the mortgage, too." 

But not so fast, Bob. What he doesn't know (but we do), is that after he and Eleanor left the church, an old woman stopped to talk to the lawyer who was still on the sidewalk along with another wedding guest, one "Detective Nelson" (Spencer Williams, who also scripted). The woman is "Dr. Helen Jackson" (Laura Bowman), a local - and eccentric - zoologist. She scoffs at Nelson, telling him she doesn't like detectives, but to the lawyer she says, "I need you to make out my will." He doesn't wanna do it (we'll soon find out why) but "The Doctor" (as everyone calls her) is a formidable woman, dressed in Victorian clothes with an attitude to match. The lawyer goes to her creepy old mansion and writes up her will, the terms of which she dictates to him after consulting her Ouija board.

Well, Bob and Eleanor were worried about the mortgage after the foundry explosion (and about money in general), but now their worries are over because The Doctor is found dead in her mansion the next day and they've inherited everything she owns. It turns out that Eleanor was her niece. Neither she nor Bob want to live at mansion (it's way too spooky) but they have little choice. Then, things get worse when Detective Nelson investigates The Doctor's death and determines she was murdered. We already know who killed her - a giant half-ape, half-man that she kept locked up in her basement la-bor-a-tory. She'd already alluded, to the lawyer, about her "missionary work in Africa." "Some people called me evil," she told him, "but I also did a lot of good."

Hmmm, I'm not too sure about the "good" part, and the missing link in the basement might beg to differ, too. He's angry most of the time, and ends up killing a second man, The Doctor's criminal brother, who was blackmailing her and now has tried to booglarise her hidden stash of diamonds stolen from Africa. The ape man finds him in the basement and strangles him.

When Bob finds his body in the morning, the couple are now too terrified to stay there for even a minute longer, but the cops persuade them, on the off chance of catching the killer who they are sure is after The Doctor's money. They know nothing about the diamonds, or the ape-man, or the basement, which can only be accessed by rotating a painting on the wall, so they send over Detective Nelson to stay with Bob and Eleanor around the clock. In the middle of the night he gets hungry and goes to the fridge to make a triple-decker Club Sandwich. Man, it looks good! But he doesn't know that the ape man is lurking in the kitchen and is powerful hongry, too. When Detective Nelson sets his sandwich down on the table and turns away, the ape man takes it, hides, and eats it. Nelson, seeing it gone, scratches his head, makes another sandwich, sets it down, turns away, then the ape man takes that one too! You'd think two triple-deck Club Sammiches with everything on 'em would calm the big guy down, but nah. He's still pee-oed, and goes back down to his barred-in bunk and lights the basement on fire! And Eleanor is trapped down there, having gone in search of Bob.

The trouble with the whole doggone thing is that we never hear Word One about the ape man's history. Not even the title is explained: "The Son of Ingagi". The ape man's name is N'Gina. I guess we're supposed to understand that he's the Son in question, but who the hell was Ingagi? Was he an African chieftain? Did The Doctor conduct genetic experiments with men and beasts, like in "Island of Dr. Moreau"?

We must be chopped liver, because the filmmakers give us nothing. No explanations whatsoever. There is a lot of humor (the sammich scene and Detective Nelson's buffoonery), and The Doctor is a Creep-o Extraordinaire. Anyhow, Two Bigs. It's a must see, just because it's so different. The picture is soft but watchable.  ////

Okay, now to the previous night's movie, the one I said we'd get back to. When I began my search for Halloween flicks, I found one I was sure we'd never seen, called "The Bride and the Beast"(1958), and I chose it because it was written by Ed Wood. Boy, was that a mistake! Note to self: "Plan 9" notwithstanding, and maybe (if we're being generous) "Bride of the Monster," there's legit reasons that Ed Wood sucks. Not everything he did was Bad/Good. Keep that in mind before risking another one of his movies. End of note. I mean, it's possible that if he'd directed this gem in addition to writing it, we might've had a better result, but I doubt it. As it opens, "Dan" and "Laura Fuller" (Lance Fuller, Charlotte Austin), another newlywed couple (I sense a theme here), are headed to his mansion off the beaten path. A road sign reading "Dan Fuller" points the way. He's rich from big game hunting, and his mansion has an animal lockup in the basement (hmm...see above), which is currently holding a gorilla he captured during his latest trip to Africa. When Laura asks to see the ape, Dan obliges but warns her not to get too close. "Even though he's behind bars he can still grab and kill you".

Well, so whataya think she does? Exactly. She gets too close, the ape grabs her, but she's able to talk him down, by calmly asking him to let go. We can already see he's attracted to her, and later that night, when she and Dan are asleep, the ape breaks out of his cage, comes into their bedroom and tries to carry Laura away. Dan pulls a pistol from his nightstand and kills the poor animal, and when the ordeal is over, Laura confesses something strange: "I had a feeling, while he was carrying me, that I'd experienced the whole thing before." This leads to a discussion of deja vu and past lives, and Dan offers to have his friend Dr. Carl Reiner (no joke) examine Laura the next day. She agrees, and when Dr. Carl hyp-no-tizes! her, and regresses her to her past life, she reveals that she was once a gorilla herself, living in Africa, and afraid of nothing except the sharp-horned water buffalo.

Okay. Weird, right? But good/weird. At this point, ten minutes in, I was still hoping for some classic Ed Wood. The gal was a gorilla in a past life, fine n' dandy, that's some weird/wild stuff, you are correct, Sir! And if they'd stayed with that angle, and cut the running time down to 20 minutes, they might have had something, because that's all you get of the Gorilla Reincarnation story. The rest of the movie - one full and very long, drawn-out hour in the middle - is a tiger hunting safari in Africa, filled up with stock footage of wild animals running around, which - while good for a Marlin Perkins special - has nothing to do with the gorrilla plot the filmmakers just suckered us in with. Then they tack on a beauty and the beast ending, to resurrect the past-life gorilla theme.

You have absolutely got to be joking. Take away the first ten minutes, and everything about this movie is a mess. Ed Wood was not a good filmmaker; we had him and Roger Corman mixed up. We used to think Corman was the guy who sucked, until we did a retrospective of his films. With the exception of "Little Shop of Horrors", we found out he was pretty doggone good. It turned out that Wood was the one who sucks, and no amount of references to angora sweaters (which he includes in this script) is gonna improve his rep.

I can't even remember the last time we said this, but Two Big Thumbs Down for "The Bride and the Beast," even with the beautiful Charlotte Austin on hand. It's literally a tiger hunt, and a slow one at that, filled with stock footage, and some gorilla past-life stuff attached to the beginning and the end. Phooey. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

And that's all I've got for tonight. Something I can highly recommend is "Fairy Tale" by Stephen King. I already mentioned it's a page-turner, but he also throws maybe the biggest curveball of his career, something you'll never see coming. My blogging music tonight was "Atom Heart Mother" by Pink Floyd. You can tell they were still searching for their sound. My late night is the Ring Cycle by Wagner. We'll keep doing horror movies through Halloween. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Michael Whalen in "The Dawn Express" (a PRC spy flick), and "Boys of the City", another East Side Kids spookfest

Last night we found a top notch spy thriller from PRC, "The Dawn Express"(1942), in which a pair of chemical engineers working at a defense contractor fuel refinery are blackmailed by a gang of Nazi spies into selling the formula for a jet fuel booster. The spies operate out of the back room of a German restaurant called The Tavern, using a fake blind man who stands by the front door (cup in hand) as a go-between. The "blind" man doubles as the group's assassin; he's killed two prior chemists who wouldn't cooperate. This time, the gang tries persuasion because they need the jet fuel formula if Zee JARE-mons are to have any chance against the Allies in the air war. They want a carrot/stick approach, so head spy "Captain Gemmler" (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), who reminds one of Werner Klemperer with hair, comes up with the idea of pitting the refinery chemists against each other. To the one with no relatives, he offers 100,000 big ones. To the one with a mother and a sister, he threatens to hurt them if the guy won't talk. Both are ordered not to tell anyone about the meeting, which takes place when they are coerced into the restaurant's back room by a "Polish refugee" gal who is actually a plant for the spies.

