Sidney Toler and Robert Armstrong in "Radio Patrol", and "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters" starring Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall (plus Jude Kessler's John Lennon books)

Last night we watched "Radio Patrol"(1932) a pre-code cop movie that follows a group of recruits through the police academy, where they are whipped into shape by their no-nonsense trainer "Sgt. Tom Keogh" (Sidney Toler). A very young Andy Devine, tall and reasonably thin, plays the big-hearted but dumb rookie "Pete Wiley". Early on, Sgt. Keogh recognises a recruit named "Kloskey" (Harry Woods) as a henchman for an out-of-town Mafioso. Kloskey is trying to join the force as a plant so the Mob boss can use him as a corrupting influence. Keogh roots him out and tells him his gang is toast, but they move in anyway, with a plan to take over the stockyard unions and the local protection rackets in the meat business. The street cops are encouraged to take a payoff and look the other way.

"Patrolman Bill Kennedy" (Robert Arrmstrong) does this. His partner "Pat Bourke" (Russell Hopton) won't touch it. He suspects Kennedy is on the take, but drops the matter when Bill keeps denying it. Then one night during a burglary call, Pete Wiley is shot and killed. It was a setup, but nobody can figure how the Mob was tipped off. Now his fiance is alone, and Officer Bourke is furious. The couple were, to him, like family. Sgt. Keogh, at the academy, has already laid down his Thin Blue Line spiel, telling the recruits the pubic hates them. "Even the honest citizens don't trust you! All we've got is ourselves, gentlemen." So, this theory didn't begin with Chief Ed Davis or even Chief Parker. It goes back to at least the 1930s, and probably to the beginning of policing. But Sgt. Keogh does insist that, no matter how stressed an officer is feeling, he must treat all suspects and arrestees with courtesy. 

Now the Mafia is getting bolder, and they're planning a late night break- in and robbery of the stockyard payroll office, which is loaded with cash. Unbeknownst to his partner Pat Bourke, Bill Kennedy has taken a two thousand dollar payoff to make a phone call to the Mob boss when the coast is clear for the caper. When it's in progress, he drives the other way, out of town, when he's supposed to be responding to the robbery call. "Smoky Johnson" (John Lester Johnson), a black officer, is knifed by a Mob hood in the stockyard. Now Kennedy feels guilty about being a paid-off cop. He confesses his sins to Bourke, and they go after the Mob boss and his henchmen. Prior to the ensuing shootout, Kennedy gets a radio call to go to the hospital. His wife is having a baby. I can't tell you any more than that, but this is a good one, super hard boiled for 1932, showing that crime was really bad in the early Mob days. There wasn't as much of the random psychotic stuff that we experience nowdays, and in that sense, crime is way worse now, but in those days, it was like a street war between the cops and organised crime. By now, organised crime has been corporatized and is committed at the legal level. There is no Mafia to speak of, or if there is, there are completely legit now, on peer level with the politicians and CEOs. The Mafia ain't John Gotti anymore. Trump is the last remaining holdout. The film is very talky, and the first 25 minutes veers between police academy training and domestic scenes with the rookies and their wives/fiances that show the stresses of being a cop's wife. But once the Mob plot develops, it's hard core, a raw look at policing in the 1930s. Brutal. Two Big Thumbs Up verging on Two Huge for "Radio Patrol". It's highly recommended and the picture is very good.  //// 

The previous night, we had more Bowery Boys (just Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall this time), in "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters"(1954). Leo and Huntz are hangin' out at Louie's Sweet Shop again, shootin' da breeze, when a baseball comes crashin' through da windum, conkin' Louie on the head. A cop hauls the kid in who belted it. He's about eight, and talks a faster Brooklyn blue streak than even Leo can handle. Louie is absolutely dumbfounded by the lingo and just wants the kid out of his sight. He forgives him for the broken windum and doesn't ask for money cause he knows the kid's parents are broke. Louie's a good egg at heart; he's got a soft spot for the folks in da ney-ba-hood.

This leads to a discussion about where the local kids can play ball widout breakin' any windums. Leo suggests a vacant lot on the edge of town. "It's owned by that family what owns the key-mih-cull factry. What's dere name? Da Gravesites, yeah, dat's it."

Louie corrects him. "Their name is Gravesend, but it's still too creepy for me. I've heard they're a bunch of kooks, but if you wanna go talk to them, be my guest." Leo and Huntz drive over to the Gravesend mansion in Leo's old jalopy. The door is answered by a tall, dour butler named "Grissom" (Paul Wexler) who Leo mispronounces as Gruesome. Grissom shows them in and they wait in the anteroom for "Dr. Derek Gravesend" (John Dehner) and his brother "Anton" (Lloyd Corrigan) to finish a meeting in their secret laboratory. The brothers Gravesend are Mad Scientists, working on an assortment of creations. Anton has an Iron Man, a remote control robot in which he hopes to install a human brain. Derek, the leader, has an ape in a cage named Cosmos. If they can procure a brain, Derek wants it for Cosmos, not only so he can perform the first human/ape brain transplant, but so that Cosmos will be able to think, and thus kill, faster.

When they are called out of their meeting by Grissom, who announces Leo and Huntz, the brothers take one look at the pair of knuckleheads before them and realize: "voila! The gods have spoken! Two brains at our disposal!" Now, they aren't good brains, mind you. When tested in a converted electric chair, Huntz registers a zero on the sub-normal intelligence meter. But Dr. Derek takes him anyway, to put his brain in Cosmos. "Maybe it'll make him stupider, with abilities we haven't thought of."

The Gravesend family has two other members, "Auntie Amelia" (Ellen Corby), who has a man-eating tree in the house that she keeps as a pet, and cousin "Francine Gravesend" (Laura Mason),) a sexy vampire who can't wait to sink her teeth into Hall's neck. Now remember, the boys have only gone over to talk about the use of the Gravesend's vacant lot, so when they don't return, Louie and two of the neighborhood hooligans drive to the mansion to look for them. But Anton Gravesend has developed a potion that turns Grissom into a wild, Rasputin-like maniac, and now it looks like no one is gettin' outta the place alive. The movie is thicker on Monster activity than it is on plot, but the Monsters themselves, and the sibling Mad Scientists are so well realized that it makes for another classic Bowery Boys spook show. It's fun to see John Dehner playing an erudite (but nutty) anthropologist and showing comedic range, as he mostly played Western bad guys. Ellen Corby is fiendish (and handy with a knife), as the carnivorous plant-keeping Auntie. She feeds it dog food when she runs out of people. The whole Gravesend gang is crazy, making the Addams Family look like the Bradys. A ten minute cut, removing snippets here and there, would'v made the movie perfect, but it still gets Two Huge Thumbs Up, because it's in widescreen, the picture is razor sharp and you can't beat Gorcey and Hall. Don't miss "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters". It's highly recommended.  //// 

And dat's all......(excuse me).....that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "The Songs of Distant Earth" by Mike Oldfield, one of the best albums of the '90s and one of Mike's best also. I finished "Shoulda Been There", Book One in the ten-volume John Lennon series by Jude Southerland Kessler. I checked it out from the Libe not knowing what to expect; a novelized version of Lennon's childhood and the early Beatles? But not only did it work as a novel, Jude Kessler knocked it as far out of the park as a Dave Kingman home run. Boy, can she write! You feel like you're right there in Liverpool, hanging out at The Grapes watching John drink Black-and-Tans. Now I wanna read every book in the series, but many of 'em are sold out and are expensive collectors' items, or are only available in Kindle, which isn't my thing. I've gotta have a real book in my hands, and I need these John Lennon books! The Libe only has the first one. Maybe Ms. Kessler will print up another run.

My late night music is "Die Feen" by Richard Wagner, conducted by von Karajan. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Leo Gorcey and The Bowery Boys in "Ghost Chasers", and "Renfrew of the Royal Mounted" starring James Newill and Carol Hughes

Last night, The Bowery Boys were in their element, in "Ghost Chasers"(1951). The Boys are of course the renamed, adult version of The East Side Kids, still led by comic genius Leo Gorcey and sidekick genius Huntz Hall. Sadly missing are the other two main members of the group, Bobby Jordan and Sunshine Sammy Morrison, but Whitey Williams is back, and Gorcey is in fine form, a decade older but thankfully none the wiser. He's still perfectin' his malaprop-based manglin' of the English language, and as always, the first ten minutes of the flick (and any East Side/Bowery Boys movie) is taken up by hijinks, in this case as the Boys try to cadge free treats from Louie's Sweet Shop. Cynthia the waitress (Jan Kayne), in charge in Louie's stead, has been told not to give the nitwits any freebies, but that doesn't stop Leo, who is teachin' her to speak proppa angle-ish.

In the back room of the shop, Whitey is conducting a see-ance, wearing a swami's outfit. The other Boys are his audience. He wants to get in on the spiritualist craze that's sweeping the city (and the nation), and make a quick buck like the famous "Margo the Medium" (Lela Bliss). Margo is a sensation in town. Her seances are held at a private club with an imposing, humorless doorman. You have to have a membership to attend, but the Boys finagle their way in, and when they see "real" spirits appear, they want in on the action.

That is, until Leo discovers Margo's act is fake, which he suspected all along. His mom's neighbor, "Momma Parelli" (Argentina Brunetti), has been ripped off for a hundred bucks, after she trusted Margo to bring forth the spirit of her beloved son. Leo breaks the sad news to Momma Parelli that it's all a deception, and he gets her hundred dollars back, but what he doesn't realise is that it he isn't the one who exposed Margo; it was a real ghost from the 1600s, a pilgrim named "Edgar" (Lloyd Corrigan) who speaks Olde English (thee and thou), and despises phony mediums because they make a mockery of the real spirit world.

Of the Boys, only Huntz Hall can see Edgar, because he's the only one who has The Gift. When he tries to tell Leo that a ghost helped bust Margo, Leo threatens to punch him out. He doesn't believe in anything supernatural. The movie is then turned over to Huntz and Edgar, who go about shutting down Margo's empire, which includes a string of seance clubs. Much of the middle of the film is taken up with the usual running around inside the spookhouses, and the crack comic timing mayhem of the Boys. Huntz Hall shines. It's his movie because he can see Edgar, who creates doorways by magic that allow Huntz to walk through walls. The bouncers and doorman at Margo's club try to shut down the Boys' investigation by locking them, at gunpoint, in a basement water tank. I don't know if you have one of those in your mansion, but Margo does, and soon, the Boys are about to drown, until Huntz and Edgar rescue them.

It's interesting to see Leo Gorcey age. We've known him since "Spooks Run Wild", when he was 25 playing 18. He was a small man, and a lifelong alcoholic who died at 52, and he aged fast. In this film he's 34, and looks about 45 but his body has morphed as if he had some kind of genetic condition. 

