Walt at Random

In all the old movie sets I’ve reviewed, I’ve only failed to complete a few movies—one because it was too gruesome, at least one because my tolerance for a gang of juvenile delinquents had run out, a couple for other reasons. But I’ve also sat through some movies that were really, truly uninteresting even after half an hour.

No more. Nobody should be reading these “reviews” for anything other than casual amusement. So I’m adopting a flick version of the Nancy Pearl Rule (you know: If after 100 pages minus your age a book doesn’t hold your attention, give up), which itself is a codification of Life is Too Short. From now on, if I just don’t give a damn about a movie after half an hour, I’m inclined to give up. Life really is too short. I’ll include a short note as to why I didn’t watch it, but no $rating. The situation arises right away with this larger half of the set.

Choices, 1981, color. Silvio Narizzano (dir.), Paul Carafotes, Victor French, Lelia Goldoni, Val Avery, Demi Moore, William R. Moses. 1:30.

The plot from the sleeve—and I got pretty well into it within the first 30-40 minutes: A high school student is a great football player and a virtuoso violinist (in the school orchestra that’s taught by his grandfather), and of course good-looking and popular. But he’s also deaf: Completely deaf in one ear, half-deaf (well, a lot more than half-deaf without his hearing aid: he can’t hear somebody speaking behind him at all) in the other, as the result of a swimming accident when he was eight.

The new school doctor says he can’t play football because he’s deaf. As his father and the coach are trying to appeal this situation, he starts withdrawing and hanging out with a punk acquaintance just back from Juvie. Oh, he also tries to get it on with a girl he’s known for something like 15 minutes…and this is before he gets knocked off the team.

This rates as “Box Office Gold” because of a very young Demi Moore in a small role, I guess (she was 18 and it’s her film debut, but it’s a tiny part). The problem is that I really didn’t find the kid sympathetic or believable, I found the movie listless and boring, and I didn’t feel like watching the rest of what felt like an Afterschool Special flick. Life is too short. (I thought of “Afterschool Special” before I saw just that description in the first IMDB review). No rating.

Crossbar, 1979, color, made for Canadian TV. John Trent (dir.), Brent Carver, Kim Cattrall, John Ireland, Kate Reid. 1:18.

Another movie about a young sports star with a disability problem—but this one’s quite different. The hero is a Canadian Olympic-class high jumper (the sleeve says “pole vaulter” but he doesn’t use a pole), winner of a bronze medal, who goes back to his farm and winds up missing a leg because of a combine accident. He’s not a virtuoso in some other field, he’s not an amoral asshat, and while he certainly goes through some issues, the film is largely about bravery and relationships (family and otherwise) and it winds up being decent. A young Kim Cattrall (22 at the time) plays his ex-girlfriend/coach and does it well.

The plot, basically: His sometime girlfriend, an Olympic-class runner, comes out to visit—but she’s actually planning to move to her new boyfriend’s place with superior training facilities as she prepares for the next Olympics. He doesn’t know this. He’s more than a little down and sneaks off one day to canoe a river with rapids, with no safety vest, apparently thinking he might just die. He doesn’t—and decides he wants to get back into jumping. Which he does, despite his father’s “freak show” comment, with the help of the ex-girlfriend, now coach, and—eventually—all the other Canadian jumpers.

Far-fetched? (A one-legged man hopping up to the bar and clearing a 7′ crossbar height?) I dunno. Nicely done, with some realistic family portrayals? Yes. Of course it’s schmaltzy and includes some of the typical stuff you’d expect, but it also has some fairly good acting (including John Ireland and Kate Reid as the guy’s parents). Not great, but not terrible, and a very good print: $1.25.

