Tag Archives: Donald Curtis

Film Review: They Were Expendable (dir. by John Ford)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Our job is to lay down that sacrifice. That’s what we were trained for, and that’s what we’ll do.” — Admiral Blackwell

For a movie full of fast boats and urgent orders, They Were Expendable (1945) leaves a surprisingly quiet impression. The battles are exciting, but they are not what gives John Ford’s film its staying power. What lingers is the exhaustion between them, the effort to maintain ordinary manners, and the uncomfortable knowledge that capable people can do their jobs well and still lose ground. Ford makes room for all of that without draining the movie of energy. Instead, he turns a wartime adventure into something more personal: a story about people trying to hold themselves together as their circumstances steadily come apart.

The setting is the Philippines during the early months of America’s involvement in World War II. Lieutenant John “Brick” Brickley, played by Robert Montgomery, commands a patrol torpedo boat squadron whose usefulness has yet to be fully appreciated. His subordinate, Lieutenant “Rusty” Ryan, played by John Wayne, would prefer an assignment with better prospects. Their disagreement gives the opening stretch an easy dramatic hook. Brickley believes in the work already in front of them, while Ryan wants a chance to prove himself elsewhere. Once the fighting begins, those ambitions become tangled with more immediate questions of survival.

Montgomery gives the film a remarkably steady center. Brickley is authoritative without constantly announcing his authority, and Montgomery makes listening seem as important as giving orders. His calm never suggests that he knows everything will turn out fine. It feels like something he maintains because the men around him need it. As the situation worsens, small changes in his manner carry increasing weight. He has to absorb disappointment and then decide how to communicate it. That makes his leadership feel practical and human rather than an idealized quality the screenplay simply assigns him.

Wayne supplies the friction that keeps that steadiness from becoming monotonous. Ryan is impatient, proud, and eager to be somewhere his abilities will count. His frustration is understandable, but Ford does not automatically endorse it. Part of the pleasure is watching Wayne’s forceful screen presence meet circumstances that refuse to yield. Ryan cannot solve every problem by being tougher or more determined. The role gives Wayne room to suggest uncertainty beneath his confidence, especially when action gives way to waiting. He remains recognizably Wayne, but the movie makes that familiar strength look less secure.

Ford’s wartime experience provides an important context for this view of military life. A Navy officer who headed the Field Photographic Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, he had also personally filmed combat at Midway while his position came under fire. He knew warfare as something witnessed through a camera under dangerous, uncontrollable conditions. That does not make every choice in They Were Expendable a direct reflection of his service, but it helps explain the film’s attention to exposure, confusion, and the disciplined behavior required to function when events stop making reassuring sense.

You can see that awareness in how Ford and cinematographer Joseph H. August place people within their surroundings. The boats, shorelines, open water, and crews remain important parts of the compositions. The stars belong to those spaces rather than seeming protected from them. Although the images are carefully arranged, they convey a convincing relationship between the men and the hazards around them. To my eye, Ford’s experience photographing real combat shows less in an imitation of documentary camerawork than in his respect for physical circumstances. Where someone stands, what protection exists, and how a group works together all matter.

The PT boats are a good example. Their speed makes them exciting to watch, but their size also makes them look vulnerable. Ford lets you admire their movement without suggesting they can outrun every consequence. The action has momentum because the boats seem capable, not invincible. Just as importantly, he connects their missions to the labor surrounding them. Preparation, waiting, medical treatment, and keeping equipment usable are not disposable scenes between the exciting bits. They establish how much effort goes into making action possible and how much more work follows when it is over.

Donna Reed’s Sandy Davyss, a nurse who develops a connection with Ryan, brings a different rhythm to the film. Their relationship offers a glimpse of companionship rather than a promise that romance can overcome the war. The dinner sequence is particularly touching because its pleasures are so modest. People make an effort, observe little courtesies, and try to enjoy an evening together. Ford gives those gestures time to register. Reed’s warmth helps the scene avoid feeling merely symbolic, while Wayne’s softer manner reveals a side of Ryan that his professional frustrations tend to conceal.

That interest in ordinary behavior extends across the squadron. Meals, jokes, instructions, and small acts of consideration make the men feel like people accustomed to living together. Ford understands that a community becomes convincing through shared habits, not just declarations of loyalty. As their situation deteriorates, those details acquire emotional weight. We know something about the life being disrupted. The film’s sadness grows from that familiarity, which is more effective than repeatedly telling us how much everyone has sacrificed.