We're giving "Ghost Chasers" Two Huge Thumbs Up, even though we really missed Bobby Jordan and Sunshine Sammy. But Huntz Hall, Leo and Whitey more than take up the slack, as do the assortment of goofball caricature actors, including Leo's diminutive Dad, Bernard Gorcey, who plays "Louie Dumbrowski" the Sweet Shop owner. According to Wiki, the Beatles (meaning probably John Lennon, the comedy fan) wanted The Bowery Boys on the cover of Sgt. Pepper, and they were all included except for Gorcey, who wanted 400 bucks for his likeness, so he was left off. How cheap can ya get, Beatles? I've said it before, if he was starring on Saturday Night Live now, at the peak of his powers, Gorcey would've been as big a star as John Belushi, only not as nutty (Belushi was kind of remote from the audience if you go back and watch him). Gorcey would've been a yooge star now. A very, very talented comedian he was, as was Huntz Hall. This movie is very highly recommended and "da pik-chah is ray-zah shahp!"  //// 

The previous night, we had a crime story in a different kind of setting. How about the Canadian Rockies? Will Big Bear do as a substitute? Okay, then if you can handle a singing Mountie, you're ready for "Renfrew of the Royal Mounted"(1937). "Sgt. Renfrew" (James Newill) is actually pretty badass. He likes singing with his men (or to the ladies) as much as he likes solving crimes. He's also an amateur chef known for his barbecue sauce recipe, and as the movie opens, he's headed for a picnic at a lodge in Big Bear, Canada, thrown by his old pal "George Powlis" (William Royle), a Luigi-style ethnic caricature, who can-a cook-a him some mucho! primo!-a chili or clam-a linguini. He's-a much-a better cook than Renfrew.

All is merry at the picnic. Renfrew's dog Lightning is having fun, so is "Tommy McDonald" (Dickie Jones), a boy who is helping Renfrew make his barbecue sauce. Tommy is the son of Renfrew's comrade "Constable McDonald" (Donald Reed). We already know there's a counterfeit operation in the area. McDonald has found some fake bills during an inspection at the American border, hidden inside fish that are packed in blocks of ice. The Mounties know that "James Bronson" (Herbert Corthell), an expert engraver, has just been paroled from prison and may be living with his daughter Virginia in the area. In fact, Renfrew meets her at the picnic, looking for her Dad. Renfrew accidentally hooks her with a fishing pole he's trying out. This is, of course, to set up romantic friction between the two.

At the picnic, Virginia is later met by an Indian guide who tells her he was sent to take her to her father. But when they leave, they are trailed by Constable McDonald, who's in charge of locating the counterfeiters. The Indian waits for an opportune moment, then throws his knife and hits McDonald in the back, killing him. Next, we cut to a scene of Renfrew holding McDonald's little son Tommy in his arms as he sings a basso tenor version of "Son, You'll Soon Be a Man" as Tommy weeps. Get out your hankies big time. Now it's personal for Renfrew, and he heads out with his dog to find out who killed Constable McDonald. He tracks down the Indian and the counterfeiters, but Virginia tries to thwart him, because her Dad the engraver has been forced to alice-cooperate with them. He was trying to go straight after getting out of the slam, and he didn't really wanna do it, but they're forcing him because he's an expert at making funny money. Virginia is trying to protect him from both the crooks and the Mounties. She doesn't want him dead or sent back to prison.

The problem for Sgt. Renfrew is that he has no idea that his good friend George Powlis, who owns the lodge and throws the picnics, is the man behind the whole counterfeit operation. Behind his smile and gladhanding, he's as ruthless as they come. But Renfrew has now fallen in love with Virginia, and after serenading her a few times (James Newill has a great voice), she likes him too, but she still has to throw him off the scent to protect her father. There's some cool incidental stuff, like when Renfrew shows Tommy how to make a magnifying glass out of a paper clip and a drop of water. Two Bigs! A singing Mountie! They must've been trying for a Pepsi version of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald (the Coca-Cola of Singing Mountie movie couples), and they pulled it off. I loved it and you will, too. The picture is very good.  ////

And that's all for this evening. I hope you had a nice four-day weekend. Now we'll settle in to enjoy the Christmas season, and at some point watch some holiday movies and our traditional Charles Dickens' mini-series. My blogging music for tonight was "Incantations" by Mike Oldfield, my late night is "The Flying Dutchman" by Wagner (Karajan), I wish you a good start to your week tomorrow and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Helen Foster and Nell O'Day in "The Road to Ruin", and "Inside the Lines" starring Betty Compson and Ralph Forbes

Last night, we had a pre-Code cautionary tale called "The Road to Ruin"(1934). Pop culture has long given us the notion that there were no such things as teenagers before the mid-fifties, but as you can see in this film, the teens and young adults were partying just as heartily in the early 1930s, albeit with less drugs but just as much liquor. In other words, 'twas ever the same. The message is that such a lifestyle can lead you on the road to ruin, which is what happens to nice girl "Ann Dixon" (Helen Foster), the new kid in town. She lives with her mother who, it is insinuated, is separated from her father. Ann is demure but very pretty, which gets her noticed by the Cool Chick at school, "Eve Monroe" (Nell O'Day), who wants a gal to influence and pal around with.

Eve hangs out after school with two boys, "Ed" and "Tommy" (Bobby Quirk and Glen Boles). Ed is her boyfriend, a total cut-up. Tommy owns the roadster they cruise around in. They drive around drinking and carousing, which will eventually result in "Hot Rods to Hell." Eve is brassy and sassy. She's like that because her Mom throws wild booze rave-ups, adult style, at their house, and her Dad is long gone. The only grown-up example Eve has is irresponsible and loose. That's why she wants to corrupt Ann, because she's secretly miserable and misery loves company. But you'd never know Eve is unhappy cause all she does is party, make herself available, and party down some more. In doing so, she fancies herself sophisticated. Soon after befriending Ann, she's got her smoking cigs and drinking. She shows Ann her copy of a sexy novel, the words of which shock Ann (it's probably Lady Chatterly's Lover). But it all has an effect, and soon Ann is riding around in Tommy's hot rod, too, with Eve and Ed. Tommy likes Ann. He's not a bad kid, (and Eve is the leader of their group), but he drinks a lot, and one day down at the lake, when they're all smoking and drinking, Tommy takes advantage of Ann when she's drunk. There were things you couldn't say, even in pre-Code movies, but it's clearly insinuated that Tommy date-rapes Ann. She's crying, but forgives him, and they both try to forget about the incident.

Soon after this, Eve takes them all to a nightclub. There are sharks in the water now, circling the fresh meat. Anytime you see a handsome, slick-suited, dark-eyed thirtyish man in one of these movies, with his black hair slicked back, you know he's pure evil. Two of these guys are sitting at a table in the club. They spot the teens, Ann catches their eye, and "Ralph" (Paul Page) knows she's an easy mark.

All kinds of things are insinuated about Ralph. He's about 30 (Ann is 17), and Ralph may be an opium dealer, a pimp, a white slaver, or all three. It isn't made clear, for reasons previously explained, but he's not dissimilar to Harvey Keitel in "Taxi Driver". He's scum. But Ann, having been dated raped by Tommy and corrupted by Eve's influence, is now thoroughly sexualised, and she's become addicted to lust and drawn by male power. What happens next is a prime example of what they now call grooming. Ralph approaches Ann at the teens' table, playing The Suave Gentleman, and asks if she'd like to go to the beach the next weekend. Of course, he invites all the kids, to not look too obvious, but only Ann gets invited back to his mansion. Pretty soon she is going to big shot parties and Tommy is out of the picture. The parties include skinny dipping, and orgies are implied. During one party at Ralph's mansion, a wealthy middle-aged couple next door is getting irritated by the noise. The man likes seeing the naked girls in the pool but his wife wants him to call the cops. Finally she calls them, and Ann is taken to jail with along with Eve, where they are given an "exam" by a female doctor, which shows that Ann is pregnant.

Ralph, her new boyfriend, can't afford to have Ann pregnant if he's gonna pimp her out to rich men, so he (nicely) insists that she needs to get an abortion (the language is insinuated). "It's the only way out of this", he tells her. Ann is so confused and impaired by now, that she goes along with it even though she's terrified. And of course, the "doctor" is a backroom butcher, and of course Ann hemorrhages, or gets a blood infection (it isn't made clear) and she dies. The whole thing is extremely depressing, so watch it if you want. It is well done, and Helen Foster and Nell O'Day are good actresses, so it gets Two Big Thumbs Up. But boy is it a downer. The picture is very good.  ////

The previous night, we found a superb early spy flick entitled "Inside the Lines"(1930), taken from a play of the same name and first made as a silent film in 1922. Legendary early actress Betty Compson stars as "Jane Gershon", an urbane young English woman in love with Naval officer "Eric Woodhouse" (Ralph Forbes), whom she recently met at a party. World War One has started. He talks of marriage before he's called for duty. She declines: "We've only known each other a week. I have to go to London, ask me when I get back." They part ways, and she goes immediately to an office building, where she furtively knocks on a door. Inside is her controller: she's not English, or a civilian. She's a German spy! Her controller sets up her next mission, on the Rock of Gibraltar, where the British Royal Navy is massing. She's to go to their requisitioned headquarters and pose as a friend of the former Lady of the Manor. Her cover is that she's "been away for seven years" in case anyone notices that she looks different than the friend she's portraying. But her looks are a close enough match to pull off the impersonation, and her controller has coached her on all the personality traits and information she needs to know in case she is questioned about details. Her mission, once she arrives, is to open an electrified safe, hidden behind a "trick" bookcase, and retrieve British naval war plans that are crucial to German victory.

She's got all the information memorized, and when she gets to Gibraltar, she is welcomed by surprise but with open arms. "Oh, Lady So-and-So! 'Tis so good to see you after all these years!" The admiral in charge gets a warning from an old British drunk, a former sailor, who swears she is a German spy, but after the admiral and his lieutenant slyly question her in conversation, she passes muster by getting all the answers right, thereby avoiding the trap, and the admiral believes she's who she says she is after all.

But what she never counted on is that Officer Woodhouse shows up at the mansion, the man she fell in love with at the beginning of the film. That was in England; now here he is in Gibraltar, thousands of miles away, at the same headquarters she has successfully penetrated. As always, thank goodness for screenwriters' coincidences! Woodhouse wonders what she's doing there, and playing the bon vivant society woman with a different name. He only knows her as Jane from England, the beautiful lass he met and wanted to marry.

As a military officer, he knows about spies, how they use fake names and their general m.o's. He's just seen a spy shot that very morning. He becomes sure that Jane's a German spy when she asks him not to call her Jane, but instead of turning her in, he begs her to flee Gibraltar because he loves her. "Even if I never see you again, I beg you to do as I say! I don't want you caught and killed!"

But she's not about to leave because she's sworn to complete her mission, and is also proud of her reputation as the most dedicated agent in German foreign intelligence. The (veddy) British fleet is massed just off the coast of The Rock, sending signal messages with their lights. An attack may be imminent. Jane has gotta get those plans from the safe, but her German controller has indicated that she will at some point meet another agent known as 54. "No one knows who he is or what he looks like, not even me". In other words, the dude is ultra top secret, but she's been told he will identify himself by some means. "You will know it is 54, and you are to give him the plans." All of this is taking place under the noses of the (veddy) British naval hierarchy, including her boyfriend, Officer Woodhouse. How will she possibly pull it off? 