Lovers and Liars (orig. Viaggio con Anita), 1979, color. Mario Monicelli (dir.), Goldie Hawn, Giancarlo Giannini, Claudine Auger, Aurore Clement, Laura Betti, Andrea Ferreol; score (and conducted) by Enrico Morricone. 2:00 [1:35]

I suppose you could call this odd little Italian movie a romantic comedy, if your definition of “romantic” is based on Elvis Presley’s classic “Hounddog”—or, in this case, horndog, the apparently sole motivation of the male protagonist. It’s most definitely European, even if it does feel like a TV movie: Casual full frontal nudity (no, not Goldie), extremely casual sex (yes, Goldie), not terribly sophisticated writing.

The plot: Guido, our “hero,” gets a call while he’s at home with his attractive wife and rebellious teen: His father’s doing badly and he needs to go to the family home up north. So he packs…and goes over to where his girlfriend from the last summer lives, so he can pick her up and take her with him. She’s moved on (as is demonstrated when she resists his charming attempt to have sex with her while she’s still asleep), but her temporary roommate—Here’s Goldie!—would be happy to have him drive her north. (She works at the U. of Chicago, met an Italian there, fell for him…and bought a 14-day excursion air fare so she could visit him. He, of course, is no longer interested. So she’s trying to see Italy on no money.)

After various misadventures including a multicar crash and his attempt to have sex with her while she’s asleep—in the car—which she responds to as sort of “I’m not interested, but if that’s what you want…” they wind up on a tourist island, but it’s off-season. Then we get various other bits of nonsense as he’s trying to keep her available (“interested” doesn’t seem to be an issue: she has no apparent qualms about whatever partner’s handy) while he deals with his family. The trouble is, he doesn’t appear to have any personality other than being a horndog—he’s mostly tiresome.

It all climaxes in a long set of scenes where we learn that his father—now dead—had had a mistress for 18 years; his brothers knew; so, for that matter, did the mother (but didn’t say); and, well…the movie ends. I kept hoping for it all to mean something. That was clearly a forlorn hope. Maybe the missing 25 minutes explains why this “screwball comedy” just seemed sort of blah. Goldie Hawn is very Goldie Hawnish. The Enrico Morricone score? Meh. A very soft print. Charitably, $1.

Twisted Nerve, 1968, color. Roy Boulting (dir.), Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Billie Whitelaw, Phyllis Calvert, Frank Finlay, GBarry Foster, Salmaan Peerzada. 1:58 [1:52]

In the opening scene, a young man is playing ball with a person with Down syndrome. This turns out to be at an institution, the young man is the other’s brother, the doctor says not to disturb their mother by bringing her around. Did I mention that the filmmakers found it necessary to have a voice-over before the movie emphasizing that people with “mongolism” (and their siblings) aren’t necessarily psychotic or criminals…and, yes, used the term “mongolism” repeatedly in a 1968 film.

Next: The young man’s in a toy store. He goes up to the counter looking at a duck. While an attractive young woman is discussing the price of something with the clerk (and smiles at him at one point) and then buying something, he pockets the duck. Two store detectives follow both of them out of the store, interrogate them on the assumption that the young woman is his confederate in shoplifting, and eventually free them when she pays for the toy after convincing them that she has no idea who the young man is. The young man, calling himself Georgie (his name’s Martin) and frequently referring to himself in the third person, says he loves ducks…

With a start like that…OK, I probably should have given up on it early, but Hayley Mills (the young woman—home from college from the summer and working in a public library while studying for her exams) and some of the other characters in her mother’s boarding house kept me watching. The young man is, as we gradually learn, some sort of schizophrenic and definitely a murdering psychopath. But he’s so cute… Along the way, we get exposed to a fair amount of casual racism among all British classes, including the other doctors who refer to an Indian doctor (one of the boarders) with various “amusing” epithets. This doctor, who winds up saving the day, is perhaps the only likable character other than Mills’ character, but that’s two better than some movies.