The approach occasionally tests your patience. The episodic structure can feel loose, and a few sentimental touches seem more arranged than the quieter moments around them. Anyone expecting a tightly accelerating combat movie may find the pacing uneven. Still, most of the pauses earn their place. They allow fatigue to become visible and give the characters time to exist beyond their immediate military function. Tightening everything into a brisker adventure might improve the momentum while weakening the attachment that makes its losses matter.

What finally makes They Were Expendable so affecting is the way it changes the scale of a war movie. Large events determine the characters’ futures, but Ford keeps bringing us back to things within their reach: a job completed, a meal shared, a difficult order carried out. Montgomery, Wayne, and Reed give those moments enough feeling that the restraint never becomes cold. The film offers excitement, but its deeper achievement is making ordinary conduct under pressure worth watching. Ford leaves us with people whose circumstances grow smaller while the significance of their actions grows larger.

Film Review: Bataan (dir. by Tay Garnett)

Posted on by Arleigh

“We’re still here! We’ll always be here!” — Sergeant Bill Dane

The most effective thing about Tay Garnett’s Bataan (1943) is that it makes a small patch of ground feel like the entire world. There’s a bridge to keep destroyed, an enemy moving closer, and a group of men running out of ways to stay alive. That’s pretty much the movie, but Garnett gets plenty out of those ingredients. Rather than building excitement around where the soldiers will go next, he makes their inability to go anywhere the central problem. It’s a war film driven by waiting, and its best moments make that waiting feel almost unbearable.

Set during the American retreat in the Philippines, the story follows thirteen men assigned to demolish a bridge and stop Japanese forces from rebuilding it. Their mission is a delaying action, which immediately gives the usual military objective a troubling wrinkle. Completing the job doesn’t mean they’ll be rescued or even improve their own chances. It simply means somebody else might gain a little time. The film keeps bringing that uncomfortable bargain into focus. Every hour the men hold their position has value, but they’re the ones who have to pay for it.

Robert Taylor anchors the film as Sergeant Bill Dane, and his performance fits that emphasis on carrying on without much encouragement. Dane isn’t an especially complicated character on paper, but Taylor gives his toughness an increasingly strained quality. He looks like a man who understands that letting his exhaustion show could become everybody else’s problem. What works isn’t just his ability to bark orders or look determined. It’s the impression that maintaining authority takes effort. As the situation deteriorates, his leadership becomes less about having answers than about keeping the absence of answers from breaking the group.

Around him, the supporting players supply the personality that the narrow setting needs. Lloyd Nolan’s abrasive presence keeps the group from becoming too comfortably united, while Thomas Mitchell, Robert Walker, and Desi Arnaz help give the unit some variety. Not everybody gets enough material to become a fully rounded person, though. There are stretches when the characters feel assembled according to a familiar wartime formula, with individual traits standing in for deeper characterization. Still, those quick sketches have a practical purpose. Once the fighting starts reducing the group, we recognize who’s missing, and the position feels emptier in more than a numerical sense.

Garnett makes particularly good use of the jungle, even when it’s obviously a studio creation. The artificiality can be distracting if you’re looking for convincing outdoor realism, but it also gives the film a strangely enclosed atmosphere. Trees, shadows, and fog seem to mark the edges of a world the soldiers can’t escape. There’s no reassuring sense of geography, no broad view that lets us organize the danger. Instead, the surrounding space stays uncertain. The enemy might be approaching, watching, or already closer than anyone realizes. The setting keeps turning the simple act of looking into the distance into a source of tension.

That uncertainty matters because Bataan isn’t consistently fast-paced. At roughly 114 minutes, it gives plenty of room to stretches between attacks, and some of the dialogue feels more functional than revealing. A little tightening wouldn’t hurt. Even so, the slower passages aren’t merely obstacles between the exciting bits. They establish a rhythm of temporary relief followed by renewed dread. Exhaustion and malaria further undermine the idea that survival depends only on fighting well. These men can do what they’re supposed to do and still find their bodies failing them. The longer they remain in place, the less control they seem to have.

