THE BEAUTY OF THE DEVIL (1950)
(a.k.a. LA BEAUTE DU DIABLE)
Article #1347 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-21-2004
Posting Date: 4-20-2005
Directed by Rene Clair
Featuring Michel Simon, Gerard Philipe, Nicole Besnard

Faust is tempted by Mephistopheles to sell his soul to the devil.

The Faust story has the potential to be ponderous, what with its musings on the nature of good and evil and the existence of the soul. However, if any director has the ability to avoid that problem, it would be Rene Clair, who even when he is serious, is never heavy. This is the story of Faust as a comic tragedy, with half of the movie dedicated to Mephistopheles using every trick in the book to get Faust to sign the contract, and then having to use every means at his disposal to try to keep Faust from repenting. His first trick is a fine example of the machinations to come; he turns Faust into a young man free of charge, but when Faust is forced to return to his home to get some money, he is mistaken for a thief by his servant, and given that the old Faust is nowhere to be found, is arrested for the murder and robbery of his older self. Of course, Faust can call on Mephistopheles to help him out of this predicament, but will he? To give away any more of this story would ruin the effect, but the ensuing battle of wills and minds is witty, clever and engaging, and the performances of Michel Simon and Gerard Philipe (who play Faust and Mephistopheles, though not necessarily in that order) are great. It works itself up to a brilliantly ironic ending which might actually get you to wonder just who the tragic hero is in this story. This would make a great companion piece to Murnau’s FAUST; both movies are brilliant, but they also represent almost polar opposite takes on the same story. This one is also highly recommended.

BOYS OF THE CITY (1940)
(a.k.a. THE GHOST CREEPS)
Article #1336 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-10-2004
Posting Date: 4-9-2005
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Featuring Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Hal E. Chester

The East Side Kids agree to stay in the country in order to avoid being sent to reform school, but end up getting mixed up in a murder in an old haunted house.

This is probably the earliest movie from the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/Little Tough Guys/Bowery Boys aggregate series that featured elements of the fantastic; it was released in July of 1940, one month before JUNIOR G-MEN was released. This one was from the East Side Kids, which featured Jordan and Gorcey from the original Dead End Kids, the rest having been placed in the Little Tough Guys series.

This one is still early enough that they could still be called “boys”. They hadn’t entirely made the transition to comedy yet; I only heard one malaprop during the whole movie (“confusion” for “conclusion”), and it didn’t even come from Leo Gorcey. Most of the obvious comedy comes from “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison, who spends most of the movie as a quivering mass of fear, thereby exploiting a rather annoying racial stereotype. It’s pretty standard “old dark house” trappings, with secret passages, people disguising as ghosts, etc. Minerva Urecal steals the movie as a creepy caretaker; she even seems to be channeling Eva Moore from THE OLD DARK HOUSE at times; check out her speech to Inna Gest and see if it doesn’t remind you of a scene from that movie. The East Side Kids would be back in a haunted house in a couple of years with SPOOKS RUN WILD.

BIG JACK (1949)
Article #1331 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-5-2004
Posting Date: 4-4-2005
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Featuring Wallace Beery, Richard Conte, Marjorie Main

In the early nineteenth century, the head of a band of outlaws rescues a doctor (who was about to be hanged) to get him to fix a leg injury.

Fantastic aspects: For a good twenty minutes or so I was wondering when the fantastic aspects of the story would manifest themselves. Eventually, you find out why the doctor was being hanged; he procured research subjects via grave-robbing, which nudges the movie a tiny bit into horror territory.

IMDB describes this movie as a western, and I suppose it is to some extent; despite the one horror element, it’s certainly not a horror movie. Still, the “western” shoe doesn’t quite fit to these eyes; it’s more of an historical comedy-drama. Still, however you try to pigeonhole this one, it’s one strange movie, and the fact that it doesn’t even appear to know how strange it is just makes it all the stranger. Richard Conte’s doctor is the hero of the story; the movie is firmly pro-science, and treats his grave-robbing as a necessity to the growth of his medical knowledge and a necessary evil in an unenlightened age. It’s tempting to call Wallace Beery’s Big Jack Horner the villain, but he’s more of an anti-hero. Despite being a robber and a murderer, he’s almost a child in the way he looks at the world (he’s fascinated by the doctor’s desire of making a “window” in the human body), and like a child, he doesn’t handle well not getting what he wants. The main villain of the story is probably the jealous barber / doctor who ends up resenting the intrusion of a new doctor in the community.

All in all, I consider this one a black comedy, though once again, the movie remains firmly unaware that it is; it’s dark comic aspects seem the result of innocence rather than cynicism. It is also quite funny at times. My favorite sequence is when Big Jack concludes that the doctor’s desire to escape from his band of outlaws arises out of his loneliness due to a lack of female companionship, and so kidnaps a young woman to keep him company. As he and his own woman (Marjorie Main) listen to the struggle between the surprised doctor and the feisty kidnap victim (who are locked in a cabin together), they muse sentimentally on their own courtship. This would be Wallace Beery’s final movie.