It’s not a particularly good picture, and the suggested genetic link between Down syndrome and sociopathic behavior (explored at some length in a hospital lecture) is truly offensive—but it’s an excellent print and both Hayley Mills and Billie Whitelaw (as her mother, who’s been having it on with one boarder and develops a fatal attraction for the strange young man) offer good performances. I wouldn’t watch it again, but I’ll give it $1.25.

The Lady Says No, 1951, b&w. Frank Ross (dir.), Joan Caulfield, David Niven, James Robertson Justice, Lenore Lonergan, Frances Bavier. 1:20 [1:22]

The setup: An unmarried photographer for Life (Niven) is driving to Carmel to photograph a young woman who’s written a bestseller opposing romance—The Lady Says No. He’s towing a trailer containing his photo equipment. He stops for a comely young hitchhiker—who, as it happens, is married and brings along her soldier husband. She insists that they stop a little farther down the road, packing the car with another five or six soldiers and girlfriends. They all want to go to Monterey (where the action is)—but first, he has to make his Carmel stop.

When he does, he assumes the aunt is actually the author, not the beautiful young woman. After various nonsense, he tells her to show up the next day at the beach, and goes off to Monterey. Then, the aunt’s wandering husband shows up and…oh, well, there’s just too much plot to summarize. As you might expect, the photographer convinces the woman that romance isn’t such a terrible thing. It’s all light, including an interesting dream sequence. Not great, but amusing. I found it more than a little sexist, which reduces the overall score to $1.25.

Life With Father, 1947, color, Michael Curtiz (dir.), William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor, Zasu Pitts. 1:58.

Previously reviewed in Family Classics 50 Movie Pack: See Cites & Insights 5:4. What I said then, with price modified for changing expectations:

Charming period family comedy based on Clarence Day’s own writing about his father, wife, four sons, and complex household. Taylor—two years older than in National Velvet, and already a beauty—has a secondary but important part. Well acted. Good print with occasional flecks and, near the end, a vertical streak. $1.50, reduced for damage.

I haven’t watched this version at all. With less damage, I’d give it a full $2: It’s a fine comedy.

Lonely Wives, 1931, b&w. Russell Mack (dir.), Edward Everett Horton, Esther Ralston, Laura La Plante, Patsy Ruth Miller, Spencer Charters, Maude Eburne. 1:25.

This one’s a knockabout farce with a lawyer prone to “blooming” (infidelity) after 8 p.m., his wife gone to the mountains (but returning by surprise), his mother-in-law trying to keep him from blooming, a new secretary with quite a walk…and a vaudeville impersonator who wants to add the (famous) lawyer to his act. Oh, and a nervous butler and French maid. And the impersonator’s wife…who’s brought into it by her friend, the secretary, on the basis that she can get the lawyer to get her a divorce, cheap, if she plays along on a date.

Put them all together, mix with the lawyer’s bet that if the impersonator can fool the mother-in-law (and give the lawyer an out to spend the night, um, blooming), he can add the lawyer to his act…and it’s supposed to be hilarious (and risqué!), especially the last 20-25 minutes. Maybe it is. Edward Everett Horton certainly gives it his best shot. But, well, I found myself nodding off in early parts and regarding the last part as more action than comedy. Maybe that’s just me. Not just me: The print’s a little soft, and the sound’s pretty bad, with dialog getting softer and louder for no apparent reason. All considered, I can’t possibly give this more than $1.

Peck’s Bad Boy With the Circus, 1938, b&w. Edward F. Cline (dir.), Tommy Kelly, Ann Gillis, Edgar Kennedy, Benita Hume, Billy Gilbert, Grant Mitchell, Nana Bryant, George ‘Spanky’ McFarland, William Demarest. 1:18 [1:06]

I find this movie almost impossible to review entirely out of context—except to note that it’s a good example of how to pad a 20-minute plot out to feature-film (albeit short feature) length, in this case by including whole gobs of circus acts, some of them twice.

