The Fabulous Forties #16: Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case (dir by Harold S. Bucquet)

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 16th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1940’s Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case. It’s about a doctor who investigates a medical case and wow, is it ever a strange case.

Apparently, there was a whole series of Dr. Kildare films that were released in the 30s and 40s. I guess the films were the cinematic equivalent of a TV show like Grey’s Anatomy or ER or Children’s Hospital or… well, every medical show that’s ever shown up on TV since the beginning of time. Dr. James Kildare (Lew Ayres) is a passionate young doctor who may break the rules but he gets results! His mentor is Dr. Gillipsie. Gillipsie is played by Lionel Barrymore and since the character is cranky and confined to a wheelchair, it was impossible for me to watch him without thinking about Mr. Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life. Whenever Kildare went to him for advise, I kept expecting Gillipsie to glare at him and say, “You once called me a warped old man…”

Anyway, Dr. Kildare works in a hospital and, when he’s not silently judging everyone else that he works with, he’s busy silently judging the wealthy Dr. Lane (Sheppard Strudwick), a brain surgeon whose patients keep dying. Kildare and Lane are also both in love with the same nurse, Mary Lamont (Laraine Day). Mary wants to marry Kildare but Kildare would rather be poor and single than compromise his medical principles. Lane, on the other hand, sends her a box full of silk stockings. Plus, he’s rich!

Seriously, how is this even a competition? Forget Kildare and marry Lane!

Except, as I mentioned earlier, all of Lane’s patients keep dying. Is Lane incompetent or, as Kildare suggests, is it possible that brain surgery is just really, really hard? I imagine it was even harder in 1940, when this movie was being made. While Kildare and Lane are operating on brains, Dr. Gillipsie is still using leeches to suck sickness out of the poorer patients.

(You don’t actually see it happen in the movie but Gillipsie comes across as being a leech man.)

Anyway, eventually, Kildare has to cure a schizophrenic and it turns out that he can do this by putting the man into an insulin coma. As is explained in great detail, forcibly putting a patient in a coma will cause that patient’s mind to go back to a reset point. It’s kind of like how Windows sets up a restore point before doing a major update.

And that therapy sounds so crazy that you just know it had to be based in an actual practice. I checked with Wikipedia and I was not shocked to discover that apparently Insulin Shock Therapy used to be a thing!

Anyway, Kildare’s gets into a lot of trouble for putting his patient into a coma and attempting to erase a huge part of his mind. Will Kildare’s results vindicate his methods or will Gillipsie have to use leeches to suck the crazy out of the patient’s brain?

Watch the film to find out! Or don’t. Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case was directed by Harold S. Bucquet, who did a pretty good job with The Adventures of Tartu. His direction here is flat and uninspired, which only serves to make this entire film feel like an old TV show. I’m tempted to recommend the movie just because of the scene where it’s explained that insulin shock therapy causes patients to devolve so that they can re-evolve but otherwise, Dr. Kildare’s Strange Case is forgettable.

If you want to see it, you can watch it below!

Or you can just watch this classic episode of Children’s Hospital!

The Fabulous Forties #15: The Adventures of Tartu (dir by Harold S. Bucquet)

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 15th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was The Adventures of Tartu, a British film from 1943.

The Adventures of Tartu opens during the Blitz and follows Captain Terrence Stevenson (Robert Donat), a British explosives expert, as he defuses an unexploded German bomb in the ruins of London. He does it without breaking a sweat or showing the least bit of hesitation. With his clipped accent and his perfectly trimmed mustache, he’s a British hero through and through. He’s so perfectly British that you expect him to start singing the entire score of H.M.S. Pinafore. He’s the epitome of unflappable resilience.

And he’ll need all of that resilience to survive his next mission! It turns out that, as British as he may seem, Captain Stevenson was originally born in Romania and is still fluent in both his native language and German. Because of this, MI6 recruits him to parachute back into Romania, which is now under the control of the Nazis. Stevenson will assume the identity of a recently assassinated Nazi chemist, Jan Tartu. As Tartu, he will then make his way to Czechoslovakia where a member of the resistance will arrange for Stevenson to get a job at a secret Nazi chemical factory. Stevenson will destroy the factory from within.

