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 :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment