Richard Burton and Joan Collins in "Sea Wife", and "Double Confession" starring Derek Farr and Peter Lorre

Last night's movie was "Sea Wife"(1957), an intriguing title for an offbeat adventure story, starring Richard Burton as "Michael Cannon", an Englishman in Singapore during the war. We first see him after that, residing at the St. James Club in London, posting classified ads to someone he calls "Sea Wife". The advertisements seem to be written in a private language. He signs off as "Biscuit," his own coded moniker, but when Sea Wife doesn't answer, he grows dismayed until he receives a response from a convalescent home requesting his immediate presence.

The message isn't from Sea Wife but an ailing, bearded chap named "Bulldog" (Basil Sydney). Bulldog has seen Michael's ads in the paper and they've stirred up unhappy memories. He's suffering these days, can't get up from his easy chair, but he becomes animated upon Michael's arrival and begs him, "Please, you've got to let this go. Sea Wife is gone. You'll never find her. I did the best I could. If I die, please tell them I did the best I could!". It's clear there's a secret between the two, and that Bulldog has a guilty conscience.

He grows delirious in reminiscing, but before the nurse enters the room to kick Michael out, Bulldog continues, and we relive their tale through flashback until the end of the movie.

Cut to Singapore, 1942: Bulldog and Michael are separately rushing to board a cargo/passenger ship leaving for England. There aren't many berths left. Bulldog has a reservation, but he's late and it's been filled. However, he tries to talk his way on, and being a pushy, arrogant type, he gets his way with the ship's purser, who offers to kick the replacements out as his request. But Bulldog rescinds his demand upon seeing that his room's been taken by a Nun (Joan Collins) and the children in her care. Michael obtains a last-second spot in the ship's hold, with barely enough room to lie down. Then, fifteen minutes into  the picture, the ship is hit by a Japanese torpedo. Into the lifeboats they go, women and children first, with Michael and Bulldog ending up in a rubber raft, along with the Nun, who - because she's had her habit torn off in the chaos - just seems a civilian to the men, albeit a very pretty one. As they are rowing to safety, they pick up the ship's purser, a Negro, causing some unspoken tension with Bulldog, whose racism lurks beneath the surface.

For the next twenty minutes, you've got your basic Four In a Raft survival motif, seen in various films. Delirium alternates with hours of lucidity. Water and biscuits are rationed, and we now know how Michael gets his nickname. In fact, they all acquire such names, coined by one another. The black purser is called Number Four because he was the last guy on the boat. He, in turn, names Joan Collins "Sea Wife" after watching her swim. "A sea wife is a mermaid," he tells Michael, aka "Biscuit", who is infatuated with Sea Wife and doesn't know she's a Nun. This quickly becomes the theme of the movie, with Richard Burton using his Shakespearean diction, always paused for effect, to utter the name Sea Wife at every opportunity. Burton to screenwriter: "Could you add a few more 'Sea Wifes' to this scene? I haven't said it enough times." While floating in the middle of the ocean, they are stunned one night to almost be capsized by the very Japanese submarine that sunk their ship. It's Captain is willing to let them row away and not kill them, but Number Four begs, in Japanese, for food and water, and a negotiation for survival  ensues. The Captain agrees to give them a big bucket of water and a carton of food, but that's all, no rescue, and these provisions end up getting washed overboard in a schtorm after all that effort. 

The quartet do The Delirious Thing again, and wind up passed out, starving and thirsty as their raft reaches an island, but gets torn to shreds on the rocks. Now we're in full-on Gilligan Mode, as they gather coconuts and build a palm-frond shelter. Pretty soon, Number Four finds a Japanese machete buried in the sand, and sharpens it, but decides to keep it for himself. Biscuit has by now fallen in love with Sea Wife. Lots of time is spent observing the two of them in the jungle, as he utters compelling Sea Wife lines: "Oh, Sea Wife, I shall follow you forevermore, as I ponder your Christian name. What is it, Sea Wife? Tell me who you are!" This is Richard Burton turned loose, but he's good, unlike in Exorcist II. Sea Wife, however, refuses to answer his questions, or let on that she's a Nun, because she's conflicted between romance and her vows.  

Meanwhile, Number Four is building a raft, Professor-style. They're gonna try and take the current into the shipping lanes, ala Jonesy and Ralph Meeker, but then Bulldog pulls a stunt I can't reveal. It has to do with Number Four's increasing belligerence and his possession of the knife, but Bulldog's action, and a particular line of dialogue, would never pass muster in today's Woken Cancel Culture "pretend it isn't real" world where you erase anything you don't like, including prejudice.

In real life, when you cancel prejudice, all it does is go underground. At least this strange script tells it like it is, and it's brutal on both sides. But then Bulldog tries to justify his actions at the end, in the Convalescent Home scene. He tries to redeem himself, also, by telling Michael that Sea Wife is dead. "She died on the rescue ship." But is that the truth? Two Huge Thumbs Up. An unusual film, despite the familiar themes, and as noted in reviews of some of her other early movies, Joan Collins was quite the sensitive young actress. Forget her image as the Dynasty bimbo. She was very talented (as was sister Jackie) in her early career. The picture is widescreen, slightly soft, and in color. Highly recommended.  ////

The previous night, proving that bigger budgets and A-list names don't equal more coherent plots, we give you "Double Confession"(1950), a murder mystery set on the English coast, co-starring Peter Lorre in Full Creepout Mode, and directed by a young Ken Annakin, who would go on to make such blockbusting classics as "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines,"The Longest Day", and "Battle of the Freaking Bulge." He also had the character of Annakin Skywalker named after him, and though George Lucas denies it, it's gotta be true; where else have you ever heard the name Annakin (and he's a fellow director, the kind Lucas would've looked up to). My Dad showed a 16mm print of "The Longest Day" at my 8th birthday party. Some of the kid's Moms wouldn't let them stay. Poor kids.

Anyway, one thing about Ken Annakin, like Spielberg (another likely Annakin fan) he sure can put pictures on the screen. The problem here is the schcript, usually the first thing you can blame when it comes to a troublesome movie. A good script can cover bad direction, but not vice versa. And it's not that this script is terrible, per se, or even convoluted (though it is that). It's just straight-up inexplicable, and I defy anyone, even all the IMDBers who've contributed to giving it a 6.4 rating, to tell me what the secret of the plot was all about.

As it opens, a cuckolded man named "Jim Medway" (Derek Farr) is hiking down a rocky seaside cliff at 4 am, looking for The White Cottage, which must be imagined in capital letters because the screenwriter intends it as a beacon for what is about to take place. It's another Greenhilly trip without the laughs, Mr. Cherrywood.

And incidentally, is that your real name, or not?

Anyhow, Medway runs into an Old Salt on the cliff, who directs him to The White Cottage after telling him to watch his step before he falls over the edge. "What're ye doin' here at 4 in the mornin'?"

He wants to spy on the cottage, and we'll find out why later on.

In the morning, a maid screams. A woman is dead in The Cottage, and police find a second body bobbing in the surf near the shore, that of a man named "Charlie Durham" (William Hartnell). If you can tell me who he is, you can take over this column. Due to his undefined relationship to anyone in the movie, his name, when mentioned later on, only serves to confuse, because - wait a minute - it's not Charlie Durham whose body has been found, it's someone else. Who the heck fell off the doggone cliff, then? 

Well anyhow, the movie now focuses on Medway, the estranged husband of the dead woman at The White Cottage. She was a sleeparound gal, so naturally, suspicion falls on him. He heads to the beach, where we'll spend a lot of time, and where Ken Annakin will soak up the atmosphere. There, Medway will meet "Ann Corday" (Joan Hopkins), a pretty, single woman with two kids, who will serve as a romantic distraction while also playing savior to the police-hounded Medway. He knows the cops will eventually come looking for him, because it's his wife who was killed, so he decides to schpend his last day of freedom at the beach, and at a carnival with Ann, but he also goes to the nearby Primrose Bar, a swanky club run by Charlie Durham again, whom he tells to his face he's gonna frame for his wife's murder. "I killed her, but the cops will think you did it, because I can prove you were sleeping with her." Durham's best friend is "Paynter" (Peter Lorre), who, we later find out, owns The White Cottage. Lorre is in Psycho Killer mode and tries to run over Medway and Ann with a speedboat in the ocean. He's doing it for Durham, who once saved his life, and when Durham objects ("I don't want any murders!), Lorre looks downright dejected.

Meanwhile, reporter "Hilary Boscombe" (Ronald Howard) is hot on the trail. Medway asks him for a job as an assistant journalist, and if you aren't confoosed yet, hang in there: you will be. Three screenwriters = too many cooks, broth spoiled.

On the beach, and on the midway carnival rides, Ken Annakin keeps showing us a man, wife and small child who are playing with a toy boat. Boy, is he fascinated with this family. They're only in the movie for atmosphere, and so Annakin can make an individual directorial stamp, and hey! - at least they provide relief from the twin yawners of the tension-breaking romance, and the mind-dumbing brick wall of a plot. (That's mind-dumbing, not mind-numbing).

Is Jim Medway out for revenge, or is Peter Lorre trying to confess to the same set of murders? Who was the man who fell off the cliff? Believe me, that will be your Question Number One when the movie's over.

Having said all of that, it's actually a good flick, very well made and acted, with great photography and setting. But the plot? Your guess is as good as mine. Let's give it Two Bigs because it looks good and Lorre is a certified whack job. The picture is razor sharp. //// 

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is Rick Wakeman's latest album "Gallery of the Imagination" (really good!), my late night is Handel's Rodelinda Opera. I hope your week is off to a good start, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)  

Charles Farrell and Norma Parnell in "Operation Cupid", and "The Large Rope" starring Donald Huston

Last night, we found another very funny wind-up comedy called "Operation Cupid"(1960), in which three mugs, down on their luck after getting cheated out of their winnings at the race track, try to re-alicecoop their losses upon meeting a gullible rich gent at the pub. "Mr. Cupid" (Charles Clay) fancies a game of poker. "I'm not very good at it" he tells the men, who are not unlike a British Three Stooges, in manner if not in looks. Mr. Cupid invites the trio back to his house. "What's the worst that could happen?" he asks "Charlie" (Charles Farrell), their leader. "I've already lost 5000 this week. It's only money." Cupid apparently has enough of it to burn. He shrugs, but Charlie and his boys are licking their chops, knowing a choice mark when they see one.

At his mansion, they run their "routine" on Mr. Cupid, with cards up their sleeves and shifty slick-shuffles. Cupid loses every hand, and by 3 am he's another 5000 lbs in the hole. The loss is no big deal (he's beyond rich) but he has no cash on hand to pay off. He's also all out of cheques. "Would you gentlemen be willing to accept ownership of one of my small businesses as payment?" Taking note of their surroundings, they assume Mr. Cupid has the Midas Touch, that any business of his must be a gold mine. All they have to do is sign the deed. "We'll take it," says Charlie, without asking what "it"is.