When they leave the restaurant, chemist "Bob Norton" (Michael Whalen) calls the IBCurly and they set up an infiltration plan, to make it look like the two men are (alice) co-operating. Zee JARE-mons, needing the fuel booster, stat - take the bait, and send for their own top dog chemist ("zee best in za vorld!"), who high tails it to the States to test the stuff. Once here, he insists on performing the test on an airplane, as it is the only place he can be certain is secure against American agents. But the other chemist, "Tom Fielding" (William Bakewell) insists on going up with him because he doesn't trust the dude alone with the formula. Then there's a big surprise ending.

I had a nagging feeling all through this flick that we'd seen it before , then I'd think we hadn't, now I'm pretty sure we did, but if so it must've been early in the Youtube era, maybe right after the start of Covid. We've seen over 800 movies since then, so it's hard to remember every one of them, but you always get a feeling if you've seen one. Anyhow, this one is worth seeing twice or thrice (fourice? sice? nice? that would be nine times, so maybe not. but twice is okay.) Anyhow, it's most excellent stuff. PRC can deliver if you aren't hung up on production values. They succeed by concentrating on actors and story, like a stage play. You do get some extremely brief exterior refinery shots, and a minimal chemistry lab. There's also a subthread involving Tom Fielding's sister, a secretary at the refinery, who listens in on his telephone conversations with the spies. I'm gonna check the blog list to see if we reviewed this flick before. I remember Gene Siskel once saying that him and Ebert watched around 10,000 movies in their careers. That would be a movie a day for over 27 years. I started pounding films in 2003 when I lived with my Mom. She converted me to old movies, and I've averaged maybe 200 to 250 a year since then, and the last few years about 350, and if you add another 500-2000 in the first 42 years of my life, I've gotta be up to at least 6000. I've got a ways to go to catch S & E, but we're getting there. Anyhow, Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Dawn Express." I could've sworn Captain Gessler was Werner Klemperer with hair, and the picture is very good.  ////

The previous night, The East Side Kids were back in "Boys of the City"(1940), a generic title for what is mainly another Kids Ghost Story. It begins in the city, where the boys are sittin' on da naybahood steps, lookin' for some relief from da heat. Scruno fans Muggsy; Danny pours a pitcher of water over his head. Skinny mentions a fire hydrant down the block: "we can twist it open and cool off". Muggsy declines, saying "da last time you suggested a fya hydrant, it was dab-smack in front of a police station." But Skinny swears this one is legit, so the boys go there and open it up, only to soak a vegetable merchant and his produce. Of course, they're hauled in front of a judge, who offers them a choice, jail or a detention camp in the mountains. "We don't wanna go to no camp," says "Simp" (Vince Barnett, an early Kid who was replaced by Huntz Hall) "Da woods is for sissies." "Okay, jail it is then," says the judge. "We'll take da camp," declares Muggsy, who always has the final say.

The camp is run by Danny's older brother "Knuckles Dolan" (Dave O'Brien), a reformed gang member who was once "destined for Da Chair" before he went straight and started helping other street kids, includin' his younga bruddah. Knuckles drives the kids to camp, but on the way, they get rear ended by another car carrying "Judge Malcom Parker" (Forrest Taylor, not the same judge who sentenced them), who is escaping with his bodyguard and lawyer to a mansion in the mountains, because his niece has just found out that he's been embezzling her fortune, a crime for which he's already framed and sentenced another man. The niece is traveling with him and his men, and knows nothing of his culpabilty in her affairs.

The car accident Converges All Their Lives, those of the Kids and the judge and his party. Knuckles' car is totaled. Scruno, sitting in the back seat says, "This car ain't the only one who got rear ended!" He has some great one liners in this movie that would not pass muster today (watermelon and fried chicken jokes), but what politically correct viewers might miss is that the filmmakers, through the Scruno character, were actually making fun of stereotypes rather than perpetuating them, so in that respect, Sammy Morrison and company were ahead of their time.

After the accident, the judge offers to let the Kids stay at his mountain mansion. Then, the movie becomes another haunted house ghost show with character actress Minerva Urecal playing a scary old crone determined to protect the honor of her departed matron Eleanor, the judge's late wife, who died through his neglect. Now, she haunts the manor at night, playing the organ and wandering the grounds in a sheet.

Danny accidentally discovers a rotating bookcase leading to tunnels and a dungeon, and Minerva scares the daylights out of Scruno, who gets trapped in the music room with the ghostly organ. This is an early entry for The East Side Kids and there's no Huntz Hall, but you get some classic Scruno, and Bobby Jordan, the most talented of the bunch as an actor, gets top billing. I loved "Boys of the City", another classic Kids Spookfest. Minerva Urecal does a good job in place of Bela Lugosi, and the movie gets Two Big Thumbs Up. If you haven't yet checked out The East Side Kids, do so immediately. The picture is very good.  ////  

That's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "Not the Weapon but the Hand" by Steve Hogarth and Richard Barbieri, which I've never heard before but am enjoying, and my late night is Mahler's 4th. "Fairy Tale" by Stephen King is unputdownable. I've already read 100 pages. The Rams aren't playing tomorrow, so that's one less thing we have to worry about. I hope your weekend is going well, and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

Lila Lee, Gwen Lee and Mischa Auer in "The Intruder", and "Midnight Limited" starring Marjorie Reynolds and John "Dusty" King

Last night's movie was "The Intruder"(1933), a weird little murder mystery that begins aboard a ship, pitching and yawing in a stormy soundstage water tank. The passengers are unable to sleep, and the captain is summoned from the bridge because a dead body has been discovered in one of the cabins. Then a detective bursts in, flashing his badge and taking charge of the investigation. A gal who knows the deceased informs him that the dead man's diamonds have been stolen. "Alright," says the detective. "Nobody leaves this room." And just when you think it's gonna be Ten Little Indians at Sea, the boat lists to one side and starts sinking. "Abandon ship!" cries the captain, and even the belligerent detective can't argue with that one. But he isn't about to let his suspects get away, so he orders them into a single lifeboat, which is tossed during the night while he holds the passengers at gunpoint. "One of you is the murderer," he tells them. In the morning they run aground on an island. No, not that Island, just some jungly joint in the middle of nowhere.

But it ain't uninhabited. No sooner do passengers "Daisy" and "Connie" (Lila and Gwen Lee, no relation) climb the cliffside, than they run into a Wild Man and his ape. The gals run into a cave to escape him, and find themselves crouching next to a skeleton, check that - two skeletons! The Wild Man (Mischa Auer) enters the cave, with grunting ape, and points at the bony ones, identifying them in Wild-speak: "Her, Mary, him, Joe." Ape grunts in agreement. Daisy and Gwen decide they don't wanna end up like Mary and Joe, so Gwen gets Wild Man in a half-nelson and throws him to the cave floor, allowing them to make another escape.

Back at what the captain has formed as the jungle base camp, the detective is still trying to nail down a murder suspect from the boat. And if you can follow the plot from this point onward, you are a master of strategery. Besides Daisy and Gwen, rounding out the suspect list are a drunk guy, the ship steward and a dude in an ill-fitting suit who looks like Carl Panzram. He has a gun that he uses to escape from the camp and when he hides in the jungle, he becomes the obvious murder suspect. But then, a French rescue team arrives on the island by rowboat, and finds the whole group (except Panzram) at the base camp. They speak English, but confer among themselves in French. We get the gist that they, too, have a murder suspect, but it isn't Carl Panzram, and it isn't anyone else you might be thinking of. I sure didn't guess it! On the one hand, when it was over I was thinking "who the hell would write such a movie?" Then I considered the release year, 1933, and the box-office indicators that were appealed to: King Kong and the Titanic. Someone was hoping to put butts in seats, and they may have done so out of sheer lunacy, despite the budget of 2253 dollars and 67 cents. You'll be wondering what the producers were smokin', which is why "The Intruder" gets Two Big Thumbs Up and is highly recommended. The picture is slightly soft.  //// 

The previous night we had an excellent, if again very low budget, train mystery from Monogram entitled "Midnight Limited"(1940), in which a phantom robber is targeting railroad passengers carrying jewels and large sums of money. Nobody knows how or where he boards, or how he knows who is loaded. His latest victim is "Joan Marshall" (Marjorie King), who's been robbed of 34,000 dollars in diamonds, but she's the first to get a glimpse of the phantom's face, which is always shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat. Joan saw him in profile, and when railroad detective "Val Lennon" (John "Dusty" King) interviews her, she swears she could identify him in a lineup.

