Film Reviews by Steve

Long, complex POW drama adapted from a bestseller by James Clavell, which feels realistic, while also haunting and poetic. It is set in a Japanese jungle camp, from which there is no possibility of escape. The allied soldiers revert to a primitive tribal state which is antagonistic across every possible divide.

Its fundamental weakness is there is no overarching narrative; this is an episodic scrutiny of the psychological trauma of the prisoners. George Segal leads an ensemble cast as the finagler who runs the camp like his own private racket; a role that has become something of a cliché.

But this digs deeper, into issues of class, nationality, sexuality and politics. James Fox is affecting as a clever but naive English blue-blood who gets snagged up in Segal’s circle of racketeers. James Donald arguably steals the picture in a cameo as a wise, phlegmatic doctor, weary of despair. Tom Courteney is unconvincing as a resentful tyrant without status.

It’s stunningly edited and photographed in b&w, with an evocative score by John Barry. This might have been big with the ‘60s counterculture as it is anti-authoritarian. But it flopped and took a while to find an audience. Maybe it would be more celebrated if not by a stalwart director like Bryan Forbes, yet this is an arthouse masterpiece.

This is regarded as the last in the long cycle of gothic horror from Universal studios, and has genre superstars Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. on board, though in support roles. It’s a period melodrama with sadistic undertones, grafted onto an adventure film.

Richard Greene plays a swordfighting avenger tracking two friends who vanished while visiting a malign German Count (Stephen McNally in an eyepatch). On entering his black castle, the hero gets snagged up in his host’s thrill seeking bloodsports while recklessly romancing the imperilled Countess (Paula Corday).

And so on. The production benefits from the gothic set decor borrowed from the superior The Strange Door, released the previous year. It is full of shadowy atmosphere, with the secret passages, the spooky old crypt and the fiendish alligator pit which guards the escape route from the dungeons.

Greene is a fair swashbuckler and McNally a persuasive aristocratic villain; a psychopath with unmoderated power. Though the hero is actually an ivory hunter! Nathan Juran’s debut job of direction sometimes plods, but it looks great and Karloff is wonderfully insidious. It’s a minor programmer but still viable entertainment.

MAN-MADE MONSTER

This low budget Universal sci-fi/horror clearly borrows from Frankenstein a decade earlier. Yet also feels at least ten years ahead of its time; more like a drive-in feature from the ’50s. It features Lon Chaney jr’s debut in the genre as an oddball idiot who can survive huge amounts of electricity without obvious harm…

Only to run into Lionel Atwill playing a mad scientist intent on creating a prototype for a super-race by plugging him into the mains. Future generations would adapt this idea with atomic and then computer technology. But this is the ’40s and Chaney spends the second half of the film glowing like the Ready-Brek kid.

Despite the B picture resources, this effect is really quite impressive. And surely the stuff about the army of automatons is intended to reflect the Nazis? As usual, Atwill is the standout, just edging out Corky the dog, who is way ahead of the rest in noticing something is going badly awry.

It’s a cheap shocker obviously directed with an eye on the clock. The support cast is mundane, aside from Corky. But some care has gone into the action set pieces and it builds to an exciting climax as the electrical man goes berserk. It’s entertaining, and you will learn plenty about ‘electrobiology’. 

MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS

Standard sci-fi/horror for the '50s drive-in crowd, elevated by a superior production from Universal studios, rather than shoddy trash from poverty row. There’s a competent crew led by genre legend Jack Arnold. And a fair cast which gets the balance between seriousness and sendup just about right. But the crazy plot is the same sort of hokum.

Arthur Franz plays a hot biology professor who gets contaminated by a prehistoric fish and periodically transforms into an angry, homicidal caveman. For complicated reasons involving atomic radiation. The dialogue works hard to convince us this might actually happen. But it’s dumbed down Jekyll and Hyde.

And the Prof wakes up at the centre of a zone of destruction, wondering what just happened… Being low budget campus sci-fi, there are teenage hunks (Troy Donahue) and babes (Nancy Walters). But they are relatively well behaved, not wild for kicks. Most of the mayhem happens to the grownups.

We don’t get to see the monster until the climax, which is a good thing, as it’s a terrible rubber mask. The days of Jack Pierce rising at dawn to paste yak hair onto the star are long gone. Sadly. The effects are prehistoric. Of course this is all completely idiotic, yet surprisingly fun. And not because it’s bad. This is decent nonsense.

Coruscating polemic aimed at corporate America which doesn’t attempt to disguise its origins as a low budget TV play, but makes its threadbare claustrophobia into a virtue. For aficionados of political cinema, this may be the great forgotten film of the decade. Easy to imagine it inspired David Mamet.