Unfortunately, Stevenson’s contact is arrested before he can arrange for job to be assigned to Stevenson. When Stevenson (now pretending to be Tartu) arrives in Czechoslovakia, he is instead assigned to work in a munitions factory. In order to eventually win assignment to the chemical factory, Stevenson now has to win the trust of the Nazis without losing the trust of the resistance. That turns out to be more than a little difficult because, as Stevenson quickly discovers, he is now living in a world where no one can be trusted and everyone is paranoid.

(In one of the film’s best sequences, Stevenson is captured by a group of men and struggles to figure out whether he is now a prisoner of the resistance or a prisoner of the Gestapo.)

I’m not going to go into too many other details, beyond saying that The Adventures of Tartu is an effective and twist-filled work of wartime propaganda. What’s interesting is that when the film starts, it almost feels a bit comedic. Stevenson is so extremely British and the initial Nazis that he meets are so extremely buffoonish that it’s hard to take them seriously. But, as the film progresses, it gets more and more serious. In order to accomplish his mission, Stevenson is forced to make some difficult decisions and likable characters suffer as a result. As Stevenson himself spends more time with the Nazis, both he and the viewer discover just how evil they truly are. (Technically, the viewer should already know that the Nazis were evil but it must be remembered that The Adventures of Tartu was made during World War II, at a time when it was still difficult to get accurate information about what was happening in Nazi-occupied Europe.) By the end of the movie, the Nazis are still buffoons but it’s impossible to laugh at them.

I imagine that wartime audiences left The Adventures of Tartu feeling even more committed to destroying the Nazi regime. Meanwhile, modern audiences will watch The Adventures of Tartu and, once again, be reminded of how fortunate we are that the Allies won the war.

You can watch The Adventures of Tartu below!

The Fabulous Forties #14: The Stork Club (dir by Hal Walker)

Posted on April 17, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the past two weeks, I have been reviewing all fifty of the films to be found in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties DVD box set! It’s been four days since I reviewed the 13th film in the set, Scared Stiff, which is probably the longest bloggng break that I’ve ever taken in my life. However, I am proud to say that I am back and ready to review the 37 remaining films!

Yay! Lisa’s back!

Now, I know what you’re asking. Why, if I am about to review a film from the 1940s, am I sneaking a random Degrassi GIF into this review? Well, unfortunately, the movie that I’m about to review isn’t that interesting and there’s not a whole lot to be said about it. I’ve found some enjoyable and interesting films in the box set — The Black Book, Trapped, the original Jungle Book — but I’ve also found a few that are pretty forgettable. So, why not liven things up with a shout-out to my favorite show?

Anyway, the 14th film from The Fabulous Forties Box Set was 1945’s The Stork Club.

When I saw that this film was called The Stork Club, my first thought was that it would be a comedy about pregnancy. But it turns out that I was totally wrong. Apparently, The Stork Club was a very popular New York nightclub in the 1940s and this film was meant to take advantage of that popularity. (That said, according to the imdb, The Stork Club was not filmed at the actual Stork Club but instead on a Hollywood soundstage.)

As for the film’s story — well, this isn’t going to make much sense but here’s what happens. A millionaire named J.B. (charming, Irish-accented Barry Fitzgerald) falls into a pond and nearly drowns. Fortunately, his life is saved by Judy (Betty Hutton).

J.B. wants to reward Judy but, for some reason, he doesn’t want her to know that he’s rich. So, with the help of his lawyer (Robert Benchley), he anonymously arranges for Judy to get both a new apartment and an unlimited credit line at all of New York’s best stores!

But J.B. also wants to keep an eye on Judy and make sure that she’s happy. But he still doesn’t want her to know that he’s a millionaire or that he’s her benefactor. After he finds out that she’s a hatcheck girl at the Stork Club, he arranges to get hired on as a busboy. However, he gets fired after just one night and, believing him to be poor and homeless, Judy invites him to stay at her new apartment.

J.B. agrees and, in the film’s best, non-musical moment, he watches as Judy recklessly spends his money on new clothes. It turns out that Judy thinks that the apartment and the credit line are all gifts from the owner of the Stork Club and she’s offended because she thinks the owner is trying to steal her away from her boyfriend, Danny Wilson (Don DeFore).