The basic plot: our hero, a “bad boy” in the prankster sense of “he’s a caution!” rather than one of the future thugs in a “cute” Boys or Kids series that will go unnamed, is such a caution (finding a frog and putting it in his soup bowl at lunch) that his parents tell him he can’t go to camp as they’re going on their fishing vacation—and he’s planning to win the obstacle race the third year in a row, which would mean he could keep the cup that he shines incessantly.

Just as they’re leaving, the husband and wife, separately, each relents and gives him $5 to cover the train ride to the camp and his expenses. (Hmm. $5 in 1938 would be $76 in 2010. Still a pretty cheap train ride and camp expenses.) But he goes out to hang with his buds and discovers that a circus is coming to town, that day, one night only. In ensuing plot twists, he loses his $10, he winds up in a girl’s dress, he…well, of course there’s a happy ending.

It’s padded all to pieces but it is good fun, probably the more so if you’re a fan of the series (of which this is apparently the third and last). Good cast, including one of Spanky McFarland’s few appearances as somebody other than Spanky. It’s also missing 12 minutes, apparently. I come up with $1.25.

Shoot to Kill, 1947, b&w. William Berke (dir.), Russell Wade, Luana Walters, Edmund MacDonald, Robert Kent, Vince Barnett, Nestor Paiva, Charles Trowbridge. 1:04.

The first in a quartet of barely-feature-length films, all just over an hour. This one is all told in flashback by a woman in a hospital bed, there after surviving a car crash following a police chase and shootout—a chase in which her husband (the incoming district attorney) and a gangster (escaped from prison, where he was sent for a murder in a case tried by the husband) both die. She tells the story to a newspaper reporter who’s obviously much more than that.

It’s quite a story: Civic corruption on a grand scale, crooks battling crooks, a phony marriage (to avoid bigamy)…and ever so much more. It’s mostly fast moving and it holds together quite well. While it’s not a great film, it’s well-made, well-acted and more plausible than quite a few of this ilk. Oh yes: There are two musical numbers written and performed by pianist Gene Rodgers, who is damn good. I’ll give it $1.50.

Shadows on the Stairs, 1941, b&w. D. Ross Lederman (dir.), Frieda Inescort, Paul Cavanagh, Heather Angel, Bruce lester, Miles Mander, Lumsden Hare, Turhan Bey, Mary Field. 1:04.

An odd one indeed, mostly set in a London boarding house (explicitly identified as 1937, I guess to make it explicitly pre-war) but starting with a mysterious scene on the docks. So many people seem involved in various shenanigans, mostly with no apparent purpose, that it’s hard to either follow the plot or perceive that there is a plot. There are various subplots (possible adultery being one), but nothing that really hangs together.

Indeed, that’s true for about half of the film: All very odd, little of it leading much of anywhere. Then the murders and suicides, and cursory police work from an idiot police sergeant, begin and, well, it doesn’t hang together very well even then. The surprise ending makes it all sensible, or maybe not.

Here’s the thing: Silly and confusing as it all is, it’s also well played. It’s a trifle with an odd, meandering plot, but the print is excellent and I’ll give it $1.25.

Prison Train, 1938, b&w. Gordon Wiles (dir.), Fred Keating, Dorothy Comingore, Clarence Muse, Faith Bacon, Alexander Leftwich. 1:04.

The hero (?) of this brief, not especially mysterious, flick is a racketeer, who runs the policy (numbers) racket, also owns a nightclub and is a charmer. A rival nightclub-owner/racketeer wants to bring him down and agrees to cooperate with the crusading DA (you know, the kind of crusader who goes out looking for racketeers as compatriots).

The “taking down the numbers man” plot never amounts to much. Instead, we have the racketeer’s lovely and innocent sister, the handsome lawyer son of the rival crook, and a sequence that results in the racketeer “accidentally” killing the son. (Hey, he only meant to teach him a lesson…) And getting sent up for it. And the father—the rival racketeer—trying to shoot the first racketeer for killing his son, but botching it. But the rival gets out on bond, even though he was caught in the act and is pretty clearly intent on offing his rival. Oh: Side plot: The first racketeer was trying to turn the numbers racket over to the rival and go off to Europe with the sister.