This leads to her involvement in the investigation, and with Detective Lennon as well. Joan falls for him during a dinner date at a spaghetti parlor, when Lennon sits at the piano and croons a romantic song. John "Dusty" King was a singer as well as an actor (and a top Western star) whose mellifluous voice, speaking or singing, would win anyone over.

Because the phantom train robber is so elusive, the head detective - Lennon's boss "Captain Harrigan" (Edward Keane) - figures the only way to catch him is to go back to square one. "Check everything: passenger lists, who boarded where, which crew was on which trains, connect the dots!" When they do this, they discover two things - that a drunk has been on two consecutive trains that were robbed, and that both jobs were pulled in the bunk next to the baggage car.

They track down the drunk, a park-bench type but erudite with continental elocution (the kind of guy who addresses authorities with "Good sir, do you realise?.....yada ex infin.) The guy turns out to be a skilled vagabond who knows how to live like a Park Avenue hobo. Detective Lennon ascertains that someone has been paying him to be a lookout on the trains that were robbed, but he can't get the drunk guy to confess. So, he and Captain Harrigan set up a ruse in which Lennon poses as a passenger carrying 60 grand in cash. As a law enforcement agent, he can handle himself, so the danger is on Joan, who has to be aboard the train also to pre-identify the phantom and prepare the agents for his attack.

Though the sets are nothing special, just room shots and a bargain basement train interior, the money they spent for the script was worth it, because it's about as layered as you'll see in an hour long mystery. There's a subplot involving a hotel manager, his bellhop, and the baggage handler at the nearby railroad station, and also a diversion in which a porter is suspected of covering for the phantom because of his reluctance to testify. The director makes good use of short, 20 second scenes to fill in details and give the story dimension. This is how you layer, in brief bursts between screenwriter and editor. The ending is a shootout, involving a coffin in the baggage car. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Midnight Limited." The IMDB reviewers agree, it's very highly recommended. The picture is very good.  ////

And that's all for tonight. I'm listening to "Warzawa", a live album by Porcupine Tree (hooked on them at the moment), late-night is "Parsifal" by Wagner. I just got some books from the Libe, including the brand new one from Stephen King, called "Fairy Tale" (just in time for Halloween, oh boy!) and also another Elvis book called "Revelations from the Memphis Mafia", and finally a novel (yes a novel) about the early life of John Lennon called "Shoulda Been There" by a lady named Jude Southerland Kessler. Google her, she's a Beatle historian with an interesting bio. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love as always!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)     

Franchot Tone, Frances Rafferty and Ann Richards in "Lost Honeymoon", and "Uncle Joe" with Gale Storm, Slim Summerville and Zasu Pitts

Last night's movie was "Lost Honeymoon"(1947) a wild n' crazy bigamy/amnesia mashup starring Franchot Tone as "John Gray", a successful architect engaged to "Lois Evans" (Frances Rafferty), his bosses' daughter. Gray's just designed a new, modern-looking library, he's about to tie the knot, everything is coming up roses, or so it seems. But then he gets a telegram from a woman in England who claims to be his wife. Holy Drunken Night in the Pub, Batman! He was in London as a soldier during WW2, but he has no memory of any woman, much less one he married. Worse, she says in the telegram she's got two children he fathered. The telegram is delivered with his fiance Lois in the room. She watches Gray cringe while reading it, and naturally wants to know what's up.

The Englishwoman (Ann Richards) ends the telegram by saying that she's on her way to New York with the children. "Here's hoping you'll be glad to meet them". Gray's life just went from a 10 to a Zero. A wife and kids in England? He's certain it's gotta be a mistake. The woman must have the wrong John Gray. There's gotta be a hundred of 'em in his borough alone, maybe a thousand in all of New York City. He's sure she's got the wrong man, so he goes to see his doctor to ask about his amnesia, which he's been keeping a secret ever since the war. He kept it to himself because when he returned from overseas he was given a hero's welcome for his battlefield exploits, a tribute he accepted. But he wasn't a hero; the accolades were meant for another John Gray. The old Common Name Mixup again. He confesses to his doctor (Tom Conway) that he wasn't the war hero John Gray, but actually spent the war in London, where he was knocked unconscious by a bomb during the blitz and woke up in the hospital with amnesia. He couldn't remember six weeks of his life. "Now, there's a woman who says I married her during those six weeks and fathered her children. How is this possible, doctor?"

Holy Smokerino and Paul Shortino! What's Mr. Gray to do? The doc suggests he confront the problem head on by meeting with the woman. "Tell her what you just told me, that you were in the hospital during that time." So he meets her at her hotel and lays out his schpiel, but she has corroborating evidence in the form of love letters that are in his handwriting. The doc tries to help by inviting Richards and the kids to a dinner where Gray is being feted for his new library design. Once there, she's treated as a practical joker, a "surprise guest" like at a celebrity roast. "And here's the wife John never told us about", haw-haw-haw. The kids are seen as "plants", brats hired from a talent agency, and Gray tries to write the whole thing off as a joke. But his boss, and future father in law, isn't amused. He storms off with daughter Lois, and tells Gray to look for a new job.

By now, he's exasperated with Richards, and goes back to her hotel again to confront her about the supposed marriage. She explains in detail what happened during those six weeks in London during the war, how they met and married quickly. Then she got pregnant right before he shipped home to America. It was a case of Anglo/American wartime romance; there was probably a lot of Amer/Engiish kids from that era, just like the Amerasian children from Vietnam.  As Richards tells him about their romance and subsequent marriage he still has trouble believing it, but her story is detailed, and more than that, he finds himself falling in love with her.

Now his boss and Lois are really teed off. She was all set to marry Gray and now he's ditching her for some Brit bird. But then the immigration officials step in, along with the Red Cross, and would you believe it Mr. Screenwriter? Ann Richards is busted for impersonating the real Mrs. Gray, whose name was Tillie. Now, don't think I was holding out on you, but we've known this since the beginning of the movie. The real Tillie Gray died of typhoid, shortly after giving birth. Ann Richards is really a schoolteacher friend of her mother's, who volunteered to go to America to search for John Gray. Now she's gonna be deported and the kids sent to a Red Cross center to be adopted. Suddenly, Gray's wedding to Lois Evans is back on. Is your brain turned around backwards yet? If not it soon will be, because by now, Gray realises that he's in love with Ann, not Lois, and the only way to get out of his upcoming nuptials is to get amnesia again. So, he runs headfirst into a lamppost, and when he wakes up in the hospital, he doesn't remember who Lois is.

Now his boss and and would-be father in law is ready to murdalize him, and Lois is left standing at the altar while Ann Richards marries Gray in the amnesia ward. This movie gets exponentially nuttier as it goes along, which is why we're giving it Two Huge Thumbs Up. It also doesn't hurt that Frances Rafferty prances around in a curvy wedding dress. "Lost Honeymoon" is highly recommended and the picture is very good. ////

The previous night, we found another Zasu Pitts comedy, though she's relegated to a supporting role and is subdued compared to the other films we've seen her in, but its really Slim Summerville's movie, which shouldn't be surprising considering it's called "Uncle Joe"(1941). Slim worked with Zasu before in "Miss Polly", and as in that movie, he's once again an inventor of wacky, Rube Goldberg contraptions. This time he's got an automatic dishwasher that fills up his kitchen with suds.

Zasu is (guess what?) a dreamy-headed spinster who was once Joe's girl when they were young, but the way she remembers it, "he knew more about appliances than he did about women." Joe is part country bumpkin, part science nerd, but he's nice, and when his relatives the Days send his niece Clare Day (Gale Storm) to stay with him, he agrees to take her in.