The plot is worthy of a John Le Carre novel, the layers are gradually revealed, and there's a twist so unexpected that you won't see it coming. Man, you had to not only have nerves of steel to be a spy, but you had to also be a good actor or actress, and a very quick thinker because you were often impersonating real people, so you not only had to know every detail of someone's life, but you also had to be ready for curveball questions. Betty Compson is first-rate in the lead, as is Ralph Forbes as her co-star. The great character actor Mischa Auer has an important role as a silent but imposing "sahib" assistant to the admiral in charge. The script and direction are so good that we're gonna give "Inside the Lines" Two Huge Thumbs Up. For a 1930 talkie, it's surprisingly well done. Very highly recommended, the picture is just a tad soft.  ////

And that's all for tonight. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. My blogging music was "You" by Gong and "Another Fine Tune You've Got Me Into" by Gilgamesh. My late night is Bruckner's 6th by Karajan. Have a great rest of your holiday weekend. I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Alan Baxter and John Litel in "Submarine Base", and "It's a Joke, Son!" starring Kenny Delmar and Una Merkel

Last night's movie was "Submarine Base"(1943), a WW2 espionage flick from PRC that gets better as it goes along. This one is super cheap, has a cue-card leading man doing a stoic tough guy role half asleep, but the script, once it develops, is pretty darn good. "Joe Morgan" (Alan Baxter) is an ex-street tough from New York, now ostensibly earning his living as a fisherman in the Caribbean. Later, of course, he will go on to play second base for The Big Red Machine, but it's wartime and thirty years prior, and he's a tall, wiry white guy, and fishing is only a front. What he's really doing is collaborating with Zee German Navy, stealing torpedos from an English supply depot on a small island inhabited by Casablanca types. He procures the torpedoes from a cave (why the Krauts can't get their own from the massively productive Nazi war industry is never explained, maybe its too far to sail home), and he is payed handsomely for his trouble, though he makes it clear to the U-boat captains that he's in it only for the money. No Seig Heils for him. He and his older British first mate enjoy the spoils at the island nightclub, where they spread the ill-begotten money around, giving it to dancers and the club owner, buying rounds of drinks. It's almost like Joe doesn't want the Nazi money, he gets rid of it as fast as possible. But then why is he helping them win the war?

One day, when Joe and the first mate are out "fishing", they see a man in the water, staying afloat with a life jacket. He's "Jim Taggart" (John Litel), a merchant marine whose ship has been sunk by a U-boat. They rescue him, and then, in a screenwriters coincidence, Joe recognises him as the New York cop who used to hassle him when he was a street hoodlum before the war. Man, what are the odds of that? Here you are, sailing the Caribbean sea, and you rescue the man who used to dog you in NYC, in the days you were a two-bit punk. Morgan blows it off for the moment, because he doesn't want trouble at sea, but he takes Taggart back to the Casablanca island, to stash him so he won't get back to New York and fink on him, and he even gives Taggart 200 bucks (a lot of dough in 42) to hold himself over on the island, even though he hates him for being a an ex-cop and his former nemesis. Something is conflicted with Joe. He really seems ashamed of that money. 

The middle of the 64 minute movie is taken up with intrigue. Morgan tries giving money to the beautiful club dancer "Judy Pierson" (Jacqueline Dalya) but she wont take it. "You can't buy me," she tells him. There's a British embassy chap on the island (everyone hangs out at the nightclub) who's trapped there by implied force. There aren't any soldiers and no Gestapo, but you can't get off the island because no boats land there, except the U-boats, in the secret torpedo cave.

The Nazi U-boat captains and their island contact (a South American haberdasher) use swastika medals as "proof of identity". One of the dancers gets ahold of one (given as a gift by her boyfriend, a waiter at the club who found it on the floor) and Jim Taggart sees her wearing it around her neck. She has no idea what it is, but he does, and now he knows there's a Nazi spy ring on the island, and suspects that Joe Morgan is part of it. "How else does he get all that money?" he asks the British ambassador.

Taggart and the ambassador then team up to stop Morgan and the Nazi U-boaters. They follow Joe to the secret cave, but the situation isn't what Taggart thought it was. I can't tell you what happens, but there's a clue in Joe's continual requests for new pocket watches from the haberdasher. "I'm sorry, but I lost my watch again." "Yes, you seem to have a problem with that." There's also a brief romantic subplot between Joe and Judy the beautiful dancer, though it's hard to take seriously with the way Alan Baxter delivers his lines. Calling it "cardboard" would be an understatement! However, once you get used to his woodenness, it grows on ya, because he's he's Grade-A Wooden. He takes it to an extreme. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Submarine Base". It coulda taken place at Ricks Cafe, if Bogie was a tall stiff and the budget was 375 dollars, but surprisingly it's really good. The picture is soft but watchable.  ////

The previous night's fare was a farce called "It's a Joke, Son!"(1947), about a hell-for-leather Southern political rebel who's the last holdout of the Confederacy. The movie could be titled as it is to make clear that the filmmakers intended no offense to Southern moviegoers, because the portrayal of "Senator Beauregard Claghorn" by Kenny Delmar is one part Foghorn Leghorn and one part Colonel Sanders. There's even a character named "Jeff Davis", in case you need to be hit over the head with Confederate cliches. Beauregard bellows on and on about the glory days of the South, saying things like, "The North didn't win the war, it got called on account of darkness." That's a joke, too, son.

His friends try to tell him the war's over and the Confederacy is dead. "We're all Americans now. My daughter even married a Northerner." But Beauregard is still trying to get North Carolina renamed "Upper South Carolina". He's trying to run an apple merchant out of town because apples come from Northern states. You get the drift; he's a caricature, and that's the way he's played, all in fun, not to be taken too seriously. His wife "Magnolia" (Una Merkel) "wears the pants" in the family. He has an entire sermon on the dominating personalities of Southern women. "If ya ain't never been married to one, boy, you don't know what yer in for." Meaning, women run the show in the South.

There's a women's club called The Daughters of Dixie that wants to get his wife elected Senator. At their meeting, Beauregard is relegated to serving refreshments, and this sequence is good for ten minutes of hijinks as the movie opens. The neighborhood paperboy, a seven year old self-proclaimed "brat", helps him make the punch, but because the kid can't read, he mistakes hard liquor for grape juice and pours several bottles into the punch. The ladies of the club get hammered and extremely goofy. 

Beauregard also has a dog named Daisy who can do any number of tricks. She's reason enough to watch the movie.

The character is long winded, so you have to be in the right mood. His wife's political backers don't want him to run for re-election, but his son in law and daughter (June Lockhart) do. He's given them money (from his political fund) to buy a frozen foods truck, money he was supposed to have banked. They want him to run so Momma won't win (she's domineering), figuring he'll split the vote with his rousing speeches. But Magnolia's political backers are Mafiosi, and they kidnap Beauregard and might kill him if he won't stop talking. You might, too.

But it's all very good natured. Daisy the dog is a sweetheart and so is June Lockhart. The movie belongs almost entirely to Kenny Delmar, who (I am now reading on IMDB) was a radio star and a man of many voices. And, he was indeed the inspiration for Foghorn Leghorn, as I suspected. Therefore, Two Big Thumbs, ah say, ah say Two Big Thumbs Up, for "It's a Joke, Son!", son! Watch it on a night when you're open to soupcons of silliness and broad humored Southern charm. You also get Mildred the horse, who only has three speeds: slow, slower, and stopped. Highly recommended, the picture is razor sharp.  ////

And that's all I've got for tonight. I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow, with lots of good food and company. My blogging music is "Gone to Earth" by Barclay James Harvest (great band, great album), my late night is Bruckner's 5th by Karajan, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

Faye Emerson in "Lady Gangster", and "Tomorrow at Seven" starring Chester Morris

Last night's movie was "Lady Gangster"(1942), a crime flick with a plot so convoluted that it's hard to describe in bite-sized pieces, but I'll give it a try. Faye Emerson stars as "Dot Burton", a down-on-her-luck actress who's been relegated to performing in nightclubs. She's got talent, as we shall see, but she's from a small town and has no connections in the big city. She's just another gal with a dream. So, she ends up living in a rooming house owned by an older lady, a former actress herself, who knows how hard it is to make a living in showbiz. "Ma" (Vera Lewis), as she's known, isn't above an illegal buck. She's got three men renting a room who are obvious hoodlums. We learn all of the above as we proceed, because as the movie opens, the three men and Dot are in a car, about to commit a bank robbery. Dot is to be the decoy/distraction. The lead hood has brought a dog for her to use as a prop. While the hoods wait in the car, she knocks on the door of the bank.

"Whataya want?" asks the security guard. Dot asks to enter the bank. "But we ain't open for another half hour." "Oh, I know, and I'm sorry, but I've just got to deposit some money to cover a check so it doesn't bounce." We don't know she's an actress yet; we only learn that when the robbery is over, but she's already putting on a good act for the guard. No bank in the world would let a customer in early (except possibly Deutsche Bank for Trump, or maybe the Nugan Hand Bank, remember them?), but the guard buys Dot's story, and her dog serves it's purpose too. "Here, could you hold him for me while I fill out the deposit slip?" Now that the guard's hands are full, in come the hoodlums, guns drawn. They rob the bank to the tune of 40,000 clamatos.

Then they flee, and Dot deliberately faints, another distraction to cause an obstacle. The gang figured she'd draw no suspicion because - after all - she was just an early morning customer. But the detective who answers the bank robbery call is too shrewd to fall for such nonsense. He traps Dot by asking the name of her dog, which she doesn't know. She never considered it might be on his collar, and she gets it wrong. The cop arrests her, and pretty soon, she's off to The Slam. Now the movie turns into a Women's Prison Flick. But before Dot starts serving her sentence, she gets bailed out by a broadcasting executive she knew as a child.

I told you this was convoluted. It's also what they call "high concept," as in "oh, sure! Dot and the big shot radio station owner just so happen to be from the same neighborhood in the same small town. Whatta concept!" The radio station guy also conveniently hates the D.A., thinks he's soft on crime, but when the D.A. tells him, "we've caught the gal who started the bank robbery", and he finds out it's his old childhood friend Dot, he asks for a chance to question her himself, because he can't believe she would ever do such a thing. This is the point where we find out she's an out of work actress in need of money. The radio station owner then rats her out to the DA, even though he doesn't like the guy, because he's a stickler for law and order and he's doing it for Dot's own good. "Crime is not the life for you, Dot. They'll go easy on you if you turn your cohorts in, but you've got to pay your debt to society."

This is where is turns into a Women's Prison Flick, but before Dot gets sent away, she pays one last visit to the rooming house, to get her cut of the bank money. When she hears the gang leader saying he's gonna cut her out, she steals the money out from under him and gives it to Ma to hold onto while she's doing her stint in prison.