Danny is a bandleader but he’s been serving in the U.S. Army. When Danny finally returns home, Judy is excited about arranging for him to get an audition to play at the Stork Club. However, Danny is more concerned about the fact that Judy has a mysterious benefactor and that she’s now living in a luxury apartment with a mysterious old man.

Could Judy be a kept woman!? Both Judy and J.B. insist that she is not but Danny refuses to believe them because Danny is kind of a jerk. Of course, Danny isn’t meant to be a jerk but, by today’s standards, he’s definitely a jerk. Judy could do so much better!

Anyway, the plot’s not really that important. It’s mostly just an excuse for Betty Hutton to sing a few songs and that’s when the movie is at its best. Check out some of Betty’s performances below:

Anyway, The Stork Club was pleasant but not particularly memorable. When it works, it’s largely due to the endless charm of Betty Hutton and Barry Fitzgerald. It may not seem like much today but I’m sure that, for audiences dealing with the contemporary horrors of World War II, The Stork Club presented a nice diversion.

The Things You Find On Netflix: Hush (dir by Mike Flanagan)

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let me start by stating the obvious. I have seen a lot of horror movies. I love horror as a genre and, in fact, it was my love of horror that first led to me becoming a film blogger in the first place. I have seen a lot of scary and shocking images onscreen. I know the experience of watching a movie and screaming. I also know the experience of watching a horror movie and being bored out of my mind.

I have also seen a lot of home invasion movies. The home invasion genre is not a complicated one. A group of people are isolated and trapped in their home while, outside, some terrible menace tries to enter the house. Night of the Living Dead is a home invasion film. The final 20 minutes of Straw Dogs (both the remake and the original) are home invasion films. Michael Haneke made two of the ultimate home invasion films with two separate versions of Funny Games. And, of course, we can’t talk about the home invasion genre without mentioning the brilliant You’re Next.

The home invasion genre works so well because, at its center, is a very real fear: the fear that, even within our own home, we are not safe. When I get home, I am practically obsessive about checking to make sure that I always close and lock the door behind me but really, what good would that really do if someone was determined to get in? Like everyone, I chose to believe that things like a locked door or a closed window is going to keep me safe but, honestly, if someone wants to get in, they’re probably going to find a way. Locks and alarms and calls to 911 can only do so much. Perhaps for that reason, home invasion movies always frighten me. I can watch a zombie graphically devour someone in an Italian horror film and it doesn’t bother me at all. But a well-directed home invasion movie?

That’ll keep me up for a week!

(And I know what you’re saying: “Lisa, if home invasion movies scare you so much, why do watch them?” It’s a legitimate question and it’s something that I’ve often wondered myself. I think, ultimately, it comes down to this: the only way to conquer our fears is to face them.)

With all that in mind, allow me to now come to the point of this review. Last night, I watched Hush, which was just recently released by Netflix. Hush is a home invasion movie. Kate Siegel (who also co-wrote the script) plays Maddie, a writer who has been deaf and mute since she was 13 years old. Still dealing with the a bad break-up, Maddie lives in an isolate cabin in the wilderness. By day, she works on her second novel and occasionally visits with her neighbor. And by night — well, on this particular night, she finds herself being watched by a man.

The Man (who is played by John Gallagher, Jr.) wears a white mask that gives him a permanent smile. He carries a crossbow with him, a crossbow that has 8 notches on it. When we first meet the man, he’s stabbing Maddie’s neighbor, Sarah (Samantha Sloyan), to death. And now, he’s turned his attention to Maddie…

I say this without hyperbole: Hush is one of the scariest home invasion movies that I’ve ever seen. The plot may occasionally seem familiar but director Mike Flanagan keeps things moving at an almost unbearably intense pace and he creates an atmosphere of such dread that you never feel truly safe assuming that anyone is going to survive the movie. John Gallagher, Jr, who speaks with a deceptively soft voice, is terrifying as the Man. The fact that he has no motives beyond his own sadism makes him all the more frightening.

But, ultimately, the reason the film works so well is because of Kate Siegel. Kate Siegel gets an introducing credit in this film. According to the imdb, Hush is not her first film but that introducing credit still feels appropriate. Siegel is wonderful in the role of Maddie, giving a performance of such ferocity and empathy that Hush announces that a major talent has arrived and that Kate Siegel is a force to be reckoned with.

