The 10th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1947’s Dick Tracy’s Dilemma. According to Wikipedia, this was the third Dick Tracy film to be produced by RKO Pictures. In case you couldn’t guess from the title, Dick Tracy has a dilemma in this film. I assume that, in the first two films, he had a problem and a quandary.
Clocking in at just an hour, Dick Tracy’s Dilemma takes place over the course of one long and very dark night. Three men rob the Flawless Furs Warehouse and kill the night watchman. The leader of the gang (played by Jack Lambert) is known as the Claw because, instead of a right hand, he has a prosthetic hook, which he can use to either beat or claw people to death. (It all depends on his mood.) The Claw also loves cats so he can’t be all bad.
Investigating the murder is Detective Dick Tracy (Ralph Byrd). This was the first Dick Tracy film that I’ve ever actually watched so I can’t claim to be an expert on the character. But judging from this film, Dick Tracy’s dilemma is that everyone around him is either extremely stupid or extremely evil. For example, Dick’s partner, Patton (Lyle Latell), is useless. When Dick’s number one informant, a fake blind beggar named Sightless (Jimmy Conlin), attempts to get some important information to Dick, he has the misfortune of running into Dick’s idiot friend, a Shakespearean actor named Vitamin (Ian Keith). Vitamin mishears the information and he delivers his lines with so much over-the-top flourish that, by the time he tells Dick that Sightless wants to speak to him, the poor beggar has already been murdered by The Claw.
Seriously, people have been talking about how dark Batman v. Superman is but just check out Dick Tracy’s Dilemma. The Claw is a sadistic killing machine and, in the end, it seems like it’s more dumb luck than good police work that leads to Dick Tracy tracking him down. The film ends with smiles all around, despite the fact that it’s only been a few hours since poor Sightless was clawed to death. If Vitamin wasn’t a drunk old actor, Sightless wouldn’t be dead. For that matter, Dick Tracy is the one who pressured Sightless to act as an informant in the first place.
Seen today, Dick Tracy’s Dilemma seems more like an episode of an old cop show than an actual movie. It’s easy to be dismissive of it but I don’t know. If I had been alive in 1947 and saw this movie when it was originally released, I probably would have enjoyed it. Ralph Byrd makes a convincing hero and there is a sense of genuine menace to Jack Lambert’s performance as The Claw. That said, don’t even get me started on Vitamin.
I’m really glad my cable box told me what movie I was watching cause that title card sure doesn’t do a good job of it. It would be perfectly natural for someone to look at that and think it says Aee Yours before they realized it said All Yours.
Have you ever wanted to see the TV Show Melissa & Joey condensed down to about 90 minutes without a good reason for the smart guy to become a nanny, not much humor, and not much chemistry between Mom and the nanny? Neither did I. To be fair, I’ve been a big fan of Melissa & Joey for years. When I saw that Hallmark had a movie called The Manny in production, I wasn’t too jazzed. They appeared to have changed the title at the last minute though. I mean you can still see in the credits that the movie was made by Manny Productions Inc.
I think what happened was that at the last minute they got the rights to use I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. They probably figured the title All Yours not only fit with the song, but that it sounded more like the generic greeting card titles that Hallmark likes to use.
I mentioned that I’m a big fan of Melissa & Joey so I was constantly comparing it to that show while watching it. That’s only partly fair because that had many many many hours to develop all of the stuff I mentioned before, while this only had an hour and a half. I will try to be reasonable with the film.
The movie begins and we are introduced to Cass McKay (Nicollette Sheridan). She’s a lawyer. The case she’s arguing doesn’t matter. All the case part does for her character is establish that she is a good and busy lawyer. What this film does here is interrupt her argument over and over to cut to her kids at home.
The son’s sister runs up into his treehouse. You gotta put that No Girls Allowed sign where she can see it. She could argue that it wasn’t displayed properly at his establishment so she had every right to go up there. Believe it or not, these scenes are not just to establish that Cass needs a nanny. They are not just to establish that they need a nanny who can put up with the kids’ hijinks either. One of the excuses the daughter gives for getting up in the treehouse is because the son doesn’t use it anyways since he is afraid of heights. This getting over his fear of heights part of the story will be the equivalent to the bridge from Love, Again for example. Or, to use Melissa & Joey as an example, it’s the equivalent of when Joey finds and talks Lennox off the roof in the first episode of the show, thus proving his worth as a nanny. There will be a similar thing with the daughter playing the violin.
Now we get what I always show in these reviews.
I think they did a good job here. They hid the Canadian cellphone provider by having her connected to the courthouse WiFi. It also looks like they modified the screen too. It’s probably a screenshot she is looking at rather than the real interface. Regardless, good work.
Now we cut to the house to chew out the kids and introduce us to Grandma played by Jayne Eastwood.
I always like looking up these actors who I don’t immediately recognize such as Eastwood here. Wow! She seems to have been in everything under the sun. She’s been in what appears to be a sexploitation flick called My Pleasure Is My Business in the 70s, SCTV; Videodrome; and Care Bears in the 80s, the TV Show Goosebumps in the 90s, My Big Fat Greek Wedding; the remake of Dawn of the Dead; Degrassi: TNG; Chicago; and the musical remake of Hairspray in the 2000s, and in a variety of TV Shows and movies along with My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 in the 2010s. At the time of writing this, she has 215 acting credits on IMDb since her first one in 1970. Amazing!
Now we get something pretty awesome. Yes, we get a brief shot of the future nanny named Matthew Walker played by Dan Payne, but who cares when we have this shot.