In the Joint, there's a jailhouse snitch named "Lucy" (Ruth Ford), who earns perks by ratting out the secrets of other inmates. Lucy works in cahoots with a deaf gal who can read lips, which comes in handy because the inmates hold most of their conversations in whispers. But the deaf gal can translate, and she tells the snitch that Dot knows where the bank robbery money is stashed and plans to recover it once she's paroled. The radio guy is gonna ask for her parole, and he's wealthy enough to have it granted. But when the snitch tattletales to the prison matron, Dot's parole is called off.

Ultimately, to free herself from prison and the clutches of the gang, Dot has to break out of The Slam by clocking the warden on the head, donning her clothes, and walking out unnoticed in the middle of the night, with alarms going off everywhere.

It's well directed, it flows right along, and it's a lot easier to watch than to write about, but man is it ludicrous in places.

But that's why were giving it Two Huge Thumbs Up! The filmmakers have the audacity to attempt all of this, and they pull it off. By the end, its completely ridiculous, because there's no recrimination for Dot's prison break and her clobbering of the warden. You're suppose to understand that Dot now understands that Crime Doesn't Pay, so the message is really a variation of "little woman manipulated by hardened criminal men." In other words, if she'd never met them she'd have been just fine. Male domination is the cause (according to the unspoken message of the script), but Dot seems a pretty hard case at times herself. Or, is she just a really good actress? The script is also a paean to acting, and on that note, the movie is also the debut of Jackie Gleason, playing one of the bank robbers.

"Lady Gangster" is highly recommended and the picture is very good.  ////

The previous night, we had Chester Morris in a whodunit called "Tomorrow at Seven"(1933). He plays mystery novelist "Neil Broderick", whose books are so boring even he admits they put readers to sleep. This happens to the lady sharing his train compartment on a trip to Boston to research his latest novel. They joke about his books, and it just so happens she's the daughter of the one of men Chester is going to visit. Thank goodness for screenwriters' coincidences! The book he's planning is about a serial killer who calls himself The Black Ace, because he sends an Ace of Spades card to each of his victims as a warning: "You're next". He's one of those killers who like to show off and taunt folks, later played out in real life by the Zodiac and Son of Sam. so we actually know whodunit in advance. The question then becomes "who is The Black Ace?" Chester aims to find out, and he sets up an interview with the Boston millionaire "Thornton Drake" (Henry Stephenson), whose secretary is his train companion's father.

The lady on the train is "Martha Winters" (Vivienne Osborne). Her father (Drake's secretary) doesn't want Chester there. He seems to know a secret and is worried about something. He makes a phone call that we can't hear (i.e he drops a dime), then later that night, as Chester is talking to Mr. Drake, the lights in the house go out, and when they go back on, Mr. Winters is dead with an Ace of Spades on his body. Chester immediately suspects Drake, but there are other possibilities, and at this point - 15 minutes in - Chester kind of gets hijacked and it's not his movie anymore. What happens is that two "detectives" knock on the door, and it's the same two schmoes from "Sh! The Octopus!" if you remember that crazy movie from last Summer. These guys (Frank McHugh and Allen Jenkins) are complete nitwits who speak in Extreme 1930s Cop Slang and are so inept and screw things up so bad that they become the focus of the rest of the movie. At this point, for the director it's about making the best of what he's got in the script, and Chester Morris - who has impeccable comic timing and we love him as Boston Blackie - is reduced to reacting to the dumbells, who actually are quite funny.

The going is slow in places, mostly due to a lack of plot development, and there are no production values to speak of, no location shots or car chases. The whole schmear takes place in a house, and it's held up mainly by the knucklehead detectives. But it still gets Two Bigs because they are funny, and there are a few characters that are offbeat enough to keep things interesting and to keep you guessing who The Black Ace is. There's also a pre-Code line, when the cop is talking his slang gibberish, about a "dame" (probably a hooker) who he "leaned on" (gave the third degree to), and when he learned she was a "snow angel" (a coke addict), he "gave her a coupla jolts" (gave her some cocaine) and "she yakked" (named names). Super pre-Code Alert! Cops using cocaine as an interrogation tool! I'm tellin' ya, they snuck some sneaky lines into these films. You've gotta pay attention cause they talk fast and it'll go right by ya. You go: "Wow! Did they just say what I think they said?" and then you replay it, and sure enough, you heard it correctly.

Anyhow, the murder plot ain't the most clever, but the humor makes the movie worth watching, thus it gets Two Big Thumbs Up. It was an early role for Chester Morris, which is perhaps why, even though he's top billed, he plays second fiddle to the Crazy Coppers. It's recommended and the picture is razor sharp.  ////

That's all I know for this evening. I hope your week is off to a good start. My blogging music is "Everyone Is Everybody Else" by Barclay James Harvest, my late night is Bruckner's 9th by Karajan, and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)        

William Gargan and Frances Dee in "Headline Shooter", and "Daredevils of the Red Circle", a Chapter Serial with Bruce Bennett

Last night's movie was "Headline Shooter"(1933), an excellent pre-Coder about the newsreel business. Before TV, news footage could only be seen at the movie theater, of course. The newsreel cameramen set up their rigs just like they do today, jockeying for position, competing to get the best and closest shots. "Bill Allen" (William Gargan) is one such hotshot. We see him covering a building fire, lined up next to his friendly rival "Mike" (Wallace Ford), an alcoholic from another news agency. Bill has a nose for news and is out the door of his office and on top of whatever is happening the moment a report is radioed in. As the movie opens, he's even creating a story by rigging a beauty contest, bribing it's sponsor with a chance to spend the night with Miss Glendale......super pre-Code alert!

Things really pick up, however, when he meets gal reporter "Jane Mallory" (Frances Dee), who he refers to by her last name. She's covering the fire for her newspaper, and because she's a go-getter like Bill, they hit it off and have dinner. While they're at the restaurant, a huge earthquake strikes. To most, it's a disaster, but to Bill and Mallory, it's news, and they're dodging falling chandeliers and bits of the ceiling as they make their way into the tilting street. This lengthy sequence (10 minutes) reminded me of myself in 1994, when I was an intrepid photographer/videographer, documenting the Northridge earthquake, mostly at the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, along with the late and legendary Dave S. On a side note, the stock earthquake footage in the film (and the special effects) made me nervous, because I don't wanna ever experience anything like that again - way too scary!

But yeah, once Bill the cameraman and Mallory the reporter meet, they're a pair to be reckoned with. Together they cover the case of the Basket Murderess, who's about to fry in The Electric Chair. Then Bill gets a huge break, which might make his career; watching back his footage of the building fire, he sees that he's captured the arsonist (Jack LaRue) in the act of fleeing.

But then he's diverted to an assignment in Mississippi, to cover a huge flood! Man, this is just like today. Disaster after disaster; the news has always been the news, meaning they've always specialised in Bad News. Mallory goes with him, because the flood is near her hometown. By now, Bill is in love with her, but she's engaged to Ralph Bellamy, a Mississippi businessman. But they meet, and Bellamy likes Bill. He doesn't see him as a romantic rival, and he tips him off about the cause of the flood: deliberately shoddy cement construction. Cheap crumbly cement was used on the levee, and when the levee breaks, got no place to roam. Mean ol' levee, taught me to weep and moan...

Wait a minute, what's goin' on? How did Robert Plant get in here? Please escort him out, thank you.

Now where were we? Oh yes, so Ralph Bellamy is giving Bill and Mallory a scoop, that the crooked cement contractor is responsible for the deadly flood. Bill films Bellamy crumbling the cement chunks with his fingers, showing how the levee gave way, but while he is packing his gear to leave, the Mayor shows up, accompanied by his political honchos, asking (i.e. demanding) him not to develop his film. The reason, they say, is that it will ruin the Mayor's career. Bill retorts that "people have been killed! The truth is important!", but Ralph Bellamy tells him "you don't understand how things work, Bill. You'd better back off." Even Mallory promises not to publish her story.

This is another 90 year old flick, but it goes to show how nothing has changed. Bill is a crusading cameraman who puts "truth" (i.e. photographic evidence) ahead of all and sundry. But, as the script shows, there are nuances to truth, and in this case, it wasn't what Bill was expecting. He thinks the Mayor intervened because he's corrupt, but when he goes ahead and develops his film and exposes the levee construction fraud, the Mayor commits suicide. It turns out that he didn't know the cement contractor was a crook, and he felt responsible for the flood deaths, so he killed himself. Now Bill feels guilty, too. As he learns, there are times when you hold back on a story. But he's gotta keep shooting the news; it's in his blood. As for Mallory, she's about to retire to marry Ralph Bellamy, but then Bill gets a chance to finally bust the arson ring that involved Jack LaRue (a fantastic actor, btw.) Mallory gets the urge back; like Bill, news is who she is. She unretires to cover the story, but then the arson gang kidnaps her, and Bill and Bellamy team up to come to her rescue. In the end, Bellamy realizes that Bill is the right guy for Mallory, not him, and he steps aside. I wouldn't have revealed that, but you knew it was coming and there's a whole lot more I haven't told you. "Headline Shooter" is so good that we're giving it Two Huge Thumbs Up, keeping in mind that it's still a medium budget B-movie and not a major release. But it's really good, and it's very highly recommended so check it out. The picture is sharp but not razor.  ////

The previous night, we began another chapter serial, entitled "Daredevils of the Red Circle"(1939). The concept of the Megalomaniacal Criminal Mastermind was in vogue at that time; a one-man crime wave who could singlehandedly bring a city to it's knees (with the help of henchmen, of course). I don't know if the prototype was spawned by the first World War and the subsequent rise of Hitler, or the onrushing dominance of science, or all of those things, but the movies ran with the idea, and in this serial, an escaped convict who goes by his prisoner number 39013 is out to get the man who imprisoned him. 39013 spent fifteen long years in the joint and he's really cheesed off about it, enough to kill innocent people, but he likes to taunt the authorities by tipping them off in advance, because he knows they can't stop him. He's an evil genius. So, as the movie opens, his target is a circus act of daredevil high-diving brothers (Charles Quigley, David Sharpe and Bruce Bennett, all athlete/actors).

39013 alerts the press and the cops that he's gonna kill them during a performance, but the brothers go on anyway (the show must go on, donchaknow) and as they begin their combination high-wire and diving act, the pool they dive into bursts into flame. 390 has filled it with a flammable liquid. A conflagration results (with incredible special effects for 1939) and the youngest brother is killed. He was only 12 years old.

