Happy Veteran’s Day and thank you to all who’ve served!

One of my favorite WW2 movies to watch is THE DIRTY DOZEN. This rousing all-star epic, flavored with superb character actors and moments of humor, was a box office success and remains a perennial favorite among action lovers. The formula (a band of military misfits unite to battle the enemy) became so popular it’s been rehashed several times in several ways, but none have ever come close to having the panache of director Robert Aldrich’s lively original.

Army Major Reisman is given the assignment of whipping twelve convicts into fighting shape and taking on what amounts to a suicide mission: conduct a raid behind enemy lines on a chateau where high ranking Nazi officers assemble for R’n’R. Reisman’s a rebellious sort (“very short on discipline”) with contempt for his higher-ups, especially rival Col. Breed. One of the officers calls him “the most ill-mannered, ill-disciplined officer…

Call me low-brow. Call me plebian. Call me a low-brow plebian. Hell, call me Ishmael if you want, I don’t care! I just don’t like ERASERHEAD. I’ve watched the film at least a half dozen times, thinking maybe I’m missing something. Nope. ERASERHEAD to me is a tedious piece of work with nothing to offer. Don’t misunderstand, I like most all of David Lynch’s work. I know this is his first feature, but the man is capable of giving us so much better. There’s TWIN PEAKS, BLUE VELVET, THE ELEPHANT MAN, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, DUNE….okay, maybe not DUNE. It’s not Lynch’s surrealistic style that bugs me so much as there’s nothing going on here.

As for the plot…there isn’t one. Alright, I hear you out there saying it’s an “art film”, it’s the director’s commentary on the alienation of the outsider in society, blah blah blah. But the theme of the societal outcast doesn’t…

It’s time once again to make room on the ol’ DVR! Here’s five films that have their moments, but don’t quite make the “full review” cut.

KING OF THE UNDERWORLD

(Warner Bros 1939, D: Lewis Seiler)

Mediocre entry in Warner’s gangster cycle. Humphrey Bogart had the tough guy hoodlum thing down to a science by this time; here, he plays it mainly for laughs as vain gang boss Joe Gerney. Bogie was definitely on his way up, but co-star Kay Francis (she of the Baba Wawa speech impediment) was on her way down, playing a doctor whose hubby was involved with the gang, now out to prove her own innocence. Plenty of colorful 30’s slang, but not worth wasting your time on. Fun fact: Listen for the scene where Kay calls Bogie “mowonic”!

GO WEST YOUNG LADY

(Columbia 1941, D: Frank L. Strayer)

Cornball comedy Western starring Penny Singleton (on break…

After hearing about DETOUR for years and reading all the critical acclaim, I finally got the chance to  watch it this year, thanks to TCM and the good ol’ DVR. I wondered if it would live up to all the hype, and I was not disappointed. DETOUR is a textbook example of how to make a great film on a shoestring budget. Indie auteurs today could certainly learn a lot from director Edgar G Ulmer’s inventiveness, as he crafts a film noir gem on a six-day schedule and $20,000 budget. Although reports do vary on shooting length and cost, let’s be honest…this is a PRC film, not an MGM prestige production. “Make em fast, make em cheap” was the studio’s mantra!

DETOUR tells the story of Al Roberts, who we meet in an Arizona diner. Al’s a disheveled looking guy who seems to have a chip on his shoulder bigger than the Grand Canyon. When a trucker plays the tune…

Yeah I know, I said right here on this blog yesterday that I was going to take a week off after my marathon “Halloween Havoc” series. But since it’s Burt Lancaster’s birthday (b. 11/2/13, d. 10/20/94) I thought I’d watch his film debut, THE KILLERS. Based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway and directed by Robert Siodmak, THE KILLERS is one of the best in the film noir canon, full of double-and-triple-crosses, great acting, and the beautiful Ava Gardner as the sexy but dangerous femme fatale.

The story unfolds mostly in flashback, as insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) looks into the murder of Peter Lund, aka ‘The Swede’ (Lancaster). We learn along with Reardon that Lund was really Ole Anderson, an ex-fighter and ex-con from Philly who drifts into a life of crime. Swede falls madly for the devious Kitty Collins (Gardner), whose boyfriend Big Jim Colfax (Albert Dekker) is…

Frankenstein’s Monster! The Wolf Man! Dracula! The Mad Doctor! The Hunchback! And just about every classic horror film trope you can think of! They’re all here in Universal’s “Monster Rally” HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN! Throwing everything scary they could think of at you but a kitchen sink full of spiders, Universal decided if one monster was good, five is better. Boris Karloff as mad Dr.Neimann leads the parade of horror all-stars that includes Lon Chaney Jr (The Wolf Man), John Carradine (Dracula), Lionel Atwill (Inspector Arnz), and George Zucco  (Professor Lampini).

The movie is laid out like a serial, with the chapters kept moving swiftly along by director Erle C. Kenton. Neimann and his hunchbacked assistant Daniel escape from prison and come across Professor Lampini’s traveling Chamber of Horrors. Lampini claims to have the skeletal remains of the original Count Dracula, and he and Neimann discuss vampire lore. When Lampini refuses to take the pair to…

Halloween just wouldn’t be Halloween without listening to “The Monster Mash”! Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett hit the charts multiple times with his novelty song tribute to Frankenstein, Dracula, and all things monster! From 1964, here’s Bobby (and AB host Dick Clark) with THE MONSTER MASH:

Another rarity from the dark vault of live TV horror! This time it’s Boris Karloff starring in a spooky tale called “A Night at an Inn”! Brought to you  by Auto-Lite spark plugs (“From bumper to headlight, you’re always right with Auto-Lite”), here’s King Karloff in a 1949 thriller from SUSPENSE: