Film Reviews by Steve

Spooky voodoo shocker inspired by popular US news articles of the 1930s which claimed to expose sinister witchcraft on the Caribbean islands. Dorothy Burgess plays a Spanish woman brought up among these superstitions. She marries a New York businessman (Jack Holt), but continually feels the pull of her origins.

Only she now has a family. Fay Wray comes back to the old plantation with them, mainly because she is a horror star. She doesn’t even get to scream. Roy William Neill directs with his usual feel for atmosphere, with the colour tints, the shadows and the sound of the drums…

Some of this will now set off alarms for its portrayal of race. On the other hand, the white colonials are defined as brutal oppressors and the voodoo a justifiable means of resistance. Though not the murders. Its release was squeezed in just before the enforcement of the Production Code in 1934…

And there is a fair amount of precode exotica. So we see Burgess’ hot voodoo dance in a sexy tribal two-piece. She haunts the whole film from her supporting role. This is for those of us who prefer their ’30s horror without monsters, but with a little psychological deviance.  

YOU'RE TELLING ME!

This is the picture which allowed WC Fields creative control of his sound comedies for the first time, and established the formula which would make him a cinema legend. He is the browbeaten husband of an exasperated wife (Louis Carter), who medicates his disappointment with whisky and daydreams.

His other solace is a grown up daughter (Joan Marsh) who loves him, otherwise the set up would be too sad for comedy. Here he is a part-time deviser of crackpot gadgets whose child is overlooked for marriage by the rich family of a preppy hunk (Buster Crabbe) because Fields lacks social position.

Only a sad Russian princess (Adrienne Ames) encounters the hapless inventor on a train and kindly visits his home town to boost his status in the community. But the plot is the least successful part of the film. The appeal comes from the diminished status of the great comedian within his home.

And this is really, very funny with one or two moments of precious hilarity. But there is genuine pathos too. A few of the star’s routines from the silents are recycled, which was standard. The screen legacy of WC Fields effectively starts here with his first truly essential sound film.

MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE.

WC Fields retains Kathleen Howard from It's a Gift as his shrewish wife, but this time has a more loving daughter (Mary Brian) to sweeten the dish. It's a Gift is hilarious, but awfully cold. Again there's a collection of sketches arranged around a loose narrative. Ambrose Wolfinger just wants to go to the wrestling...  

The best episode is the opener when the great man is forced into the cellar by his wife to confront two burglars who are getting mellowly drunk on his applejack. Fields, the intruders and a cop end up harmonising sentimental Irish ballads. For all of them, this is brief moment of respite, seized from the hell of domesticity.

 It's such a funny film because Fields' comic persona is so identifiable. His interminable suffering is revealed so succinctly, with a sudden nervous reflex or a mumbled aside. He has grown to accept his malign fate. And there's nothing he can do about it.  

Fields is always doing what he is asked, however absurd. Then is admonished when the outcome proves to be unsatisfactory. He acts without complaint or hope, and then gets nailed for it. And who doesn't know how that feels?! This is my pick as his best film. 

This is a coming together of two superstars of post-WWII French cinema. It’s a thriller directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, the other master of suspense. And there’s a change of direction for screen icon Brigitte Bardot who does juvenile tragedy in a realistic, seedy b&w Paris.

And she’s a revelation as a wild, provincial teenager who escapes her suffocating parents to live among the Bohemians of the student quarter. And who is charged with the murder of her ex-lover (Sami Frey). BB is deglamorised, but obviously still looks amazing despite the rags and the grime.

It’s a courtroom drama, with Clouzot regulars Charles Varnel (for the defence) and Paul Meurisse (the prosecution). Plus the flashbacks to the cold water bedsits and shabby coffee bars. But actually it’s about the generations; the friction between the conservative old men of the court, and the young, permissive undergraduates.

There is plenty of relishable atmosphere of sleazy, boho Paris. The film is overextended to give us much more of the star. And we don’t get the big final twist standard with this director. But it’s still fascinating, both as Clouzot thriller and an offbeat vehicle for Bardot. 

One of the best historical romantic melodramas ever made. It’s adapted from an 18th century play (by Monzaemon Chikamatsu) set in feudal Japan about a careless, dishonourable merchant in calendars (Eitarô Shindô) who falsely charges his principal designer (Kazoo Hasegawa) of an affair with his wife (Kyôko Kagawa).