The other three brothers, all young adults, resign from performing and join forces with the law. They are out to avenge their little brother with the assistance of his dog Tuffy. Now, 390 has announced his latest target, an undersea tunnel connecting Catalina Island with the shore. It's the equivalent of the Chunnel, and he's gonna crack it with an offshore oil drilling rig, just when the engineer's granddaughter (Carol Landis) is presiding over the grand opening. This time, 390 has gone all out. He's impersonating the engineer with a rubber face mask and a fake English accent. And, he's got the engineer imprisoned in his secret basement laboratory! Apparently, though we don't yet know the details, the engineer is the man who sent him to prison. Now he's about to get his revenge. One of the Red Circle acrobats rides into the Catalina tunnel to check it for cracks, because as always, 390 has pre-announced his plans. and just as Carol Landis is riding in with her entourage, the ceiling in the tunnel cracks from the drilling, and the seawater rushes in. They're all gonna drown! So ends chapter one, and it's really good stuff. On the basis of that chapter alone, the series gets Two Big Thumbs Up, with the potential for Two Huge. It's highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp.  ////

That's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is Atomic Rooster once again, and my late night is Bruckner's 4th by Karajan. I hope you had a nice Saturday and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

Regis Toomey, Boris Karloff and Dorothy Revier in "Graft", and "The Shadow on the Window" starring John Drew Barrymore and Betty Garrett

Last night, we watched "Graft"(1931), a fast paced pre-Coder in which reporter "Dustin Hotchkiss" (Regis Toomey), out to prove himself to his editor, takes on corrupt contractor "M.H. Thomas" (William B. Davidson), a Trumpian figure with ties to the city government. The mayoral election is coming. Thomas wants his candidate to win over the crusading District Attorney, who promises to shut Thomas down if he's elected. As the movie opens, after Hotchkiss persuades his boss to let him tackle the story, Thomas's moll "Pearl Vaughan" (Dorothy Revier) storms out on him, tired of being his pet woman. She also threatens to go to the D.A. and tell him what she knows about Thomas's business practices. How come Melania Trump won't do the same? 

Thomas sends his henchman "Terry" (Boris Karloff) out to stop Pearl. "Don't hurt her. Just take her to my boat and moor it off the coast until the election is over." Terry does that, but he also shoots the D.A. dead, after Hotchkiss interviews him about the election. Now, Hotchkiss is chasing an even bigger story. The D.A.s daughter "Constance" (Sue Carol) teams up with him to solve her father's murder, and they find out about Pearl Vaughan, who's trapped offshore in Thomas's boat. Hotchkiss tracks her down, but Karloff catches him sneaking onboard. Now Thomas wants Horchkiss and Pearl both killed. It's a fast paced (if thin) story, featuring car chases in West L.A. and Santa Monica. The best character is the tough talking Vaughan, as played by Dorothy Revier, a great actress who also played the cheating wife of Boris Karloff in "Night World", which we saw and reviewed recently. She's reunited with him here, and he's trying to kill her again! We also like Out-Regis Toomey, and have been on an unintentional binge of him of late. He keeps turning up in these pre-Code films, and we like his nasal Dumb Guy delivery. He's pure 1930s palooka, not afraid to mix it up, yet overly sincere. Karloff is a sociopath here, authentically menacing, and IMDB says it was this role in "Graft" that got the attention of James Whale, who hired Boris for his monster in "Frankenstein". A short review, cause there isn't much more to tell, but "Graft" gets Two Big Thumbs Up and the picture is razor sharp, a 91 year old motion picture that looks like it could've come out today, with classic cars of the era. ////

The previous night, we found a home invasion drama called "The Shadow on the Window"(1957), and check out  this cast: little Jerry Mathers (one year before he became The Beav), sci-fi and soap star Philip Carey, the great Paul Picerini (criminally underused here), and....drum roll please......John Drew Barrymore, Drew's dad, who we've championed before. We've seen him play a number of types, and here, he's pulling a Martin Sheen as the leader of a trio of punks who've broken into an old farmer's house in West Covina when it was all citrus groves. They're doing an In Cold Blood (or "In Bold Crud" if you prefer Mad magazine's title), and it makes ya wonder if Capote saw this flick and was influenced, as his book and the subsequent movie came out in 1966, ten years later. Barrymore and his gang somehow know the old man has six gees stashed in a strongbox. They've assumed he lives alone, and they're right about that, but on this day, for some unexplained reason, he has a stenographer at the house (Betty Garrett), who has brought her little boy (Jerry Mather) along instead of hiring a babysitter.

Garrett is separated from her detective husband Philip Carey. As the movie opens, little Jerry is outside playing on a tractor in the farmer's field, when he hears his mother scream. He runs up to look in the windum of the title, and observes a most horrible scene, of which we only get a glimpse: the old man is getting clobbered. Unfortunately, it's described in all too graphic terms by Barrymore later on, but I'll spare you the details. The Beav is traumatised by what he sees, and runs away. We cut to a two-lane road that runs through the rural farm fields (and gives you an idea of what L.A. County once looked like). The Beav is walking down the road in a daze, in his cowboy hat and belt with plastic six guns. Two guys in a produce truck are stunned to see him all alone and pull over. Unable to get a word out of him, because he's gone catatonic, they drop him off at the vegetable warehouse, where the dispatcher calls the cops. One recognises him as Detective Carey's kid. They call him and he's down there in a jiffy. But even he can't get a word out of his boy. Carey takes him to the hospital, where the doc tries sodium pentothal. "It may take a little while, but eventually he'll talk. And he'll remember whatever it is that has him frightened."

Now that the setup is complete, the rest of the movie alternates between the hostage drama and the investigation. At the farmhouse, John Drew Barrymore turns up the heat. Had he not been plagued with drug and alcohol problems (a symptom of being a Barrymore) he could've been a star in any era, especially now. He's able to make the most of a somewhat simplistic psycho role (they never delve into what motivates him). The problem for him and his two numbskull buddies is that they thought the farmer would be alone. They thought they'd break in, steal his money, and leave before he even woke up. But not only was he awake when they got there; he fought them. And, Betty Garret the steno was there too. "Joey" (Gerald Sarracini), the big dumb guy of the gang, killed the farmer in a fit of rage after the farmer popped him with his cane. Instead of a simple robbery, now it's a murder case, and they are trying to figure out what to do with Betty Garrett. Barrymore and the blond smart aleck "Gil" (Corey Allen) want to kill her right there and now. "She can rat us out!" Big dumb Joey, who has Crazy Man huge-guy strength, says no. "Don't you touch her!" He's protective of Betty like King Kong, after destroying the farmer. Gil lives at home with his mother who has an alcoholic boyfriend, so he leaves on the premise that he's gonna return with the boyfriend's car. Then they can make their getaway in the wee morning hours, and take Garrett with them to Mexico. "Then we'll let her go", Gil tells Joey, to pacify him. But really they're gonna kill her. Meanwhile, at the hospital, The Beav has come out of his trance. He tells his Dad what happened, but he can't remember where the farm was. So, Carey piles Beav into a squad car and the other cops follow, and they make a search of the area where he was picked up by the truckers. But they're running out of time before the gang escapes.

All the dysfunctional bases are covered. You've got your juvenile delinquent criminals. Barrymore lives in a flophouse. Carey and Garrett have a broken marriage, he's a cop so she has custody. The Beav wishes they'd get back together. It's a touch too surface level, though. You wish they'd gone a bit deeper with the standoff, especially when the mailman and other strangers ring the doorbell. This should have consequences, otherwise why introduce it? But the inevitable conflict you'd expect between the gang and the intruders never materializes. For these reasons we're gonna give it Two Big Thumbs instead of Two Huge, but it's otherwise well directed and shot. A B-plus for Barrymore in this role. His best is still the crusading reporter in Fritz Lang's "While the City Sleeps." There are also a million investigational characters that keep the pace flowing - the movie never drags - but they detract from the deepening of the story. The picture is widescreen and razor sharp, so give it a watch and see what you think. But look for John Drew Barrymore wherever you can find him. He was an excellent actor.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is the classic "Timewind" by Klause Schultz and my late-night is "Rienzi" by Wagner. I hope your week is going well and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)    

Buster Crabbe, Al St. John and Charles King in "Shadows of Death", and "Crime Against Joe" starring John Bromfield and Julie London

We needed a Western fix, so we called on Buster Crabbe, who showed up with his sidekick Al "Fuzzy" St. John in tow and Charles King as the villain, in "Shadows of Death"(1945). Sam Newfield directed, making it like Old Home Week here at Movie Central, and the plot felt somehow familiar. Stop me if you've heard this one before. They're gonna run the railroad through the town of Red Rock, where Fuzzy is the sheriff, judge and barber. He's stretched pretty thin, so when "Billy Carson" (Buster) learns about the choo-choo plans, he figures there might be trouble, possibly an attempted land grab, so he rides into town to back Fuzzy up should he need it. The man delivering the railroad map in shot (in the back, of course) on his way to Red Rock, by - who else? - Charles King and his henchmen. King steals the map and opens a casino right next to the site of the proposed railroad station. He's posing as a Legitimate Businessman and suggests to Billy that "maybe that hothead Kincaid killed the map guy."

"Clay Kincaid" (Eddie Hall) is the town's gunslinger/gadabout. Billy likes him, but he's always popping off, and he's jealous of anyone who even looks at his gal "Babs Darcy" (Dona Dax). Billy takes King's advice and tracks Kincaid, even searches his house when he isn't home, but can't find the stolen railroad map anywhere. King, as always, is expert at playing the good guys off one another, so the next thing he does is tell Kincaid that Billy is trying to steal Babs, which sets up a series of punchouts. Of course, King gets caught in the end, but whenever that happens, in any of his movies, he always escapes out a window or back door and leaves his cronies to face the consequences. A good fifteen minutes of the hour-long movie are taken up with Fuzzy's hijinks, mostly at the barber shop, with shave-and-a-haircut mishaps, and a skinny, toothless guy who's trapped in the backroom bathtub. This isn't the best Buster/Fuzzy "Billy Carson" movie we've seen, and there's virtually no horse riding, which is unheard of in these films. Still, what little of the outdoors there is, is shot at Corriganville, and these three actors can't be beat. We missed our 60 minute Westerns and just had to watch one. We saw so many this year (over 150?) and we were running out of cowboys. Man, we saw all the greats: Tom Tyler, Johnny Mack Brown, Tim McCoy, Buster Crabbe, Buck Jones, Bob Steele, Tex Ritter....we saw 'em all, and we started to run out of movies. Well anyway, Two Big Thumbs Up for "Shadows of Death". I still want my Charles King T-Shirt! The picture is soft but watchable and it's highly recommended.  //// 

The previous night, we had another 1950s crime flick, this time with a psychological twist, entitled "Crime Against Joe"(1956). John Bromfield is Joe, an artist who lives with his mother. Joe's about 25, a Korean war vet suffering from battle fatigue - what they'd now call PTSD. He drinks to cope, and gets frustrated easily. He destroys his paintings when they don't meet his standards, but his mom stands by him no matter what, even when he goes out and gets hammered, which he does shortly after the movie begins. Upset by yet another substandard portrait (Joe paints women), he heads out with a goal, to bring home a "good woman" to meet mother. It's a philosophical quest; he wants to prove to himself, and by association to his Mom, that somewhere - maybe at the local bar - there's at least one good woman in the world. 