Care to take a guess at where this shot was taken? It’s on the sign and attached to the flag pole. Times up! It’s Denmark. No joke. That restaurant is at Nordre Beddingsvej 17, 3390 Hundested, Denmark. I have no idea why they use this shot a couple of times, but they do. I’ve seen Hallmark movies shot in the Los Angeles area, all over Canada, and even a pseudo-Hallmark movie shot in Scotland. Denmark is a new one on me. The rest of the movie is shot in the Hallmark favorite of Langely, British Columbia. If anyone involved in the production of this movie knows why this shot ended up in the movie, then please leave a comment.
Now we go inside and meet Matthew’s father Charles played by Michael Kopsa.
Michael Kopsa is another one of these actors that has had a long and eclectic career. He’s been in some major films such Watchmen (2009) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), but he goes back to the late 70s and early 80s where he got his start doing English dub work for the TV Show Mobile Suit Gundam as well as two of the movies. One of which he appears to have done the English voice of the main character: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988). Always worth taking advantage of IMDb while you watch movies.
He is here to talk to Grandma about his son. His son is the typical well educated guy who really found what he learned in college isn’t his thing so he’s been drifting around. A real world example of a guy like this is Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis and the News. Lewis is a bit of a math genius and attended Cornell. However, he found out it wasn’t his thing and drifted around playing music before settling down and starting his music career. His father was a doctor. That’s kind of how Charles describes his son. Charles is a developer who wants to tear down and redevelop the marina. His son isn’t a fan of that idea. I’m not either considering the marina never really looks like it’s in need of that kind of work during the film. What happens here is that Charles, Grandma, and Matthew strike a deal. Matthew will take a job as a nanny to Cass’ kids, and his father will reconsidering the redeveloping the marina. They keep that a secret from Cass. There’s your setup.
Oh, and they knew each other as kids so that they already come pre-packaged with some basis for their romance. Despite recognizing him, Grandma trying to make the hard sell, the kids obviously already liking him, and them already knowing each other, when Nicolette Sheridan gives you this look,…
then you know she means business.
Next we get introduced to Henry played by Lochlyn Munro who is kind of the wrong guy, but won’t play that role to the degree that we usually see in other Hallmark movies. On the good wrong guy to the weirdo in Christmas Land wrong guy, I’d say he sits somewhere in the middle leaning towards the decent wrong guy.
During the entire film I kept thinking that I had seen this guy before. After the film I checked the credits and realized it’s you cut to me before I had my wig on Burger King from In The Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011).
In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011, dir. Uwe Boll)
In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011, dir. Uwe Boll)
We meet him as Cass is introduced to a new court case. It is between two tech billionaires that have brought a case against each other so that their reconciliation as old friends can parallel the story between Cass and Matthew. It also adds a bit of a procedural element to the film that lets Matthew edge his way further into her life rather than having a separation of work and home since he went to law school too.
After suddenly needing to be called back to help the kids, Cass gives in and hires Matthew. That’s when she introduces him to the big calendar that will show us at what point Cass is in her character arc based on how much she breaks it and gets involved in the events listed on it. Then Matthew does something that pisses me off. He points out that Monday and Tuesday are reversed on the calendar.
Dammit, Dan Payne! You’re taking away work from cynical Hallmark critics like myself who like to point out flaws in these movies.
Anyways, she then gives him a phone to remind future viewers that this movie was released near Easter.
Also, it definitely doesn’t come in black. It’s not that kind of bunny, Matthew!
The next big thing is when he takes them to school. They actually don’t hide the name of the school at all in this movie. They say it’s Yorkson Elementary School, and it is. Well, sort of. It’s actually Yorkson Middle School, but close enough. It’s at 20686 84 Ave, Langley, BC V2Y 2B5, Canada. It’s new too because you can see it was in construction a few years ago on Google Maps.
They also bring up again that the girl’s equivalent to her brother’s height issue is playing the violin during this scene.
He takes them rock climbing. This is where we really find out that the boy has issues with heights. So of course, Matthew does what anybody would do.
He builds mini rock climbing walls in the backyard. Pretty cool actually.
This is the point in my reviews when I say you’ve got it now. The rest of the movie is kind of on autopilot. The stuff between Matthew and the kids is really the highlight of the movie. It’s not like Melissa & Joey where there’s more a balance in the quality of interaction between the nanny and Mom as well as the kids. He does have his moments with Cass, but the main focus is on his time with the kids. Cass kind of comes for free with Matthew helping the kids. That’s the way it felt to me while watching it.
The son gets over his fear.
The daughter plays the electric violin in the talent show at the end of the film.
There is of course a last minute speed bump. I think having that is in the Hallmark writing bible that they give anyone who is going to make films for them. However, it really does make sense here given how they set things up and all. Does she overreact? Yes, she does, but she comes around and they kiss at the end of the talent show.
Do I recommend it? Maybe marginally. I liked October Kiss better as a Hallmark nanny love story. If you want the the nanny to be a guy, then I really do recommend Melissa & Joey. The best part of the movie I would say is with the kids played by Genea Charpentier and Kiefer O’Reilly.
The 9th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties DVD box set was 1942’s Jungle Book. Based on the novel by Rudyard Kipling (which was later made into an animated Disney film and of which a remake is scheduled to be released next week), Jungle Book was directed by Zoltan Korda and produced by Zoltan’s brother, Alexander. Today, the Hungarian-born Korda Brothers are best remembered as being pioneers of the British film industry. However, during World War II, they relocated their film making to the United States. Jungle Book was one of the most critically and commercially successful of their American films.
Jungle Book opens in colonial India. An elderly Indian storyteller is visited by a British woman (Faith Brook) who wants to hear a story from his youth. The rest of the film plays out in flashback, a structure that allows Jungle Book to walk a thin line between reality and fantasy. Is the storyteller telling the exact truth or is he exaggerating his tale? That’s left up to the viewer to decide. Personally, I chose to believe that he’s telling the exact truth. It’s more magical that way.