Van Heflin plays the small town nice guy appointed to the board of a New York firm by its sociopathic chief executive (Everett Sloane) to lead human resources. And covertly edge out the New Deal philosophy of a traumatised company man (Ed Begley). Because big business operates like a shark, without conscience.

The big asset is Rod Serling’s brilliant, deadeye script which communicates the social Darwinism that operates the levers of US free enterprise. There’s an astonishing scene when it becomes obvious that the newcomer’s stay-at-home wife (Beatrice Straight) is easily as ruthless as the boss. And today would be in the boardroom herself.

It’s ultimately ambiguous whether the newcomer gets assimilated into the detached pragmatism of malign executive culture. This is pessimistic political noir and doesn’t generate much hope. It’s is a realistic and devastating analysis of US capitalism, even though filmed in the time of McCarthyism.  

Hardboiled cult heist picture, which is Jean-Pierre Melville’s personal homage to Hollywood film noir, and has itself proved an influence on other directors- including the Nouvelle Vague. However there isn’t an expressionist look. The lighting is mostly natural. There are no shadows of entrapment.

Maybe its tawdry greyness suits this story of a high roller fallen on hard times. Parisian criminal Roger Duchesne (in the title role) plans one last job, to rob the casino at Deauville, so assembles a team of deadbeats to execute the caper. Naturally, his plan falls apart on the big day...

There is the obvious influence of year zero heist noir, The Asphalt Jungle (1950), though this isn’t flattered by the comparison. The main problem is Duchesne lacks charisma and the support cast is anonymous in underwritten roles. Isabelle Corey stands out as the mercenary teenage moll. She is beautiful and sexy, but more of a model than actor.

This is much more salacious than US noir. It is ultra-lowkey, barely stirred by the soundtrack of nocturnal jazz. There is plenty of genre pessimism and Paris by night. Melville directs with the élan he brought to all his critically adored crime films. It’s très cool, but not in the class of The Asphalt Jungle. 

Delirious and deliciously debauched adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's 1864 locked room mystery. And rather than underplaying or updating the 'tache twirling Victorian melodrama, this revels in its gothic excess. There is clearly some talent on board.  Yet if they cut the budget and the shooting schedule, there's a Tod Slaughter B film left.

After her father's death, a naive but spirited teenager (Jean Simmons) is exposed to the doubtful solicitude of her wicked, avaricious Uncle Silas (Derrick De Marney) and his menagerie of human grotesques. If she doesn't make it to legal age, the inheritance passes to this grasping, murderous relative. So is moved from her comfortable home into his cobwebby, derelict castle.

Nothing is in moderation. The orphan is sweetly innocent. De Marney makes a spidery villain. His son is a bewhiskered blackguard and the female accomplice a hideous, cackling harridan. The huge coachman is mute, the dialogue is ripe, and the climate given to thundery storms. While the photography is impressive, the expressionism is unsubtle.

And yet it is extremely enjoyable. This kind of melodrama usually gets a meagre budget, this is well mounted with fine sets. It is fortunate to feature a future star, with 18 year old Simmons in her first lead. If everyone else overacts, then that is the style. Director Charles Frank is obscure, but he has an eye for detail. It's a kind of guilty pleasure.

Creaky, old fashioned gothic melodrama loosely based on an early short story by Robert Louis Stephenson. The plot is slight and outré and implausible, but still functional, augmented by the rich period set design, with the shadowy secret passages, devious torture devises and the dark, dangerous dungeons.

The ripe dialogue is effective in the context. But best of all are the theatrical, scenery chewing performances. And that’s mostly Charles Laughton as an insidious ham… who plays a decadent, malign French aristocrat intending to punish his imprisoned brother by making his lovely daughter (Sally Foster) marry a dissolute waster.

Richard Stapely is charismatic as the latter, enough to suggest he might have developed into a B-picture Errol Flynn. Except this kind of film was in decline and Universal horror production about to be turned over to sci-fi. Boris Karloff has a minor role, but brings some old school class, and memorably takes a full 10 minutes to die from bullet and stab wounds!

Everyone enters into the spirit… It was made in a co-production with The Black Castle (1952) which is similar, but not as good. My hunch is this was intended for the teenage horror crowd, which no longer exists for this sort of period melodrama. But it’s still fine entertainment for aficionados of the virtues of the classic studio era.  

Minor film noir which extracts plenty of interest from its lowlife location shoot in Santa Monica, on the Californian coast. Which is a squalid hell! It’s a pessimistic crime-does-not-pay parable with an anti-capitalist subtext; where business and finance chews up the luckless workers... Director Irving Pichel was soon blacklisted by HUAC.