Joe is a sloppy but harmless drunk. After embarrassing himself and getting kicked out of several bars for bothering the ladies, he's driven home by his friend Red (Henry Calvin), a cab driver. Another friend named "Slacks" (Julie London), a carhop at the local drive-in, drives Joe's car home for him. He wakes up with a hell of a hangover, a sore jaw from getting decked by a bartender, and amnesia about where he was and what he did.

This doesn't bode well for Joe when the news comes in that a young woman was murdered during the night, in the neighborhood where Joe was barhopping. A high school class pin was found in the victim's hand; she pulled it off the killer. A detective visits Joe at home: "Weren't you in the class of '45, at such-and-such High? Where's your class pin? Do you still have it? And where were you at 2am?"

Joe can't answer those questions to the detective's satisfaction, and he quickly becomes suspect #1. But then, when his mind clears, he remembers something from his drunken night. While stumbling down the street, he came across a sleepwalking girl (Pat Blair). He helped her get home, and it was right around 2 am. Her Dad answered the door; he can vouch for Joe! But when the cops ask the man, he says it happened at 7:30. As we will see, Dad has a psychological problem that drives him to lie about the time. He hides his daughter's sleepwalking (incest is vaguely hinted at), and he's got an emotional hold over her so she will never marry and "desert" him. He's overprotective of her, and she's like a beautiful mannequin.

Joe is now charged with murder, but then Slacks the carhop comes to his rescue. She invents an alibi by telling the cops that she saw the murdered woman get in a car with "some cowboy". She swears by this, so the cops have to let Joe go, but the head detective tells him "we know you did it. we're gonna get other evidence and you'll be re-arrested again in no time."

Joe can't win. The townsfolk think he's a shell-shocked loser (a wishy-washy painter!) who lives with his Mom, and the cops think he's a psychotic murderer. They have their shrink psychoanalyse him, and of course the shrink twists things to how he wants them to sound. Now Joe is doubled-down as the main suspect. But still the cops can't hold him because of Slacks' false alibi. She invented it because she's secretly in love with Joe. This buys time for Joe and Slacks to conduct their own investigation, which they do by narrowing down possible suspects, based on how many males were in Joe's high school graduating class.

They come up with a final list of four men. Two are eliminated, leaving a local politician, and a loner who resented Joe in high school. Slacks takes a chance by interrogating him on her own. This turns out to be a huge mistake, though I can't tell you why. There's also a big twist that you may or may not see coming. I did see it, but then I second guessed it, because.......well, I can't tell you that, either! Let's just say that, with all of the psychological folderol unfolding, there are a number of potential murderers in town. Shot on location in Tuscon, Arizona, "Crime Against Joe" is a top notch B-thriller that is highly recommended. Two Bigs! The picture is razor sharp.  ////

And that's all I know. But I have to ask ya, what's the deal? You know me, I can't stand politics, but the one thing that gets me going is Trump. So what's the deal with Merrick Garland? When's he gonna indict him? Is the January 6th Committee ever gonna charge him? Time is gonna run out now that the Dems have lost the House. That committee's gonna close up shop in two more months. Is anybody gonna do anything to stop this guy, or is he gonna be the 2024 Republican nominee, after everything he's done? It really seems like he's Mr. Untouchable, when anyone else would've been sent to prison for several lifetimes. I kind of can't believe it, and I hope Merrick Garland proves me wrong, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. Well anyhow.......

My blogging music is Klause Schultze "Kontinuum", my late night is Mahler's 4th by Karajan. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):) 

The Return of Ron Foster! in "Cage of Evil", and "Vice Raid" starring Richard Coogan and Mamie Van Doren

Okay, admit it: never in your wildest dreams did you think we'd find another Ron Foster flick at this stage of the ballgame. But we did, which goes to show that nothing is impossible, you've just gotta keep the faith. The movie was "Cage of Evil"(1960). Foster stars as "Scott Harper", a good cop about to go bad (we learn this from a flat-voiced narrator). Harper is a hotshot whose hot temper keeps him from getting promoted. His captain tells him "if you could just stop beating up suspects, you might make lieutenant one day." He then gets an assignment that he's sure will boost his fortunes - a diamond heist stakeout in which he goes undercover as an out of town businessman. He ingratiates himself with "Holly Taylor" (Patricia Bair), the hostess of a nightclub whose boyfriend owns the joint and also heads up the diamond theft ring. As the cops have suspected, Holly is a kept woman and a forced player in the ring, who has to do as she's told or it's curtains. She's therefore desperate for outside help, which makes her an ideal wedge for the cops, but Harper can't keep his hands off her. She seduces him, now he's compromised. He keeps up a good front for the captain and the surveillance team, but he loses control when Holly begs him to kill her boyfriend. Harper cooks up an elaborate plan, in which Holly rents a motel room for a month and tricks the guy into going there to fence some diamonds. Then Harper appears and shoots him.

But what neither of them counted on was that Harper's partner was watching them the whole time. Now Harper has to kill him, too. He stages the scene to make it look like the partner and Holly's boyfriend were involved in a shootout, then he and Holly take the diamonds and make a run to Mexico, but the airport is staked out too. Diamonds and Lust have done Harper in; it's the end of a once-promising police career and the narrator laments his downfall. 

The deal-sealer here is Ron Foster. We got on his bandwagon last year after seeing him in classics like "The Music Box Kid" and "The Walking Target." Not only was he damn good in those pictures, he had an original look and style also. But the reason we noticed him in the first place is because he was a regular on "Highway Patrol", which we binge-watched before we ever saw him in a movie, and on that show, he was as plain-wrap a vanilla cardboard cutout cop character as to be almost invisible on the show; in fact the role would've made any other actor invisible. But for some reason, we kept asking, "who is that actor playing the vanilla guy?" And that's because Ron Foster is very talented, you can't help but notice him even when he's doing nothing but handing papers to Broderick Crawford. He's handsome but in a jagged way, and on edge, like he's pumped full of nicotine and trying to keep his cool. There's no one else like him, which is why we are big fans, and I think we said last year that we are the Tarantino of Ron Foster because we re-discovered him in the same way QT rediscovers actors like the similarly-named Robert Forster (a similarity I think we also mentioned). Anyway, as directed by Edward L. Cahn, the story is taut and involved, though the middle section is taken up with some overwrought ratcheting of the sexual tension. The closer Harper and Holly are to danger and the collapse of their getaway plan, the more they embrace and do that jaw-clenching thing that the Method Acting coaches teach, where the muscles flex in the throat while the lovers breathlessly make goo-goo eyes at one another. This type of thing worked better in movies from the 30-40s, Noirs especially, where the actors underplayed the tension and didn't do all that overwrought stuff. But in every other respect, Foster is first rate. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Cage of Evil". The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we had "Vice Raid"(1959),  a Cops-versus-The Syndicate tale, also directed by Cahn, in which "Detective Whitey Brandon" (Richard Coogan) is on a crusade to take down a prostitution ring run by "Vince Malone" (Brad Dexter) though his false-front modeling agencies. As with "Cage of Evil", the movie starts with Jack Webb-style "just the facts, ma'am" narration, informing the viewer that The Syndicate controls prostitution, gambling and narcotics, but that prostitution is the hardest to bring down because it involves the most concerted deception. This is demonstrated as Whitey and his partner stop a pimp getting off a Greyhound bus with a blonde. He says he just met her. "Yeah sure," Whitey says. "Both of you are going to jail if you don't tell me who's in charge of this racket." While Whitey is calling in the bust, his partner kills the pimp, making look like he tried to flee. The partner is in the pocket of Vince Malone, setting up an eventual showdown between him and Whitey.

Malone decides that Whitey is a thorn in his side. All the other cops take payoffs, why won't he? Well, it's because Whitey's sister committed suicide after getting caught up in another such ring. He thus has a personal vendetta against prostitution, but Malone doesn't know that and wouldn't care anyway. He just wants Whitey gone, but knows better than to have him killed because that would bring the full force of the police department down on him, so instead, he decides to frame Whitey. To do so, he calls a colleague from Detroit, who sends in his #1 hooker, "Carol Hudson" (Mamie Van Doren).

By this time, the captain has set Whitey up undercover as a professional photographer who specializes in figure models. He's trying to root out the modeling agencies controlled by Malone, and thereby bust the entire prostitution ring. The script makes it very clear how hard it is to arrest and convict The Mafia, because they cover their tracks, even though the whole world knows they're guilty (cough, trump). Carol Hudson comes to town, and when Whitey sees her at the modeling agency, he hires her for photos, not knowing she's a plant by Malone. During the photo shoot, she propositions him, and he shows her his badge and arrests her. But in court, she turns it around and says he propositioned her. The DA and Internal Affairs believe her side of the story, and now suddenly Whitey is suspended from the police force. The captain, however, knows he is telling the truth, and helps him go rogue, to  run his own private investigation off the books against Malone.

Meanwhile, Carol Hudson is liking her time in Los Angeles. As Malone's #1 gal, she's making more money than she did in Detroit, but then her kid sister shows up at her fancy new, paid-for apartment. Her sister is a fresh-faced '50s kid from Dubuque, Iowa, all pony tails, wool skirts and effervescence. She has no idea that big sister Carol is a prostitute, and Carol tries to shield her. But Carol is busy with the plan to frame Whitey Brandon, and one day Malone's henchman shows up at Carol's apartment while only her little sister is there. He rapes her and beats her up (it's brutal), and now Carol is 100% turned against Malone and the entire Syndicate. Money or no money, she's out to get them, and now she has something in common with Whitey: both have sisters who are victims of prostitution. Carol goes to the cops and offers her services to catch Malone and the henchman who raped her little sister. But to convict them - because the Mafia is so tricky (cough, trump), they need absolute proof, and the only way to do that is to tape record them. Carol will have to sneak a tape recorder into a meeting of Malone, Whitey and the Midwest Mafia bosses. Can she do it and remain alive? Director Cahn has a flair for these police dramas, which are intricately cut for B-movies. We've seen Mamie Van Doren several times now, and have mentioned that - when you get past her well-known physique - she's a pretty good actress for films of this type (even in non-bimbo roles). She was like Marilyn, smarter than she let on, and had a sense of humor about the whole Blonde Bombshell thing. Brad Dexter is good in the Malone role, slick and handsome but absolutely oozing slime. And Richard Coogan is appropriately hard-case as the angular Detective Whitey Brandon. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Vice Raid". The picture is razor sharp. Make it an Edward L. Cahn double-feature night. Both pictures are highly recommended.  //// 

That's all for tonight. My blogging music was Alan Parsons' "I Robot" and Atomic Rooster "In Hearing Of". Late night is Mahler's 7th. I hope you had a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Evalyn Knapp and Walter Byron in "Strange Marriage", and "The Phantom Creeps", a Chapter Serial starring Bela Lugosi

Last night's movie was "Strange Marriage"(1932), another pre-Coder, this time loosely written, almost improvised in places and very, very talky. Evalyn Knapp stars as "Mary Smith", who as the movie opens is in court following a prostitution sting operation. Talk about your pre-Code realism! Mary tells the judge she was standing on a street corner. "Do you do that often?" he asks, to the guffaws of spectators. Exasperated, she tries to explain that she was tired after walking around all day looking for a job. "And then you decided to look on the street corner?" the judge inquires. It's no use, he thinks shes a streetwalker. She admits she was arrested after "a car pulled over and a man asked me if I wanted to earn some money," but the judge sees that as solicitation. Mary accepted the offer and was busted because the man was a detective, now the judge is about to sentence her unless someone can vouch for her story. Suddenly a gentleman stands up and says: "I'll vouch for her; she's my fiance."