BLACK MOON (1934)
Article #1321 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-26-2004
Posting Date: 3-25-2005
Directed by Roy William Neill
Featuring Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Dorothy Burgess

A white woman returns to her island home, where many years ago she was indoctrinated into the ways of voodoo. Her returns sparks off a new wave of voodoo ritual and human sacrifices.

There’s no way to easily describe this strange, almost forgotten horror movie from the thirties, but I would rate it as the best voodoo movie made between WHITE ZOMBIE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, and there isn’t even a single zombie in the movie. I’d even place it ahead of WHITE ZOMBIE; for me, that movie never quite captures the sense of oppressive dread that permeates this movie. In fact, it may be the the most Lewtonesque movie I’ve seen that was made before the advent of Val Lewton; it’s dark, unsettling, and things never quite happen the way you anticipate they will. Even the performance of the comic relief character (‘Lunch’ McClaren played by Clarence Muse) is so muted that I’m not even sure that the character can be called comic relief at all; he doesn’t seem to be playing for laughs (his fear, for example, is portrayed seriously rather than comically), and his performance actually lends to the atmosphere of the proceedings. The movie is a little uneven; for example, the Fay Wray character seems to exist more for the sake of convenience than for anything else. But the brooding atmosphere has a way of sticking with you, and you won’t soon forget the ending. This one is worth seeking out.

BAIT (1954)
Article #1320 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-25-2004
Posting Date: 3-24-2005
Directed by Hugo Haas
Featuring Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, John Agar

A prospector goes into partnership with a young man to locate a lost gold mine. When the mine is found, his greed prompts him to hatch a scheme to get rid of the unwanted partner.

Fantastic content: the story is initially narrated by the Devil in the form of Sir Cedric Hardwicke.

The first encounter I ever had cinematically with Hugo Haas was with the fascinating BILA NEMOC (SKELETON ON HORSEBACK). I was quite surprised by the quality of this movie, since my initial knowledge of the man and his work was from “The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film”, which mentions him in connection with a series of low-budget (and quite bad) noirish potboilers he made during the fifties. My expectations were quite low for this one. Having now watched it, I can attest that it’s no classic, but it’s hardly an embarrassment; in fact, I quite liked some of it. In particular, I like Haas’ performance; I found him quite interesting as a man neither as mad or as stupid as he appears to be. I also felt John Agar did a good job with a somewhat more difficult role than he was usually given. I’m less taken with Cleo Moore, who was attractive, but really doesn’t show much in the way of real acting talent. I also like some of the visual tricks used by Haas; in particular, a scene where Agar and Moore talk, their bodies lit but their faces in darkness, caught my attention. Still, the best scene easily is the introduction, in which Sir Cedric Hardwicke (“quite a good actor”) climbs a flight of stairs, signs a bunch of autographs, and introduces himself as the devil.

BULLDOG DRUMMOND IN AFRICA (1938)
Article #1313 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-18-2004
Posting Date: 3-17-2005
Directed by Louis King
Featuring John Howard, Heather Angel, H.B. Warner

Bulldog Drummond calls off his wedding to rescue Colonel Nielsen, who has been kidnapped by dealers in foreign secrets and taken to Africa.

NOTE: I’ve taken to setting aside a specific section of each of these reviews to highlight the fantastic content of any movie in which the content may not be apparent from the plot description.

Fantastic Content: There’s precious little here. There’s a touch of horror in some scene involving a lion tied to a stake, and there’s a touch of science fiction in the fact that the secret being sought involves the invention of a radiowave destructor. However, the invention not only is not used during the length of the movie, it doesn’t even appear; it is merely talked about. This one is marginal.

Is it just my imagination, or is Bulldog Drummond consistently about to give up his life of adventure to settle down with a woman only to have circumstances fling him back into the world of adventure once again? I know I’ve seen this happen in several of his movies; however, given the sense of humor that pervades these movies, I suspect it’s more of a running joke than a lack of imagination on the part of the writers. At any rate, it’s always fun to revisit Drummond, Tenny, Algy and Colonel Nielsen. I did find this one a little disappointing, though; it didn’t seem quite as witty as the other entries in the series I’ve seen. Nonetheless, it has an exciting ending, and a number of familiar faces in the cast (J. Carrol Naish, Anthony Quinn). Still, the moment that had me most on the edge of my seat is also the funniest moment in the movie, and that’s near the beginning of the movie where I sat with bated breath waiting for someone to explain to me why neither Drummond nor his butler were wearing pants. At least they had an excuse, which is more than Algy had.

BRIGADOON (1954)
Article #1312 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-17-2004
Posting Date: 3-16-2005
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Featuring Gene Kelly, Van Johnson, Cyd Charisse

Two hunters stumble upon the Scottish village of Brigadoon, which only appears on the earth for one day every one hundred years.