When violence does break out, its closeness makes it unpleasant rather than exhilarating. Bayonet fighting and sudden encounters strip away the comfortable distance that can make screen combat resemble a tactical exercise. The men aren’t moving neatly toward victory; they’re trying to get through the next confrontation with whatever strength remains. That’s also where the ensemble becomes important. The film’s racially mixed group, including a Black serviceman presented as a capable participant, gives its vision of collective effort some substance. Cooperation isn’t just a sentiment expressed in speeches. It’s something the assignment requires, regardless of the differences between the men carrying it out.

The limits of that vision are hard to miss, however. The Japanese largely exist as an anonymous threat, denied the individuality the film grants its American characters. That reflects its function as wartime propaganda, but it also narrows the drama. We’re encouraged to understand one group’s fear while treating the other primarily as its cause. The patriotic emphasis can become similarly blunt, especially when the movie pushes its message instead of trusting the situation to speak for itself. Still, its most persuasive passages don’t need much explanation. A depleted group, an exposed position, and another attack already tell us what endurance costs.

What stays with me about Bataan isn’t the promise that sacrifice will make everything worthwhile. It’s the uncomfortable distance between doing a necessary job and ever knowing what that job accomplished. The men can defend their position, follow orders, and support one another, but they can’t see the larger outcome their suffering is supposed to serve. That uncertainty gives the film weight beyond its rallying message. For all its familiar types and forceful patriotism, it understands something bleak about military duty: sometimes the task is clear, the price is enormous, and the people paying it never get to see the result.

They Were Expendable (1945, directed by John Ford)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In December of 1941, Lt. John Brickley (Robert Montgomery) commands a squadron of Navy PT boats, based in the Philippines.  Brickley is convinced that the small and agile PT Boats could be used in combat but his superior officers disagree, even after viewing a demonstration of what they can do.  Brickley’s second-in-command, Rusty (John Wayne), is frustrated and feels that he will never see combat.  That changes when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and then turn their attention to the Philippines.  Brickley gets his chance to show what the PT boats can do but both he and his men must also deal with the terrible risks that come with combat.  Brickley and his men have been set up to fight a losing battle, only hoping to slow down the inevitable Japanese onslaught, because both they and their boats are considered to be expendable.  The hot-headed Rusty learns humility when he’s sidelined by blood poisoning and he also falls in love with a nurse, Sandy (Donna Reed).  However, the war doesn’t care about love or any other plans that its participants may have.  With the invasion of the Philippines inevitable, it just becomes a question of who will be sent with MacArthur to Australia and who will remain behind.

One of John Ford’s best films, They Were Expendable is a tribute to the U.S. Navy and also a realistic look at the realities of combat.  The movie features Ford’s trademark sentimentality and moments of humors but it also doesn’t deny that most of the characters who are left behind at the end of the movie will not survive the Japanese invasion.  Even “Dad’ Knowland (Russell Simpson), the fatherly owner of a local shipyard who does repair work on the PT boats, knows that he’s expendable.  He resolves to meet his fate with a rifle in hand and a jug of whiskey at his feet.  Rusty, who starts out thirty for combat, comes to learn the truth about war.  Ford was one of the many Hollywood directors who was recruited to film documentaries during World War II and he brings a documentarian’s touch to the scenes of combat.

Robert Montgomery had previously volunteered in France and the United Kingdom, fighting the Axis Powers before America officially entered the war.  After the war began, he entered the Navy and he was a lieutenant commander when he appeared in They Were Expendable.  Montgomery brought a hardened authenticity to the role of Brickley.  (Montgomery also reportedly directed a few scenes when Ford was sidelined with a broken leg.)  John Wayne is equally good in the role of the hot-headed Rusty, who learns the truth about combat and what it means to be expendable.  The cast is full of familiar faces, many of whom were members of the John Ford stock company.  Keep an eye out for Ward Bond, Cameron Mitchell, Leon Ames, Jack Holt, and Donald Curtis.

They Were Expendable is one of the best of the World War II movies.  It’s a worthy film for Memorial Day and any other day.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Spellbound (dir by Alfred Hitchcock)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1945 Best Picture nominee, Spellbound, tells the story of Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman), a psychoanalyst at a mental hospital in my least favorite state, Vermont.