Anyhoo…this brings us to the film’s title and the simple fact that filming on a moving train always adds class and interest. It does not, unfortunately, add plausibility, and the whole rest of the flick (another con on his way to Alcatraz keeps telling the racketeer that he’ll never make it to the last stop; he doesn’t; there are lots of complications along the way) just seemed to amount to very little. It seemed a lot longer than it actually was. I’m being charitable with $1.00.

They Never Come Back, 1932, b&w. Fred C. Newmeyer (dir.), Regis Toomey, Dorothy Sebastian, Edward Woods, Greta Granstedt, Earle Foxe. 1:04 [1:02]

The title refers to the idea that boxers never successfully return to the ring once they’re sidelined with an injury—in this case, the hero’s left arm. That’s after ten minutes of somewhat aimless boxing footage; along with another five minutes or more later in the movie, that’s a quarter of the flick for which no dialogue or acting was required—which, in the case of this film, may be a good thing. In the middle, I think another five or six minutes are taken up with some really bad dance routines (don’t high-steppers usually make some attempt to synchronize with the music?)—so, in essence, there’s about half an hour of acting.

The plot? The washed-up boxer, whose mother died as he was preparing for the fight, is living with his sister (who he brought out from the mother’s house, I guess) and looking for a job. He finds one as the “assistant manager”—that is, bouncer, as he says—for a nightclub. He gets interested in a showgirl, who’s also a focus of the club’s owner, and meets the cashier—the showgirl’s sister. Before too long, we get a scene where the cashier asks the bouncer to hold the fort while the cashier runs an errand; at the end of the evening, the house is $500 short and, lo and behold, there’s the money in the bouncer’s jacket. It’s a frame, of course, but he winds up spending six months in the joint (apparently without benefit of trial). During those months, the showgirl comes to see him every week.

Partway through, the cashier admits to his sister (the showgirl) that he framed the boxer, because he had to: He’d “borrowed” $1,000 from the club and knew he’d be sent to jail if he didn’t do the frame. The sister figures she’d better play ball…

Anyway, the boxer gets out, sees the sister with the owner, finds out that his sister and the cashier are an item (I think that happens earlier), and—rather than knocking the cashier’s block off for framing him—goes to sign up for a fight to get the $1,000 to clear the cashier. It all winds up with a big fight at the club and, apparently, all living happily ever after.

That’s way more description than this sad little flick deserves. No mystery, no drama, nothing of any particular interest, and not much in the way of acting. Unless you’re heavy into poorly-filmed boxing or are a big Regis Toomey fan, there’s nothing here. Generously, $0.75.

Callie & Son, 1981 TV-movie, color. Waris Hussein (dir.), Lindsay Wagner, Jameson Parker, Dabney Coleman, Joy Garrett, Michelle Pfeiffer, Andrew Prine, James Sloyan. 2:22.

The stirring tale of a mother who loved her son a little too much… Well, not incest, but that’s the key to this tearjerker that feels like (and is) a TV movie, but a very long one. Lindsay Wagner is Callie, who in the opening scenes is in a hospital bed after Being Wronged…and being pressured into giving up her baby for adoption without ever holding him (for $2,000 plus a couple hundred in prenatal expenses). She leaves Chillicothe and moves to Dallas, where she moves into an absurdly restrictive (and probably historically accurate for the 1950s) rooming house and takes a job as a waitress. Since she’s gorgeous and pleasant, she does well…including good tips from the wealthy newspaper editor (Dabney Coleman, in a wholly positive role) who never says much and always just has coffee. In a little side plot, she hires a sleazy PI to find her son—and he winds up decamping entirely (leaving an empty office) after taking another $200 from her.