The boys are hoping their new business might be a stock brokerage or something equally profitable, but when they arrive at the address, they are somewhat stupefied to see that it's a marriage bureau. The curvy secretary "Lola" (Norma Parnell), who comes included with the deal, explains that it's not a money-making enterprise. "We charge only a nominal fee for our services. Mr. Cupid set it up as a tax write-off." What they do is arrange marriages. Upset that Mr. Cupid appears to have gotten the better of them after all, by dumping an insolvent business in exchange for his poker debt, Charlie sets about "flogging" (pawning) everything in the office that isn't nailed down. This nets the boys 1000 lbs. They're still 4000 short of  their loss, but then in walks a wealthy widow named "Mrs. Mountjoy" (Avice Landone), looking for a marriage partner.

She specifies that, while looks and personality are important, mostly she wants someone of her own class, a man with "as much money as I have. I've supported enough penniless pretty boys in my time." Secretary Lola, who's really running the show for these mooks, seizes the opportunity and makes Charlie over into a millionaire from South Africa. He will be the eligible bachelor to whom they will introduce Mrs. Mountjoy.

Charlie looks the part in a rented three-piece suit with gold watch, but he still has his Cockney accent and the malaprop-laden speech of Leo Gorcey with made-up or incorrect words in every other sentence. "Mervyn" (Harold Goodwin), the dumbest of the trio, hooks up with Mrs. Mountjoy's daughter "Sylvie" (Pauline Shepherd), a dance instructor who wears nothing but a leotard. In her company, Mervyn finds his niche as a musical genius. Suddenly he and Sylvie are a hit songwriting team. The plot has all kinds of such left-field hijinx. "Cecil" (Wallas Eaton), the mid-level lunkhead (with double-digit brain cells instead of single), becomes Lola's henchman as they try to execute a life-insurance plot on Mrs. Mountjoy, only to flub it and have Cecil electrocute himself.

The style is like slow-pace screwball. Charie and his knuckleheads are stoopid-smart like The Stooges, always falling upwards and landing on their feet no matter how badly they bungle things. Lola runs the show with an Iron Hip. Charlie and Mrs. Mountjoy get married as per Lola's master plan, and the gang all hope to get rich off her millions. But first, Charlie has to prove he's wealthy too, to fulfill Mrs Mountjoy's requirements, and therein lies the biggest twist in the plot. Two Big Thumbs Up, verging on Two Huge. You can't do a low-key, deft comedy any better than this. The picture is very good.  ////

The night before, in "The Large Rope"(1953), you've got one of those "Troubled Young Man Returns Home" deals. Donald Houston, one of the best actors in our British B-films of this period, plays "Tom Penny", who's back after a serving three year stint for assault. From the top of a hill, he surveys the small village from which he hails. He knows everyone's gonna hate him on sight, even though he was framed. It's that kind of town, pitliess, provincial, suspicious. They even hate the new policeman who comes around checking on dog licences, just because he wasn't born there.

Tom checks in with the officer, just like he's supposed to as a parolee. "Officer Kensall" (Leonard White), ironically sees him as a kindred spirit, being as they're both despised. "You oughta think about movin'," he tells Tom. "I'm tryin' to help ya." But Tom needs to see "Jeff Stribling" (Peter Byrne) the guy who framed him and stole his girl "Sue" (Susan Shaw). Jeff and Sue know he didn't assault "Mrs. Jordan" (Vanda Goodsell), the 30-ish woman who flirts at the local pub. Mrs. Jordan is known for luring the high school boys to the woods for a tumble. Tom did three years even though he never touched her. He can't understand why she accused him of rape, or why Jeff and Sue went along with it in court. Now he's back, and he lets the three of them know how angry he is, but that's all. He holds his temper so as not to be sent back to prison.

The working-class men of the town all hate him. Soon, a mob mentality sets in. His former friend Jeff is about to marry Sue the next afternoon. Tom's Dad kicks him out of the house after hearing of his return. It seems his only friend is Officer Kensall. On the day of Jeff and Sue's wedding, Mrs. Jordan shows up at the pub for a morning pint, then leaves, and is later found strangled in the woods. Naturally, suspicion falls on Tom Penny, though it's clear from everything thus far in the plot that he didn't do it. The men of the village gather at the small police station, which is manned only by Officer Kensall and a detective. The villagers grow surly, and threaten to take Tom Penny themselves, led by Mrs. Jordan's drunken lout of a husband (Robert Brown). It's played straight down the middle whether she's a slut because of his drunkeness, or he's a drunk because of her sluttishness. But he leads the charge to lynch Tom Penny for her murder. Tom has no choice but to run for his life when he becomes separated from police custody.

He first goes back to see Jimmy and Sue again, just hours before they're to be married. Tom begs them to tell the truth, that they know and can prove he was innocent of assaulting Mrs. Jordan in the first place. Jeff then admits he's been meeting Mrs. Jordan in the woods all this time. His fiancee Sue is shocked."Yes, I've lain with her, but I didn't kill her!" Who did then, if it wasn't Jeff or Tom?

Only the town's windmill knows for sure, because you knew at the beginning of the movie it was gonna make an appearance. It has wooden stairs, which allow for Climbing to a High Place, which every killer has to do at the end of this kind of movie. Catwalks at warehouses, high railings at power stations, wooden stairs at windmills, any of those will suffice as a place for a killer to fall from, following the Obligatory Upward Climb. I won't reveal who the killer is here, but it ain't Tom Penny. Donald Houston plays him too earnestly for that. Robert Brown, who plays Mrs. Jordan's sullen husband, is better known for being "M" of James Bond fame. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Large Rope", a tale of small-town resentment and blame-the-victim mentality. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

And that's all I've got for tonight. I had fun at the Greek Festival today, hadn't been there since pre-pandemic. I always enjoy touring the church, with it's beautiful gold-leaf chancel and stained glass window-portraits of the early Saints of the Orthodox Church. Watching the dancers by the bandstand is fun too, and listening to the non-stop, shreddin' Greek music. Did you go? You have one more day. Be sure to sample the pastries or even have a delicious lunch (roast chicken, lamb, shawarma, Greek pasta). Beer.

Beer.

My blogging music was "Heavy Horses" by Jethro Tull, and also an awesome Tull concert on Youtube from 1976 at Tampa Stadium. My late night is Handel's Aetsi Opera. Can you believe we still need sweatshirts at night on Memorial Day Weekend? That's global cooling for ya.

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

Peter Reynolds in "Smart Alec", and "Johnny on the Spot" starring Hugh McDermott

Last night we found an off-the-wall black comedy called "Smart Alec"(1951), starring the talented Peter Reynolds and directed by a young John Guillermin, who would go on to helm some very big motion pictures including "The Blue Max", "The Towering Inferno", and the 1976 "King Kong" remake. Those are big-budget Hollywood productions; here, he's making the kind of quirky English farce that would play best in art houses, and could be lampooned by SNL if it wasn't already lampooning itself.

Reynolds plays "Alec Albion", the Smart Alec of the title. He's headed to an upscale London apartment complex where his wealthy uncle lives. Alec plans to rent a flat there and kill him before uncle can remove him from his will. None of this is stated. We only learn his plan as it unfolds. 

Because Alec is smart, he's good at fooling people and charming some, like the building's porter, and his new wife "Judith" (Mercy Haystead), who at first doesn't suspect he's got a bimbo on the side. Alec claims he's an artist (he isn't), stating that he needs a flat with a "northerly light" to paint by. Really, the necessary northern windum gives him a view of his uncle's balcony, an important part of the murder plot. Alec has all the details worked out, but at this point we are still in the dark. 

He then fakes a fever, which he says has caused him to have a premonition of his uncle's death. When police "Inspector Ashley" (Edward Lexy) is called by the building's manager over his bizarre behavior, he puts on an album of classical music and blasts it while he leaves for 30 seconds to kill his uncle. Initially, the cops can't figure out how he did it. Inspector Ashley thinks he bludgeoned him while his assistant thinks he shot him. They find a rife under his floorboards that's recently been fired but an autopsy finds no bullet in the body. Alec grows more smug as his plan holds up, and when he's put on trial they can't prove he did it so he walks.

But then he gets too cocky and calls the coppers and the press to his flat, where he has the nerve to explain how he committed the murder. It's ingenious. "But you can't arrest me," he insists, "even though I'm admitting my guilt, because of the double jeopardy law in this country." The comic style could be described as High Dudgeon, as everyone except Reynolds yells their lines. Low-canted camera angles signify silly walks and determination. The English excel at such exaggerated characterizations, though the recipe is somewhat indefinable. I wasn't sure it was gonna work at first, and it took fifteen minutes to get going, but once it did, it was oddly compelling and amusing. We've now seen Peter Reynolds play everything from executives to playboys to this time a half-cracked murder genius. One heck of a good actor, he. Two Big Thumbs Up with a very high recommendation. The picture is very good.  ////

The previous night, we got stuck with something called "Johnny on the Spot"(1954), and thank goodness for exposition, because if you can follow this one you must have written the script, for which you deserve to be flogged if you did. "Johnny Breakes" (Hugh McDermott) is just out of prison and walking on an English beach, looking for the man who framed him. It's got something to do with extortion or fraud involving a silver mine. Johnny wants payback for the time he spent in stir, but when he gets to the mine owner's mansion, which has a windmill out front, he finds the owner and a half-dressed young woman dead.

Panicking, he rifles the dead man's desk drawers, looking for a diary that will have the info on the frame-up, and the crooked bookkeeping at the silver mine. Johnny can't find the diary, but he does find loads of cash, a stack of which he pockets to make up for his time in the slam.

Then he hears piano music coming from downstairs. On tiptoes he investigates, to find a blind man playing Chopin. The blind man is the dead man's valet. He can't see, but he can hear like nobody's business, and he hears Johnny as he sidles up against a wall. The blind guy is old, but he's agile as heck, and he canes Johnny on the forehead, then knocks him down another flight of stairs.

Johnny high tails it after that, and at a nearby cafe, the cops come looking for him. He's already concocted an alibi for being an American in a British seaside town ("I'm on vacation"), but he's got a bloody scalp ("I went rock climbing"), and they know he's up to something. He then goes looking for a woman who entered the mansion right after he got his butt kicked by the blind man. Who is this woman? Better stick around til the end when the exposition kicks in.

You know a movie needs help when the great Paul Carpenter (he of the Canadian sweater and pompadour) is called in for only a cameo role, and his character is named "Paul" so he doesn't have to remember much.

Hugh McDermott talks out the roof of his mouth the entire film, which is different than talking out the side, but sounds similar. There is no regional American accent that could account for his tone of voice, so you know he's doing it deliberately. And now that I look him up, I see he was Skittish, born in Edinburgh, so we have the old John Lennon/Michael Brennan cheap attempt at an American accent again, with no recognizable regional basis. Nowadays, the Brits (and especially the Aussies) can do Americans perfectly, but back then, not so much. McDermott was also in "Devil Girl from Mars" (seen recently) and he was good in that movie, but he may have thrown in the towel here, because there's just no rhyme or reason to this plot. It just meanders around. To make up for it, read every one of the nine IMDB reviews, I insist! They are more "on the spot" than Johnny, and "in toto" (Man, do I hate that phrase) they make the perfect description of this movie. Two Bigs anyway, just for it's unique confusion value. When you've gotta call in Paul Carpenter for a cameo, you know you're in trouble. The picture is very good.  //// 

I mentioned Dr. Judy Wood's book "Where Did the Towers Go?" in a recent blog. Other incisive 9/11 books are "Black 9/11: Money, Motive & Technology" and "The 9/11 Mystery Plane and the Vanishing of America," both by Mark Gaffney, and also Webster Griffin Tarpley's "9/11 Synthetic Terror : Made in USA." Other important tomes in recent years are "Aberration in the Heartland of the Real : The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh" by Wendy S. Painting, "A Lie Too Big To Fail : The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy" by Lisa Pease, "Forbidden Archaeology : The Hidden History of the Human Race" by Michael Cremo, "Genesis, Creation and Early Man : The Orthodox Christian Vision" by Father Seraphim Rose, "Grid of the Gods : The Aftermath of the Cosmic War and the Physics of the Pyramid Peoples" by Dr. Joseph P. Farrell (and all books by Dr. Joe), "The Plot to Kill King (MLK)" by William Pepper, "LBJ : The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination" by Phillip F. Nelson, "Chaos : Charles Manson, The CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties" by Tom O'Neill,  and "A Terrible Mistake : The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments" by H.P. Albarelli. I've got more, but that'll hold you over for now.

My blogging music tonight was "Fish Rising" by Steve Hillage. My late night is Handel's Oreste Opera. I wish you a nice Memorial Day Weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

William Lucas and Christina Gregg in "The Break", and "Something Evil" starring Sandy Dennis and Darren McGavin, directed by Steven Spielberg

Last night's British crime flick was "The Break"(1962), and as the title implies, convict "Jacko Thomas" (William Lucas), serving a ten year sentence for bink ribbery, breaks free of custody while being transferred between prisons. He kills one of his guards before jumping off the train. Now he's wanted for murdalization, also.

The movie switches gears after that opening scene. Now we're at a field depot at the edge of the Skittish moors, where three disparate travelers await cross-country transit by Land Rover. We've got novelist "Greg Parker" (Tony Britton), an overly inquisitive chap named "Pearson" (Robert Urquhart), and young "Sue Thomas" (Christina Gregg), who seems nervous during the very bumpy ride to the moors. The three are headed to Tredgar's Quarry, where an Inn is located. It's a getaway place, the kind of remote, inspirational venue where Parker the novelist can write his latest book. Pearson, the talkative chap, informs him that he's read every novel. He's a big fan. but boy is he nosy.

At first, because it's not explained, we think the trio are traveling together. Maybe they are part of the jailbreak team that is helping Jacko Thomas escape. But when they get to Mr. Tredgar's Inn, the mystery is cleared up, and we see they are separate. Sue Thomas checks in and is sent immediately to Tredgar's office, where she opens her suitcase, which is filled with money, and gives him a payoff of 500 lbs. She is the sister of Jacko, who is hiding out at the Inn, as prearranged with "Mr. Tredgar" (Eddie Byrne).

Pearson, the nosy chap, turns out to be a private detective. He's aware of Jacko's presence, but is hiding behind the impetus of serving divorce papers on Greg Parker, who contemplates suicide at the edge of the moors cliff upon receiving the notice. He changes his mind when Sue spots him and talks him down at the last second. Now they are an item, but she's still tied to her brother Jacko, who's protected her all their lives. They grew up in an orphanage, after being abandoned by their no-good father. Backstory details create a degree of sympathy for Jacko, though not for his crimes. 

At the Inn, Mr. Tredgar employs a pair of, it is implied, inbred locals: "Sarah," (Sonia Dresdel), the middle-aged cook who is mute but not deaf, and the Inn's porter "Moses" (Edwin Richfield), a simpleton who is ultra-fundamentally Christian, quoting fire and brimstone with every suitcase he lugs up the stairs. When Moses finds out Jacko Thomas is staying there (his escape is all over the radio), he swears God will bring hellfire upon the place. He begs Mr. Tredgar to get rid of Jacko, but Tredgar is compromised himself, not only by the payoff he accepted from the Thomases, but because he's running a whiskey schumuggling operation with three big thugs assisting him. Because of the number of idiosyncratic personalities and side threads, it's a plot that could have multiple ways to unfold.

But, as always, it boils down to just a few characters, and Jacko gets into a life or death struggle with Moses after pushing the private eye Pearson off a cliff. Moses cannot tolerate murder, the ultimate sin, so he goes after Jacko with a pitchfork in the barn. You can't get more English Puritan than that: "Be gone, Devil! I banish thee!" Sue Thomas is meanwhile looking for escape, so she goes under the wing of Greg Parker, who by now is suspecting something has happened to Pearson, who has failed to show up for breakfast. A barge is waiting to tow Jacko and his sister Sue to a ship that will take them to "The Argentine", where, like the Nazis, they will live hidden at the bottom of the world, with all that money in their suitcase.

But after Jacko kills Moses, Greg Parker knows he has to stop him or die trying. Even Mr. Tredgar helps, after Jacko refuses to pay him. Two Big Thumbs Up, almost Two Huge if there weren't so many implausibilities, but the photography and moors location are both top-notch, as is William Lucas's performance as Jacko. We also love Christina Gregg, the model-turned-actress who we've seen in many films now, and who was kind of like a 1962 English Julia Roberts. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night, in lieu of a Brit Flick (because we couldn't find one) we discovered instead an oddity. Have you ever heard of a TV movie called "Something Evil"(1972), directed by Steven Spielberg? I hadn't. I knew he did "Night Gallery" early in his career, and "Duel", but I didn't know he had other TV work. This one stars Darren McGavin and Sandy Dennis, playing "Paul" and "Marjorie Worden", a director of TV commercials and his artist wife. As it opens, they're parked in the New York countryside in Valencia. She's painting a watercolor of an old farmhouse in a field. A sign says "For Sale". Marjorie wants Paul to buy it. "It'll mean no European vacation," he tells her, and no private school for "Stevie" (Johnny Whittaker), their 12-year-old son.

But Marjorie wants the house, and is okay with the necessary sacrifices. The owner, an overalled farmer named "Mr. Gehrmann" (Jeff Corey), says, "You folks oughta look at other properties. This one's a little bit strange." He's got a pentacle painted above the doorway "to keep out evil". Paul Worden thinks it's all a bunch of country bumpkin superstition, but Marjorie - as played by actress Dennis who specialized in kooky, nervous females - is already making pentacle pendants out of clay as soon as they move in. She paints and kilns them, then threads them with leather ties to hang around little Stevie's neck.

At night, the sound of a little girl crying is heard from the barn. Shades of "The Other", by the pre-King Thomas Tryon? Marjorie should know you don't go into an old barn when a child that's not yours cries at 3 am, but she does go inside, only to find a rat, and begins to suffer a nervous breakdown (which was in Sandy Dennis's contract and without which she would not have done the movie). Little Stevie (with Johnny Whittaker's patented mop of red hair) channels the unseen little girl's cries through a nightmare. Soon, his Mom is overprotecting, then scolding him, and she finally punishes him with an ass whooping, nearly breaking his arm in the process. The house is causing her to lose her mind. Stuff flies around Stevie's bedroom in a camera-spinning shot, the same one Spielberg, um, I mean Tobe Hooper, would use in "Poltergiest" 10 years later. It's amazing that Spielberg went from this movie, to "Duel," to "Jaws," to "Close Encounters" in a five year span. Yes, he's massively talented, but no one has ever had insider connections like Steven Spielberg and his connections have never been honestly divulged, I don't believe. It's likely they are military/industrial Defense Department-related like all the Laurel Canyon rock stars.

His talent is on early display here, as far as delivering the spook-house tension. Otherwise, the movie is entirely Sandy Dennis's. She's a Witchy Woman to begin with, so while Darren McGavin is shooting a TV commercial about a health food "apple bar" with a girl who can't sing, Dennis as Marjorie is at home on the farm, painting pentagram circles on the floor, and inquiring into the services of "Harry Lincoln" (Ralph Bellamy), a demonology expert who lives the next farm over and has a bat-guano crazy/scary nephew, who tries entering the Worden's house through the doggie door, in one of the more bizarre touches we've seen in TV movies.

There ain't much to the story beyond what is described. Supposedly there's a demon in the house, but for most of it, it just looks like Marjorie is going crazy. She keeps seeing a jar of red gobbeldigook in closets, but what it is or why it's there is never explained.

Nothing is in fact explained, it's just all tossed off at the end in pre-Exorcist fashion, and I hate to say it, but Freidkin must've seen this film. Again, the connections of Spielberg are cutting edge. He makes a half-baked "demonic possession" TV movie in 1972, and then "The Exorcist" comes out a year later.

Well anyhow, Ralph Bellamy does his overenthusiastic big dog act, that John Landis stole for "Trading Places" when he wanted to outdo Spielberg after he killed everybody in The Twilight Zone, which Spielberg produced.

This flick is scary, for sure, but there's no real reason for it to exist, as the script is made up on the spot. If they didn't have Sandy Dennis, they'd have no movie. But Two Bigs for the scares that go nowhere. The picture is in color and very good.  ////

And that's all I know for tonight. My blogging music is "Birds" by the Dutch group Trace, featuring the blindingly fast keyboard work of the late Rick van der Linden. My late night is Handel's Arianna in Creta Opera. Can you believe Memorial Day weekend is almost upon us? The year is just flying by, and I wish you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxo  :):)

Anthony Hulme in "The Mysterious Mr. Nicholson", and "No Trace" starring Hugh Sinclair and Dinah Sheridan

Last night's movie was "The Mysterious Mr. Nicholson"(1947), a murder mystery involving the possible dual identity of the title character, a private detective. As it opens, "Peggy Dundas" (Lesley Osmond), the secretary for a London probate law firm, is sent to deliver a reconfigured will to a Mr. St. James (not shown), who has made the changes to disinherit his nephew. When Peggy enter his garden, she finds St. James' body. Screaming on her way out, she realizes she bumped into his killer moments earlier on the sidewalk, a well-dressed chap in a suit. On the body, the cops find a note from an avenger known as VLS, a French acronym used by a British criminal in Paris during the war. But the police know VLS as a thief, not a murderer. They think the note is a forgery, designed to make it look like VLS killed Mr. St. James on behalf of his nephew.

Intrigued, lead inspector "Morley" (Frank Hawkins) pays a visit to a chap named "Nicholson" (Anthony Hulme), whom he suspects of being VLS, a sort of Robin Hood character who rights monetary wrongs. Nicholson is a chameleon who has worked as an actor and is now a private eye. After some verbal and mental parrying, Morley gets Nicholson to admit he's VLS. "But I didn't kill anyone," he insists, then asks to meet the woman who found the body. But when Inspector Morley takes him to meet Peggy, she says, "It's him! That's the man I bumped into at the garden!" Now it does look like VLS is the murderer, until Nicholson explains that, when he lived in Paris, he once hired an exact double to serve as an alibi in one of his crimes.