And really, it's Gale's movie even more than Slim's. When it starts, she's posing as a model for "Paul Darcey" (John Holland) an abstract painter. It's 1941, so Modern Art is all the rage in New York, where she lives with her wealthy parents. She's swathed in silk for Darcey's portrait, but the finished work is just a bunch of shapes and swirls. "I've captured your inner soul!" he declares. but when she takes the painting home and shows it to her folks, they don't agree. To get her away from Darcey, they send her out to to stay with Uncle Joe at his farm where she'll get some good old country influence.

When she arrives, four local boys find out she's visiting. They haven't seen Clare since she was a Skinny Kiddo, and she remembers the horrible nicknames they had for her, like Spindle Shanks. But now she's Gale Storm, a bona-fide All-American Sweeheart, so suddenly all the boys, teenagers now themselves, wanna hang around Uncle Joe's house, so he lets 'em, by giving them barnyard chores to do! Then he gives in, because he knows they're there to see Clare, but she has now found out that Uncle Joe's old flame "Aunt Julia" (Zasu Pitts) is gonna lose her house cause she can't pay her mortgage. To help her, Clare and the boys enter a radio contest, sponsored by a soap company, in which contestants have to finish the last line of an advertising limerick (no, not that kind of a limerick; it's about dish soap!). They brainstorm at Uncle Joe's dinner table to try and win the contest, so they can give the 1000 dollar prize money to Aunt Julia and save her house. During all of this, Paul Darcey the abstract painter "just so happens" to be visiting the countryside. He picks up Clare and takes her on a drive, to the chagrin of the local boys who very much like her. But Darcey turns out to be a citified, intellectual snob, who thinks country folk are rubes, and because Clare likes her new surroundings, he leaves and the boys win. But they aren't good limerick writers, so its up to Uncle Joe to win the contest. He comes up with a line that wins the prize and gives the money to Aunt Julia, who's been carrying a torch for Uncle Joe all this time. They get married and presumably live happily ever after, while the boys return to competing for Clare Day. 10 minutes of the 50 minute movie is given to musical performances, one by Gale Storm accompanying herself on accordion. A real-life singer named Honey Lamb sings "The Land of Nod" on the radio, and a third song is performed by an Andrews Sisters-type harmony group who were fantastic but went unlisted in the credits. As for Zasu, she's as good as always but has minimal screen time, so the Two Big Thumbs are mainly for Gale Storm, Slim Summerville, and the actors playing the boys, and the various extra singers. If we love 60 minute movies, we love fifty minuters even more! "Uncle Joe" is highly recommended and the picture is very good.  ////

And that's all I've got for tonight. I'm listening to a Porcupine Tree mix on Youtube ("Drown With Me" is on right now), my late-night is "Parsifal" by Wagner, and I hope your day was a good one. I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

James Dunn and Frances Gifford in "Hold That Woman", and "Flying Wild" with The East Side Kids

Last night's movie was an above average crime comedy from PRC, directed by our pal Sam Newfield, who you'll recall helmed a boatload of 60 minute Westerns and was the most prolific director in motion picture history. Entitled "Hold That Woman"(1940), we chose this flick after searching for Frances Gifford movies on Youtube, because we've very much enjoyed watching her in "Jungle Girl", one of the two chapter serials we're currently viewing. I also have a soft spot for Frances after reading her bio on IMDB. Following a promising start in B-movies at the age of 20, she was nearly killed in a car accident on New Year's Eve 1948 at the age of 28. The accident caused her to lose confidence in her abilities and changed her personality to the extent that she was eventually institutionalized and spent 25 years in Camarillo. When you watch her onscreen, she's so pretty (right up there with Frances Rafferty) vivacious and, most importantly, nice, that it's tragic and a doggone shame that such a fate could befall her. So when I found her in this movie, in which she stars along with her soon-to-be-husband James Dunn, there was no question that we had to pay tribute.

Dunn plays "Jimmy Parker", a skip tracer for a collection agency. He's lousy at it, though, and can't even repossess a radio from some broad who's missed a payment. She chases him out of her apartment, then calls the cops, and he's arrested for trespassing and petty larceny and a host of other charges, after the woman puts on an act and the cops believe her. His girlfriend "Mary Mulvaney" (Frances Gifford) also gets nabbed, just sitting in Jimmy's car. They were supposed to go on a date after his repo attempt, but now she goes to jail with him, even though she didn't do anything.

But when they get out on bail the next morning, Jimmy isn't about to give up, because his boss is gonna fire him if he doesn't bring back that radio, and he needs to keep his job if he's gonna marry Mary, who's Dad is a cop and hates Jimmy. 

Some hoodlums enter the picture, because the woman's radio contains a bag of stolen diamonds, heisted from a European movie star. The star's boyfriend is the hood who stole them, and his real moll is the ordinary-seeming broad who got Jimmy Parker thrown in jail. So she's a jewel thief who's putting on an act, and when jimmy finds out that there's a 15K reward for the diamonds, he re-triples his effort to find the radio, but one of a skip tracer's woes is that defaulting targets are constantly on the move. He needs the radio but can't find the woman, who's relocated.

The plot is intricate for a PRC flick, as Jimmy eventually finds the radio and the diamonds inside it, but gets caught in the middle of a revenge war by the movie star against the hoods. We've seen James Dunn in several other films. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," and is great at light comedy as we saw here. He has the kind of smile that would endear him to anyone, so it's no surprise that Frances Gifford would marry him in real life, even though he was twenty years her senior and didn't have leading man looks. A little bit more about Frances: when I started watching her in "Jungle Girl", her name reminded me of Frank Gifford, and I remembered a time in the late '80s or early '90s, when Frank was the commentator on Monday Night Football, that a rumor was in the news that Frank had a sister who was institutionalized. Because Frank was a TV star himself, and a big-money network personality, if I remember correctly they issued a statement on his behalf that Frances was not related to him. Perhaps this story emerged after she died in January 1994. I don't remember the exact date or year, but I do remember the rumor, and what is interesting is that the issue doesn't seem to have been definitively resolved. When you Google "Frances Gifford, Frank Gifford's sister", several links come back. Some say they weren't related  (those are all generated from his autobiography), while other links say she was.

Could it be that Frank was ashamed to have a disabled sister? Or just wanted to keep it private? Who knows. All I know, and is evident, is that Frances Gifford was talented and as beautiful as they come, so God Bless Her. If you watch her in this movie you'll agree, so Two Big Thumbs Up for "Hold That Woman." Watch Frances in "Jungle Girl" too. The picture is razor sharp in both.  ////

Now, concerning the previous night's picture, listen up you Wise Guys: We are now officially huge (pr. yooge) fans of The East Side Kids - that includes youse! -and the pronunciation is apt because "dat's da way dey tawk," especially Leo Gorcey, who has such a great face and schcreen presence that I think he'd be a Yooge Star even today. This time, in "Flying Wild"(1941), the kids have jobs at an airplane factory at Alhambra airport (thanks, IMDB. I thought it was Burbank). Muggsy (Gorcey) drives them to work every day. He doesn't want a job there, because, according to "Danny" (Bobby Jordan): "him and jobs don't get along too well."

He's also a lousy driver and almost kills the kids when he turns too sharply in the airport parking lot and their car flips over on it's side. According to IMDB, this was not planned, it was not a stunt, and judging from the severity of the accident, it's a wonder none of the kids were hurt.

While standing around, waiting for the others to punch out for the day, Muggsy happens to see a plane on the tarmac with "Air Ambulance" painted on the side. He's curious and knocks on the cabin door, and when "Nurse Helen Munson" answers, he's even more intrigued. Part of Muggy's charm is his attempts to infuse his vocabulary with mispronounced big words, and he tries this on Nurse Helen (Joan Barclay), who's impressed in a "who the hell is this joker" kind of way. But she lets Muggsy stay aboard the airplane, and tells him about her boyfriend to give him the "you have no chance" message. Her beau is a test pilot, and as she tells Muggsy about him, another test pilot crash lands on the runway and barely escapes with his life. In the investigation that follows, sabotage is strongly suspected.