The storyteller starts by telling the woman about the Indian jungle and the animals that live within it. Some of the animals are kind and some of them are cruel but they all serve a purpose. The most feared of the animals is a tiger named Shere Kahn. When a baby disappears from a nearby village, the villagers assume that he, like his father, was killed by Shere Kahn. What they do not know is that the baby actually wandered into the jungle and was raised by wolves.
The baby grows up to be Mowgli (Sabu), a feral young man who can talk to the animals. When Mowgli is captured by the villagers, he is unknowing adopted by his real mother, Mesusa (Rosemary DeCamp). At first, the wild Mowgli struggles to adapt to human ways and one of the villagers, Buldeo (Joseph Calleia), insists that Mowgli has “the evil eye.”
As Mowgli becomes a little more civilized (though he’s never exactly tamed), he starts to fall in love with a Mahala (Patricia O’Rourke). Unfortunately, Mahala is the daughter of Buldeo and Buldeo is none to happy when Mowgli and Mahala start to spend all of their time exploring the jungle together. However, that’s before Mowgli and Mahala come across a lost palace that is full of treasure. When the greedy Buldeo finds out about the treasure, he demands that Mowgli tell him where the palace is. Driven mad by Mowgli’s refusal to tell him, Buldeo goes to more and more extreme measures to find the treasure…
Jungle Book is a big epic film, one that proudly announces that it was shot in Technicolor. The sets are big, the live animal footage (as opposed to the stock footage usually used in films like this) is impressive, and it’s just a fun movie to watch. (Even though I was watching a typically cheap Mill Creek transfer, I was still impressed with the films visuals.) Indian actor Sabu makes for a charismatic Sabu but the film’s best performance comes from Joseph Calleia, who brings unexpected depth to his villainous character.
(Movie lovers, like you and me, probably best know Joseph Calleia as Orson Welles’s tragic partner in Touch of Evil.)
You can watch the original Jungle Book below!
(Jungle Book is in the public domain so, if the video above gets taken down — as often seems to happen with embedded YouTube videos — I would suggest just going to YouTube and doing a search for Jungle Book 1942. You’ll find hundreds of other uploads. I picked the one above because it did not appear to have any commercials.)
After I watched The Red House, I watched the 8th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set, a 1945 film noir called The Lady Confesses.
Mary Beth Hughes plays Vicki McGuire, who is engaged to marry Larry Craig (Hugh Beaumont). When we first meet Larry, he seems like a fairly normal guy. He drinks too much but then again, this film was made in 1945 and it’s totally possible that Larry had yet to see The Lost Weekend. Before getting engaged to Vicki, he was married to Norma Craig (Barbara Slater). Norma disappeared seven years ago and has since been declared legally dead. So, imagine everyone’s surprise when Norma suddenly turns up alive and knocking on Vicki’s front door! Norma announces that there’s no way that she’s going to give up Larry.
Larry reacts to all this by going out and getting drunk. He spends a while literally passed out at the bar and then, once he’s sobered up, he and Vicki go to visit Norma and try to talk some sense into her. However, upon arriving at her apartment, they discover that Norma has been strangled!
The police automatically suspect Larry of being the murderer but he has an alibi. He was drunk. He was passed out at the bar. And the only time he wasn’t at the bar, he was sleeping on a couch in the dressing room of singer Lucille Compton (Claudia Drake)…
Wait! Larry was sleeping on another woman’s couch? Well, Vicki isn’t necessarily happy to hear that but she still believes that her fiancée is innocent and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to clear his name, even if it means going undercover and working at a nightclub. Vicki and Larry suspect that nightclub owner Lucky Brandon (Edmund MacDonald) is the murderer. Can they prove it or, waiting around the next shadowy corner, is there another twist to the plot?
It’s not a spoiler to tell you that there’s another twist. In fact, for a film that only runs for 64 minutes, there’s a lot of twists in The Lady Confesses. The Lady Confesses is an entertaining film noir, one that gives B-movie mainstay Mary Beth Hughes a rare lead role. As well, if you’ve ever seen an old episode of Leave It To Beaver, it’s quite interesting to see Hugh Beaumont playing a somewhat less than wholesome character. Director Sam Newfield, who directed over 254 films during the course of his prolific career, keeps the action moving and provides a lot of menacing and shadowy images.
Though it may not be perfect (for one thing, we never learn why Norma disappeared in the first place), The Lady Confesses is a watchable and atmospheric film noir. And you watch it below!
Last week, I started on my latest project — watching all 50 of the movies included in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set! I started things off with Port of New York and then I was lucky enough to discover two excellent low-budget gems: The Black Book and Trapped.
And now, we come the 7th film in the Fabulous Forties box set: 1947’s The Red House.
The Red House takes place is one of those small and seemingly idyllic country towns that always seem to harbor so many dark secrets and past crimes. Everyone in town is friendly, cheerful, and quick to greet the world with a smile.
Well, almost everyone.
Pete Morgan (Edward G. Robinson) is the exception to the rule. A farmer who moves with a pronounced limp, Pete lives on an isolated farm and refuses to have much to do with any of the other townspeople. He lives with his wife, Ellen (Judith Anderson), and his niece, 17 year-old Meg (Allene Roberts). Pete and Ellen are extremely overprotective of Meg. Pete, especially, is always quick to tell her not to associate with any of boys in the town and not to enter the dark woods that sit next to the farm. He tells her that there’s a red house hidden away in the woods and the house is haunted. Going into the red house can only lead to death.
Despite Pete’s eccentricities, Meg is finally able to convince him to hire one of her classmates to help do chores around the farm. Nath (Lon McAllister) is a good and hard worker and soon, even Pete starts to like him. Meg, meanwhile, is falling in love with Nath. However, Nath already has a girlfriend, the manipulative Tibby (Julie London), who cannot wait until they graduate high school so that she and Nath can leave town together. When Nath starts to also develop feelings for Meg, Tibby responds by flirting with the local criminal, Teller (Rory Calhoun).
Though things seem to be getting better on the Morgan Farm, Nath eventually makes the mistake of admitting that, when he goes home, he takes a short cut through the old woods. Pete angrily forbids Nath from entering the woods. Of course, this has the opposite effect. Soon, Nath and Meg are spending all day sneaking away into the woods so that they can look for the red house.
Once Pete learns of what they’re doing, he decides to hire Teller to keep them from even finding and entering the red house. Needless to say, love, melodrama, murder, and tragedy all follow…
Despite the fact that the DVD suffered from a typically murky Mill Creek transfer, I enjoyed The Red House. It’s one of those films that is just so over the top with all of the small town melodrama that you can’t help but enjoy it. (If M. Night Shyamalan had been a 1940s filmmaker, he probably would have ended up directing The Red House.) Nath and Meg were kind of boring but Julie London was a lot of fun as Tibby. If I had ever starred in production of The Red House, I would want to play Tibby.
Plus, the film’s got Edward G. Robinson doing what he does best! Robinson was an interesting actor, in that he could be both totally menacing and totally sympathetic at the same time. He has some scary scenes as Pete but they’re also poignant because Robinson suggests that Pete hates his behavior just as much as Ellen and Meg. Robimson was a powerhouse actor, the type who could elevate almost any film.
And that’s certainly what he does in The Red House!
After being disappointed with Guest In The House, I decided to go ahead and watch the sixth film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set and I’m glad that I did. 1949’s Trapped turned out to be an entertaining little discovery.
Much like Port of New York, Trapped opens with documentary footage of the government at work and an official sounding narrator explaining to us that we are about to see a film about the hardworking agents of the Treasury Department. In fact, the narrator goes on for so long about the Treasury Department that he starts to sound downright worshipful. There’s nothing that the Treasury Department cannot do! Who protects the President? The Treasury Department! Who tracks down counterfeiters? The Treasury Department! Who protects the coast? The Coast Guard but guess what? The Coast Guard is actually a part of The Treasury Department! The tone of the narration is so worshipful that it could almost pass for a Scientology recruiting film. Just as only the Sea Org can protect us from Evil Lord Xenu, only the Treasury Department can stop phony money pushers!
Eventually, the narration ends and the actual movie begins. Fortunately, the rest of Trapped more than makes up for that awkward introduction. The film opens with a bunch of Treasury agents looking over a phony twenty-dollar bill. The bill is almost perfect and the agents believe that it was printed using plates designed by one of the world’s greatest counterfeiters, Tris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges). The only problem is that Stewart is in prison. Obviously, someone else has gotten their hands on Stewart’s plates.
Stewart is upset that someone is getting rich off of his work. So, he strikes a deal with the Treasury Department. In return for being released, he will help them track down his plates. The Treasury Department agrees and arranges for Stewart to “escape” during a phony prison break.
However, Stewart has plans of his own. As soon as he’s out of jail, he knocks out his handler and escapes for real. Tris is not only planning on tracking down his plates but he’s also going to go back into business printing and passing phony money. He also reunites with his girlfriend, nightclub hostess Meg Dixon (Barbara Payton).
When he meets Meg, he discovers that she has a new admirer. Johnny Hackett (John Hoyt) likes to hang out whenever Meg’s working. Even though Johnny appears to have a thing for Meg, he and Tris still become friends. Tris is even willing to bring Johnny in on the operation but, what Tris doesn’t realize, is that Johnny Hackett is actually Treasury agent John Downey (John Hoyt)…
Needless to say, violence, betrayal, and death follows.
Shot on location in some of the seediest parts of 1940s Los Angeles, Trapped is a fast-paced and exciting film noir. (This is one of those films, like The Black Book, where shadows are literally everywhere.) Lloyd Bridges (who, as a young man, could have passed for Kirk Douglas’s brother) gives a great performance as the charming but ultimately cold-hearted Tris Stewart while John Hoyt does a fairly good job as the conflicted Downey. Barbara Payton, one of the more tragic figures from Hollywood’s Golden Age, does such a good job as Meg that it’s even more tragic to consider that, just a few years after making Trapped, her career would be destroyed by alcoholism and personal scandal and she would eventually end up as a homeless prostitute on Sunset Boulevard.
Trapped was a good discovery and you can watch it below!
The fifth film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1944’s Guest In The House. Before I get around to actually reviewing the film, there two important things that I need to share.
First off, according to the imdb, when Guest In The House was released into theaters, it ran a total of 121 minutes. The version that was released on video — the version that I watched for this review — only runs 100 minutes. Having watched the film, it’s hard for me to guess what could have been included in those 21 minutes. There’s no major plot holes in the 100 minute version or any unanswered questions. It’s hard for me to imagine that there could be anything in those 21 minutes that would have made Guest In The House a better film than the version that I watched last night. If anything, even at just 100 minutes, the version that I saw still felt too long!
Secondly, Guest In The House was re-released several times. At one point, the title was changed to Satan In Skirts! That has got to be one of the greatest titles ever! Seriously, Guest In The House is such a boring and mundane title. But Satan in Skirts — I mean, that sounds like something that you just have to watch, doesn’t it?
Anyway, Guest In The House is about a guest in the house. Shocking, right? Evelyn (Anne Baxter, playing a character similar to her classic role in All About Eve) is a mentally unstable woman with a heart ailment and a morbid fear of birds. She has recently become engaged to Dr. Dan Proctor (Scott Proctor) but she spends most her time writing nasty things about him in her diary.