And this is a time when adultery is punished by death. Against a background of self-seeking courtly intrigue, the two accused innocents flee Kyoto into the mountains to rely on the kindness of strangers. While the arrogant husband schemes to save face by bringing her back alone.

But ironically, the fugitives fall deeply in love, with a bravery and decency which gives their life (brief) meaning and joy. A passion for the ages, which will never be forgotten. If the feckless husband hadn’t been bereft of wisdom… the lovers would never have found each other. And willingly died together.

Hasegawa and Kagawa are heartbreaking in the title roles. This is Kenji Mizoguchi’s masterpiece, and as always, it is visually exquisite. It’s a haunting, poetic romance which fulfils the thematic diktats of the post-WWII US occupation- particularly regarding the traditional status of women- yet feels entirely authentic. 

Impeccably liberal parable about race from Stanley Kramer which doesn’t quite capitalise on its interesting- if obvious- premise. Sidney Poitier plays a persecuted, resentful African-American convict, and Tony Curtis… a shack-raised southern bigot. Naturally, during a prison transfer they escape, except chained together.

And they have to learn to co-operate for their common purpose. Which is one of the most famous set-ups in pictures. And it really works for 30 minutes while they get the measure of each other… The stars are fine and the quarrelling of the chasing posse inputs some knockabout comedy.

But the story gets lost in a couple of subplots- including Curtis bunking up with a lonely farm widow (Oscar nominated Cara Williams)- which are poorly developed and scripted. The realism is subordinate to the liberal message, and soon it all begins to feel contrived.

 It’s implausible that the violent, intractable criminals should so readily open up… Until it becomes probably that Kramer is suggesting they are linked not just by economic and social oppression, but their sexuality… It’s impossible to be critical of the director’s intentions, but this civil rights classic now feels too simplistic.

MILLION DOLLAR LEGS

This anarchic comedy was scripted (mainly by Joe Mankiewicz) for the Marx Brothers, who turned it down. And every scene is obviously intended for them, which already makes this an eccentric film. And also exposes just how crucial gag writers are to the public’s favourite comic acts.

Paramount instead cast an assortment of ex-silent comedians (like crosseyed Ben Turpin), led by Broadway star Jack Oakie. Though, of these, only WC Fields is a farceur on the level of the Marx Brothers, and shares their gift for the surreal. There always was some crossover between he and Groucho. Consider their lists of character names.

This is Fields’ first sound film at the studio and he plays the President of the middle European state of Klopstokia who wants to squeeze more money out of the peasants. A visiting US salesperson (Okie) convinces him instead to enter the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932, because their citizens all have an exaggerated sporting talent.

The President is their strongman. There are some crazy laughs in the early scenes, though the screen is burdened with too much Okie (and low-watt glamour from Susan Fleming, Harpo’s wife…) and not enough Fields. Eventually, it gets tiresome but may be of interest to fans of the absurdist comedy which survives in the margins of studio era Hollywood.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE

Crazy, precode Paramount revue which is an irreverent run out for the studio’s vaudeville talent, linked by a loose plot about them travelling to China to invest in… television! Most film fans will watch this for the early sound appearance by WC Fields, who is the best on show.

 And there is some delightful comedy from George Burns and Gracie Allen. Rudy Vallee croons a romantic ballad. Of course, some of the acts are forgotten now. Most baffling is Baby Rose Marie, a pre-teen moppet with a Louise Brooks haircut who belts it out while standing on a piano.

Top billed is Peggy Hopkins Joyce, who was a celebrity for marrying millionaires and a model for Lorelei Lee in Anita Loos’ novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She is disappointingly frumpy, but in a platinum blonde wig. Certainly no Marilyn Monroe. Some topical gags are lost in the winds of time.

There’s fun to be had with the precode innuendo, and the sexy showgirl glamour of a Busby Berkeley pastiche. We may pinch ourselves as Cab Callaway sings Reefer Man! And look… there’s Bela Lugosi. It’s just a showcase for Paramount contract curiosities, but better than usual for this sort of thing.

Classic German expressionism based on Maurice Renard’s famous French horror serial about a concert pianist who loses his hands in a train crash… which are replaced by grafts from an executed knife murderer. So the musician begins to feel controlled by violent, homicidal impulses.

Only it’s so much weirder than that… and grotesque. The screen is dominated by Conrad Veidt as Orlac, driven to obsessive insanity by his psychological rejection of the transplant. Of course, this is an expressionist performance typical of silent horror and sometimes it feels like watching interpretive dance!