Because of this, Danny - who's shown the most dedication to his aviation job out of all of the kids - is asked by the company president to help root out the saboteurs by casually making it known that he is the courier for the blueprints of the company's latest fighter plane. They hope this plan will draw the conspirators out of the woodwork, and at the same time, Muggsy overhears a conversation between the Air Ambulance doctor and a rival engineer in which they discuss crashing another test plane. Muggsy alerts Danny, then both of them are tied up and stuffed into barrels.

Meanwhile, hijinx is going on much of the time because the script is thin. Scruno enters the Air Ambulance and mistakes a nitrous oxide anesthesia respirator for a gas mask. He tries it on and gets a lungful of nitrous, and when the kids see him leaving the plane, he's floating in slo-mo, like The Skipper in the Gilligan episode where he "took a big sniff." You've gotta love The Kids; Danny is the second in command. This was before Huntz Hall joined up, so it's a two-Kid hierarchy between Muggsy and Danny. Scruno, Skinny and Algy are support only this time around. Joan Barclay is attractive in her nurses uniform, but hasn't much to do except act amused at the antics of the Kids. The sabotage plot is extremely thin, so the movie doesn't compare to the two Ghost Flicks with they made with Bela Lugosi, but it still has a ton of funny moments and is worth seeing just for the impromptu car accident. Two Bigs! It's highly "re-commended, ya mooks"! And, "da pikcha is rayza shahp."

That's all I know for tonight. I'm sorry to report that didn't make it to the Edwards Air Show. I admit I'm a complete Lame-O for missing it, but it would've been 50 bucks in gas, and waiting in a massive traffic jam with a chance of being turned away if the parking lot reached capacity before I got in. And, it sucks going everywhere by myself. But I did watch a lot of the live feed on the Edwards Facebook page, and got to see the Thunderbirds performance, which was amazing and was filmed with Hollywood-level camerawork. So that was my consolation prize, and it was a darn good one. But next year I will attend for sure.

The Rams finally won a game, we won't talk about the Dodgers, it's only sports anyhow, and I hope you had a nice weekend. My blogging music is "Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape" by Porcupine Tree, my late night is still "Lohengrin" by Wagner, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)

Elsa Lanchester in "Passport to Destiny", and "So's Your Aunt Emma" starring Zasu Pitts and Douglas Fowley

Last night's film was a little bit different: "Passport to Destiny"(1944) a British-American WW2 comedy starring Elsa Lanchester as a Cockney cleaning lady named "Ella Muggins", who - after finding a good luck charm belonging to her late husband - sets out to assassinate Adolph Hitler. Talk about high concept. Ella is riding the double-decker bus to work in London, along with two of her fellow charladies. She loves reminiscing about her deceased hubby, who was a teller of tall tales as well as a hero of the First World War. In life, he claimed to have a "magic glass eye" that he found after one of his regiment's battles. "He said it kept him alive," Ella tells her friends, "even in the deadliest situations." Indeed, in her husband's stories, which the two other cleaning ladies scoff at, he survived all manner of calamitous encounters due to the magical glass eye in his pocket. The charladies part ways off the bus to go to their separate jobs, but one asks a question of Ella: "What would you do if you found that glass eye? You don't suppose it would be among his belongings?" Seeing as how the whole city of London has had to hunker in the tube night after night because of the Luftwaffe's blitz bombing, Ella says, "hmm....well, I think I'd use it to pay Herr Hitler a visit, and give him a piece of my mind."

That night at home, inspired by the conversation, she goes up into the attic and opens her husband's dusty suitcase, which contains his old WW1 army uniform. Taking it out, she holds it up to her shoulders, then puts her hand in a pocket, and says, "Blimey! What've we got 'ere?" Why, it's the magic glass eye, naturally. The next we see Ella, she's on a train to the coast, where she catches a boat for the Continent. The captain finds her stowing away, but then the boat is sunk by a German bomb. All aboard abandon ship and Ella makes it to France, where an American spy in a Nazi uniform flies her to Berlin (pr.bear-leen) in his plane. All of this death-defying transport is due to the Glass Eye Charm, and - after locating the Reich Chancellery - she walks into the joint with her galvanized cleaning pail in hand (it has "Made in England" stamped on the bottom), and gets the ingenious idea to pretend shes a deaf/mute, to cover up her East End accent.

This is where Lanchester shines as a comedienne, with her big eyes and dimpled features. We all know her as the electrified Bride of Frankenschtein, but at heart she was a comic actress with a "wink/nudge" connection to the audience. Once Ella fakes her way into Hitler's headquarters, an adjutant gives her a job scrubbing floors and she overhears a lot of top secret info. This reunites her with the American spy, after she helps get his girlfriend out of jail.

The Sturmbannfuhrer likes her because she's deaf and there's no danger in speaking openly around her, but then he starts to suspect that she might be faking it her after a Veddy Brrrittish expat radio propagandist is caught talking to her over an intercom. Why would he do that if she can only communicate in person by lip-reading? But she stays out of hot water because of the Glass Eye good luck charm, and when she finally finagles her way into Hitler's office, with a gun she's borrowed from the American spy, she "confronts" Adolph at his desk, though he isn't actually in the room. What she does is imagine what she'd say to him before shooting him, and it's as great a scene as you'll see in any WW2 movie, because it was filmed in 1944 and she's speaking for the entire United Kingdom. Of course, even though Nazis are always portrayed as buffoonish in British films, they are also never shown as stupid, so it turns out that the Sturmbannfuhrer has been listening in on Ella's Hitler office speech the whole time, by the same intercom that was used when she was listening to the Englishman. Now she's finally in a jam that she may not be able to get out of, along with her American spy. Will the Glass Eye save her yet again? This is classic stuff, and there's s punch line at the end of the movie, just before Lanchester breaks the Fourth Wall. Two Huge Thumbs Up for "Passport to Destiny." Who else would make a quirky Hitler death-plot comedy but the English, and who could star in it but Elsa Lanchester? She's perfect, the movie is highly recommended, and the picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night brought the return of Zasu Pitts in "So's Your Aunt Emma"(1942), in which she does her Ditzy Spinster thing in a crime comedy of mistaken identity. Pitts plays "Aunt Emma Bates", who, when we first see her, is sitting in her rocking chair, looking at photos of her long lost love, boxer "Jim O'Bannion" (not portrayed onscreen). He's deceased, but on this night his son is fighting a big match downtown, and she's determined to go see him, even over the objections of her fussy elder sisters. After taking the train to the city, she finagles a ticket from a sportswriter (Roger Pryor), because the match is sold out. Pryor has his own woes; he was supposed to have graduated to the crime beat, but he screwed up his one assignment. Now he's been bounced back to the sports page, but things are brewing at the boxing arena because "Mickey O'Bannion" (Malcolm McTaggart), is gonna take a fall and throw his match. A hoodlum named "Flower Henderson" (Tristam Coffin) has big bucks invested in Mickey losing, so he throws it and gets to live another day. Mickey is in Flower's pocket.

Aunt Emma is eager to meet Mickey because he's her old flame's son, so she goes backstage to his dwessing woom after the match and introduces herself. And it turns out she knows a lot about boxing. She also knows chiropracting and straightens out a crick in his neck. Reporter Pryor gets a kick out of Aunt Emma, because she's nothing like her image. She looks like an old maid, but she also knows her way around a boxing ring. She's "for real" in other words, so Pryor asks her to hang out with him for the rest of the night. Who knows, maybe she'll make a good story. He could use one because his boss is about ready to fire him.

They go to a nightclub, where Pryor's sometime girlfriend "Zelda" (Elizabeth Russell) is singing. But now, it seems she's in with Flower, the hoodlum. Pryor is dismayed, but he's got Aunt Emma and she's a hoot after drinking a few Zombies. Then, a an associate of Flower's gets kidnapped. There's a shooting in the club and someone dies. It's reported that Aunt Emma was seen leaving the club right after these things happened, and because she carries an umbrella, she's mistaken for the notorious crime matron Ma Parker. "Gus Hammond" (Douglas Fowley), Flower's right hand man, knows where she's staying, at a hotel with reporter Roger Pryor. Hammond is ready to rat her out, but because of Ma Parker's reputation as a ruthless killer, he's tenuous: it's rumored that Ma can shoot out the knot in a bow tie from a hundred paces with her umbrella gun.