Dan takes her to visit his wealthy Aunt Martha (Aline MacMahon). Also staying at Martha’s is Dan’s older brother, an artist named Douglas (Ralph Bellamy). Douglas is married to Ann (Ruth Warrick, who also played Kane’s first wife in Citizen Kane). Also living at the house is Douglas’s model, Miriam (Marie McDonald).
(“I used to have to hire one model for above the neck and one model for below the neck,” Douglas explains as Miriam poses for him, “But you’re the whole package!”)
When Evelyn has a panic attack upon seeing a bird, Douglas calms her down by drawing a woman on a lampshade. (Yes, that’s exactly what he does.) This leads to Evelyn becoming obsessed with Douglas. Soon, she is manipulating the entire household, trying to drive away Dan and Miriam while, at the same time, try to break up Douglas and Ann’s marriage….
So, does this sound like a Lifetime film to anyone? Well, it should because Guest In The House is basically a 1940s version of almost every film that aired on Lifetime last year. Normally that would be a good thing but, unlike the best Lifetime films, Guest In The House isn’t any fun. It should be fun, considering how melodramatic the storyline is. However, Guest In The House takes a prestige approach to its story, marking this as one of those films that was made to win Oscars as opposed to actually entertaining audiences. Other than a few time when Evelyn imagines that she’s being attacked by invisible birds, the film never allows itself to truly go over-the-top.
Lovers of The Wizard of Oz might want to note that the Wicked Witch of the West herself, Margaret Hamilton, plays a maid in this film but, in the end, Guest In The House is mostly just interesting as a precursor to Anne Baxter’s performance in All About Eve.
The fourth film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1941’s Topper Returns. Topper Returns was the third (and final) film to be made about Cosmo Topper (Roland Young). Cosmo Topper is an upper class and mild-mannered banker who likes to collect automobiles and who is married to the somewhat daffy Clara (Billie Burke). Cosmo would seem to be a pretty normal guy, except for the fact that he can talk to dead people. In the first Topper film, a ghost played by Cary Grant helped him to learn how to appreciate life. In the second Topper film, Topper Takes A Trip, a ghost played by Constance Bennett helped to save Topper and Clara’s marriage. And in this Topper film, a ghost helps …. well actually, the ghost doesn’t help Topper out at all. Instead, Topper helps the ghost solve her own murder.
When Gail Richards (Joan Blondell) visits her friend Ann Carrington (Carole Landis) for the weekend, she has no idea just how weird things are going to get. First off, while Gail and Ann are riding in a taxi to the big and foreboding Carrington mansion, a mysterious man in black shoots out the taxi’s tires. Though the taxi crashes, both Gail and Ann survive and are able to hitch a ride from Ann’s neighbor, Cosmo Topper.
Once they get to the mansion, Gail meets Ann’s strange family. Gail loves the mansion and who wouldn’t, seeing as how it is big and dark and full of secret passageways? However, Gail makes the big mistake of switching beds with Ann. Later that night, when that man in black sneaks into the bedroom and attempts to stab Ann to death, he ends up killing Gail instead. When we next see Gail, she’s a ghost who can’t leave our world until her murder has been solved.
No worries! Gail isn’t that upset about being a ghost. In fact, she seems to be rather amused by it all. She floats right over to Topper’s house and demands that he come over and solve her murder. After some initial reluctance, Topper agrees. Topper sneaks into the Carrington mansion and gets to work searching for clues and attempting to solve the crime. Needless to say, it involves a lot of family secrets, hidden rooms, and dark passageways.
Now, I should admit that I haven’t seen the first two Topper films so I don’t know how Topper Returns compares to them. The majority of the reviews that I’ve read online seem to indicate that Topper Returns is widely considered to be inferior when compared to the first two films. It is true, as a lot of other reviewers have pointed out, that Topper himself occasionally seems almost superfluous to the film’s plot. At no point does he mention that he has a history of talking to ghosts and, if not for the fact that the film’s title is Topper Returns, it would be easy to believe that this film was the first appearance of the character.
But no matter! I enjoyed Topper Returns, mostly because I’d like to think that if I was ever murdered and came back as a ghost, I would manage to have as much fun doing so as Joan Blondell appears to be having in the role of Gail. Funny, likable, and quick-witted, Gail isn’t going to let a little thing like being dead keep her from having fun! I also appreciated that the film has a nicely morbid streak. Towards the end of the film, there’s a cheerful conversation between Gail and another ghost. Gail mentions that, as soon as the murder has been solved, she can go to Heaven and “you can go to…” Gail lets her voice trail off but still make a point of glancing down at the ground.
For a modern viewer, the most problematic part of Topper Returns is the character of Chauffeur, who is Topper’s African-American servant and who doesn’t even get a proper name even though he’s in about 80% of the movie. On the one hand, Chauffeur is written as a total racist stereotype and, as written, the majority of his lines will absolutely make you cringe. On the other hand, he’s also played by Eddie Anderson, a talented comedic actor who always played his servants in such a way as to suggest that they were actually a hundred times smarter than the white people they were working for. Though you may not like the way the character is written, it is possible to appreciate the subversive subtext that Anderson brings to his performance (a subtext which, undoubtedly, was not present in the original script). Anderson was best known for playing comedian Jack Benny’s sidekick and, at one point during Topper Returns, he announces that he’s sick of ghosts and that he’s going “return to Mr. Benny!”
Taken on its own 1941 terms, Topper Returns was an enjoyable old, dark house movie. Watch it for Joan Blondell having the time of her afterlife.