Now suspecting that his old double from the war is trying to frame him, VLS joins the case, and here we go into a shell game of doubles upon doubles. Nicholson's double, whose name is "Raeburn", is working for a Nikita Khrushchev lookin' guy who runs an employment agency, but on the side he puts hits out on inheritors, to get their money. His office is right next to Peggy's law firm (it's how he gets his targets) but now, secretary Peggy is causing him problems, with her ID of Nicholson's double, Raeburn. Khrushchev and Raeburn need a separate hitman to neutralize her, which Raeburn arranges at a speakeasy run by "Freda" (Josie Bradley), a middle-aged singer/pianist. Also at Freda's club is an acrobatic dog act that gets a five minute scene in the middle of the movie that warrants Two Gigantic Thumbs Up on it's own. As one reviewer wrote, "This has to be the greatest dog act of all time", and he's right. but back to the plot, Freda sets Raeburn up with an Italian hitman named Perelli, who will kill Peggy for 500 lbs. 

But Perelli doesn't trust Raeburn and Khrushchev because nobody seems to know who the real VLS is. Not even Peggy, who is now in love with him, while her boss at the law firm is in love with her.

You've gotta pay attention in these 1940s-era British movies because the diction and rhythmic pattern of speech is different than in later decades and much different than in American movies. There's a politeness to the way everyone speaks, which accentuates the delicacy of the accents, and this makes the dialogue difficult to understand. The "double" aspect is clever, though, and there are many twists. A must-see for the dog act, "The Mysterious Mr. Nicholson" gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is slightly soft.  //// 

The previous night's film was "No Trace"(1950), written and directed by John Gilling. "Robert Southley" (Hugh Sinclair) is a novelist with an ego to match his book sales. His specialty is crime fiction. He regales his guests at parties with rapid-fire descriptions of impossible-to-solve plots, always the center of attention with his banter. His beautiful secretary "Linda" (Dinah Sheridan) is devoted, efficient, and an amateur sleuth herself. She's seeing a police sergeant named "Harrison" (Barry Morse), who Robert doesn't much like and the feeling is mutual, even though Harrison is a minor fan of his work. 

One day, Southley gets a phone call from a stocky old knocker named "Fenton" (Michael Brennan, he of the anvil face and floor-safe build). As Fenton, Brennan's doing an English version of the kind of East Coast accent that pissed McCartney off when Lennon used it the time Paul came calling at the Dakota. Paul rang the buzzer and Lennon spoke like he was from Noo Joysey. "Whattaya wahnt? Why didncha cawl befoah comin' ovah?" Paul said, "Fuck off, Kojak!" and left. That's what kind of accent Michael Brennan uses for Fenton, and, because he's English, it's not accurate. Fenton is calling to blackmail Robert Southley. It turns out that Southley has a shady past and an assumed name. Fenton was his crime partner in America.  Fenton got caught after a heist and did prison time. Southly skated and went free, and reinvented himself back in England as an actor, then a novelist. Now, he's even got a weekly radio spot called "The Perfect Murder".

Fenton has a letter Southley wrote "when we was young" about a jewelry job they pulled off. It's in Southley's handwriting, which makes it blackmail material. Fenton wants 500 lbs for it. Southley pays him off, and says "don't contact me again" but Fenton, being a drunken lout, calls him back to tell him, "that letter I gave you was a fake. I've still got the original. I want another 500 lbs."

That does it for Southley, who - being a former actor - buys a fake beard at a Fake Beard Shop, then - being also a crime novelist who knows plots - he sets out to murder Fenton, setting up the perfect travel route as an alibi, disguised as a merchant seaman.

The murder comes off as planned. Southley is seen by a  landlady and a tenant wench, but he's disguised, and when he gets back home, the last thing on anyone's mind is Robert Southley the crime novelist. He's friends with the local Chief Inspector, even if Sgt. Harrison, his secretary Linda's suitor, doesn't like him. But it's Linda he really needs to worry about, and this is where John Gilling's script comes in. Because she wants to impress Southley, Linda starts suggesting plot points for his latest novel, which is based on the Fenton murder. Somehow, the details she suggests just so happen to match exactly how he did it. It's like she's psychic. He denounces her suggestions as absurd, but she wants to satisfy her curiosity and show him that she's a good crime novelist too. It's a case of the student one-upping the master, and now she's hotter on his trail than the coppers. When Southley can no longer dissuade her from pursuing the case ("You don't know what you're talking about, Linda!"), he decides to murder her. By now, however, the cops have enough of a description of the merchant seaman to make a composite drawing, which they compare to a photo of Southley with a beard drawn in. When the salesman at the Fake Beard Shop sees it, he and the landlady and the wench all agree, "that's the same man." Southley's nailed, but by now, he's got Linda alone in the woods, and he's gonna kill her. Two Bigs, another good one from John Gilling. The picture is very good but the soundtrack is slightly muffled.  /// 

And that's all for tonight. We'll have more 1989 homework soon. My blogging music was "Never Never Land" by Pink Fairies and "In the Land of Grey and Pink" by Caravan. My late night is the Deborah Oratorio by Handel. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Robert Dix and Merry Anders in "Air Patrol", and "Mandrake the Magician", a Chapter Serial starring Warren Hull

Last night, in "Air Patrol"(1962), a painting valued at 350K is stolen from a high rise on Wilshire Boogalord, cut from it's frame and rolled up. The thief (seen only in shadow) escapes by way of the roof and a hovering helicopter, after conking secretary "Mona Whitney" (Merry Anders) on the head. LAPD detective "Vern Taylor" (Willard Parker) responds at 3:28 in the morning. He and his partner check all possible exits. The security guard on duty is in deep trouble for going out for coffee when he should've been watching the lobby. Lt. Taylor still can't figure out how the thief made his escape, until the guard mentions hearing a helicopter on his way back from the coffee shop.

Sure enough, that's the answer, and the Air Patrol, a new division of the LAPD, is brought in for their expertise. Pilot "Bob Castle" (Robert Dix), who'd really rather work in the robbery division, asks around at local helipads: at Burbank, Santa Monica, etc, viewing logbooks, checking landings, departures, and records of chopper rentals. He gets a lead on a shifty pilot named "Oliver Dunning" (Ivan Bonar), who owns a brand new Bell. But Dunning's got an answer for his whereabouts and actions, all his t's are crossed and I's dotted. The cops follow him for a while but can't pin anything on him. They also get a lead on a guy named "Millard Nolan" (Douglas Dumbrille), whose wife formerly owned the painting. He's an aging actor, a former star now on hard times. He offers Taylor advice on the art world and it's practices. "Whoever stole it will ransom it because it's too hot to sell." 

Meanwhile, Sgt. Castle and Mona Whitney are slowly becoming an item. Interludes feature wine sipping at her home while he admires her abstract paintings. Mona's a failed beatnik who went straight, got a real job, but kept painting and hating cops. This is all for color and has nothing to do with the plot, which is similar to a straight TV police procedural extended to 66 minutes. The Air Patrol chopper is really the star, with its bubble cockpit and inflated rubber landing tubes. It's one tight-looking whirlybird, exceptionally photographed in Cinemascope black-and-white with spectacular grey scale. Los Angeles is the chopper's co-star, seen here in pristine 1962 condition. The locations are incredible and almost push the movie to Two Huge. There's a chase scene at the empty Hollywood Bowl in broad daylight. Wilshire Boog is heavily featured. The last twenty minutes are prophetic: a car chase on the freeway! It, too, is pristine, with minimal traffic and barely any development on either side. LA was clean, clean, in 1962. The whole shootin' match ends up at the Sepulveda Dam, a masterpiece of concrete. Incredible photography there; a chase through the LA river channel, tires spraying water, Air Patrol chopper following. Who knew they had car chases back in those days?

As far as the painting is concerned, the casting director has once again done our job for us, so there's no real mystery about who stole it, but the investigation and helicopter-power make the movie, and Merry Anders adds female presence without overdoing the sexuality in such a role (as many actresses do). She's great; we like her in every film we've seen her in. "Air Patrol" gets Two Big Thumbs Up, but with the highest recommendation possible for showing Los Angeles circa 1962 and the excellent Cinemascope photography. In that regard, it's a must see. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we had "Mandrake the Magician"(1939), another chapter serial from Republic Pictures. Warren Hull stars, and as the first chapter opens, he's wowing the audience aboard the USS Mohawk, at the Captain's Dinner, with amazing sleight-of-hand. A note arrives for him mid-show, a telegram from "Betty Houston" (Doris Weston), the daughter of his scientist friend "Professor Houston" (Forbes Murray), saying "Come quick, I think my Dad's in danger!" The professor has a new invention, a radium gun, that a madman named The Wasp intends to steal.

Mandrake leaves the ship when it docks and flies his private plane to Professor Houston's mansion. On the way, he survives a sabotage attempt, and parachutes to a field where he is picked up by daughter Betty. We've already seen her Dad being menaced late night in his lab by The Wasp, who shines his winged insignia onto walls by searchlight. It's his way of saying "you're next" to his victims. Professor Houston's radium gun can destroy any target, including, in a demonstration, a solid steel block three feet thick. 

9/11, anyone? Read "Where Did the Towers Go?", by Dr. Judy Wood.

The Wasp wants the radium gun, and he's sent five henchmen out to get it. All thus far have failed, and they find out the hard way that you don't disappoint The Wasp. Professor Houston is also working on another invention, a new metal alloy called Pentenium that is the hardest substance known to man. There are the requisite Republic Serial punchouts, though thankfully they aren't as time-consuming as in Republic's serials from the 1950s. Warren Hull is handsome and debonair as the mind-boggling magician who can pull silver dollars out of ladies' nostrils. "Mandrake" is based on a comic strip, and is the seventh serial Republic made. So far, it gets Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is very good.  ////

That's all I know for this evening. My blogging music was "D.S. al Coda", the tremendous final album by National Health. My late night is the Esther Oratorio by Handel. I hope you had a nice Saturday and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

John Bentley, Gene Nelson and Mona Freeman in "The Way Out", and "The Monkey's Paw" starring Milton Rosmer and Megs Jenkins

Last night belonged to John Bentley again, we're on a major John Bentley kick, and in "The Way Out"(1955), he's once again a cop, relentlessly chasing down "Greg Carradine" (Gene Nelson), who, as the movie opens, runs into his London flat to inform his wife that he's just killed a man in a bar fight. His brother-in-law "John Moffat" (Michael Goodliffe) is also present. He doesn't like Carradine, an alcoholic gambler, but because his sister "Terry" (Mona Freeman) is Greg's devoted wife, he agrees to go along with their alibi, which is used when "Inspector Seagrave" (Bentley) visits the next day, after interviewing barman "George" (Arthur Lovegrove) about the participants in the fight.

"He was here all night," Terry says of her husband, and her brother John agrees. "He came home straight from work, we had supper and watched the telly." But you don't lie to John Bentley. He'll just stand there and let you talk, nodding and occasionally interrupting to say, "uh huh, and then?" And when you finish your tale, he'll lower the boom: "We already know your husband was at the bar at the time of the fight." You do not want Bentley on your tail, because he's not just a 24/7 Inspector, he's a 60/60. Sixty seconds to the minute, to the hour. He makes Columbo look like a slacker.  