Pryor, needing a story, asks Aunt Emma to help him out, and she agrees to pretend to be Ma Parker and to confront Flower for "taking over her territory." But first, she has to learn how to speak like a Mama Gangster. When she gets comfortable spouting the lingo, she's ready to become Ma Parker, and her confrontation scene with Flower is hilarious because of Zasu Pitts. She has a way of delivering her lines, no matter the story, that is nitwitted yet deceptively resilient. She's kind of like Chauncey Gar-din-er (though smarter), in that she has an Angel of the Meek watching over her. But in this movie she's downright intrepid. "So's You Aunt Emma" is a Monogram picture, which was one of the better Poverty Row studios (in fact it's movies were a notch above), and the script is surprisingly layered. There are several other henchmen and agendas besides the ones I've mentioned, and the boxer gets a whole subthread of his own with Zelda, the Elizabeth Russell character. It's a great cast all around, especially Douglas Fowley (Kim's Dad) as the fast-talking Gus Hammond. Two Big Thumbs Up, then, and a high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp, and you can watch these movies as a double feature, two great comedic actresses in two entirely different sets of circumstances.  ////

That's all for tonight. I hope you are enjoying the start of your weekend. I may go to Edwards Air Force Base on Sunday, to see their first Air Show in 13 years. The last time I went was 2006, so it's been 16 years for me. I used to go to air shows all the time; my Dad took me as a kid, and then as an adult we started going again in 1995, that year to Edwards, where we saw the Thunderbirds and the B-2. Dad and I went to that one, along with Mom and the late, great Mr. D. I also took Dad to Vandenberg AFB in 2003, and Pt. Mugu in 2004. And, we always went to the Van Nuys Airshow, right up until 2007 when they converted part of the airport for news choppers and fire tankers. So, it's been a long time for me, and I really wanna go to Edwards. There's no place like it. The only things holding me back are the outregisphilbin gas prices (Edwards is a 180 mile round trip), and the sad fact that I'm tired of going places by myself. But I just might do it anyway. Sometimes ya gotta win one for the Gipper. At any rate, my blogging music tonight was "On the Sunday of Life" by Porcupine Tree, and my late night is "Lohengrin" by Wagner. Have a great day tomorrow. I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

The East Side Kids and Bela Lugosi in "Ghosts on the Loose" (featuring Ava Gardner), and "Sunset Murder Case" starring Sally Rand

Last night we were back with The East Side Kids and Bela Lugosi, in the spooktacular "Ghosts on the Loose"(1943). This time, the Kids are getting ready to sing at Glimpy's sister's wedding. "Muggs" (Leo Gorcey) has organised a quartet; he's conducting, "Danny" (Bobby Jordan) is the lead tenor. The first ten minutes of the movie is hijinx about getting the song right, among other things, then Muggsy sends "Scruno" (Sammy Morrison) and "Glimpy" (Huntz Hall) out to get flowers, and we cut to the happy couple, "Jack" (Rick Vallin) and "Betty" (Ava Gardner in her first credited role). They're already making plans to move into their new house after the wedding, but then there's a knock on the door, and an associate of Jack's offers him double the price for the house he just bought. He doesn't wanna sell, but the guy schweetens the deal by hinting that "it's a good idea" for him to cooperate.

We already know that Bela Lugosi wants the house. He's the one who sent the go-between to talk to Jack. But what's the deal with him and moving into other people's houses, anyway? He did it in "Spooks Run Wild" too. We never learn why it has to be Jack's house, but he sure does want it, so the newlyweds agree to move into the "haunted" house next door. They don't believe in spooks anyway, but then everything (and everyone) gets confused when Muggsy and the boys decide to do something nice for Jack and Betty by fixing up their house while they're on their honeymoon. They wallpaper it, clean it, paint it, the works, but what they don't know - because they didn't get the word about the House Switcheroo - is that Bela and his henchman have already moved in, and are living in a secret basement. When they hear the kids making a racket (fixing the house at ground level), they decide to scare them away, by peeking out from the eyes of paintings, making ghostly noises, etc.

What are they doing there? Is Bela a vampire, or a Monster Killer? And who are the weird old couple who live next door, in the so-called "haunted house" Jack and Betty are gonna move into? You might be asking these questions, because the schcreenwriter doesn't clarify a lot of this schtuff. He's too busy writing schtick for Leo Gorcey, who this time is doing a fair impersonation of Moe of the Three Stooges, berating and threatening the other East Siders while talking in a "youse guys" Brooklyn accent.

Well, anyhow, we finally find out what Bela is up to, 40 minutes into the 65 minute movie. He's a Nazi spy, and with his henchman, he's printing up propaganda pamphlets for a group called "The New Order" in the haunted house basement. There's a tunnel in the backyard to access the print shop. Danny and Glimpy find it, but then they get tied up by Lugosi. Scruno doesn't get as much to do this time because it's Gorcey's movie and he's very funny. Ava Gardner is only 21 here and a good sport, running around incredulous at the numbskull antics of the Kids. The cops are finally notified about the Nazi propaganda print shop by the weird oldsters next door. I think they'd been covering for them (or just afraid of them) all this time, but again it's never exschplained.

But you don't have to do much splainin' (or complainin') when the kids are cracking wise, because that's what these movies are all about. Bela Lugosi is the best sport of all. He looks like he's having fun, and at one point, when he's standing frozen in a painting frame, to look like a portrait, Scruno dusts him off with a feather duster and you can see Bela stifle a laugh. I think he liked working with The East Side Kids, and showing that he had a great sense of humor. There aren't really any ghosts in "Ghosts on the Loose," and the story doesn't have the twists and jumps of "Spooks Run Wild" (nor as creepy a haunted house), but it does have Ava Gardner and Bela, and The Kids are a fun bunch of knuckleheads. Therefore, it gets Two Big Thumbs Up and a high recommendation. The picture is very good.  ////

The night before, we had a crime flick with some cultural/historic significance, as it starred Sally Rand, the legendary "Fan Dancer" of the '20s and '30s. In "Sunset Murder Case" (1938), she plays nightclub singer "Kathy O'Connor", whose police captain father is shot dead while investigating a blackmail and insurance racket. Sunset Strip club owner "Bapti Stephani" (can't make this stuff up) is running a scheme in which he or his waiters slip mickeys to wealthy, well-connected patrons of his establishment. Then, when the marks are good and wasted, they see them to their cars, saying "you've had too much to drink, you'd better go home". The cars have had their brakes fixed, so when the drugged guys leave, they run into one of the showgirls, who've been planted in the parking lot. Broken bones and other injuries are faked, and then Stephani tells the blackmail targets, "it looks like she'll recover but right now its touch and go." Or he'll say "she may not make it, but I can keep your name out of the papers if you pay me x amount of dollars. You were drunk at the time, you know."

These are total frame jobs and the cops know it. The trouble is, they can't prove it, so they lean on a showgirl named Nina at the beginning of the movie, and she agrees to talk. But before she can tell them about the details of the scheme, she and Sally Rand's Dad are shot dead in a hotel room by two of Bapti's thugs. Rand is devastated when she gets the news, but her reporter boyfriend (Dennis Moore) is working on the story with an undercover Fed (Reed Hadley), who's been called in because the cops can't solve the case. Hadley asks Sally if she'll help, and she agrees to infiltrate Bapti's club, after undergoing an identity change and reemerging as "Valerie", a famous expatriate dancer who's become a sensation in England but is now returning to the States. When Bapti hears about Valerie, of course he wants to hire her for his club, and the infiltration is complete. This sets up a special dancing performance that was likely in Sally Rand's contract.