He's a tall handsome gent by the name of "Jimmy Martin"(Walter Byron). It isn't specified why he is in the courtroom. My guess is that he's checking out the streetwalkers who got arrested in the sting. Anyhow, he vouches for Mary, pretends he's her fiance, then the judge calls his bluff. "Well, then, you need to marry her right here and now or she goes to jail."

Jimmy, not wanting a pretty girl to slip away, agrees, and Mary, wanting to avoid six months in the slam, agrees also. 

Well, now they have to get to know each other, and the movie looks improvised here, with an extended pre-Code scene in which Jimmy tries to paw Mary in overly aggressive clinches, which she tries to squirm out of. He backs off, and they sit down and talk. Now that he's not grabbing her, she's more comfortable around her all-of-a-sudden husband, and she decides she likes him. But he has to go home, because his Momma is expecting him (it's another Smothering Mother movie), and not only that, so is his fiance!

Yes, Jimmy was on the hook before he married Mary, but his fiance is a phoney (though beautiful) society gal with a continental accent. You can picture the type. Her engagement to Jimmy was arranged by his mother and Jimmy wants out of it, another reason he spoke up for Mary in the courtroom. Now, he's starting to fall in love with her, but his best friend "Jack" (Jason Robards Sr.) is horning in. Jack's another rich boy who thinks gals are there for the pickin', all you have to do is choose one, so while Jimmy is back at home, trying to appease his mother, Jack goes to Mary's apartment and hits on her himself. He's that kind of guy, and when Jimmy returns, he sees Jack trying to kiss Mary and figures she's cheating on him already. Now he wants a divorce, thinking Mary is just a streetwalker after all.

Mary is heartbroken at Jimmy's decision and furious that he doesn't even bother to ask her side of the story. He divorces her and offers her a settlement. His mom is thrilled that Mary is out of his life and the society fiance is back in. As for Mary, she won't accept the divorce settlement money from "those people", so she takes a job at a movie theater to make ends meet. One night, a gal comes to the ticket booth and says, "Hey, you're Mary, aren't you? Remember me? I'm Nelly, from that day in court." Nelly (Marie Provost) is a prostitute who was also up on charges that day when Mary was nearly sent to jail. Now Nelly has a legit boyfriend, and wants to reconnect with Mary. When they both go to Mary's apartment after the movie, Mary tells Nelly she's pregnant. The baby is Jimmy's, but since they aren't married anymore, it's gonna be illegitimate. Super pre-Code alert! A divorce and an illegitimate baby! Nelly tells her she was crazy to have refused Jimmy's settlement money and calls his lawyer to tell him Mary wants it after all. The lawyer doesn't know Nelly and thinks it might be a ruse, so he has Jimmy deliver it in person on the condition that is has to be accepted and signed for by Mary. Jimmy arrives slightly tipsy, because he's nervous about seeing her again, which leads at first to an argument between the two of them, and then an emotional talk, in which Jimmy finds out that Mary never invited nor accepted Jack's advances toward her that day. Jimmy only saw the kiss, but he didn't see Mary trying to push Jack away. The ending is happy. Jimmy and Mary tie the knot again (and their baby is now legit), and Jimmy tells his mom and Jack to stuff it. We're awarding the movie Two Big Thumbs because of its overall likability (characters, story, pre-Codeness), but be prepared for a truckload of jabbering, and a few unnecessary scenes. 10 minutes could and should have been cut from the 68 minute running time, but even so, it's too well-meaning to dismiss. Watch it for Marie Provost's performance, she steals the show. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we began another chapter serial: "The Phantom Creeps"(1939) starring Bela Lugosi as - what else? - a Mad Scientist inventing gadgets that will allow him to Run Za Velrd! To begin with, he's got one of the ugliest and scariest robots in the history of Mad Scientist movies, a big, blocky thing with a giant sized Chinese/Voodoo-lookin' head that makes it look like an evil god. Lugosi's assistant - an ex-con - is terrified of the robot and begs Bela not to let it out of it's cell, but Bela assures him there's no danger. "Vatch," he says, then demonstrates his new remote control for the robot, allowing him to dictate it's moves. The assistant is pacified, and Bela then shows him his new invisibility belt, "Vich vill allow me to break in to za bank ven vee need funds. I can also listen in on police meetings, to see if zey are getting suspicious." He's a regular Dr. Mabuse, a one-man crime wave.

Well, he is right to be paranoid, because he is under surveillance by law enforcement, but it ain't the city cops, it's the Feds. He gets vord of this from a broker who sells his lesser gadets to foreign countries, and he and his assistant, and the robot, move the lab and it's entire contents to Zee Basement of his mansion - they complete the move in one night, thanks to the big-ass robot, a strong mofo.

Bela plans to be absent when the Feds raid his mansion, and whilst driving on PCH, he and his assistant spot a man hitchhiking who looks just like him. "Vee can use zat guy!" Bela says, but no sooner do they pick him up, then a drunk driver runs them off the road and the hitchhiker is killed in the accident. Lugosi gets an idea, to fake his own death. He plants his drivers licence on the man, leaves him with the crashed car, and when the cops come and alert the Feds, they assume the dead man is Lugosi. But one agent isn't so sure. He wants to bring in Bela's wife to identify the body. Lugosi knows that she'll know it's not him, so he uses another of his gadgets - a spider that can put it's victim into suspended animation - to knock her out so she won't be able to identify the body. But the problem is, she's in an airplane, and the spider bites the pilot instead and the plane goes into a tailspin. That ends Chapter One, with the plane about to crash with Lugosi's Vife on board. Sounds like a good one, eh? We recently finished "S.O.S. Coast Guard", which also starred Bela and, as an added bonus, featured Richard Alexander as his gigantic, lobotomised henchman. That one was excellent and gets Two Bigs. Chapter Serials rule!

And that's all I have for tonight. I hope your weekend is off to a good start. My blogging music is once again Atomic Rooster, this time the "Made in England" album. I'm on a mini-binge with them, never having heard much of their music before, and while it does sound "of its time" in some ways, it's quite good in that context. And Vincent Crane is a top-notch organist. My late-night is still "Parsifal" by Richard Wagner, I finished "Fairy Tale" by Stephen King and deem it a masterpiece, and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxo  :):)

Barbara Stanwyck and Regis Toomey in "Shopworn", and "Jungle Bride" starring Charles Starrett and Anita Page

Last night we watched our very own Barbara Stanwyck in one of her earliest pictures, "Shopworn" (1932). Barbara plays "Kitty Lane, a young woman of low station who lives with her father, a railroad worker. When he is killed in a dynamite accident, she goes to stay with her "Aunt Dot" (Zasu Pitts), who works as a waitress at her friend Fred's burger joint. Kitty takes over as waitress and is an instant success (Stanwyck is very cute here at 24, with a mane of hair, an overbite and a slight lisp). The male patrons hit on her, and having grown up around men on her Dad's railroad crew, she's an expert at rebuffing their advances. The guy she's attracted to is the one who says nothing. "David Livingston" (Regis Toomey) just sits in his booth, eating his hamburger and reading an anatomy book. Kitty finds him intriguing because he ignores her. He's not rude, just studying to become a doctor.

But one night she sits down with him to see what makes him tick. As total opposites, they hit it off, and soon they're dating. Then David brings her home to meet his mother, for whom he has a surprise announcement: "Mom, this is Kitty. We're going to be married." This happens fast, and there's a lot of montage in this film because the story takes place over a decade and the running time is 67 minutes. Anyhow, David's mother is upset at his sudden engagement. She instantly dislikes Kitty, not because of anything Kitty has said or done, but because she's a waitress. She thinks David is marrying beneath him.

Mrs. Livingston's dislike of Kitty sets into motion her ruthless determination to prevent the marriage, first by  faking a stroke, so that David will feel obligated to accompany her to Europe to "recover". When that doesn't work, because David invites Kitty along, Mrs. Livingston next has her lawyer file a court petition accusing Kitty of violating a morals clause (not specified), in the days when you could have someone committed to an asylum or otherwise "sent away" if you were wealthier or more powerful than they were. Mrs. Livingston's court action results in Kitty getting sent to a women's reformatory, where she's at the mercy of a harsh matron, who orders her to scrub floors and otherwise heaps her with abuse. When she gets out, she has nowhere to go, but sees a sign on Broadway advertising for "dancers wanted". Here is where the story kind of mirrors Barbara Stanwyck's life because she began her showbiz career as a dancer after an extremely difficult childhood. In the movie, this is where the use of montage makes it's biggest jump. Because of the short, hour-plus running time, the filmmakers needed to cover some ground quickly, so within 30 seconds of Kitty getting out of the reformatory and seeing that sign, she's now the most famous dancer in New York - the toast of the town who owns her own nightclub.

Six years have passed. One night, David Livingston comes to see her act, but she hates him now because when she was sent to the reformatory, the lawyer made it look like David agreed with his mother's legal actions and broke off their engagement. But he didn't break it off, and actually had nothing to do with what happened. It was always his treacherous momma's doing. Kitty and David eventually work out their differences, and their engagement is back on again, but Mrs. Livingston ain't gonna let the matter drop. Successful Broadway career or not, Kitty is still a "shopworn" girl to her, and she isn't gonna let David marry her. This is one of those Smothering Mother movies that were common in the '30s, and it has layers on top of the central conflict that give it depth, such as the subplot concerning Kitty's hugely successful dancing career, and a suitor from France who competes for her hand, but the real draw is seeing Stanwyck at such a young age, already showing the talent that would make her a top star. She has some explosive scenes in the film that made me wonder if she was drawing on her childhood for inspiration. "Shopworn" gets Two Big Thumbs Up and a high recommendation. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

Here's a question for ya: do you remember Charles Starrett? He was one of our first cowboy stars, when we initially got into B-westerns about four years ago. You might recall he played "The Durango Kid" in a series of movies in the '40s. I bought the box set and we watched the whole thing; we thought Starrett was great as the black-masked, gunslinging Kid. He looked just a little weathered in those films; lots of stars smoked and drank in the old days, but how about Charles Starrett as a young, very handsome adventure star, even a romantic lead? That's what he is in our previous night's movie: "Jungle Bride"(1933), where he co-stars with early blonde superstar Anita Page who plays the bride in question. As the movie opens, Starrett and Page are on a ship, bound for a foreign shore, but they aren't sailing together; quite the opposite. She's the sister of a man convicted of murder, he's the man who, the papers say, is the real killer, who got away with killing a policeman and framed her brother for the job. Now, Starrett is trying to get away from the press, and the accompanying public persecution, by sailing to wherever the ship is going (not specified). But he can't get any peace, because Anita and her boyfriend are dogging him. Her boyfriend is a top reporter, who is trying to expose Starrett as the killer. On the ship, he swears to Anita that he will bring Starrett to justice and see him fry in the electric chair.