The whole movie is a chase-down of Greg Carradine. There's never any question of his guilt, no mystery involved, it's just "where is he?" Actor Nelson plays it frantic: "Terry! John! You've gotta get me out of here!" Marital loyalty is a theme; Terry does what has to be done, for no other reason than "I'm his wife". Her brother is an author with a newly bestselling book, the epigram of which will provide an important clue when traced back to the publisher. This leads Inspector Seagrave to Carradine's hideout, and when that's discovered, he needs to leave the country. 

Wife Terry goes back to the bar on Carradine's instructions, to talk to barman George, who knows a man who can arrange such a departure. It costs the Carradines 700 lbs (paid for by John), and it leads to the best part of the movie, a 20 minute chase after the trio as they engage in a series of vehicle switches, from delivery trucks to postal vans to flatbeds, changing panel signs from florists to seed sellers. John Bentley's on their tail the whole time, triangulating their location, tapping phones at garages. 

Gene Nelson was famous as a dancer in Hollywood musicals. He's a little over the top as a Hard Guy drunken murderer, but Mona Freeman is very good as Terry, as is Michael Goodliffe as her author/brother. However, as with every John Bentley flick, it's his movie. You'd rather have LAPD after you than this guy. Two Big Thumbs Up, mostly for the chase and the great London photography, which takes you all over the joint. I think we've seen more movies directed by Montgomery Tully than by anyone except Sam Newfield. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

The previous night's film was "The Monkey's Paw" (1948), an adaptation by the Butcher Brothers set in Cornwall, home of Cornish Game Hens. This is the kind of thing that, if I'd seen it on Sunday afternoon TV when I was seven or eight, it would've scared the bejabbers out of me. It's got that rural English feel, with superstitious locals, personified by the character of "Kelly" (Michael Martin Harvey), a fanciful, toothless,  poacher and burglar, who tells the tale of the monkey's paw to the Trelawne family, whose patriarch (Milton Rosmer) has just obtained it in exchange for one of his wife's paintings.

As the movie opens, a curio trader, a dealer in obscure collectibles, sees the paw in a pawn shop run by "Mr. Grimshaw" (Hay Petrie), who has a bust of Genghis Khan he talks to. Grimshaw doesn't wanna sell the paw, but agrees when the trader presses. "Alright, it's yours. I wish you no bad luck," he says, after explaining that the paw comes from India and is cursed. 

From there, the paw winds up in the possession of Mr. Trelawne, a shopkeeper who also deals in curios and art sold by his wife (Megs Jenkins). Trelawne is a gambler. "Gamblin's a superstition, y'know," says his son "Tom" (Eric Micklewood), because you're relying on fate." Mr. Trelawne owes 200 lbs from betting on the ponies and his bookie wants to collect. Meanwhile, son Tom has dreams of becoming a motorcycle racer. He even has a bike picked out, a Norton named "Alice". Tom hopes to enter a race to win the 200 lbs his Dad owes. In the middle of all this is Kelly, the wee, effete burglar, explaining what happened to the last family that had the paw. He knew because he burgled them. "The husband shot the wife fer dallyin' wit anuther man." Kelly is superstitious. The tone is as "country English" as possible, with dreamers dreamin' big dreams, wives saying, "Aw, begosh and begorrah with ya! Eat yer supper now, a-fore it gets to clabberin' up."

Young Tom really wants to buy Alice the motorbike, and he finally gets his chance when a promoter sees his racing talent and sponsors him in a race with big prize money. His pretty girlfriend hates his motorcycle fetish (and who knew they had motocross in 1948?), but he enters the race anyway, and this is where the curse of the monkey's paw horror kicks in. Stephen King borrowed the premise for "Pet Sematary". Man, this is the kind of thing that just gives you the big-time willies. Superstitious English Horror. Me and the late, great Mike Bellamy watched "Burn Witch Burn" one night during a sleepover when I was eleven and he was twelve. We still talked about how scary it was over forty-five years later. On another sleepover, we watched "Blood on Satan's Claw". English, rural, superstitious horror, watched in the middle of the night on a small black-and-white TV when you're 11 or 12 will scar you for life. I can't tell you what happens in "The Monkey's Paw", but the mixture of The Godawful with the strange, fey performance of Michael Martin Harvey as Kelly, the blarney-spewing burglar and ever-optimistic ne'er do well, is as spooky as it gets. Two Big Thumbs Up, with a terrifying finale. The picture is slightly soft.  //// 

And that's all I've got for this evening. My blogging music was "Rising" by Rainbow. Ritchie's playing and tone on that record are both outstanding. Check out his solo on "A Light in the Black." My late night is Handel's "Jeptha" Oratorio. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

John Bentley in "River Beat", and "Lady of Vengeance" starring Dennis O'Keefe and Anton Diffring

Last night's movie was "River Beat"(1954), another John Bentley flick, though he's playing a cop this time instead of a reporter. While patrolling the Thames with his partner (Leonard White), they happen to spy a pretty lady on deck of the Prince Mohawk, a brand new cargo-carrier ship that also "has room for 20 passengers". We then see the lady preparing to go ashore; she's "Judy Roberts" (Phyllis Kirk), the Mohawk's radio operator. "Gordon" (Harold Ayer), the ship steward, asks her a favor, to take four packs of American cigarettes to his friend, who'll be waiting a block away in an alcove.

She doesn't wanna do it. The cigs are imported and taxable, so it's technically illegal, and if the Customs Police stop her, she could get in trouble, but Gordon says, "Aw c'mon, it's just four packs, even if they catch you, which they won't, they'll look the other way. It ain't worth their while." Judy acquiesces and hands the cigs off to the friend, who then makes a phone call to an associate, who's upset that the haul is only four packs. This is reported in turn to a man named "Mr. Hendrick" (Charles Lloyd Pack), a simpering-but-imperious big shot with a fawning, Amazonian girlfriend. Mr. Hendrick is more than a little peeved about the paltry take. He tells his henchman, a crooked pawnbroker, to let the cigarette supplier know that four packs is not nearly enough.

By now, "Inspector Dan Barker" (Bentley) has had a chance meeting with Judy in a riverside bar near the dock. This is to build a romance, and also a destined conflict of interest, as Judy has no idea she's being used in a diamond schmuggling operation. Inspector Barker knows nothing of it, the ring hasn't yet been exschposed, but then Gordon the steward talks Judy into one more cigarette delivery, and this time a Customs Policeman does ask to look in her purse. The cigarette packs seem to weigh too much, so he opens one, crushes the cigs, and out fall a whole bunch of diamonds.

Knowing she's going to identify Gordon, whomever is in charge above Mr. Hendrick has Gordon murdered so he won't be able to talk. He ends up floating in the Thames, which brings Inspector Barker into the case, with a personal interest, because the Customs Police think Judy is a willing accomplice. Their belief is reinforced when the mastermind hides some diamonds in her makeup kit, which are found when Scotland Yard (pron.) inspects her room. Now she looks guilty, and Barker has to prove her innocence. The only way to do that is to identify the man to whom she originally delivered the cigarettes in the alcove.

"Find him, and we'll find who murdered Gordon, and we'll then find Mr. Big."

But the real question is, who is supplying the diamonds? The casting director may have given us a clue if we've been paying attention to our Anglo-American Brit Flicks of the past year. These co-productions were common at the time, and here, actress Phyllis Kirk does a half-American, half-English accent, you cant tell what country she's from. Glynn Huston is excellent as a small-time criminal trying to go straight but needing money to support his new wife. Once again, the Thames plays a role with its tides. Two Bigs, one rung shy of Two Huge. The plot moves fast, on the side of the cops, whose investigation is relentless. This is how you direct a crime flick. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night we watched another co-production, "Lady of Vengeance"(1957), a hard-boiled British Noir with an American director and star. Dennis O'Keefe plays "William Marshall", a much-feared newspaper publisher whose 20-year-old "ward", the beautiful "Melissa Collins" (Eileen Elton), commits suicide at the beginning of the movie by jumping in front of a train. Her story is then told in flashback, though it's never specified why she's his ward. Through adoption? Abandonment? We don't know. She has an English face like a China plate, and her accent is so over-tinged and oversexed that she's a bit much as played by actress Elton. But that might have been what director Burt Balaban (Bob's cousin) wanted.

Anyhow, Melissa is infatuated with "Larry Shaw" (Vernon Greeves), a jazz trombonist popular in the London clubs. He's an American too, and a sullen one, doing a Kirk Douglas/Ryan Gosling impersonation. Shaw is a punk, though a talented musician. He and Melissa are made for each other, and despite William Marshall's remonstrations against Shaw, she's gonna leave home to hit the road with him. Marshall tells her never to come back if she does, but it's no threat to Melissa, who smirks "you aren't my real father anyway." Then two years later, he receives the letter from her announcing that she's gonna kill herself, in which she admits, "you were right, I'm sorry. I won't ask for your forgiveness but I do ask for revenge". Despite his anger over her defiance, Marshall loved Melissa very much. He tried to protect her, and because he's a fearsome guy, he vows then and there to carry out her wishes: revenge against the man who dove her to suicide.

To deliver the goods, he inquires into the services of "Emile Karnak" (Anton Diffring), a renowned stamp collector with, it is hinted, a shady past.....was he perhaps a Nazi? Nobody played Nazis like Diffring, an incredible actor, but he's not a Nazi in this one, just a cold, calculating criminal. At first, he wants nothing to do with Marshall's plan of revenge murder, but as payment, Marshall - who has reach and power in addition to money - offers him the rarest stamp in the world. It's worth 100 Gees (which would be a million bucks now), but its real worth is its exclusivity. Karnak cannot resist. "What do you want me to do?"

Marshall wants him to come up with a plan, not just to kill Melissa's tormentor, but to torture him beforehand, to let him know he's gonna die, then kill him slowly, using his own fear against him.

Karnak then affixes the perfect death plan for Shaw the trombonist, even meeting him impromptu in a bar to attempt an interview, posing as a music reporter. Every time we see Shaw he's got a different half-dressed groupie. He's a slimeball who can shred on trombone, and the sluttier chicks can't resist him. Now he's about to be deported for having an underage one. Cue Jimmy Page. But Karnak still has time to carry out his plan.