Still, Veidt is phenomenal and the main attraction. Admittedly, anyone not fascinated by his portrayal may find this slow, as the narrative dwells on his hallucinatory anguish. Fritz Kortner is convincingly repellent as the blackmailer who persuades the ex-maestro that his new hands are responsible for another killing.

The expressionist set design isn’t as extreme as director Robert Wiene’s earlier The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), but still deeply evocative. And the film is darkly transgressive. It feels a happy miracle that this landmark gothic tale was adapted at such an auspicious time in cinema history. 

By 1932 Jessie Matthews was a star of the London stage, but not yet on the big screen. This dated musical-comedy is her first hit. She isn’t quite the vivacious screwball talent she would soon become, but almost everything that is worthwhile about this early talkie is down to her magnetism. 

There’s a standard romcom scenario, borrowed from a 1931 German picture. Jessie is due to be married (to Basil Radford!) as a makeweight in her father’s business shenanigans. So she skips off to Paris where she hides out with a respectable bachelor (Owen Nares) and they and everyone else behaves according to the crazy rules of farce.

Mainly because it is so catastrophic for a gentleman to have a young woman in his apartment… Director Albert de Courville is competent, but hardly has the Lubitsch touch. Owen Nares is inert as the male romantic lead. Roland Culver is fine as the drunken toff, in what used to be called the ‘silly arse’ role.

Only Matthews makes this much more than social history. She’s not quite there as a comedy actor- too much big eyes! Her voice is impaired by the compulsory elocution of the period. She doesn’t get to dance… She isn’t even well styled. But her charisma miraculously gives the thing life. She’s just got it.

This bombed on release but was venerated by the French critics who went on to direct the Nouvelle Vague; though their claims for it now feel like hyperbole. Still, this fascinating relationship drama was clearly influential over the next decade, and Roberto Rossellini’s exploration of the interior lives of the main characters is impressive.

It was initially recorded in English and later dubbed into Italian. The audio is satisfactory in neither, which takes some getting used to. It reflects on the disintegrating marriage between a pragmatic, wealthy businessman (George Sanders) and his more doubtful, sensitive wife (Ingrid Bergman) as they travel through the Italian southwest.

The actors were asked to improvise. This can be awkward, though arguably it contributes to the tension between them. The husband dismisses his wife as sentimental, but she has a more poetic feeling for life. He is a prosaic, hollow man. So Bergman is able to create a deeper characterisation, whereas Sanders gets stuck with a monster.

It’s not the first or last film to show people fundamentally change under the influence of Italy; its beauty, history and the warmth of the sun. The locations are glorious and the direction is eloquent. Though- for me- the ending is botched. It’s uncertain so many will now agree this is the turning point in modern cinema. But it’s a key Rossellini picture.

Euphoric, life affirming adventure-romance* set in medieval Paris with John Barrymore as (real life) French poet and bon vivant, François Villon, who slums with beggars while fraternising with the king (Conrad Veidt) and romancing his daughter (Marceline Day). 

Presumably the doggerel quoted in the film is a bad translation… Barrymore is pretty much the whole show and the Great Profile does the film sideways to exploit his trademark feature! And with such wit and exuberance! Veidt is fine as the cosseted, puerile monarch, though Day makes little of the perfunctory love interest.

The extensive sets of 15th century Paris (by William Cameron Menzies) bring atmosphere. There is an engaging sense of period, though hardly informed by realism.  The silent era- and the ‘30s- is a golden age of romance and adventure. And this is a riot.

This kind of cinema can't be made anymore. No one would contemplate an adventure so happily romantic. Or allow its star to overact so magnificently! Naturally, this isn’t an escape into medieval Paris, but into the arcane and exotic conventions of ’20-30s Hollywood. And it’s a place of pure delight. 

*The print is appalling.

The chief weakness of Fritz Lang’s German silents is the superfluous material included in his wife/collaborator Thea von Harbou’s scripts, and the director’s inability to edit them. Not so much that this landmark science fiction picture is too long, but the scenes are poorly assembled and tiresome.

Over the years Lang’s final silent release got cut down to about 90m. But now it is back to its original 160m and its flaws have been restored. The first hour about a criminal gang of shareholders trying to hijack a mission to the moon is extremely dull.

When Lang/von Thurbou introduce a stowaway boy into the crew, they invent the Disney summer blockbuster... This is not a serious picture designed by German rocket scientists; which would be fascinating. Still, it recovers in the second half during the space flight, and on the surface of the moon.