Though she isn't well-known anymore, I heard about Sally Rand from my Mom, who actually saw her perform when, as a teenager, she went to stay with her Uncle Dave in Chicago and they saw her at the World's Fair. Mom said it was risque but also artistic, and the scene in the movie bears this out. Rand dances in a skimpy, Romanesque skirt, leaving little to the imagination, but her dance is balletic, lit in spotlight like an art photograph, and she flicks lightly at a big inflated "bubble" six feet in diameter. The bubble appears to float. Rand steps around and beneath it while Moonlight Sonata plays. It really is quite artistic, and then at the end, the light dims just as she strips away her gown, and she's completely naked in shadow. You can see this in the film but only for a couple seconds. Then she's gone offstage. As for Rand's character Valerie, her show is an instant hit and she successfully infiltrates Bapti's blackmail operation.

He ends up going to prison for the murders of Captain O'Connor and Nina, and Sally ends up with Reed Hadley, who was very dashing as Zorro in our recent chapter serial. Dennis Moore gets paired with a singer named "Penny" (Sugar Kane), the prototypical dumb blonde, who spills the beans about the undercover op to Bapti without meaning to, just because she's an airhead. Penny gets to sing a few numbers, though it must be noted that the lengthy nightclub performances, while fun to watch, distract from the plot, so that the viewer's mind strays and is forced to re-engage. You might find yourself saying: "oh yeah....where were we?"

Still, it's good overall, and the historical record of having Sally Rand's bubble dance on film is significant. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Sunset Murder Case". The picture is slightly soft.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is "Signify" by Porcupine Tree, late night is "Lohengrin" by Wagner. I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love as always.  

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

The East End Kids and Bela Lugosi in "Spooks Run Wild", and "The Shadow Laughs" starring Hal Skelly and Rose Hobart

Last night we had a fun Haunted House movie: "Spooks Run Wild"(1941) starring The East Side Kids and Bela Lugosi. The Kids, led by Leo Gorcey (who reminds me of a street-level Frankie Darro) are being sent to a summer camp/reform school as the movie opens, as part of a juvenile delinquent rehabilitation program. The camp is run by "Jeff Dixon" (Dave O'Brien of 60 minute Western fame) and is designed to give troubled kids discipline while also exposing them to the psychologically beneficial properties of nature. Dixon's had a few run-ins with the kids before, but is hopeful that the new approach will turn them to the straight and narrow. They start goofing off the moment they get there, however; Gorcey tries to pick up a waitress at the local cafe as the rest of the kids trade wisecracks, including  "Scruno" (Sunshine Sammy Morrison), the colored member of the group. Sunshine Sammy is essentially filling the Mantan Moreland role here, bug-eyed and dubious of Gorcey's schemes. This difference is that he's only 19, but he's very funny as are all the East Siders, including Bobby Jordan and Huntz Hall, who Rick Nielsen got his look from.

While the boys are wisecracking the waitress, a report comes over the cafe radio about a "monster" on the loose, a serial killer who may be headed in their direction. We cut to a gas station at the foot of the hill, where "Mr. Nardo" (Bela Lugosi) and his sidekick "Luigi" (oft-seen little person actor Angelo Rossitto) are asking directions to the Billings House, an old, creepy mansion that's been abandoned for ten years. Nardo and Luigi drive up there with their trailer of coffins in tow, and set up shop, though we never find out if they are squatting or have inherited it from the lady who lived there.

After leaving the cafe, the kids decide to hike a trail instead of returning to the detention camp. In the woods, "Peewee" (David Gorcey, Leo's brother) trips and falls after the kids are shot at by a country bumpkin who correctly assumes they are escapees from the camp. The locals are scared - and arming themselves - because of the Monster Killer on the loose, so Peewee is now shoulder-shot, and the kids have to find him a doctor. Knowing nothing about Billings House or its new occupants, they take him there because it's nearby. Maybe they can use the phone to call a doctor. Bela answers the door and Bids Them Velcome (naturally). "I can help your friend," he says, so the boys bring Peewee in, and after that, Haunted House hijinx ensue, some of the best in the subgenre, with Sunshine Sammy getting a lion's share of funny moments after he's tasked, by Leo Gorcey, with watching over Peewee while Peewee recovers from his gunshot wound. To that end, he's been hyp-no-tized! by Mr. Nardo but gets out of bed in a trance and starts wandering the house, going through trap doors and false walls. Scruno has to follow Peewee so he won't lose track of him, but he keeps running into Nardo and Luigi in dark, cobwebby corners, and by now all the boys are certain Nardo is the Monster Killer.

Back at the gas station, another man, one "Dr. von Grosch" (Dennis Moore) is now asking directions to the Billings House. He's got a Van Dyke beard and the requisite cane, looking every bit the vampire hunter. On his way up the hill, he meets the detention camp nurse (Dorothy Short), who is wondering what's happened to the boys, as has camp leader Jeff Dixon and everyone else in the small mountain town. Dixon organises a search party, armed with rifles and torches, and the nurse is on the way to the house with the vampire hunter, who tells her "do exactly as I say when we get there".

Meanwhile, Sunshine Sammy Morrison is scared out of his wits, having to fend off Nardo and Luigi by himself. But then he gets an idea to fight fire with fire, and when he finds the rest of the gang, they rig up a "floating" skeleton to scare Nardo to death and give him a taste of his own medicine. And it works, because.......Mr. Nardo is only human. He's not a vampire, and he's not the Monster Killer after all.

So who is, then? 

I once didn't care for comedy/horror mash-ups from the 1940s - "Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein" and the like. But, having finally seen that film and a few others over the last couple of years, I've changed my mind. They aren't supposed to be scary, but fun  - "spooky" is the key word - and "Spooks Run Wild" is one of the best of the bunch, with it's decked-out haunted mansion and the wise-guy attitudes of The East Side Kids, who were also known as The Bowery Boys in other movies. I would love to see a Criterion restoration of this film and I think it deserves it, which is why I'm giving it a ratings boost, one rung higher than usual, Two Huge Thumbs Up. It ain't Citizen Kane, or even Frankenstein, but it's a blast and you're gonna love it. Highly recommended, the picture is very good.  ////

We weren't quite as lucky the previous night with "The Shadow Laughs"(1933), a crime film I selected because I saw Caesar Romero in the cast. Because he played The Joker (Romero was the original and by far the best Joker, imo), and because that character was based on Conrad Veidt's character in Paul Leni's "The Man Who Laughs", I guess I got it all cross-associated and thought Romero was gonna star as a cut-faced crime creep in this one, but that's not what the film was at all. Instead, it was one of those early-30s "wise-cracking reporter flicks", where said Wise Guy hangs around the desk of a Sweet Young Thing secretary to impress her with his Citified Gumshoe Worldweariness, cracking endless one-liners until his editor finally kicks him to the street.

The plot: a bank manager gets murdalized at the beginning of the movie, while robbers are absconding with a hundred thousand gees. In their getaway taxi, one robber complains to the other: "I didn't know you was gonna kill anybody! Now instead of riskin' a ten-to-twenty stretch, I'm looking at The Chair if we're caught!" He ain't happy about the way it all went down, but that's his tough luck, because: KA-POW!

Now he's dead. His buddy just shot him in the taxi. That's what he gets for complaining.

Enter "Robin Dale" (Hal Skelly), the hot-shot reporter. He's on the case, so he heads to the bank, hoodwinks the security guard and walks straight to the desk of cutie-pie clerk "Ruth Hackett" (Rose Hobart), who is typing up a list of the stolen loot serial numbers. After schweet-talking her, Dale asks Ruth for a peek at said list, and she allows it. Then he's off (after a few more one liners), to investigate the bank robbery/murder. The movie bogs down here, despite the loveliness of Hobart, because the screenwriter doesn't know when to cut the repartee. The second fifteen minutes drags due to this flaw. However, at the 30 minute mark, the plot picks up as the cops get involved and put the schqueeze on a Trump-like racketeer, who's always one step ahead of the law (and whatever happened to the Mar-a-Lago document hearings?). Ruth Hackett's brother is involved with this man, and Dale the reporter tries to extricate him for Ruth's sake. As for Caesar Romero, he finally shows up toward the end, looking lean and mean in a slim fitting suit, a Trim Mustachio adorning his Latin-handsome face. He looks like he could kill you by thinking about it, but - as this was his debut - he doesn't get to do that nor much else.