Meanwhile, William Marshall, in his older age, has fallen in love with his faithful secretary "Katie" (Ann Sears), who's secretly loved him all the while. When he sends the butler away on vacation, she knows he's planning something terrible and tries talking him out of it. There's a lot of construction going on around his fortresslike mansion. Karnak arrives there on the planned night, ready to dispose of Larry Shaw, and that's all I can tell you without giving the surprises away. "Lady of Vengeance" features eccentric characters, almost like a Welles Noir (except he'd have made them exaggerated and crude). You've got a publisher who inspires fear, you've got a stamp collector who is also a master criminal, and you've got a smirking punk of a trombonist, who's tromboning Marshall's ward/daughter, who herself is too-precious and oversexed to the point of inducing vomiting. But it works, and you can't beat Anton Diffring, one hell of an actor. He's the main draw here, and the photography is also quite good. Two Big Thumbs Up. The picture is razor sharp.  //// 

Now, I've recently been trying to focus on the end of September 1989, to determine the specific date, and day of the week, that I was released from Northridge Hospital. I am guessing it was around September 22, a Friday. Lillian would've come over eight days later to see "Sea of Love", the legendary screening for us that once marked the first post-Event memory I could recall. By now, I have snippets of recollection before that, such as asking my Mom, after I got out of the hospital, "am I going to be able to see Lillian this weekend?" or possibly, "when am I going to be able to see Lillian?" I can very specifically recall Mom answering, "not this weekend, but next". That indicates there was coordination between the two of them, or perhaps with a go-between, a third party. I also remember asking Mom, "did something happen to me? Did I go somewhere?" Then adding, bemusedly, "because it feels like something happened, like I missed something really big." Mom (who was certainly told not to say anything), answered: "No, you haven't missed anything. You've just been right here, as always." Later on, I asked her again, "Are you sure I didn't miss anything?" Since 1997, I've had very specific, visceral memories of leaving Northridge Hospital, after being pushed through the lobby in a wheelchair by Lys V. 

I'm now trying to determine when I got home, and how. I want to be able to remember actually walking in the door. Other stuff happened directly upon my leaving the hospital, but it qualifies, right now, as stuff that will have to wait for the book. I believe that when I got home (or was taken home) that I was home alone for at least the first 24 hours. I don't know when Mom came home, but it was probably the next day. She might've stayed at Dad's apartment in the interim. I don't remember anyone else around at that time. Chris probably was at his girlfriend's house, and would've wanted nothing to do with any kind of post-Event intrigue, or having to maintain secrecy around me, so it all came down to Mom. She had to handle my return, which couldn't have been easy. I think Dad came over one afternoon also, but it was mostly just Mom and me, and I asked her (in addition to "are you sure nothing happened?") "am I gonna be able to see Lillian?" And she answered, "not this weekend but the next". That means it was all worked out in advance, with everyone aware of how to proceed around me, to maintain the secret that I'd been hospitalized.

One thing is absolutely certain, that - just like Mom - Lillian knew I'd been hospitalized, and that my memory had been medically erased. She knew it for certain, or she wouldn't have come over in a million years to go to "Sea of Love." If she thought I remembered what happened in Terry's apartment, or if she thought there was even a chance I remembered it, she would not have come over.

Therefore, she had to have been given 100% assurance that the treatment had worked, and she had to believe that assurance. They (the people in charge) wanted her to come over, so that it would indeed look like, as Mom was saying, that "nothing had happened", and that life was just going on as usual. The most recent film we'd seen before that was "The Package" starring Gene Hackman, which we saw at the Pacific Theater on Parthenia on August 26th, 6 days before the Event began on September 1st. When we went to "Sea of Love", I had not a shred of memory of that night, nor of our awful Summer, nor anything about Lillian and Terry. I knew she worked at Priority Records now, and I guess I was programmed not to think about the year. I don't know how they did it,  though I am remembering what I will call deep-sleep coma state therapy, with hypnotic drugs, headphones, and possibly ice baths to lower body temperature. All I remember from coming home is having this "bemused feeling", like I was sure of two things: One, that "something big happened" and two, that I had missed it, or missed out on it. I even asked Lilly, or said to her, "It feels like something happened to me."  Anyhow, she knew - for certain - that I'd been in the hospital, and that my memory had been taken away. I can't think of a bigger human rights violation than to do to someone what was done to me.

Lillian came over almost weekly for the rest of that year and through the Summer of 1990. We went to a ton of movies, I can list them, and she came over knowing what had happened to me. My whole family also knew. Terry of course knew. There is no way they could not have known. What was done to me is so outrageous that I haven't the words to explain how I feel, but it will go down in history as the ultimate attempt at depersonalizing and dehumanizing someone. Anyhow, that's all for now. I'm gonna keep working on nailing down that return date. All of this is homework for the book.  ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music was "Little Red Record" by Matching Mole, and "Present From Nancy"by Supersister. My late night is Handel's Saul Oratorio. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):) 

John Ireland and Susan Stephen in "Return of a Stranger", and "Final Appointment" starring "John Bentley and Ellen Sommerfield

Last night we had John Ireland again, a little more successfully this time, in "Return of a Stranger"(1961). Ireland plays "Ray Reed", a graphic artist at a London advertising firm. His much younger wife "Pam" (Susan Stephen) is a homemaker who looks after their little boy, "Tommy" (Timothy Beaton). All seems well; Ray is up for a promotion at work, but there's been a man lurking about their house, a decrepit chap in a worn overcoat and baggy trousers. We see him on the sidewalk, shown from behind to maintain the mystery, and to emphasize his creepy, bad comb-over. 

When Pam Reed asks her neighbor and the mailman if they've noticed such a man, both say no. Ray gets home and overhears her talking about it on the phone, but she then says she doesn't want to discuss it with him. When he presses, she coughs up: "You know that I was raised in an orphanage." "Yes, but I thought you understood that I love you the way you are now and I accept your past." "I do, but there's a part I never told you." She goes on to say that when she was fourteen, and still at the orphanage, one of staff members raped her. Because it's 1961, the word "rape" isn't used. Instead, she says "he made love to me", but the assault is briefly depicted and it's hardy making love. Now, she suspects it's the same guy who's stalking her, 17 years later. The Reeds' phone rings that night, but the caller is silent. Whoever it is calls back the next day when Ray is at work. Pam calls him there, frantic. He rushes home to call the police, but the inspector "Sgt. Meecham" (Ian Fleming, not the James Bond one) is very officious. He's the dictionary definition of by the book. "I have no corroborating evidence that your wife ever got such a phone call," he tells Ray, who takes offense, because Meecham's insinuating that Pam's got the vapors. "The little woman" and all that.....

On his own, Ray tracks down the orphanage rapist, whose name is "Homer Trent" (Cyril Shaps). He insists the cops interview him and they do, but Trent denies knowing anyone named Pamela Reed. He smirks at Inspector Meecham. Most cops would have this guy over a barrel, but Meecham turns it around to again suggest that the Reeds have the wrong man, and furthermore, maybe Pam is imagining it.

But then, the ante is upped. Their son Tommy is reported missing from school, inducing terror in Pam, but by the time Ray gets home, the headmaster has delivered the boy, who wasn't missing after all. Meecham doesn't believe it was Homer Trent who made the fake report, and by now, the gist is that he doesn't believe anything Pam says, because she's a former orphan waif, one step above a street urchin. The final straw is when a florist delivers a funeral wreath to the Reeds' flat, followed by a visit from a mortuary director. "My condolences on the death of your husband," he tells Pam. "But he isn't dead! You get out of our house!"

Now, it looks like the Reeds have not just a stalker but a complete psycho on their hands. We never see the creep except from behind (with that dreadful comb-over), but if we've been paying attention to our Casting Director Theorum, there's a talented caricature actor in the cast who has yet to make a facial appearance. From that consideration, we gather that the plot isn't a whodunit, but a straight-up thriller: who will win the battle of wits? Will the ante-upping psycho get the better of Ray, Pam and little Tommy? Inspector Meecham is less than no help, he's actually a detriment, threatening Ray with arrest if he even makes a comment about "getting" Homer Trent on his own. Ray has lost his promotion over this mess, and the guy who was given the job then dies in an elevator crash. The cable was cut, which makes it look like Ray was jealous and killed him. Inspector Meecham believes it for five movie minutes.

The psycho apparently knows how and has the wherewithal to cut elevator cables and send the man careening to his death.

Of course, he finally returns to their flat again for a Final Showdown, which has been building the entire time. The cops don't have a stake because Inspector Meecham doesn't believe the Reeds, so it's a Straw Dogs deal, sort of. And the actor portraying the psycho does a Jason at the end (comes back from the dead). He lifts the movie above average, with one caveat: what's with the jaunty jazz score? It completely undercuts the tension in what should be scary scenes. Breezy jazz, with xylophone and drums which would better befit an early '60s American sitcom. Other than that, Two Bigs and a solid recommendation. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

The previous night's film was "Final Appointment"(1954), a murder mystery featuring the formula of reporter vs. inspector that we've seen a lot recently. Likable John Bentley stars as "Mike Billings" of the Evening Star, always out for a scoop and relying on his "little bird," a secret source who alerts him to developing stories. This time, he goes to the office of an attorney named "Hartnell" (Hubert Gregg), fibs his way past the secretary, then asks Hartnell about "some threatening letters you've been receiving." "How do you know about those?" "It's my business to know things. I'm a reporter." "Not even the police know about those letters! Get out of my office!"

All that does is intrigue Billings further. Back at the Star, he asks his editor for permission to dig deeper into the case. Of course, we've gotta have the High Blood Pressure Editor and the Harried Press Foreman, tearing their hair out over deadlines, etc. We've also just met "Jenny" (no last name), played by the delightfully expressive Ellen Sommerfield, whose advice column is called "Ask Aunt Agatha". She hates the inanity of it, really wants to join Billings on the crime beat, and takes it upon herself to do so when her editor all but fires her for insubordination. Besides providing light comic relief and romantic foilage, Jenny serves as an assistant sleuth to Billings when he discovers a common thread linking some murders connected to lawyer Hartnell, who was a JAG officer during the war before going into private practice.

Several other attorneys from that JAG branch have been murdered, all on the same day, July 10th, in consecutive years. Billings is the first person to notice this, and now he's being tailed by "Inspector Corcoran" (Liam Redmond), who wonders why he's bothering Mr. Hartnell. "How did you know about those letters when even the police didn't know?" This sets up the cooperation/rivalry between the two, press and police, which serves as the basis for this script formula. The July 10th clue is important, suggesting a serial killer is at work. The date apparently means something to him.

They separately question a man named "Vickery", who - because he's played by Sam Kydd - is, as always, a cheap-suited, bow-tied small-time Cockney thief. That was Sam Kydd's stereotype, and he's the guy you want for that role. Inspector Corcoran is willing to overlook Kydd's apartment full of stolen goods, if he will tell what he knows about the WW2 JAG trial. Who would have it in for Mr. Hartnell, who at the time was the presiding JAG captain? "Well", says Kydd, "there was five of us court-martialed" (though it's never explained for what). "I got two years. George Martin got the worst of it, Hartnell gave him five."

Apparently, he did better in the early 1960s, in the music business.