Constance has fallen in love with a man (Gregory Peck) who she believes to be Dr. Anthony Edwardes, the newly appointed director of the hospital.  Dr. Edwardes is youngish and handsome and idealistic and authoritative …. well, he’s Gregory Peck.  However, he also has an intense phobia about seeing any set of parallel lines.  Curious to discover the reason for Edwardes’s phobia, Constance does a little digging on her own and discovers that Dr. Anthony Edwardes is not a doctor at all!  Instead, he’s a guilt-stricken amnesiac who is convinced that he murdered Dr. Edwardes and took his place!

Constance, however, doesn’t believe that the Amnesiac is a murderer.  She thinks that he is suffering from some sort of deep-rooted guilt that had led him to believe that killed the doctor.  She wants a chance to psychoanalyze him and discover the truth about his background.  Unfortunately, the police do think that the Amnesiac is a murderer and their determined to arrest him.

Constance and the Amnesiac go on the run, heading to the home of Constance’s mentor, Dr. Alexander Brulov (Michael Chekhov, the nephew of Anton Chekhov).  With Brulov’s help, Constance analyzes a dream that the Amensiac had, one involving curtains decorated with eyes, the faceless proprietor of a casino, and a man falling off a mountain.  Can Constance and Brulov solve the mystery of the Amnesiac’s identity before the police take him away to prison?

Spellbound was the last of the four Hitchcock best picture nominees and it was also the last film that Hitchcock made for producer David O. Selznick.  Selznick was quite a fan of psychoanalysis and he insisted that Hitchcock not only make a movie about it but that he also use Selznick’s own therapist as a technical advisor on the project.  Hitchcock, for his part, was able to bring in the surrealist Salvador Dali to help design the Amnesiac’s dream sequence but Selznick felt that the 20-minute sequence was too long and too weird and, as a result, it was cut down to two minutes for the final film.  All this considered, it’s not a surprise that, despite the fact that Spellbound was a hit with critics and audiences, Hitchcock himself didn’t care much for it and considered it to be more of a Selznick film than a Hitchcock film.  And it is true that the film’s total faith is psychoanalysis feels more like something one would expect to hear from a trendy producer than from a director like Hitchcock, who was known for both his dark wit and his rather cynical attitude towards anyone in authority.

For a film like Spellbound to truly work, there has to be some doubt about who the Amnesiac is.  For the suspense to work, the audience has to feel that there’s at least a chance, even if it’s only a slight one, that the Amnesiac actually could be a murderer, despite the attempts of Constance and Brulov to prove that he’s not.  And Spellbound is full of scenes that are meant to leave the audience wondering about whether or not the Amnesiac should be trusted.  However, because the Amnesiac is played by Gregory Peck, there’s really no doubt that he’s innocent.  Hitchcock was not particularly happy with Gregory Peck as his leading man.  Peck projected a solid, middle-American integrity.  It made him ideal for heroic and crusading roles but made him totally wrong for any role that required ambiguity.  It’s difficult to believe that the Amnesiac is suffering from a guilt complex because it’s difficult to believe that Gregory Peck has ever done anything for which he should feel guilty.  Cary Grant could have played the Amnesiac.  Post-war Jimmy Stewart could have done an excellent job with the role.  But Peck is just too upstanding and stolid for the role.  In a role that calls from neurosis, Peck is kind of boring.

That said, the rest of the cast is fine, with Ingrid Bergman giving one of her best performance as Constance and Michael Chekhov bringing some needed nuance to a role that could have turned into a cliché.  Leo G. Carroll has a small but pivotal role and he does a good job keeping the audience guessing as to his motivation.  Even at a truncated two minutes, the Dali dream sequence is memorably bizarre and the famous shot of a gun pointed straight at the camera still carries a kick.  This is a lesser Hitchcock film but, that said, it’s still a Hitchcock film and therefore worth viewing.

As I mentioned previously, this was the last of Hitchcock’s films to be nominated for Best Picture.  Ironically, his best films — Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho among them — were yet to come. Spellbound was nominated for six Oscars but only won for Miklos Rozsa’s score.  (Ingrid Bergman was nominated for Best Actress that year, not for her role in Spellbound but instead for The Bells of St. Mary’s.)  The big Oscar winner that year was Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend.

Horror On The Lens: Earth vs. The Flying Saucers (dir by Fred F. Sears)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we’ve got a sci-fi shocked from 1956.

In Earth vs. The Flying Saucers …. well, the plot is right there in the title.  In a semi-documentary style, this film tells the story of what happens when a bunch of flying saucers come to Earth.  Unfortunately, the inhabitants of those flying saucers aren’t looking to open up a new trading route.  Instead, they want to enslave humanity and, as always, it falls to America to save the world.

This film is probably best known for the scenes of the flying saucers crashing into monuments and buildings in Washington, D.C.  The special effects were done by Ray Harryhausen.

The film was originally black-and-white.  The version below is colorized.  I’m not a huge fan of colorization in general but I do have to say that they did a pretty good job with Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.  While the film may not be as deeply philosophical as Plan 9 From Outer Space, it’s still pretty enjoyable.

Keep watching the skies!

Film Review: The Ten Commandments (dir by Cecil B. DeMille)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Though you may not know it if you’ve only seen the film during one of its annual showings on television, the 1956 religious epic, The Ten Commandments, originally opened with director Cecil B. DeMille standing on a stage.  Speaking directly to the audience, DeMille explains that, though the film they’re about to see me take some dramatic license with the story of Moses, it still based on not just the Bible but also the accounts of Philo, Josephus and Eusebius.  He also tells us that The Ten Commandments is more than just an adaptation of the Book of Exodus.  Instead, it’s a film about every man’s desire to be free.

Demille concludes with: “The story will take 3 hours and 29 minutes to unfold.  There will be an intermission. Thank you for your attention.”

To be honest, it’s kind of a sweet moment.  Cecil B. DeMille is a name that is so associated with (occasionally overblown) epic filmmaking that it’s easy to forget that DeMille was one of the most important names in the artistic development of American cinema.  He was there from the beginning and, unlike a lot of other filmmakers, he was equally successful in both the silent and the sound era.  Say what you will about his films, DeMille was a showman and he handles the introduction like a pro.  At the same time, there’s a real sincerity to DeMille’s tone.  After you listen to him, you’d almost feel guilty if you didn’t sit through all 3 hours and 29 minutes of his film.

That sincerity extends throughout the entire film.  Yes, The Ten Commandments is a big, long epic and some members of its all-star cast are more convincing in their roles than others.  And yes, the film can seem a bit campy to modern viewers.  (In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if it seemed a bit campy to viewers in 1956 as well.)  Yes, The Ten Commandments does feature Anne Baxter saying, “Oh Moses!  You sweet adorable fool!”  But it doesn’t matter.  Even the most ludicrous of dialogue just seem right.  The film is just so sincere that it’s difficult not to enjoy it.

In the Book of Exodus, Moses is described as having a speech impediment and even tries to use it as an excuse to get out of going to Egypt.  That’s actually one of the reasons why Moses brought Aaron with him to Egypt, so that Aaron could speak for him.  In the movie, Moses is played by Charlton Heston, who comes across as if he’s never felt a moment of insecurity over the course of his entire life.  But no matter.  Heston may not by the Moses of Exodus but he’s the perfect Moses for the DeMille version.  When Heston says that Egypt will be visited by plagues until his adopted brother Ramses (Yul Brynner) agrees to allow the Jews to leave Egypt, you believe every word.  (Aaron, incidentally, is played by the legendary John Carradine.  He doesn’t get too much other than respectfully stand a few feet behind Charlton Heston but still: John Carradine!)

And really, anyone who dismisses The Ten Commandments out-of-hand should go back and, at the very least, watch the scene where the Angel of Death descends upon Egypt.  The scene where Moses and his family shelter in place while the screams of distraught mothers echo throughout the city is chilling.  Ramses may spend most of the film as a petulant villain but you almost feel sorry for him when you see him mourning over his dead son.  When he sets off after Moses, it’s not just because he’s doing what villains do.  He’s seeking vengeance for the loss of his first born.  For that brief moment, Ramses goes form being a melodramatic bad guy to being someone with whom the viewer can empathize.  Brynner, with his burning intensity, gives a great performance as Ramses.