Moving forward a bit, she learns to be a court stenographer; we then see her doing the stenography for a deposition involving—guess who? He suggests coffee, they talk, he realizes she’s the former waitress, and a little while later she’s the Cinderella who’s married the prince (and is received badly by the local elite). Further down the line, she becomes pregnant, then miscarries and can’t bear children; eventually, she reveals the existence of her son. In the most implausible bit (in my opinion) of the flick, the editor manages not only to find the son but to have him returned to his mother, apparently without difficulty. (What? The adoptive parents didn’t really want him?)

And she turns into SmotherMom. She wants her son to take over as editor. The editor had planned to sell the paper, move to his ranch and run a few head of cattle, but she talks him out of it—and when, shortly after the JFK assassination, he’s shot dead in the newsroom along with two other newspaper staffers, she takes over as editor (after rejecting her husband’s drawn-up but not yet signed plan to make the paper employee-owned). She tries to get her son, now a pot-smoking guitar-playing slacker (Jameson Parker), to get involved in the paper; it doesn’t work.

Third section of the interminable plot: She gets her son involved in politics—but instead of marrying the Suitable Prospect, he elopes with a very young Michelle Pfeiffer (23 at the time, but she plays even younger). A few years later, as he’s planning to move up a rung in office, there’s a big party at the ranch with lots of dove hunting—and SmotherMom winds up shooting and killing Pfeiffer after a struggle (but just a little too late to believe it’s an accident). And a determined local DA gets a grand jury to indict the son for first-degree murder (there was adultery and various other nonsense implied between the not-so-happy couple). The rest of the picture is courtroom drama, remarkably unconvincing, especially when the rotten PI (who SmotherMom had prevented from becoming a judge) lies through his teeth to convict the son and apparently faces neither effective cross-examination nor background checking. The movie almost ends with the son”s execution—but not quite: She goes back to Chillicothe, adopts a baby boy, and we start all over.

Long description because there’s a lot of plot. It’s not terrible, it’s not great. Really good cast, pretty good print. All in all, I’ll give it a middling $1.50.

Dear Mr. Wonderful, 1982, color. Peter Lilienthal (dir.), Joe Pesci, Karen Ludwig, Frank Vincent, Ed O’Ross, Ivy Ray Browning. 1:56 [1:52].

I’m all in favor of naturally-paced movies, but this one is so naturally-paced that it seems to fall apart repeatedly. I think the plot goes something like this:

Ruby Dennis (Pesci) owns a bowling alley in New Jersey, where he sings in the lounge and has apparent dreams of being a lounge singer in Chicago or Las Vegas. He also writes the occasional song. He lives with his divorced sister and her son. There’s some stuff involving a frequent dinner guest (?), an older Jewish man who barely speaks but insists on full observance of rites; also some stuff involving the ex-husband, who’s apparently a leech but trying to get back in touch: Dennis won’t even let him in the door (to his sister’s place).

The mob (I guess) wants to take over the bowling alley for a big new development, and make it clear that they’re going to get it one way or another, one favored way being that it burns down overnight and he collects the insurance. Meanwhile, he’s taken to a daughter of someone who’se involved with the mob (I think), is seeing that she gets singing lessons and dating her in his own awkward way. There’s a Tony Martin cameo, very much as himself. Oh, and along the line, his sister basically disappears, quitting her job in a garment factory to go work with—what? urban rehabilitators?—and, I guess, moving in with a family of them. The son is a cheap street criminal who presumably means well; he has a gang ripping chains off of people and sells them to another cheap criminal in a boxing gym, getting ripped off himself in the process.