Once George Martin is identified, reporter Billings and Inspector Corcoran believe they have their killer. But there's only one problem: when they go looking for Martin, it turns out he's been dead for many years. His brother's even got the death certificate. So how did he produce The Beatles? Yeah, riddle me that one, Batman. Amidst all of this, which is plodding but forward moving (not that creative but tight), Jenny is a major character, using her fluctuating facial muscles to render any emotional nuance. Her face is constantly moving, she's great, and mostly she's cheesed off about Mike Billings's attention to Hartnell's tall, dark secretary with the perfect hairdo. The Jenny character is almost half the movie. It turns out that George Martin once ran a tobacconist shop with his brother before they had a fight and he died years later in a flophouse. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Final Appointment". Though plodding, and not clever, it's still quite good for the actors and their characters. The picture is razor sharp.  ////

And that's all for this evening. My blogging music was "Fish Out of Water", the excellent 1975 solo album from Chris Squire. My late night is Handel's Esther Oratorio. I hope you had a nice weekend, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)   

John Ireland in "No Time to Kill", and "The Catman of Paris" starring Carl Esmond and Douglas Dumbrille

Okay, this rarely happens. First of all, have you ever heard of a guy named Jerry Warren? I hadn't. If I'd heard of him, you wouldn't be reading this review. How about a British/Swedish production? Have you ever heard of that? Last night, the hour was running late. We needed something to watch, and a Youtube search brought the title "No Time to Kill"(1959) starring John Ireland. You can't go wrong, right? Ireland always turns in a reliably laconic performance, whether in Westerns or Noirs. Sometimes he even plays a psycho. The opening credit said, "Robert Lippert Presents", which wasn't the same as Lippert Pictures, but it was the same guy. OK, fine.

in the opening scene, Ireland gets off a ship. It looks like he's somewhere in Europe (we only learn that it's Schweden upon checking IMDB after the movie is over). He does a voice over as he's getting to his hotel, to inform us that he's been in prison for ten years on a frame job. Now he's gonna kill the guy who framed him. "All that time in Korea, and I prayed I'd never have to kill anyone. Now, it's all I think about."

After settling in at his hotel, he goes about setting up his plan, which is convoluted to say the least. He's gonna make an appointment at the guy's place of business. What "Mr. Christians" (the framer, never shown) does for a living isn't clear, but when Ireland gets there, he plans to pose as an insurance investigator, after having planted a bomb in Christians' office. Then he's gonna shoot the guy, and when the bomb goes off it'll look like Christians committed suicide. And no, I'm not joking.   

To make a long story short on the murder attempt, his bomb goes off but Mr. Christians is not in the room. All those fuse holes drilled in the wall for nothing.

CUT TO: now Ireland is visiting the home of Christians after meeting his wife "Nina" (Ellen Schwiers) in a bar. She immediately seduces him. She looks to be of Asian/Russian descent. You're going: "what country are we in?" He blows off her seduction attempt, because he's still looking for her husband.

Now, time slows. 

CUT TO! (with no explanation, just splice the MF): Ireland's hotel hallway. He's walking through, and a gal in another room, wearing lingerie, flashes him some leg. It's like in Eraserhead, when Henry gets the come-on from the gal by the elevator. The lingerie gal flashes Ireland, who ignores her and keeps walking.....but then, after one minute in his hotel room....

CUT TO!! now he's in the lingerie room, making out with said gal. Drinks are poured constantly.

All of this is played out at an excruciatingly slow pace. What happened to the convoluted bomb plot?

We're now at about the twenty minute mark, and for the next fifteen minutes, Ireland's stud credentials are established, as he again visits Nina Christians, whose wide mouth and heavy accent make it difficult to lip read what she's saying. I later looked up Ellen Schweiers on IMDB, and she's an award winning stage actress, but for whatever reason, her performance here does not work to say the least. And John Ireland may have been on tranquilizers at the time.

Okay, now we're 35 minutes into a 60 minute "Noir." Finally the assassination revenge bomb "plot" is resuscitated. Ireland pays a guy in a bar to make an appointment at Mr. Christians' business office, so he can try again.

The next we see the phone call guy, he's got a beat-up face. How'd that happen?

CUT TO!!! More seduction and sex with the hotel room gal, then a major league fistfight in a bar, pitting Ireland against four guys.

Look, I'll be honest with you, I was on the ropes after the first five minutes of this thing, and it was a TKO after ten, but I kept watching because that's my job as your intrepid reviewer. That's why I say this rarely happens.

Whoever uploaded the movie listed a guy named Jerry Warren next to the title. There was no actor by that name. "Who the hell is he?" I wondered, so I Googled it, and Jerry Warren was an independent American "producer" who bought up obscure films, like this British/Swedish one, then cut them to pieces and inserted his own footage to make them Jerry Warren Originals. As it turns out, this flick was the only "Jerry Warren" film that he didn't add any of his own stuff. I looked at the running time on IMDB: 90 minutes. Then I double checked on Wiki to make sure. Yep - it was originally a 90 minute movie. Warren cut out a half hour and released it like that in America.

Talk about a butcher job. It gives the Butcher Brothers a bad name! Usually we say that movies are too long. This one is too long because it's a too short version of a movie that was undoubtedly too long to begin with, and it's utterly indecipherable. It's horrible! I can't believe it has a 5.3 rating on IMDB, a number that usually signifies a decent flick. .53 is more like it, just move the decimal point. Sam Newfield has a co-directing credit. Maybe they brought him in to try and save the original, but when you're starting with a British/Swedish production co-starring an Asian/German actress, you might as well throw in the towel.

I truly don't know how I made it through this film, only so I could review it for you. No thumbs, up or down. "No Time to Kill" is an apt title, because you'll be killing an hour you'll never get back. Watch it at your peril. The picture is slightly soft.  ////

The previous night's movie was "The Catman of Paris"(1946), a straight-up knockoff of "Cat People", but good nonetheless. A successful new author, one "Charles Regnier" (Carl Esmond), is celebrated about town for his new novel, "Fraudulent Justice", which exposes the corruption in Paris, related to a famous murder trial. Regnier is toasted as the new Victor Hugo. His friend "Henry Borchard" (Douglas Dumbrille) takes him out for a fine meal and dance show. He's engaged to "Marguerite Duval" (Adele Mara), a society deb, but when he's introduced to "Marie Audet" (Lenore Aubert), his publisher's daughter, he truly falls in love. 

His book is expected to break all previous sales records in Frawnce. But while out for a second dinner with Henry and Marie, he suddenly doesn't feel well, and apologizes to step outside. You know the drill: the moon is full, a black cat skulks on a rooftop, then scampers down the sidewalk. It's a rip off of Cat People imagery, and that of other such black cat films, but it works, so what the hey.

As noted, this flick has its own merits. look no further than the casting of.....are you ready?.....

Gerald "Less Is" Mohr, as the Paris police inspector! When was the last time we heard from Gerald Mohr? Sometime during Covid? Well, he's back, slightly younger (it's 1895, I mean 1946), and he does a serviceable French accent on certain words and names - like Shahle for Charles and Awn-ree for Henry - that blends well with his natural New York accent. He doesn't believe in the police psychiatrist's astrological mumbo-jumbo about Jupiter's influence on the Catman, who's now killed a man suspected of stealing documents that prove the famous murder trial a fraud, which, if destroyed, would negate the legitimacy of Rengnier's book.

Henry Bouchard, a mentor to Regnier, tells Marie that Reginer suffers from "brain fugues". "He developed amnesia in Africa after contracting yellow fever." Regnier's amnesia spells seem to coincide with the full moon and Catman murders. For some reason that's never explained, the director Leslie Selander chose to intercut repeated shots of what is either a buoy or a space capsule bobbing at sea. We never even get a hint of what it is or why it's shown. Such are the peculiarities of Poverty Row filmmaking.

Because Regnier has amnesiac states that coincide with the murdalizations, and because he can't remember where he was on those nights, he's convinced he's The Catman. But if you read our last blog, any casting director could tell you different. Two Big Thumbs Up, it's really good for being a copycat flick, with its own twist being the political authorship. ////

And that's all for tonight. My blogging music is "The Magician's Birthday" by Uriah Heep. The one-two punch of that album combined with "Demons and Wizards" is a knockout, as good as music gets. My late night is still Handel's Belshazzar Opera. I wish you a nice weekend and I send you Tons of Love, as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Tom Neal and Adele Jurgens in "Radar Secret Service",and "The Great Van Robbery" starring Denis Shaw and Philip Saville

Last night's movie was "Radar Secret Service"(1950), an atomic crime caper from our old buddy Sam Newfield, he of the multitudinous 60 Minute Westerns. It comes to us courtesy of Lippert Pictures, who've never given us a bum steer, and here they deliver again, albeit in the compact way we've come to expect from Newfield, with less script development than in standard Lippert productions.

"Bill Travis" (John Howard), the head of the RSS (a new agency) is extolling the virtues of radar, which has been developed for civic uses, like tracking organised crime. Just now, in fact, an agency squad car, complete with radar ball on top, has tracked down a murder-weapon pistol on a sandy beach. We watch the discovery right there inside RSS headquarters on their big-screen TV, which carries the radar feed live. 

HQ soon gets word of a plan to steal a shipment of U238, the element for atomic bombs. A note is passed by cafe waitress "Marge" (Myrna Dell) to "Lila," (Adele Jurgens), the striking moll of "Mickey Moran" (Tom Neal), the leader of a gang of warehouse thieves. With this info, Marge - the girlfriend of gang lookout "Blackie" (Riley Hill) - has provided Lila and Mickey with the route of the uranium delivery truck, which is being deliberately sent without escort to appear inconspicuous; just a black panel truck truck all alone on the highway, with no accompanying protection. This makes it easy for Mickey and his hoodlums to hijack it in a tunnel. Now they've got the barrels of U238, for which they already have a buyer, the mysterious "Michael" (Tristam Coffin), a probable terrorist or Communist sympathizer. MIchael also has the hots for Lila, and she for him (she's not loyal to Mickey), which makes for an uneasy partnership between buyer and seller. Much time is spent driving around on old highways in what looks like Santa Clarita, and maybe Camarillo. Highway after highway; this is One Drivin' Movie. I looked on IMDB, but no locations were listed, doggonnit.

There's no major plot. It's just about using the Radarmobile to keep tracking the shifting position of the uranium element, as it gets moved from warehouses to barns in the boondocks, and that's also really cool, because there are lots of old barns situated off of what looks like The Old Road to Newhall. The highways are the best part of the movie, but there are also multiple double crosses to play out. Madge the waitress will have the final say, after Mickey hangs her boyfriend Blackie out to dry. Tom Neal is always good. Too bad he hooked up with Barbara Payton and ruined his life, but he might've ruined it anyway. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Radar Secret Service", a different kind of Sam Newfield film but, as always, directed with his tight professionalism. The picture is very good.  ////

The night before, we watched another movie with a less-than-accurate title. "The Great Van Robbery"(1959), obviously is a play on England's Great Train Robbery of 1855, but the whole van heist starts in the opening scene and is over in about 90 seconds. The movie isn't about the heist but about the money laundering of the stolen cash, 150,000 lbs worth. The thieves know it's too hot to spend, it's got traceable serial numbers, so they take it to a big shot fence named "Mr. Cartier", who is only seen in shadow. He offers them 10 pence on the pound, or whatever ten percent is in English money. Though outraged by the offer, they have no choice but to accept it, as Cartier is the only money launderer who will touch that amount of dough.

But the real plot takes off when a businessman in Brazil is busted on a bank transaction that identifies one of the serial numbers. Interpol is notified, which is what the movie is all about, the reach and power of Interpol, in the person of Scotland Yard Inspector "Caesar Smith" (Denis Shaw), who's sent to Brazil to interview the arrested businessman, who turns out to be unconnected to the heist or money laundering. He's merely an importer/exporter (cue George Costanza) who sold 16 tons of coffee to a man who paid in British pounds.

