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 :):)
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