That night, the captain throws a party. Everyone gets drunk, and Starrett strums his guitar. He starts to tell a story, which will explain his side of the murder, but just then, there's chaos on deck and in the ship's boiler room. The first mate spots a reef, but too late - the ship runs into it and sinks. The in-rushing water is a tremendous special effect for an early, medium budget movie. I asked myself how they did it. Must've built the set below a pool or water tank, but even that wouldn't explain the high pressure flow.

Anyhow, the ship sinks, but Starrett survives, along with - naturally - Anita Page and her reporter boyfriend, and Eddie the first mate. The four of them are in the same lifeboat, which ends up on a beach in Africa. With little to survive on (and no Gilligan, Skipper or Professor) they venture into the jungle to set up camp.

Much conversation ensues as they take stock of their situation. Competition for Page begins as alpha male Starrett starts to assert himself to the accusing reporter. Of course, with survival on the line, she responds by siding with Starrett, especially after he fights a lion to save her life, while two chimps applaud from a tree. We get some African stock footage of various wild animals, including hyenas and hippos and leopards, then the movie alternates between the relative downtime of trying to repair the lifeboat, and the chest-puffing of the reporter, who knows he's losing his gal, and Charles Starrett, who is holding onto a secret about the murder case. He knows Page's brother is guilty - he witnessed the shooting of the policeman - but he absolutely will not tell her because, as he says to Eddie the first mate, "her brother is her whole world. She loves him. I won't disillusion her."

The reporter keeps trying to pick fights (like Jonesy and Ralph Meeker in "Lost Flight"), and eventually a boat floats up offshore. It's half of the sunken ship! The captain is still aboard, barely alive! Anita asks him to marry her and Starrett, and because it's legit (ship captains can do that) he marries them, then dies. The reporter is furious. He's ready to kill Starrett now. Then a rescue ship shows up, alerted by the fire of the Captain's requested Viking funeral pyre. "Jungle Bride" is one heck of an entertaining pre-Coder, with lots of Adam and Eve and Darwin jokes regarding the goofy chimps. Also, Anita Page takes her shirt off, in true pre-Code style. Two Bigs! The picture is very good.  ////

And that's all I know for tonight. I'm glad the election is over. Now I don't have to recycle all those cardboard candidate flyers anymore. What's that? Oh yeah.....the flyers were cardboard, too. Ha! Man, that's a riot. My blogging music tonight was "Death Walks Behind You" by Atomic Rooster, and my late night is "Parsifal" by Wagner. I highly recommend "Fairy Tale" by Stephen King, one of his best, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Grace Bradley and Mantan Moreland in "Sign of the Wolf", and "Manhattan Tower" starring Mary Brian, Clay Clement and Noel Francis

Last night, we watched "Sign of the Wolf"(1941), which I found on a Youtube horror movie channel. Whoever uploaded it obviously didn't bother to watch it first, because it isn't a werewolf flick, but about German Shepherd dogs, based on a book by Jack London. That was no problem of course, because we love dog movies. In this one, "Judy Weston" (Grace Bradley) is a trainer of champion Shepherds "Smokey" and "Shadow". She's flown them to a competition in her private plane, accompanied by her assistant "Ben" (Mantan Moreland). Smokey does well at the show and is about to take home a blue ribbon, but is then disqualified when his kennel partner Shadow picks a fight in front of the judges. Smokey retaliates, costing him the championship. Another owner offers to buy Shadow from Judy, to take him off her hands, and she accepts, but Ben loves Shadow and can't bear to see him go, so he sneaks him on board the plane before they depart, and before he can be sold.

Up in the air, they encounter a schtorm. Judy is forced to crash land in what I imagine is the Yukon, given Jack London's writing turf, "Call of the Wild" and all that. When the plane crashes, Judy is seriously injured. Ben is luckier, escaping with just a bump on the head. Smokey jumps from the wreckage and runs off into the woods, while Shadow - who was hidden in the luggage compartment - frees himself and runs to get help. Through the wilderness he finds a fox farm, run by "Rod Freeman" (Michael Whalen) and his nephew "Billy" (Darryl Hickman), with "Beulah" (Louise Beavers) as their cook. Shadow barks to get their attention, and Rod follows him out to the plane wreck, where he rescues Judy and Ben.

Back at Rod's place, the village doctor tends to Judy, and it looks like she's going to recover, but she'll need a long rest. Rod is at first hesitant to let her and Ben stay there, however, because of Shadow. "I can't have a dog around my foxes." But Ben promises him that Shadow won't cause trouble, and Billy loves shadow at first sight, so Rod lets them stay while Judy is recovering. Ben can't bring himself to tell her that Smokey is lost in the woods, but she eventually finds out when Beulah inadvertently spills the beans. By that time, a pair of poachers find Smokey and take him back to their cabin. One of them recognizes him from a "missing" poster Rod has put up. "Hey, ain't this the dog there's a reward for?" "Yep", says his partner, "500 dollars, but he's worth $100,000 if we can get him to empty them fox kennels." From the poster, the poachers know that Smokey is a dog show champion. He's already trained to jump walls from his competitions, so they work from there and teach him to retrieve pelts, with meat as a reward. Smokey is soon adept, and now the poachers are ready to have him do the real thing, to hop the kennel fence at Rod's farm, and kill and bring back all his foxes. Smokey is gonna make them rich, and the kicker for the poachers is that, if anyone gets wise, they can blame it all on Shadow, who is staying with Judy and Ben at Rod's place and who has already been observed running through the woods.

By now, Rod's nephew Billy is bonded to Shadow and taken him for his own. It's full-on Boy and his Dog time, so when the poachers blame the fox stealing on Shadow, and Rod decides to put him down, Billy stands in the way. "No! I won't let you shoot him!" Sooner or later, Shadow (who began as the second banana to Smokey) was always gonna become the Hero Dog, and when Billy saves him from execution, he runs off to the poacher's cabin, where Smokey is still imprisoned. Rod and the other villagers follow, with rifles, and the poachers are caught red-handed. Shadow and Smokey are reunited, and at first Judy (now fully recovered) is ready to fly home.

But you can't have a Dog Movie end like that, so when Billy says he doesn't want anyone to leave, Judy, Ben and the doggies stay, and everyone becomes one big family.

"Sign of the Wolf" is my kind and your kind of movie, and it's nice to see Mantan Moreland in a different kind of role, still comic but on the sentimental side. Two Big Thumbs Up then, and a high recommendation. The picture is soft but watchable.  ////

The previous night's flick was "Manhattan Tower"(1932), a very pre-Code pre-Coder in which lives converge in a New York City skyscraper, many of them at the Consolidated Products Company, where "Mary Harper" (Mary Brian) works as a secretary to the lascivious "Mr. Burns" (Clay Clement). Mary's boyfriend "Jimmy Duncan" (James Hall), doesn't like what he sees in the lobby. "Why do you let him put his arm around you?" he asks. "I have to go along to get along, Jimmy," she tells him, "if I wanna keep my job. It's no big deal, he's my boss, he means nothing to me." Jimmy works in the tower's basement, in the power plant. His buddies rib him about Mary and Mr. Burns until he threatens to one day go up to the penthouse office suites and punch Mr. Burns' lights out. But mostly, he just wants to marry Mary. They have their hearts set on a house with a $1500 down payment and they've got a gee saved; all they need is $500 more. Mary secretly asks Mr. Burns for investment advice, and gives him the thousand dollar savings to put down on a stock he recommends.

Shortly after she goes back to her desk, Burns' lawyer enters his office to tell him that the stock has hit bottom. He's broke. Worse, his wife is seeing her lawyer for a divorce, because he's been cheating on her (he's a serial cheater). In fact, though he's had his eye on Mary, she's a tad too prim and proper for him. So  he turns his attentions to her secretarial partner "Marge Lyon" (Noel Francis). Marge is a sassy blonde who on that day has worn a party dress to work. She "didn't have time to change" because she was out till the crack of dawn. "But I made it to work on time," she tells Mr. Burns with a seductive wink. He likes it: she's exactly his kind of girl, and there's a line about her dress at about the 11 minute mark that's as pre-Code as it gets. Now, Marge is no pushover. She's been waiting for Mr. Burns to notice her, and now that he has, she's all over him, and soon she's got him wrapped around her finger. He likes her "initiative", and has her constantly running to his office for "important meetings". Actress Noel Francis plays Marge perfectly, with a combination of hip-swinging swagger and gum-snapping wisecrackery. Marge is one of those chicks who's hair is always messed up and who is always adjusting her dress, which in another very pre-Code scene, the men of the office are trying to look under. 

But there's also bad stuff going on. A bank in the tower is the other main plot setting. This bank is the most powerful financial institution in NYC, but in a board meeting with its president "Mr. Geller" (Emmett King), we learn that, through bad investments, the bank is about to go broke. Mr. Geller pleads with his board members to keep it a secret, to avoid a run on the bank. "Gentlemen, we know finance. If you'll give me the chance, with your help I can dig us out of this."

But there's a pill popping "dizzy" secretary (Irene Rich) who can't keep her mouth shut, and a newspaperman finds out about the bank's insolvency. Mary the secretary finds out that Mr. Burns has lost her money through the bad investment, and now she and Jimmy can't make the down payment on their house. Burns' wife begs him for a divorce but he won't grant it because he married her for her money. Marge the blonde hottie secretary is only interested in Burn's continued interest in her; she gets a big shock when she's tossed aside like last night's stockings, when Burns' wife shows up with divorce leverage, i.e. blackmail.

Sooner or later, this potboiler is gonna explode, and it does when the newspaper reporter hears from the dizzy secretary that the bank is gonna go under. Then it's front page news and there's a run on the bank, exactly what Mr. Geller was fearing. That's the big climax, and it parallels the Crash of 1929, but centers on the plight of Mr. Burns, who has Mary in his office when the news comes down. She wants her money back, then her boyfriend Jimmy enters, which results in a colossal fight between him and Mr. Burns, and when it's over....

But that's all I can tell ya. "Manhattan Tower" plays out in a style of mostly light comedy mixed with mildly confrontational dramatics, until the end. The movie seeks to entertain, and it does because it's constantly on the move, but it makes it's points along the way, about risky finance and male chauvinism. Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is very good.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is the first Atomic Rooster album and Colosseum II "Strange New Flesh". Late night is "Tristan und Isolde" by Wagner. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)