There’s probably more to it. Eventually, Dennis does sell the place, winds up with the girl (I think), the mom moves back in (I guess) and…well, the movie ends. Frankly, if I hadn’t been down with a cold, I would have turned this off half an hour in and done something more exciting, like staring at the wall. But fans of Pesci might enjoy it. According to IMDB, the German version is 1:56 and the U.S. version is 1:40. This version was 1:52—and I’m sure cutting 12 minutes wouldn’t hurt. It’s a German production, which may or may not explain anything. Charitably, $1.

Twisted Obsession (orig. El sueño del mono loco, also The Mad Monkey), 1989, color. Fernando Trueba (dir.), Jeff Goldblum, Miranda Richardson, Anemone, Daniel Ceccaldi, Dexter Fletcher, Liza Walker. 1:43.

There are some oddities with this one. First, it’s in stereo—unusual for movies in these collections. And I do mean stereo, not reprocessed mono: The orchestral score underlying most of it is well-recorded stereo. Second—well, it’s in English, except for a few minutes of dialogue in French with no subtitles, and it was filmed in Spain (Madrid stands in for Paris).

The plot? The very tall and very strange Jeff Goldblum (he always seems to do best with semi-deranged roles) narrates the movie as an entire flashback about a movie he won’t see, that shouldn’t have been made, that he shouldn’t have written. That’s right: He’s a screenwriter, an American in Paris, whose wife leaves him early in the movie for no apparent reason, leaving behind a son whose apparent indifference masks his total need for his mother. None of which has much to do with the plot.

The plot? A producer wants him to write a screenplay based on a “treatment” that’s one line handwritten on a sheet of paper—a line, as it turns out, that’s from Peter Pan and used in front matter to the screenwriter’s failed novel. The very young director (whose previous experiences is music videos) who wants to make the movie points this out and hands him an annotated copy of the novel—annotated, we find out, by the very young director’s extremely young sister (16 years old, but a very mature 16), who also seems to make any difficulties in the way of the film go away, apparently by various acts the screenwriter summarizes with the word “whoring.”

The plot? Oh, let’s not forget the screenwriter’s agent, a lovely wheelchair-bound 30-year-old who pretty obviously has a thing for the screenwriter. And who we later find also has some backstory with the director and sister. Nor should we forget the screenwriter’s final development of exactly the screenplay the director wants, which the producer knows to be unbankable unless a major star is on board—and, oddly, the screenwriter knows such a major star.

The plot? I give up. There’s also drugs, death, various forms of love, the seeming absence of any deep human emotions on the part of most everybody involved—and, in the end, it felt like an art film, in the reading of “art film” that keeps them out of the commercial marketplace. To wit, after one hour and 45 minutes that seemed much longer, I had no idea what the outcome was, I didn’t know where things would lead, but…well, but I’d kept watching. For those who might enjoy this sort of thing, this is exactly the sort of thing they’d enjoy, and for them it’s probably worth at least $1.25.

Summing Up

So here we are at the first half—or, really, not quite, since this 50-movie pack lacks very short films and so is spread over 13 discs. The first six discs include the first 22 movies; the “second half” includes 28 over 7 discs. (For the other movies, see the posts for discs one, two, three, four and five.)

It’s a truly odd set, a combination of TV movies, foreign films that apparently weren’t headed for stateside DVD release, and at least one movie that should never have been in this bargain set. There’s one absolutely firstrate film, The River Niger, and two very strong contenders, Christabel and A Hazard of Hearts. I count four more good $1.50 flicks, seven at a reasonable $1.25 and five at a mediocre-but-passable $1, for a total of $25.25. Ah, but as I look now, the prices of Mill Creek Entertainment’s 50-packs have firmed up a lot—I see $44.49 at Amazon, about three times what I would have expected. At that price, the first half is neither a bargain nor a cheat. (Of the three other films—two at a weak $0.75 and one at a miserable $0.25—the less said, the better.)