The third film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1949’s The Black Book, which was also released under the title Reign of Terror.
The Black Book takes place during the French Revolution. It is, to quote Dickens, both the best of times and the worst of times. Actually, mostly it’s just the worst of times. The Black Book portrays revolutionary France as being a dark and shadowy country, one where the only things that hold the people together are paranoia and terror. It’s a country where anyone can be executed at any moment and where power mad tyrants excuse their excesses by saying that they are only doing the people’s will. Considering that the The Black Book was made in 1949, its vision of revolutionary France can easily been seen as a metaphor for Nazi Germany or Communist Russia. Or perhaps even America at the start of the Red Scare.
(It’s probably not a coincidence that the Nazis also had a document known as the Black Book, one that listed everyone who was to be arrested and executed if Hitler succeeded in conquering Great Britain.)
Maximilien Robespierre (Richard Basehart, giving a disturbingly plausible performance that will make you think of more than a few contemporary political figures) is on the verge of having himself declared dictator of France. Unfortunately, his little black book has disappeared. Inside that black book is the name of everyone that he is planning to send to the guillotine. If the book ever became public, then Robespierre would be the one losing his head.
Robespierre summons a notorious prosecutor named Duval (Robert Cummings) to Paris and gives him 24 hours to track down the book. He gives Duval the authority to imprison and interrogate anyone in France. He also informs Duval that, if the book is not found, Duval will be the next to lose his head.
However, what Robespierre does not know is that Duval is not Duval. He is Charles D’Aubigny, a rebel against the Revolution. Charles murdered Duval and took his place. Now, Charles has to find the book without his own identity being discovered. Not only do some of Robespierre’s allies suspect that Duval may not actually be Duval but some of Charles’s former allies also start to suspect that Charles may secretly be working for Robespierre, even as he claims that he’s trying to bring him down. At times, even the viewer is unsure as to who is actually working for who.
Oh my God, this is such a good film! In fact, it was so good that I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before watching it last night. The chance to discover a hidden gem like The Black Book is the main reason why I continue to take chances on Mill Creek box sets.
The Black Book was definitely made on a very low-budget but director Anthony Mann (who is best known for directing several landmark westerns) uses that low-budget to his advantage. There’s little spectacle to be found in this historical epic but then again, there was little spectacle to be found in the reign of terror. This is a film that takes place in shadowy rooms and dark, almost claustrophobic streets. It’s a historical film that looks and plays out like the most cynical of film noirs. Despite the fact that all of these well-known French figures are being played by very American actors, the cast all does an excellent job of capturing the fear and desperation of people living under oppression. The subtext of The Black Book was undoubtedly clear in 1949 and it’s just as clear today. Fanaticism remains fanaticism, regardless of when it happened or what ideology is used to justify it.
There is a somewhat awkward moment towards the end of the film when a French army officer is asked for his name.
“Bonparte,” the officer replies, “Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“I’ll remember that name,” someone snarkily replies.
But, other than that one moment (which immediately made me think of Titanic‘s infamous “Something Picasso” line), The Black Book is an intelligent and effective thriller. And because it’s in the public domain, you watch it below!
Technically this movie doesn’t begin with the title card. It actually starts by telling us Full Moon Pictures and Young Wolf Productions present that title card. The ‘6’ is huge as if to say, “seriously we made a 6th one of these.” Trancers 4 & 5 may have been sad, but that was because it was terrible seeing Tim Thomerson and his iconic role reduced to such garbage. This one doesn’t even have Thomerson in it. It’s just a terrifically bad movie. Nevertheless, let’s have some fun with it.
The film begins with a guy watching footage from the end of the movie before he realizes he too is in Trancers 6.
There’s only one thing to do when you see shot on video footage made to look even worse of a woman trying to stab another woman to death. That’s to get up, play with some switches, and then break the news to stock footage from the previous Trancers movies that time travel is going to happen again. During this we also get a voice inserted that isn’t Thomerson to say a line they couldn’t find in one of the previous movies. You might be wondering if it at least sounds like Thomerson. Nope!
Stock footage Deth is not happy about this. But before Trancers III Jack can argue his way out,…
Trancers III (1993, dir. C. Courtney Joyner)
he is sent into the future of 2006 to make a cameo appearance in Evil Bong, an extra that doesn’t look like Thomerson appears on a slab,…
Trancers (1984, dir. Charles Band)
and the film cuts back to Old Los Angeles of 2022.
So 6 years from now and 300 years 1 minute 49 seconds earlier from the opening scenes. Seriously, it says that second thing.
Moving on! We now meet Jack’s ancestor, but for a few minutes as herself. Her name is Josephine Forrest played by the only actor I’m going to credit on this film named Zette Sullivan. It’s bad enough I have to remind people she was in this movie. This was her second, and last role she ever did. Kinda sad because despite what follows, she didn’t deserve to disappear from films.
She’s an astronomer with an apartment where she can look through her telescope from the comfort of her own couch. That’s weird. She sees a meteor shower happen. She records where it was and calls it in. She is told to be careful, but she has no idea what that means. Doesn’t matter. That meteor shower thing will barely factor into this movie. Now she sets down her bowl of slop to look at her fish tank before knocking the bowl over.
This is a very important scene you see. The reason is because she says, “Oh, shoot!” You see what they did there? Flash! Fall! Get up!
“That was an ass breaker of a ride.” Other lines. “Shit! I need to clear my head.” That’s how we know for sure that Zette Sullivan has been given direction to stop acting like a regular person who has watched too many Jimmy Stewart movies and to begin channelling her inner Humphrey Bogart.