There was a time in my life when I hated musicals. Then there was a period of time when I was under the influence of Danny Peary’s “Film Fanatic Guide” (which encourages trying out all genres), and I ended up watching musicals on a more regular basis. I found that practically every genre (with the possible exception of soap operas) has the ability to speak to me, and that includes musicals. Nowadays, even if I can’t really call myself a fan of the form, I don’t hate them and can enjoy them if I wish.

One of the powers of a musical is that it can take a corny concept and, through the use of music and dance, give it depth and resonance. The concept here is that “love can work miracles”; this may make my rational mind snicker, but it does touch a chord in my emotional mind, and the music and dance draws on that part of my psyche. Now I wouldn’t call BRIGADOON a great musical (it gets a little boring at times), but it is a good one. At the very least, it does accomplish the task of making its theme resonant enough so that you find yourself touched and moved at the end of the movie rather than annoyed. You even feel a little sorry for the Van Johnson character, whose materialistic nature makes an appreciation of the magical nature of Brigadoon and the power of love inaccessible to him. Movies like this do have a valuable function; in a world where it is so easy to give in to cynicism, that there are other options if we have the heart to pursue them.

THE BLACK CAMEL (1931)
Article #1311 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-16-2004
Posting Date: 3-15-2005
Directed by Hamilton MacFadden
Featuring Warner Oland, Bela Lugosi, Robert Young

Charlie Chan investigates the murder of an actress in Honolulu.

Fantastic aspects: Slight. They largely consist of the presence of certain actors associated with horror, and a sequence involving a crystal ball.

This may be an important movie historically. Not only does it appear to be the earliest surviving of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan movies, but it may be the first time a horror star was cast as a red herring in a mystery. I base this assumption on the fact that Bela Lugosi was the first horror star (yes, Lon Chaney predated him, but he was never really a “horror star” per se, nor do I think he was ever used as a red herring in a mystery), and this movie gives him a very high credit, indicating that it must have been made after he gained fame in DRACULA. Actually, he’s well used in this movie; he’s given a lot more to do than to give sinister glowers, and DRACULA fans will also be happy to see that Dwight Frye is on hand as well. This one is a lot of fun, with Oland quite hilarious at times. He’s assisted by a rather dim helper named Kashimo rather than his number one son, but we do have a great sequence with Chan at home with his family (which is quite large), and makes a great comment about escaping the frustrations of family life to the calm and peace of solving murders. Hamilton MacFadden (who directed) plays a movie director in the movie, and a young Robert Young (no relation to Old Robert Old) also appears.

BIRD OF PARADISE (1932)
Article #1310 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-15-2004
Posting Date: 3-14-2005
Directed by King Vidor
Featuring Dolores del Rio, Joel McCrea, John Halliday

A white man falls in love with a native girl on a south seas island, not knowing that she is the daughter of the chief and fated to be cast in the volcano to appease the gods.

Apparently, this type of story was old hat even at the time this was made. It’s a pretty elaborate production, though; my only wish is that it could have been in color. It’s also pretty racy; this was before the production code, and we have scenes of the native girl swimming naked (I don’t know if it’s Dolores del Rio or a stand-in; you never get a good look at her during this sequence) and another of del Rio wearing a top that consists of nothing more than a couple of leis. You also get a scene of Joel McCrea swimming with a turtle, sliding down a hill on a palm leaf, and teaching English to Dolores del Rio. This being the type of story it is, it’s at least borderline fantasy anyway, but the appearance of a shark and a plot point involving the volcano’s curse give it marginal horror touches as well. A certain Creighton Chaney (you know; Lon’s son) plays one of the sailors, though I can’t say whether he was given any lines of dialogue. The movie would be remade in 1951.

BEWARE SPOOKS! (1939)
Article #1309 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-14-2004
Posting Date: 3-13-2005
Directed by Edward Sedgwick
Featuring Joe E. Brown, Mary Carlisle, Clarence Kolb

An incompetent policeman loses his job when he lets a criminal escape, and he vows to catch the criminal to get his job back.

For many years I was most familiar with Joe E. Brown as a supporting player in any number of movies (like SOME LIKE IT HOT, COMEDY OF TERRORS and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM). He was always very enjoyable in these, but for some reason I never caught his starring vehicles. Having seen a couple of them now, I suspect that none of them ever really became comedy classics. Brown himself has good comic timing and a memorable face, and he did make the best of what he was given. However, his comic persona in these was strictly routine (the good-hearted bumbler), and rarely do they seem inspired. They were watchable, but hardly great.

The fantastic content in this one is slight; the last part of the movie has Brown matching wits with a criminal in a carnival spook house. This is also one of the better scenes in the movie, as a fight scene set among the usual fun-house acoutrements (stairs that turn into slides, slippery floors, etc.) does make for an interesting sequence. Other than that, the best scene of the movie is a sequence where Brown finds himself alone in a hotel room with his newly-married bride, and his nervousness results in his accidentally making a shambles of the room. Other than that, this movie is pretty slight and forgettable.