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 :):)
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