Hush is not always an easy film to watch. The violence is visceral, the often spurting blood looks real and, when bones were snapped, it sounded disturbingly authentic. Throughout the entire film, I found myself wondering what I would do if I was Maddie. I cheered whenever it appeared that she might be able to escape the Man and I screamed whenever it became clear that she would not. This is an intense and frightening home invasion film and one that all horror fans should see. Hush captures our most primal fears and makes us wonder if we have what it takes to conquer them.

Hush will undoubtedly give me nightmares but I’ll take them.

The Fabulous Forties #13: Scared Stiff (dir by Frank McDonald)

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, as a gentle rain fell outside, I watched the 13th film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set, 1945’s Scared Stiff. (The version in the box set appeared under the title Treasure of Fear, which was what the title was changed to when the film was later re-released. However, the film was originally entitled Scared Stiff and that’s the title that I’m going to use. Scared Stiff is just a better title and I happen to like the Scared Stiff film poster, featured above. So, just remember that if you ever find yourself watching an old movie called Treasure of Fear, you’re actually watching Scared Stiff.)

As I attempted to watch Scared Stiff, I was reminded of some of the problems that occasionally come with watching a film that has slipped into the public domain.

On the one hand, the public domain is great because it makes it a lot easier to watch old movies. And while it’s true that many public domain films aren’t exactly classics, there are a few gems to be found. For instance, since I started watching the movies in the Fabulous Forties box set, I’ve discovered The Black Book, Trapped, and Jungle Book.

On the other hand, being in the public domain means that virtually anyone can duplicate and sell a copy of the film. As a result, many of these films are available (and frequently viewed) in versions that are of an extremely poor quality and which have often been haphazardly edited.

That’s one reason why it’s going to be difficult for me to review Scared Stiff. The version that I saw was, even for a public domain B-movie, rough. The picture was slightly fuzzy and the sound quality was not the greatest. I don’t think you can ever truly understand that importance of a clean soundtrack until you listen to a scratchy one.

As for Scared Stiff itself, it’s a comedic murder mystery and thankfully, it’s only 65 minutes long. Jack Haley plays a reporter who covers chess tournaments for his uncle’s newspaper. Unfortunately, Haley’s not a very good reporter so his frustrated uncle orders him to go to Grape City so that he can cover a beauty contest, apparently believing that there’s no way that Haley could possibly screw that up.

However, Haley manages to do just that. He gets off the bus at Grape Center, instead of Grape City. He finds himself stranded at an inn that’s run by two twins (both played by Lucien Littlefield). The twins hate each other for reasons that aren’t clear. However, they do possess a chess set that was once owned by Marco Polo! One twin owns the white pieces while the other owns the black pieces! Haley wants to buy all the pieces but things get complicated when it turns out that a gang of thieves are also in town and they want to steal the set for themselves.

But that’s not at all! One of the passengers on the bus is found murdered and he has a chess piece in his hand. Of course, everyone suspects Haley. So, Haley has to get the chess pieces, clear his name, and hopefully get to Grape City before his uncle fires him.

Scared Stiff is way too frantic for its own good and I have a feeling that I would feel the same even if I had seen a version that didn’t sound scratchy or often look fuzzy. That said, it is interesting to see Jack Haley, who is best known for being The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, play a human being. Also of interest, to film noir fans, was that Haley’s girlfriend was played by Detour‘s Ann Savage. Both Haley and Savage gave good performances but it was not enough to save this misbegotten little film.

Insomnia File No. 14: Spring Broke (dir by Alison Ellwood)

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were up at 12 midnight last night (and really, who wasn’t?), you could have turned over to Showtime and watched a new documentary called Spring Broke.

I have to admit that the main reason I watched Spring Broke was because I assumed that it would be a light-hearted and mostly empty-headed celebration of spring break decadence. I always loved spring break and really, the worst part of graduating from college was that I lost that one week out of the year when you could basically do absolutely anything without having to worry about any negative consequences.

But it turns out I was wrong. Spring Broke does feature a few scenes of sandy decadence but, for the most part, it focuses more on the business aspect of spring break than on the fun. It starts with footage of clean-cut, square-jawed college students partying in Florida in the late 50s and the early 60s and then follows as spring break gets progressively wilder and, in some ways, far more dangerous. As one observer points out, when you have 20 drunk college students jumping off a balcony and into the pool below, only 19 are going to make it into the water. One out of the 20 is always going to end on the pavement “splattered like a watermelon.” Spring Broke is one of those documentaries that claims to show how a good thing eventually fell apart. What does Spring Broke blame for the corruption of spring break?