Because the plot stresses Interpol cooperation, we are sent on an Intrepid Chase, with jaunty "continuation" music (meaning "here we go to yet another different country"), as Agent Smith flies from Brazil to Italy to Frawnce, then back to Brazil, firing bullet-point questions at all and sundry, including police El Capitanos and suspects alike, about the whereabouts of the stolen money. He ends up back in England, where, as a last resort, he interviews a coffee broker named "Chase" (Philip Saville), who answers his questions defensively but straightforwardly, causing Smith to dismiss him as an honest businessman offended at being questioned. But because Chase is played by Philip Saville, you know something is up, and of course he turns out to be a ruthless criminal mastermind, and here we must offer a backhanded Thank You to casting directors everywhere, for hiring and typecasting actors and actresses that, once we see their name in the credits, we know who the bad guy is.

The whole movie is about Agent Smith's Relentless Pursuit of the coffee and the cash. The filmmakers make sure you know he's Interpol, which has gotta be second only to the US Mail Police in jurisdiction and badassery, and I'm not even kidding about the USPS police, check 'em out if you want to, no agency is higher in authority. Smith knows judo and though built like a fireplug, he can beat the tar out of two younger and more athletic bad guys. The whole movie is also about actor Denis Shaw's over-the-top bulldog attitude and persistence. You might remember Shaw, whom we recently saw in "Naked Fury" alongside the great Reed De Rouen. Shaw's the chunky guy with the encroaching hairline that's got to be a wig but may not be. He usually plays a Dogged Inspector, and in this film, his search for the stolen money ends about where you'd expect, in a darkened coffee storage warehouse, with lots of stacked coffee bean bags to hide behind for the inevitable shootout with Philip Saville. You knew it was coming, but only in hindsight, because when you first saw the movie - in 1959 when it opened - you weren't as sophisticated about plot formulas. But it's still a good one, because of the invincible Denis Shaw, who may be our new Charles King. Wait a minute, scratch that: No one is Charles King! Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Great Van Robbery". The picture is slightly soft.  ////  

And that's all I know for tonight. We'll have more 1989 coming up. My blogging music was the masterful "Eldorado" by ELO, my late night is Handel's Belshazzar Opera. I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love as always.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

Angela Lansbury and Keith Andes in "A Life at Stake", and "Devil Girl from Mars" starring Patricia Laffan and Peter Reynolds

Last night we found an interesting psychological noir entitled "A Life at Stake"(1955). Keith Andes (father of Mark Andes, of Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne fame), stars as "Edward Shaw", a building contractor and architect. He's down on his luck when we meet him, living in a rooming house with only a hotplate to cook on, following the collapse of his company due to bad investments. He's brooding but buff, making his shirtlessness mandatory in the opening scene. He keeps a framed one thousand dollar bill as a reminder of flusher times, and also as a "break glass in emergency" source of funds if he wakes up and finds his wallet empty.

His fortunes rise when a man comes calling, representing "Gus Hillman" (Douglad Dumbrille) a wealthy real estate magnate who wants him to build a tract of homes in San Diego. The rep tells him he can make a bundle, but Shaw is skeptical. "The last man who told me that put me out of business." Nevertheless, the rep has a convincing spiel, and Shaw is talked in to meeting with Hillman's wife, "Doris" (Angela Lansbury, who was pretty slinky in her younger days.)

When Shaw arrives, the Hillman's maid answers the door. "Miss Doris swims in the nude. You'd better announce yourself before going to the pool." This of course serves to set up coy dialogue and immediate sexual tension. But Doris has more on her mind than lust. Concerning Lansbury, you  can call this "Murder, She Planned" rather than Wrote. After seducing Edward Shaw (because her husband is old and disinterested) she sets up the housing deal. Husband Gus is out of town, but reappears when Doris advises Shaw of a necessary clause in his contract: "We need you to have life insurance." When he asks why, she says, "Well, because you're an irreplaceable designer. Me, I'm just a real estate agent. Anyone can replace me, but you? You're an artist, so to guarantee the deal, we've got to have you insured, it's common practice." A negotiation over how much coverage he'll accept takes place amid a make-out session. They settle on 175 Thousand Gees.

But then, Shaw is introduced to Doris Hillman's 21 year old sister, "Madge" (Claudia Barrett), a motormouth cutie who spills the family beans when Doris fails to meet her and Shaw for dinner at Don the Beachcomber. I mean, get outta town. Don the Beachcomber! How much cooler can things get? 

Well anyhow, according to sister Madge, the deal with Doris Hillman is that she was married before, and that husband died by driving off a bridge. He had life insurance too, and she collected. "Oops, I said too much" says Madge. But now, Shaw suspects he's next, and being a paranoid guy to begin with, he starts checking the brakes on his car. Doris swears she loves him and isn't out to get him, and at first he believes her, but once he meets her creepy, garrulous husband he thinks they're in it together. He should've known you never take out a life insurance policy at someone else's insistence.

The key to this movie is Shaw's inward-directed suspicion of others. He doesn't trust people, and he doesn't trust that he doesn't trust them. Actor Andes has a good combination of eyes and forehead and uses the Furrowed Brow Effect to maximum advantage. When he and Lansbury make out, which is often, it looks like they're at war. As a side note, doesn't it drive you crazy when people pronounce it "IN-surance"?

Doris and her hubby have a chalet way up in Big Bear, with a patio that has a precipitous drop to your death. I've recently been Youtubing videos with drives over Decker Canyon and Angeles Crest Highway, two roads that have scared the beejeezus out of me in the past, and which I will never drive again, and this mountain road of the Hillmans should be a clue to Edward Shaw. You don't drive up on a road like that to meet about canceling your insurance policy. Gus Hillman then drugs Shaw's coffee. Good luck to him trying to drive home. 

There are some really cool cars in this production, and good location shooting. The direction could be a little more taut, but the performances are very good. Two Big Thumbs Up and a strong recommendation. The picture is razor sharp. ////

The previous night, we had an unknown cult classic, "Devil Girl from Mars"(1954), which sounds As Corman As It Gets, but is actually an English knockoff of "The Day the Earth Schtood Schtill". A meteor has hit Skeertland, near Inverness, drawing a scientist and the reporter who gives him a ride. Adding to the surprise, a murderer has escaped from the nearby prison the same night. He runs through the fen to the Bonnie Charlie Inn, where he knows the barmaid and asks if she will hide him. "I'm innocent, I never killed anyone."

The meteor has also forced a hovering flying saucer to land. The special effects are good here, it's an awesome ship, complete with spinning ring atop and high-whine turbine sound. The patrons at the Inn are terrified. The reporter has only just now recognised the murderer, "Albert Simpson" (the excellent Peter Reynolds) who is using an assumed name, and now here comes the Martian gal "Nyah" (the angular Patricia Laffan), striding off her spaceship's ramp looking all dominatrix in a black latex cape, cowl and mini-skirt (in 1954!). Laffan has got a one-of-a-kind face, all eyes, cheekbones and long, blade-like nose. Here, as in the movies we've previously seen her, she's humorless but sexy and praying mantis deadly. She'll kill and devour you, after she's done ridiculing your existence.

In this case, she's come from Mars, because, as usual, they're running short on babies. Wars and atmospheric changes have depleted the population. One of the male patrons will be taken back to be used as a breeder. The rest of the patrons will be killed. Actress Laffan plays it straight and robotic/vampiric; she's all arched eyebrows and rigid posture but fluid motion. She's definitely not amused by silly humans, especially the geology professor who suggests Earth might have a science that's comparable to Mars. This really pisses her off: "You cannot compete with Mars!"

She's kind of a braggart, childlike almost: "Mars has this, Mars has that, na-nah-na-nah-nah."

She's also got a remote control that commands her big-ass robot, who - like Klaatu - has a refrigerator-sized body and can shoot photon balls that vaporize their targets. He walks mighty slow, but like The Mummy, he's unstoppable.

In the downtime (which is considerable; the movie should be 65 minutes instead of 76), Lives Converge as the Inn patrons square off to drink or fall in love. The barmaid (Adrienne Corri) has already fallen for Albert Simpson, the escaped killer. The reporter chooses "Ellen Prestwick" (Hazel Court), an American actress who just happens to be at a remote Scottish Inn when a UFO lands. The innkeepers have a crippled workman who Nyah vaporises with her ray gun, "because he was an unworthy specimen". Talk about your un-PC dialogue.

In the end, one man will have to sacrifice himself, to volunteer to go with Nyah back to Mars to make babies. She's already kidnapped the bar owners' little grandson to force their hand, but he escapes. The volunteer will attempt crash the spaceship. Two Bigs, but it needs 10 minutes cut. It's Patricia Laffan's movie which makes it a must-see, a sci-fi gem in its weird little way. The picture is widescreen and razor sharp. ////  

Now, back to 1989 once again, an interesting post-Event detail is that Lillian wore a neck brace in December of that year. I was reminded of it after looking through an old photo album with pictures that show Lilly (looking very beautiful, serene and ladylike) holding two or three of Alice's puppies, Trixie mostly, in various pictures. The pups are in the palm of her hand, eyes still closed. They are tiny and certainly no more than a few days old. This would place the date of the photos at around Saturday December 2nd, as Alice had her litter on November 27th, 1989. In a side note, when word got out that Alice was delivering, a whole bunch of people showed up to watch, like Debbie L., Steve P., and the evil David Friedman. It was mostly my brother Chris's friends. I think Paul S. was there. Dennis was probably there too. Anyhow, the kitchen was full of 'em. I was on the floor with Alice, acting as a midwife (one puppy slipped under the refrigerator!) Alice had ten in all. But Lilly came over, very likely on the weekend of Friday Dec. 1 or Saturday Dec 2nd, and she had her neck brace on. I took photos of her holding the puppies.

She explained that she'd been rear-ended by (verbatim) : "Some Air Force guy", who she said "slammed into" her car. She said he was "really pissed off" at her for what he perceived as some driving mistake on her part. That's all she said about it, but in light of the fact that I was taken to Edwards North Base after being rescued from Jared Rappaport's house, it's interesting, to say the least, that Lillian was subsequently rear ended by Some Air Force Guy in such a close time frame. Was the rear-ending deliberate, and done as a threatening measure? Quite possibly, and probably without a doubt. Keep in mind that in 1994, five years later, the late, great, but extremely deceptive Dave Small was convinced that people were following him around. He wound up in the Northridge Hospital psych ward over it (and for other reasons), but that doesn't mean his suspicions were unfounded. 

Was Lillian's accident with the Air Force Guy a coincidence? Not hardly not even, when one considers the involvement of the military at the Wilbur Wash (weird but true), and - again - the Edwards Air Force Base connection. Somebody was messing with her in the aftermath of The Event. I'm glad she was ultimately left alone, or at least I hope she was.

At any rate, another interesting detail, brought back by the perusal of old photos. //// 

My blogging music tonight is Soft Machine's "Volume Two". My late night is Handel's Alessandro Opera. I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you Tons of Love as always.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)