It’s one of a pair of crime films in which Mickey Rooney plays a small town mechanic drawn in by the lure of exotic sex and easy money (see also Drive a Crooked Road, 1954). There’s the usual noir scenario of an ordinary guy who makes one wrong turn…. He takes 20 dollars from the garage cash register, and his whole world caves in.

Pretty soon he’s strangling his corrupt boss with a telephone wire and fleeing down to Mexico in a stolen car. He is drawn into this shabby inferno by a cheap blonde (Jeanne Cagney) who sets up the grease monkey to loot a rundown penny arcade owned by her scuzzy ex-boss, played by a splendidly repellent Peter Lorre.

Does the reckless stooge not have eyes? He is pursued by his girl-next-door ex (Barbara Bates), who is not only not a chiseller, but ten times the babe that the femme fatale is… Still, Mickey is back from the war and wild for kicks. There are echoes of zero budget cult noir, Detour (1945). It isn’t as good but still sleazy fun for genre fans. 

Charming gaslight melodrama based on a 19th century urban myth. Jean Simmons stars as a young, romantic English rose at the 1889 Paris Exposition with her brother (David Tomlinson) who suddenly and mysteriously disappears. As does his room, and any memory of his existence among the hotel staff.

Of course, it is a familiar story often told but this conveys an eerie sense of muted hysteria beneath the late Victorian gentility. It’s a fine vehicle for Simmons which won her a Hollywood contract. Eventually Dirk Bogarde comes to her aid as an aristocratic Brit studying art…

They produce zero sparks as a romantic couple, but are both uncommonly beautiful. It’s a handsome costume drama which might better have been filmed in Technicolor. Still, it benefits from an extensive location shoot in the French capital. And a glorious support cast.

The motifs which made the legend a proto-urban myth, still resonate. Particularly of the innocent alone in a foreign country, unfamiliar with the customs or language and unable to trust anyone. This is genteel melodrama; there are no jump scares. But has value as an eternal folk tale, and full of period atmosphere.

Intelligent, loquacious western noir which illustrates the psychology of the frontier outlaw rather than presenting much as realism. It feels like a tv play, but with major studio resources; principally Gregory Peck as a former desperado who has lived long enough to be haunted by his reputation as the fastest gun around.

His character is loosely based on real life killer Johnny Ringo. Everywhere he goes, some young punk wants to beat him to the draw. Everyone with a grievance believes he is to blame. It’s a study of small town mob mentality, as well as an interesting- if schematic- attempt to get inside the head of the gunfighter.

This was released near the trigger of the western golden age, and influenced many pictures which present the gunman as a lonely wayfarer, pursued by his own legend. Who has to kill, or be killed. Like Shane (1953). Peck’s lowkey performance isn’t as mythic as Alan Ladd. This is stripped down. Plus there is some effective humour.

There’s a textbook demonstration of Hitchcockian suspense as the gunfighter delays his departure to see an estranged wife (Helen Westcott), while his nemesis closes in. The ’50s western is typically in Technicolor, but this has a high contrast b&w look which suits the noir-ish scenario. It may even appeal to those not usually attracted to the genre.

After a sequence of independent film noir hits in 1947-48 (including T-Men and Raw Deal), MGM signed Anthony Mann for this dark, violent exposé on the criminal smuggling of manual labour along the US-Mexican border. Though made for a studio more famous for glossy musicals, it’s still dirty, punchy and credible.

It’s a contemporary western as well as a crime picture. Most of all, this is inspired by Italian Neorealism, like many Hollywood docu-noirs at the turn of the ‘50s. There’s a strident newsreel style voiceover and an un-starry cast of men without women, as the gangs muscle in on the trafficking of workers.

Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy are Mexican/US immigration agents who go undercover. And there’s a familiar support cast of un-photogenic blokes to play the ruthless crooks led by Howard Da Silva, with Charles McGraw, Jack Lambert… The sort of western actors who would stay with Mann into the ‘50s.

Perhaps the director’s wisest decision was to retain his cinematographer, John Alton. These are mostly location exteriors, but with a dark, expressionistic look. This may be as pulpy as MGM ever got, including an astonishing murder by plough. Sometimes it loses impetus, but it’s a convincing early look at an issue which still persists.  

The second of his cavalry trilogy is either customary or classic John Ford, depending on your position on his reputation. It’s the usual bundle. John Wayne stars as the doughty captain on a final tour of the former ‘Indian’ territorial heartlands before retirement… as frontier war threatens.