The reason to watch this movie is Rose Hobart, and she's more than a good enough reason, despite the well-deserved 4.3 rating on IMDB. Still, there's Rose, who's onscreen throughout, looking sharp in a modern hairdo and clinging dress. She doesn't get to say much because Hal Skelly never stops jabbering, but she looks nice in an extended couch scene, where the director poses her sitting this way and that. And she's also a good natural actress (who got blacklisted later in the HUAC hearings.)

I feel bad picking on Skelly, who - I now see in reading his bio - was killed in a collision with a train not long after "The Shadow Laughs" was completed. He was driving around looking for his dog at the time, so that makes him a hero in my book, and in yours, too. He was a vaudeville performer, which may explain his hamminess in this role, though his performance does get serious toward the end. 

Most reviewers wouldn't recommend this flick, but I do, because it means well. It picks up in the second half, and has Rose Hobart and a few minutes of Caesar Romero, so watch it for them and for poor Hal Skelly and forget about the crummy screenwriting and direction. You've gotta have heart in this world, so let's give it Two Big Thumbs Up and a mild recommendation. There's a three minute exposition scene at the end that explains the entire plot, so you don't have to pay attention, and the picture is very good.  ////

And that's all I know. My blogging music tonight is "Deadwing" by Porcupine Tree, and my late night is "Tannhauser" by Wagner. Did you check out "Wozzeck" by Berg? You did? Cool! I knew you'd like it. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

 

Doris Weston in "Delinquent Parents", and "Irish Luck" starring Frankie Darro, Mantan Moreland, and Sheila Darcy

Last night's movie was "Delinquent Parents"(1938), a somewhat deceptive title regarding the story of an adopted young woman (Doris Weston) who, after moving out on her own, takes a job as a nightclub singer, in part as an affront to her mother and father. The movie opens before she is born, on Armistice Day 1918. A soldier is being given a party that was intended as his send off Europe, but now that the war is over (on that very day), he's free to live his life, and he celebrates by asking his girfriend if she'll marry him. They do tie the knot, but his wealthy folks don't approve. His dad's an influential publisher and pals with the Mayor, who flaunts prohibition law by purchasing bootleg whiskey from his own personal supplier. These are the delinquent parents the title refers to, and their son is ashamed of them. They think his girlfriend is beneath him (and them), and they don't approve of the marriage, but it happens anyway, and then he's killed in an auto accident.

His new wife is pregnant at the time, and because she's a poor girl with no family, she chooses to give the baby up for adoption. Now we flash forward to the present time, 1938. That baby is all grown up, a young adult of about 19 or 20. The first twenty minutes of the film are confusing, because it's just a lot of scenes of Roaring 20s kids partying, intended to show the lifestyle the girl is surrounded by. Then, when she grows up, a snotty friend tries to humiliate her by telling her she's adopted. When the girl asks her parents about it, her Mom admits its true.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asks. Now she hates her adoptive parents, who respond by telling her that love is what counts. "You are even more special than a birth child to us, because we chose you." But she won't hear it. She wonders who her biological parents are: "What if my real father was a murderer, and my mother a.....". Fill in the blank. 

Because she's so disillusioned, and angry, she leaves home and takes a job as a nightclub singer, in a very shady joint run by another bootlegger. But all this time she's been in contact with a family court judge, a woman known for counseling adopted children. The judge tells the girl that she'll try to find information about her birth parents, but can't guarantee results. But the judge has a secret, and the nightclub owner/bootlegger the girl sings for is trying to blackmail her for it, backed by the now much older newspaper publisher who's soldier son was killed at the beginning of the movie.

The plot turns on the judge's secret, which she must keep hidden if she is to reconcile the girl with her parents. She explains that her adoptive parents are her real parents and that, in her courtroom experience, there is always a good reason why birth mothers give a child up. The story was very touching for me because my Mom was adopted, and I only recently found the cemetery where her parents are buried. They died long before I was born; in my lifetime, I've never had any grandparents, or uncles, aunts, or any relatives outside my immediate family, because both of my parents were only children. So I am a big supporter of adoption, and my take on the subject is that parents are the ones who raised you, but also that a birth mother, who gives up a child for adoption is a hero of heroes because she has made the ultimate sacrifice. Two Big Thumbs Up, then, for "Delinquent Parents." Through the production values are Poverty Row, it has a worthwhile story that applies to any era, and I give it a high recommendation. The picture is soft but watchable.  ////

The previous night we had an early Darro/Moreland pairing, "Irish Luck"(1939), in which the boys are hotel workers: Frankie as bellhop "Buzzy O'Brien", Mantan as handyman "Jefferson", who works mostly in the laundry room. He's supposed to stay in the basement but he doesn't, or can't, because as usual, he's at Frankie's (jeff) beck and call. As the movie opens, police are called to the hotel in response to a suicide jumper. When they get there, a crowd has gathered to look at the woman on the roof. She's walking the ledge, back and forth, and could jump or fall at any moment, but there's something strange about her gait, and when the cops get up there, they see she's only a mannequin, being pushed back and forth on wheels by Mantan Moreland, who - when confronted with arrest - spills the beans to the police captain that Buzzy put him up to it. We learn that Buzzy's dad was a cop who was killed on the job, and ever since, Buzzy wants to play detective, much to the chagrin of "Detective Steve Lanahan" (Dick Purcell), a family friend. Buzzy's interference keeps messing up his cases, but that doesn't stop Buzzy. His room at home is all set up with a chain-of-evidence wall, complete with pin map and index cards, post-it notes, the lot.

When Detective Lanahan finds Buzzy after the mannequin stunt, he reads him the riot act for tricking the police to the hotel. But Buzzy also nabbed two notorious robbers in the process, who he correctly assumed would use the "suicide" distraction as a chance to burgle some rooms, so Lanahan is forced to concede he did some good. But he still tells Buzzy to knock it off in the future. "Just because you got lucky don't mean you won't roll snake eyes next time." 

But then Buzzy is called by the manager to take some bags to the eighth floo-ah, where one "Kitty Manahan" (Sheila Darcy) is staying. She answers the door wearing a striped dress (pronounced "stripe-ed", as in Edward), and Buzzy learns that she's in distress over her brother's involvement in a bond scheme. Kitty tips him for listening to her tale of woe, and he leaves, only to see her sneak out a moment later. Then, a dead banker is found in a bathtub down the hall. Mantan Moreland saw a woman leave that room and she was wearing a stripe-ed (as in Edward) dress. Mantan gets chewed out for leaving the basement again, but he's an important witness because the woman is Kitty Monahan. What was she doing in the dead man's room?

Buzzy finds out from Mantan that the cops are after Kitty, and he decides to protect her, believing she's innocent of the bathtub murder. He thinks someone's framing her because of her brother's involvement in the bond scheme, so he tells her to ditch the stripe-ed dress, then hides her at his house, and when Detective Lanahan and the cops pay a visit, Buzzy's Irish mom covers for him and Kitty, who is several inches taller and looks like a swan to his shrimp. He does have great hair, though, and a James Cagnian moxie. Buzzy has to keep Kitty hidden at home for the rest of the movie while he and Mantan solve the case before the cops do. Mantan is a bit subdued in this early role, but Sheila Darcy's screen time makes up for the lack of it in the Zorro serial. "Irish Luck" was the first Darro/Moreland movie, and as many IMDB fans have noted, they were the first interracial "buddy comedy" team in motion pictures, almost fifty years before Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Irish Luck". The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

And that's all for tonight. A quick writing update: things are going swimmingly on the final edit of one of my two upcoming books. This one should be done before the end of the year. My blogging music tonight is "Fear of a Blank Planet" by Porcupine Tree, late night is "Wozzeck", a must-hear opera by Alban Berg. Listen and you're guaranteed to become a fan. I hope you are enjoying your weekend; do you think there's any hope for the Rams tomorrow against the Cowboys? On second thought, don't answer that!

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