As I said before, this film has what, in 1956, would have been considered an all-star cast.  Watching the names as they show up during the opening credits — Cedrick Hardwicke!  Yvonne DeCarlo!  Woody Strode!  Debra Paget! — is like stepping into a TCM fever dream.  Some of the performers give better performance than others.  And yet, even the worst performer feels as if they just naturally belong in the world that DeMille has created.  John Derek may seem rather smarmy as Joshua but his callowness provides a good contrast to the upright sincerity of Heston’s performance as Moses.  Edward G. Robinson’s cries of, “Where is your God now!?” may have provided endless fodder for impersonators but just try to imagine the film without him.  Even Vincent Price is in this thing!  He doesn’t have his famous mustache but, as soon as you hear his voice and see that famous glare, you know that it’s him.

Of course, when you’re growing up and The Ten Commandments is on TV every year, you mostly just want to see the scene where Moses parts the Red Sea.  The Ten Commandments was nominated for seven Oscars but it only won one, for its special effects.  (The prize for Best Picture went to another epic, Around The World In 80 Days.)  Today, the film’s special effects may no longer amaze viewers but there’s still something rather charming about the Red Sea parting and then crashing in on the Egyptian army.  The scene where the Earth opens up and swallows those who worshiped the Golden Calf remains impressive, if just because all of the extras really look terrified that they might die.  And while the Pillar of Fire may look a bit cartoonish to modern eyes, that’s a huge part of the film’s appeal.

The Ten Commandments is a big, long, sometimes silly, sometimes effective, and always entertaining epic.  It’s a grand spectacle and one that I usually watch every year when it shows up on television.  I missed this year’s showing but, fortunately, I own it on DVD.  It’s a sincere epic and a difficult one not to like.

 

Horror Film Review: The Amazing Mr. X (dir by Bernard Vorhaus)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

A woman named Christine (Lyn Bari) walks along the beach when she thinks that she hears the voice of her husband calling out her name.  The only problem is that her husband has been dead for two years.  Christine’s sister, Janet (Cathy O’Donnell), says that Christine is just hearing things and that she needs to move on from mourning.  After all, her boyfriend, Martin (Richard Carlson), is on the verge of asking Christine to marry him….

And yet, Christine can’t escape the feeling that her husband is trying to contact her from beyond the grave.  During another walk along the beach, she runs into a handsome man who introduces himself as being Alexis (Turhan Bey).  Alexis says that he’s a medium and that he has the power to speak to the dead.  Furthermore, he tells Christine that he can speak to her dead husband for her.

Despite the fact that Alexis owns a really impressive crystal ball, Martin is skeptical of his claims.  Martin even goes so far as to hire a private investigator (Harry Mendoza) to investigate Alexis’s past.  Meanwhile, though she has her suspicions, Janet finds herself falling in love with the charming Alexis….

Released in 1948, The Amazing Mr. X is an unjustly obscure little mystery film.  Though I guess it’s open to debate whether it should be considered a horror film or just a noirish thriller, The Amazing Mr. X is full of creepy atmosphere and eerie moments.  Employing expressionistic camera angles and dark lighting, director Bernard Vorhaus turns The Amazing Mr. X into a dream of dark and forbidden things.  Some of the black-and-white shots are simply stunning and the seance sequence is brilliantly done.

The film is also well-acted by a cast of actors who deserve to be better remembered.  Lynn Bari is perfectly fragile and sympathetic as the haunted Christine while Cathy O’Donnell turns the potentially boring Janet into a compelling character.  The film even makes good use of Richard Carlson’s reliable dullness by casting him as the one character who is meant to be a force of stability in Christine’s otherwise neurotic life.

That said, the entire film is stolen by Turhan Bey.  Born in Austria and of Turkish descent, Turhan Bey was nicknamed the “Turkish Delight” during his film career and, watching The Amazing Mr. X, you can see why.  Bey is so charming and so handsome that you can understand why even those who should know better would want to believe that Alexis could talk to the dead.  The Amazing Mr. X was one of the last films that Bey filmed in the United States.  He retired a few years later and returned to his native Austria, where he ran a cafe.  (40 years later, the now elderly Bey did come out of retirement and made a few appearance of television before passing away, at the age of 90, in 2012.)

Like all good mysteries, The Amazing Mr. X has a third act twist that you probably won’t see coming and it ends with the proper combination of tragedy and redemption.  The Amazing Mr. X is currently in the public domain and can be viewed on YouTube so check it out!  You won’t be sorry!