And there are all the other Ford signifiers: the spunky dowager and the capricious maiden; Victor McLaglen drilling the recruits while finagling his next glug of whiskey; the singalong male baritone choir and the witless punch up; the boggy sentimentality. Plus scant regard for the dignity or rights of Native Americans....

Ford claimed this is the picture that convinced him Wayne could act... Though it's just a typical Duke performance. There’s a salty caricature from Mildred Natwick, but the support cast is otherwise forgettable. Joanne Dru and John Agar are inert romantic leads.

There are also the usual positives, with the photogenic locations in Monument Valley, Utah- in buzzy Technicolor! And a decent, if brief, action sequence towards the end. Yet the bad squeezes out the good. The director’s many enthusiasts will love it, but maybe not one to win over any western agnostics.

Sumptuous MGM musical romance with wonderful stars and memorable songs by Irving Berlin. Plus the period fashions in gorgeous, vibrant Technicolor. This is among the very best of many nostalgic eulogies to the golden age of vaudeville made after WWII.

Fred Astaire plays a minor celebrity on the musical revue circuit. When his dance/romance partner (Ann Miller) quits both roles to appear on Broadway, the ballroom hoofer decides to pull a chorus girl (Judy Garland) out of a low-class night club act and make her a star.

Though this eventually leads to his routine evolving into a new style to accommodate her special singing talent. Of course she falls in love with him… and it’s a slim story, often told. But the narrative is only there to support some magical musical numbers, including the legendary A Couple of Swells…

Fred performs the phenomenal jazz age celebration, Steppin’ Out With My Baby and combines with Miller for a knockout ballroom duet, It Only Happens When I Dance With You. Plus the instant hit of the title song. And many more. None of this is profound, but all of superior quality. A smile is guaranteed.

THE WHISTLER

This is the start of an offbeat series by Columbia based on a popular radio suspense programme. There are eight Whistler films, the first seven star William Dix in a variety of roles. Here he is a depressed businessman who arranges a hit on himself, but when his fortunes suddenly improve, has trouble cancelling the contract.

The story actually seems to come from the radio series, though obviously it’s been remade and ripped off endlessly since. And it’s a good plot, with many wild twists. William Castle in his breakthrough as director, makes this into a really eccentric and stylish film noir.

The Whistler is the storyteller, briefly glimpsed in the shadows. He is partly the all-knowing narrator, and also a figure of implacable destiny. So it feels like an eerie parable on fate. This is not realistic, but dense with expressionistic dread.

It takes place in a US where everyone struggles. There’s a really gloomy scene in a flophouse. Dix is a limited actor, but has a touch of impassive moral ambiguity. J. Carrol Naish is sinister as the assassin. It’s a 60 minute programmer of the sort that would made for tv a decade later. And the best radio spin off of the period..

THE MARK OF THE WHISTLER

The Whistler series has an impressive strike rate for unearthing classic, repeatable film noir scenarios. Which also means they are now quite familiar. This is from one of many Cornell Woolrich stories in which a drifter of uncertain virtue assumes another identity, but soon realises they are now in even deeper trouble…

So, Richard Dix plays an imposter who claims a large inheritance. Only there is a mob contract out on the real heir. This is ideal for the series, as The Whistler- the omniscient narrator and voice of destiny- mocks the feeble attempts of the shiftless bum to deny the fate he has assumed.

Dix may play a different character in each entry, but he gives the same performance; hunted, haunted, and concealing a deep secret. Usually he is pulled down among the lower depths of society; the human deadbeats… So this series can be quite sombre.

Here at least Janis Carter- Columbia’s second string Rita Hayworth- generates a glimmer in the moral darkness as a pushy newshound. There is a B-budget, but William Castle brings polish to the noir atmospherics. Though it’s the choice of twisty moral parables that really sets this series apart.

Foreign intrigue from Universal which principally looks good today for Ava Gardner’s studio era glamour just before she became a major star. This sort of exotic melodrama was better made in the 1930s, but at least we get a classic period film noir look.

And there are the usual generic signifiers of the far east with the white colonial suits, the rickshaws and the gin slings. And the vagabond rogues, far from home. Fred MacMurray is a smuggler of pearls about to marry Ava, who he assumes is dead after a Japanese air raid.

Only, when he returns from wartime heroics to pick up a stash of contraband, he discovers his lost love is alive and married to Roland Culver. But has scriptwriter’s amnesia. The plot is quite engaging, though John Brahms doesn’t generate enough suspense.

There are constant evocations of Casablanca (1942), which is fine. Naturally, the stars don’t create as much chemistry. Fred just isn’t a convincing romantic hero. There’s a decent support cast playing colourful scoundrels… It’s just a minor programmer, but with plenty of the old studio gloss.