Capitalism, of course. But that’s not surprising. It’s very rare that you see a documentary that doesn’t blame everything on capitalism.

Spring Broke is basically a collection of talking head interviews, mixed in with footage of past spring breaks. As is typical for many documentaries, the various interviewees can split into three separate and distinct groups:

First off, there’s the faded celebrities. These are people who used to be famous but who you probably really haven’t thought about recently. It’s rare that the celebrities ever have anything interesting to say but, for marketing purposes, they have to be present in the film. The main Spring Broke celebrity is Pauly Shore.

Secondly, there’s the people who were actually involved with the documentary’s subject matter but who worked behind-the-scenes. They give the inside details of what was really going on. These people usually aren’t as smooth in their delivery as the faded celebrity but, because they were actually there, they are still often interesting to listen to. In Spring Broke, this group of people is made up of a collection of businessmen, nightclub managers, resort owners, local politicians, and MTV executives. The businessmen and the politicians had the most interesting stories to tell (and I especially enjoyed the interview with the cantankerous old man who took it upon himself to try to save Florida from insane spring breakers, largely because he reminded me of twitter mainstay Leo Mcallister) but I have to admit that I always find it interesting when MTV executives show up in documentaries. That’s because the MTV executives (as opposed to the on-air talent) almost always turn out to be the blandest and most boring people interviewed and that pattern continues with Spring Broke. (One exec even uses the term “synergy” without a hint of irony.)

And then finally, every documentary has to interview an expert. The expert is someone who has nothing to do with the subject of the documentary but who has still written a book about it. You can always tell who the expert is supposed to be because they’re usually the least attractive person in the film. Spring Broke‘s expert had bad teeth and hipster glasses.

Spring Broke was a fairly interesting documentary. Clocking in at a fast-paced 78 minutes, Spring Broke didn’t always go into as much depth as I wanted it to. For instance, I would have preferred to have heard more about the conflict between the spring break-loving businessmen and the spring break-hating townspeople. But as an anthropological history and a look at how economics shape culture, it’s an interesting look at the surface that hints at a bigger story underneath.

Previous Insomnia Files:

The Fabulous Forties #12: D.O.A. (dir by Rudolph Mate)

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 12th film contained in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set is the classic film noir D.O.A. Before I get into reviewing this film, there’s an oddity that I feel the need to point out. According to the back of the Fabulous Forties box, D.O.A. was released in 1949. However, according to Wikipedia, imdb, and almost every other source out there, D.O.A. was released in 1950. In short, it’s debatable whether or not D.O.A. actually belongs in the Fabulous Forties box set but it really doesn’t matter. D.O.A. is a classic and, along with Night of the Living Dead, it is undoubtedly one of the best B-movies to ever slip into the public domain.

D.O.A. opens with a lengthy tracking shot, following a man named Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien) as he walks through the hallways of a San Francisco police station. Frank walks with a slow, halting movement and it’s obvious that he is not a healthy man. When he finally steps into a detective’s office, Frank announces that he’s come to the station to report a murder — his own.

Frank is a small-town accountant who came to San Francisco for a vacation. After a long night of drinking, Frank woke up feeling ill. When he went to a doctor, he was informed of two things. Number one, he was in overall good health. Number two, he only had a few days to live. Sometime during the previous night, Frank was poisoned with a “luminous toxin.” There was no antidote.

The rest of the film follows Frank as he attempts to figure out who poisoned him and why. It’s an intriguing mystery and I’m not going to ruin it by going into too many details. Over the course of his investigation, the increasingly desperate Frank comes across a gangster named Majak (Luther Adler). This leads to a lengthy scene in which Majak’s psychotic henchman, Chester (Neville Brand), repeatedly punches Frank in the stomach. It’s a scene that, even in our far more desensitized times, made me cringe. I can only imagine how audiences in 1950 reacted.

(There’s also a shoot-out at a drug store that can stand alongside almost any modern-day action sequence. Regardless of whether the film was made in 1949 or 1950, it still feels like a movie that could have just as easily been made in 2016.)