“I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
And my penis was missing again
This happens all the time
It’s detachable”
-Detachable Penis by King Missile
Of course she goes to the fridge to get a drink. Yes, I am going to call her a her despite it supposedly being Jack inside of her. I don’t want to sully the character’s good name by pretending he’s actually here. In the fridge, she finds everyone’s worst nightmare: tofu, non-fat yogurt, beet juice, and carrot juice.
“Oh, my God! What a fucking nightmare!”
-My Cousin Vinny (1992)
Then she finally realizes she’s a woman now. By that I mean she looks at her hands, her breasts, then looks in the mirror.
That’s it. I’m sorry, but this is what happens if you have a penis and suddenly discover it isn’t there.
Switch (1991, dir. Blake Edwards)
Switch (1991, dir. Blake Edwards)
That’s when Breasts walk into the room.
He is the ancestor of the guy from the beginning of the movie. He tells her that Josephine is Jack’s daughter. How much of a role will he play in this movie? Barely any. Aside from that piece of information, he’s just here to tell us his ancestor was a “ho” and give Josephine some stuff like a gun. That, and to have tits in the movie. I love that he brought along with him three pictures of the exact same thing to give to her.
Those are pictures of her being stabbed to death. A fate she needs to stop from happening.
Now she goes over to her desk to find out some information on herself. I would make fun of the CRT monitors on her desk, but who cares. There’s funnier things than that.
The next morning she gets her gun and threatens a pair of pantyhose with it before struggling to get them on.
I would love to believe that’s why she goes with a long skirt, but considering other things that happen in this movie. I just believe they thought they needed that scene because you will never see her have any problems with heels, makeup, or any of that stuff from now on. I’m actually glad about the heels part. Movies really over-exaggerate the difficulty of wearing them. The pantyhose thing is actually refreshing.
Make note of the outfit. She thinks this cool red car is hers. Make note of the red car too. After realizing the car isn’t hers, but the other car next to it, the camera cuts and…
I’m pretty sure the color of her top just changed. It could just be the lighting changing the color of the top. Regardless, make note of the purse. The movie won’t remember.
Now she arrives at work and…
is that a bright blue top now? The purse handle certainly is longer. What happened to her cardigan? Just in case you thought she might have left it in the car, the film cuts to the next scene at a hot dog stand to assure us that it did indeed forget she wasn’t wearing it in the previous scene.
There’s that long purse handle too. This scene exists to introduce us to these people who will show up later because otherwise they would need to hire more actors.
Then as she is heading into work…
she appears to have changed again back into the more beige version of the top. Damn Trancers! Before, they were just killing people, but now they are destroying all continuity.
She walks in front of the secretary so we can see that the cardigan has disappeared yet again.
It’s a magic cardigan!
Now we meet the short-lived Eddie Deezen of this movie.
Hmm…do I make the joke, or do I restrain myself? Nah! The movie is garbage. It deserves all the jokes I can come up with so I can get through this.
WarGames (1983, dir. John Badham)
I think it’s fair to say this Eddie Deezen has backdoors in mind while looking at Josephine. However, in the movie, he just reminds her that she sat at the wrong desk after giving her creepy stares and she moves over to her computer.
Remember kids, “Mondays Are Fundays.” I think Bob Geldolf & The Boomtown Rats would disagree. Even The Bangles would say that Sundays are in fact the Fundays. Okay, enough music jokes…for now. After clicking on the icon in the center of the screen without a mouse cursor and seeing that her meteor sightings were denied, a flight attendant comes to get her.
She is there to take her to see Mr. Castle and again to introduce us to an actor who will come back around again. Josephine takes a good look at her butt before going in to meet with him just to remind us that her sexual orientation has not been altered because of the gender body swap. If you didn’t get it this time, then don’t worry. The film will remind you again of this fact later. Believe it or not, at that point, it actually serves a real purpose in the story. This is an odd Full Moon production because it appears to try to send a message of being a strong woman, not smoking, not drinking, living a healthy lifestyle, and about fighting back when people try to prey on your weakness given your apparent position in society. Well, sort of. Just think of it as some marbling in the pile of cow dung.
Now Josephine sits down to talk with Mr. Castle. Blah, blah, blah, something exploded into the Earth even though we didn’t see that happen, blah, blah blah, you saw a gaseous explosion above the Earth’s atmosphere, and she’s fired.
After having a conversation with a security guard, we find out that this Eddie Deezen isn’t the jackass he appeared to be. He’s a Trancer jackass.
She proceeds to fight him. Oh, and he talks too. These must be the Trancers from the third film on, minus any real strength. He tells her that Mr. Castle wants her dead, breaks free, turns into pixels, jumps out of a window,…
and then dissolves on the ground.
That’s when Jim Walls…
appears to tell Josephine she didn’t follow proper trooper procedure and sends her back to try again.
After getting a call, Josephine is off to meet her astronomer friend at an observatory who apparently…
is still living in 1991 according to that poster behind him. The doctor confirms her findings about a meteor crashing into the Earth, and bad guys show up. All you need to know is that the long second works even better than before. You start to use it with your hair up,…
then the camera cuts to put your hair down,…
followed by the long second getting activated which puts your hair up again,…
and finally as you run away, your hair is down again.
Yes, that is the car from the parking lot earlier that she thought was hers. No reason for it to be the same car, but it is. She gets in that car and mows down a Trancer on the ground before getting out to shoot another one with her hair up again.
Now she bends down to take the dead Trancer’s jacket, but pops back up with her hair down again.
She also takes his pants because clearly those are her size. This part happened before she popped up with her hair down again.
The movie now briefly cuts back to the future to show the guy playing with a computer followed by fake Jack being attacked by ripple special effects.
Josephine follows one of the Trancers from the observatory and Breasts shows up to talk to her. He tells her that she is fading in the future so she better make sure her parents get together at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance. He actually says she is fading up the line because of her potential failure in the past.
