Last night, we found a gritty crime thriller from New York called "Violated"(1953). There's a killer on the loose in Brooklyn. His trademark is to cut off a lock of his victim's hair. We don't see his face, just his hand and a pair of scissors. He strangles young women, prostitutes mostly. The cops keep pulling in every known sex offender for questioning, but they just can't find the right man.
The plot also follows "Susan Grant" (Vicki Carlson), a nice young woman who aspires to become a fashion model. While on the Manhattan ferry, she meets a professional photographer named "Jan Verbig" (William Holland). He offers her a sitting, and she takes him up, but when she gets to his studio the following week, there's a more experienced model being photographed. Verbig knows this gal personally and seems to have a thing for her, so Susan gets put on the back burner. Meanwhile, another young woman has been found murdered in Central Park, with her hair cut. Susan is not deterred. She tells her mom she wants to be a cover girl. Mom asks if she's "coming on" to Verbig. "Of course not, mama. Our relationship is strictly professional." She does idolize him, though; he's "Continental", sophisticated, and he takes excellent pictures. But he's got her on hold because he really wants to photograph the other model, whose name is "Lili Damar" (Lili Dawn). Verbig keeps asking Lili out. "I like ya but you can't afford me," she tells him. By night, she's an exotic dancer.
The cops detain an older man, a recently paroled sex offender, who claims he has nothing to with the murders. As part of his probation, he's under the care of a psychiatrist, but we still see him getting off the bus and following young girls all over town. The punchline becomes telegraphed after a certain point, but it's a well made film, despite the fact that there aren't any well known actors (or even semi well known). This appears to be an independently financed flick, maybe made with local actors - all of whom are good - and the director knows what he's doing and even gets in an Expressionistic scene, reminiscent of "M", when the murdalizer is being chased down. That sequence looks like it came from a 1920s German horror movie. The guy made an arty crime film, but he copped it from Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom", for certain. Its apparently a cult favorite, and we give it Two Bigs verging on Two Huge despite it's low budget. There's also lots of good location shooting in Brooklyn circa 1953. The picture is medium good. ////
The previous night, we watched a Poverty Row pre-Code adventure film hodgepodge entitled "Picture Brides"(1934). The Skipper's Dad stars as "Mr. Von Luden", the big Dutch owner of a diamond mine in the Amazon jungle. His mine workers are all wanted fugitives from other countries. Von Luden has an arrangement with them to keep the police away. "I control the riverboats. They can't get here." He even lets one guy (Outregis Toomey) buy a stake in the mine. Von Luden keeps his men happy (and makes extra money) by shipping over "picture brides", ladies who want to get married for legal reasons (I don't know what they are, maybe pregnancy, it isn't said). They get a marriage certificate without the hassle of having a husband.
The picture brides are shipped over and assigned a mine worker fugitive, to whom they'll be legally married. The deal is that they they will then be taken back to their home countries. A native gal resents all the "white women". "What?", she complains, "Laoma not good enough for you?"
Toomey has a 5k reward out for him; a henchman has brought Von Luden the wanted poster. A gang of American bounty hunters are trying to get to the mine and find him, but the problem is that this is a 62 minute movie that should've been cut to 50 (okay, 51). Because in the early going, it looks improvised. There's a lot of short scenes of characters getting drunk in a nightclub and slurring their words for laughs. "Mame Smith" (Dorothy Mackaill) is the innocent girl among the brides, naive about what she's in for. In pre-Code shorthand - for the stuff they can't say in the dialogue - it's insinuated on the voyage over, by other more sophisticated gals, that Mame is gonna have to put out for the man she "marries". She was expecting to just get hitched and head home.
The movie gets serious around the 45 minute mark, meaning you get 17 minutes of actual plotting. This flick was directed by Phil Rosen, a notable helmsman of the era, and someone wrote a synopsis at IMDB that describes in detail what is happening as if it was taken from an adventure novel. He or she must've gotten their cliff notes from whatever studio produced this flick, because - from my vantage point - you couldn't have gleaned these details from what is being said and shown onscreen. Sometimes with these super cheapies, you only get the gist of what is going on, because of poorly articulated and underwritten dialogue, combined with poor editing, pacing, etcetera. This film was made to be cranked out and gotten into theaters, because in those days, movies were changed every Wednesday (according to my Mom, whose folks briefly owned a movie theater). Now, we love Poverty Row, because they usually have something to make a picture interesting, and this one does too toward the end. But it feels like they're goofing around for the first 45 minutes. You'll find yourself mostly looking at the beautiful picture brides, and that is probably what Rosen was intending, instead of trying to make something of the script.
The Skipper's Dad does a very good Dutch accent, therefore Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is soft but watchable. ////
And that's all I've got for this evening. Have you had enough rain yet? Bring back the drought already, good grief. My blogging music is John Mayall's Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, my late night is Handel's Scipione Oratorio. How about them Chargers? (not). I hope you are enjoying your weekend and I send you Tons of Love as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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