But really, the mystery is secondary. Instead, D.O.A. is truly about Frank and how he deals with the knowledge that he is going to die. Before being poisoned, Frank is the epitome of complacent, middle-class suburbia. He’s engaged to Paula (Pamela Britton) but he’s in no hurry to marry her. He’s got all the time in the world. When Frank goes to San Francisco, he epitomizes the bourgeoisie on vacation. He goes to the 1940s equivalent of a hipster nightclub, not because he’s actually interested in what the scene is all about but because he’s a tourist looking for a story to tell the folks back home. When he checks into his hotel, he leers at every passing woman with a casual sexism that would not be out-of-place on an old episode of Mad Men. Frank is floating through life, confident in his own complacency.

It’s only after he’s poisoned that Frank actually starts to live. He goes from being passive to being aggressive. Knowing that he’s going to die, he no longer has anything to lose. Only with death approaching does Frank actually start to live. Frank’s realization that he waited to long to live makes his final line all the more poignant.

D.O.A. is a classic! Watch it below, you won’t be sorry!

The Fabulous Forties #11: The Strange Woman (dir Edgar G. Ulmer)

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The eleventh film in Mill Creek’s Fabulous Forties box set was 1946’s The Strange Woman. The Strange Woman is one of those film noir/small town melodrama hybrids that seem to have been something of a cinematic mainstay in the mid to late 40s.

The Strange Woman of the title is Jenny Hager (Hedy Lamarr) and she’s not just strange because she’s got an Eastern European accent despite having grown up in Bangor, Maine. The film opens in 1824 and we watch as tween Jenny pushes one her classmates into a river, despite the fact that he can’t swim. At first, she seems content to let him drown. However, once she realizes that an adult is watching, Jenny jumps into the river and saves his life.

Ten years later, Jenny has grown up to be the most beautiful woman in Maine. However, her father is abusive and regularly whips her as punishment for being too flirtatious. Jenny has plans, though. She wants to marry the richest man in town, a store owner and civic leader named Isaiah Poster (Gene Lockahrt). Isaiah also happens to be the father of Ephraim (Louis Hayward), the young man who Jenny tried to drown at the beginning of the film.

And eventually, Jenny’s dream does come true. She marries Isaiah, even though she doesn’t love him. She just wants his money and is frustrated when the sickly Isaiah keeps recovering from his frequent illnesses. She starts to flirt with the weak-willed Ephraim, trying to manipulate him into killing his father.

Of course, even as she’s manipulating Ephraim, she’s also flirting with John Everd (George Sanders), despite the fact that John is already engaged to the daughter of the local judge. Though Everd is a good and decent guy, he still finds himself tempted by Jenny.

What makes all of this interesting is that Jenny isn’t just a heartless femme fatale. Throughout the film, there are several instances when she wants to do good but can’t overcome her essentially heartless nature. She gives money to charity and, whenever she listens to one of the local fire-and-brimstone preachers, she finds herself tempted to give up her manipulative ways.

The Strange Woman was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, who is probably best known for directing the ultimate indie film noir, Detour. He was a childhood friend of Hedy Lamarr’s and she specifically asked that he direct her in The Strange Woman. As a result, this film represents one of the few times that Ulmer was given a budget that was equal to his talents. What makes The Strange Woman stand out from other 40s melodramas — like Guest In The House, for example — is that, even with the larger budget, Ulmer’s direction retains the same deep cynicism and dream-like intensity that distinguished his work in Detour. The film remains sympathetic to Jenny, even as she often suffers the punishments that were demanded by the production code.

In the role of Jenny , Hedy Lamarr is a force of a nature. She is so intense and determined that watching her as Jenny is a bit like seeing what Gone With The Wind would have been like if Scarlet O’Hara had been a total sociopath. Even the fact that Lamarr’s accent is definitely not a Maine accent seems appropriate. It sets Jenny apart from the boring people around her.

It reminds us that, even if she is “strange,” there is no one else like Jenny Hager.

The Fabulous Forties #10: Dick Tracy’s Dilemma (dir by John Rawlins)

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

What type of name is Vitamin anyway?

You can watch Dick Tracy’s Dilemma below!

The Fabulous Forties #9: Jungle Book (dir by Zoltan Korda)

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.)