Now we are off to the last main set of the movie, and the movie still has an hour to go. She gets there by following a white truck that picked up three Trancers that were hanging out nearby. Her first encounter at this shanty town/base of operations is with a guy I call Lucas.
The Wizard (1989, dir. Todd Holland)
However, since she doesn’t have the Power Glove, he takes her in. They stick her in a room with a musical reference.
“Who draws the crowd and plays so loud, baby, it’s the guitar man
Who’s gonna steal the show, you know, baby, it’s the guitar man
He can make you love, he can make you cry
He will bring you down and he’ll get you high
Somethin’ keeps him goin’ miles and miles a day
To find another place to play”
-The Guitar Man by Bread
This is where the sexual orientation part actually has a purpose. He is dirty. They pretend he is one of the many transients who has been taken in by the bad guys to be turned into Trancers. The reason it matters is because he offers to have sex with her, and she tells him she isn’t into guys. That rules out a way he can get close to her in order to mislead her. That’s the last time it’s brought up. It’s better than that whole thing in Switch where he doesn’t have sex with the one girl because even though he is in a woman’s body and loves girl on girl, he is supposedly so homophobic that he can’t do it. It sounds even dumber when I write it out.
I forgot to mention that Bad, Bad, Hot Dog Man from earlier is here too.
He’s the baddest hot dog vender in the whole damn town.
I couldn’t resist. It’s going to be awhile till I can reference it properly in a review of Sneakers (1992) where you get to hear it sung by some Chinese guys.
This is when the Waitress In The Sky…
shows up to tell us she is now Hell Bent For Leather…
and give an inspirational speech to her people. She tells them that the ray gun attached to a fake meteor is going to make them powerful so they can fight back against the system. This lady volunteers…
and turns into this.
Remember that she looks like that after she is zapped because the movie will forget it when they go to zap Josephine even though it does that with every single other person. All Josephine will do is act like Kristen Stewart in Twilight: New Moon (2009), and they all believe she has been Tranced.
Some guy is brought in and torn apart by two of the Tranced ladies. Then they are taken to two people having a barbecue who they kill before being singed by Hot Dog vendor.
That’s when the film cuts to Flight Attendant and Castle. They do some plotting here that no one cares about. The importance of this scene is to remind us there actually was a crew that worked on this movie because we can see their reflection in the TV screen.
Now we get a random sex scene between Flight Attendant and The Guitar Man. This is apparently how he reports to her. His penis must tell her somehow. Even more random, it cuts to things like this during the scene.
This is now only halfway through the movie. Yep!
Flight Attendant keeps saying she is helping these extras who are about 20 years late to be zombies in Day of the Dead (1985). This stuff goes on and on and on.
I do like this guy in the background though who is training by lifting a road sign.
This is how she looks after she has been supposedly Tranced even though everyone else looked like a zombie afterwards.
She dodged it using another long second Breasts gave her. There’s also a thing about Flight Attendant’s butt knocking this over…
even though it will have no purpose in the film that I could discern.
Now Josephine is sent off to bring in her scientist friend. He’s just brought in to provide convenient items when the plot needs them. Also, just before he is taken it looks like somebody’s hand appears slightly in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.
You’ve got the movie now. They all just hang out at this place while the scientist is forced to work on improving their Trancing so they can replace people in power. They do this till enough time has run out on the movie for the final showdown to occur. I’m not going to waste your time with a blow by blow of this part. Let’s cut to the fight, and summarize it with a musical number!
*piano music start*
Again! Run, Shoot, Shoot, Fight, Shoot, Aim
Again! Run, Shoot, Shoot, Fight, Shoot, Aim
Again! Run, Shoot, Shoot, Fight, Shoot, Aim
Again! Run, Shoot, Shoot, Fight, Shoot, Aim
Right! That connects with turn, Turn, go outside building, go inside building, Jump, Run, Run, Kick, Kick, Leap, Kick, Aim
Going on! And turn, Turn, Shoot, Duck, Back Up, Run, Pivot, Run, Walk, Walk, Walk
Now imagine that whole combination facing towards the cameras, and you have the battle.
There are a couple of plot things here such as the meteor being the source of the Trancing ray. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. They don’t even use it consistently. One minute it turns people into Trancers, then it’s just turning them mindless, then it’s blowing up ground, and then it’s making cars disappear.
The scientist gets stabbed in the back, the Flight Attendant gets her head blown off, and then boom!
With that done, Josephine returns to kill Mr. Castle who turns out to be an alien.
Now the movie actually sequel baits big time that Josephine is the new Jack Deth going out to hunt down the remaining Trancers. It seems like they really thought this would reboot the franchise.
Everything is wrong with this movie. I honestly can’t give you one redeeming quality here other than maybe the pantyhose thing. The sad thing is that I can think of a way this possibly could have been saved. Rather than having Jack go back into the body of his daughter, have him end up in McNulty’s ancestor instead. The girl played by actress Alyson Croft who was not only in the original film as that character, but in the sequel too. She was good and pulled off the seasoned male cop in a young woman’s body well. I would have brought her back and just made up some nonsense that this time something happened causing Jack to end up in the wrong body. Quantum Leap broke the rules one time for that Civil War episode so Sam Beckett could take credit for saving Martin Luther King’s ancestor and giving him his last name. Why couldn’t they have just done that here? Croft was only 27 when this movie came out too so she certainly would have been young enough for Full Moon. What a shame.
I just probably gave this particular installment in the Trancers series more attention than anyone else or that it even deserved. Well, we have one more to go after this. We will be going back to the original second Trancers movie that was made as part of an anthology film called Pulse Pounders (1988) and released on its own only a couple of years ago.