The models and effects are rudimentary, though weren’t much improved upon until the sci-fi boom of the ‘50s. This is best as an action adventure. Willy Fritsch and Gerda Maurus are attractive, charismatic stars and Fritz Rasp an effective baddy. The bakelite futurism is interesting. And heck, this was inventing the clichés. But it’s a bit of a chore.

This is chiefly remembered for being the last of German director Paul Leni’s four horror influenced thrillers made at Universal before his death in 1929. It is conspicuously modelled on his success with The Cat and the Canary a year earlier. So it’s a mystery-comedy presented in the style of expressionist horror.

A Broadway production closes down after the leading man is murdered. Years later when the play re-opens, some of the original cast and crew insist the theatre is haunted. Laura La Plante returns from Cat and the Canary and has her name on the posters, but it’s an ensemble cast in which Margaret Livingston stands out as a flirty jazz babe.

Though really, Leni is the star and this is a showreel for the flair and gimmickry he accumulated by the end of the silents. It’s interesting to reflect on what might have been, had he lived. The mystery is serviceable, but the director fills the frame with energy and action even though this is set within a single location.

Which is the studio set for The Phantom of the Opera (1925). There was a version released with music, sound effects and brief dialogue but that has been lost. What remains isn’t as good as Cat and the Canary, but still a lot of fun for fans of silent cinema. And surely influenced Scooby Doo! 

Long-winded, low budget home intrusion thriller which gave Frank Sinatra an offbeat starring role as a contract killer who holds a family hostage while he exploits the strategic position of their residence to shoot the US president. His employers are not named, but the implication is the Communists.

Meanwhile the script leads them all around the bullet points of libertine pressure groups, mainly the right/duty to bear arms and the primacy of small town conservative values. Sinatra gives a sincere performance as sociopathic murderer, though Sterling Hayden seems to be uncommitted.

But then he had recently been subpoenaed by HUAC for being a Red! The main weakness of the support cast is the child actor (Kim Charney) who sounds like he is inhaling helium. The director (Lewis Allen) actually creates a fair amount of suspense given everyone knows how this is going to end.

The extensive dialogue never becomes tiresome, however improbable the situations. Still, this is propaganda for the pro-gun lobby and Senator McCarthy’s suppression of liberal US rights. Inevitably the response (and the rating…) of the viewer will be influenced by their politics. 

Exotic, esoteric ghost story set in the feudal middle ages which gave western audiences a taste for the Japanese occult. It’s inspired by a series of 18th century tales (by Ueda Akinari) but was adapted by Kenji Mizoguchi to reflect on the recent WWII.

And in particular, the brutal treatment of Japanese women by their own soldiers. During a civil war, two wives are abandoned by their reckless, vainglorious husbands. The men learn valuable wisdom from the intrusion of the spirits of the dead into their destinies.

Meanwhile, their women suffer abominably. There is an impression that existence in medieval Japan is so wretched and capricious that people exist in some indefinite space between life and death, realism and fantasy. And the line between is fragile.

Mizoguchi permeates this indeterminate margin with shadowy, hazy enchantment. This is a beautiful, ethereal parable, enhanced by a percussive score of dissonant atmospherics. Now this is called folk horror; and it was hugely influential in creating an image in the west of what Japanese cinema is. 

Notorious precode melodrama which borrows the plot from MGM's Red Headed Woman (1932) and refashions it in the hardboiled Warner Brothers style. Crucial to this is Barbara Stanwyck's corrosive performance as the girl from the slums who endeavours to screw her way from the gutter to the boardroom, all the way up a New York skyscraper.

Stanwyck came from absolute poverty and its easy to imagine she drew on experience. Some of her delivery is extraordinary, particularly her paint stripping put-down of her father. The best part of the film is the sexually abused girl escaping her background and getting a foot on the ladder of a big bank. 'Do you have experience?' asks the first of her seductions. "Plenty'.

One of those rungs is a pre-stardom John Wayne. As she reaches the summit, the film becomes more predictable and less interesting. There's a fascinating scene early on when an old man in her father's front room speakeasy tries to interest her in Nietzsche. Surely the studio was warning of the danger of fascism taking root among the poor of the depression?

Red Headed Woman played as a comedy, with Jean Harlow's glamour. This is more realistic. The excellent Theresa Harris gets one of the few roles for African Americans in the '30s which allows her some dignity. Of course, when the Production Code came in the following year, the transgressive stuff was edited out. Including Nietzsche.