OK, so I don’t spend all my time on the two overlapping book projects—that would drive me nuts. I’m also reading books from the library and magazines (although I’m way behind on those), I’m playing video poker (not for money—and maybe the topic of another post at some point), I’m going for the usual Wednesday hikes and, on Wednesday afternoon when I’m not much good for serious writing or research, I usually watch an old movie. That’s down from the two a week I was watching… meanwhile, here’s a foursome from the 60-disc 250-movie Mystery Collection.

The King Murder, 1932, b&w. Richard Thorpe (dir.), Conway Tearle, Natalie Moorhead, Marceline Day, Dorothy Revier, Don Alvarado, Huntley Gordon. 1:07.

Right off the bat, you get this feeling that you’ve been dropped into the middle of a longer movie—a classy woman’s standing next to a counter, a cop walks by, seems to sneer at her, and walks out of what’s labeled a Homicide Bureau. Things don’t get better.

I can’t even begin to summarize the players and the plot, partly because I found little to differentiate them; I’m not even sure I know how many characters there were. I know there’s a society type, his (wife? fiancée?), his (girlfriend? mistress? blackmailer?), a second-story man, a thug involved with the mistress/blackmailing her, and apparently lots more, most of them with motives… It may be indicative that the seemingly most important character is eighth in the IMDB list.

This one’s just a mess: Lots of odd plots that seem tossed in at random and don’t cohere very well, with a murder weapon that seems absurd and a denouement that’s equally silly. Either this was just poorly written and filmed on no budget and with no directorial skill, or it’s a badly-edited selection from a longer movie or a serial. In any case, I can’t give it more than $0.75.

The Lady in Scarlet, 1935, b&w. Charles Lamont (dir.), Reginald Denny, Patricia Farr, Jameson Thomas, Dorothy Revier, James Bush, Lew Kelly. 1:05.

A wise-cracking detective and his sidekick/secretary/girlfriend/wife?, who he refers to as “Ignorant” or “Stupid” as seeming cute names, and who seems to have his office in a bar, finds himself investigating the murder of an art dealer because he’s friends of the dealer’s wife (who used to be in musicals and who the dealer correctly thought was cheating on him with a doctor). That’s part of a complicated plot involving another murder (the doctor), suspects galore, a stolid and seemingly stupid police detective who consistently lets the private eye run the show—and a final Everyone In The Same Room bit.

But it’s cute, the plot’s not bad, and it moves right along. Not great, but maybe worth $1.25.

Sinister Hands, 1932, b&w. Armand Schaefer (dir.), Jack Mulhall, Phyllis Barrington, Cranford Kent, Mischa Auer, Louis Natheaux, Gertrude Messinger, and James P Burtis as Detective “Don’t Call Me Watson” Watkins. 1:05.

We begin with a lady consulting a swami and his crystal ball. We continue with an odd set of scenes involving people around a swimming pool, apparent hanky-panky between residents of two adjacent mansions, a known gangster who’s trying to marry the daughter of a rich man man and more. Oh, and the rich man’s dictating letters to his secretary (on a Dictaphone, wax cylinder and all) and, in the process, recording what could be the argument that proves who killed him…or not. That evening, all and sundry are gathered at the man’s estate with his wife (the lady consulting the swami) and the swami. Turn off the lights for a proper reading and, shazam…the man’s been stabbed to death.

After that (and it’s actually much slower than the summary might suggest—this is a slow-paced movie), we get the police detective conducting pretty cursory interviews with each of the apparent suspects, with a judge (who’s among the guests) in on the interviews. The judge writes down a list of all the suspects, at the end of which the detective makes a joke about whether the judge should add his own name. At this point, we know how it’s going to turn out, don’t we?

In the interim, we have a “heavily-guarded house” (where all the suspects are sleeping over) where it’s easy to sneak around, remove the knife from one body, stab someone else, go in and out of bedrooms past sleeping police…and a running joke about a stolid policeman’s last name. Followed by the time-honored traditional closing: The Big Scene with Everybody in One Room, where the detective points out each suspect and then says why he or she didn’t do it. (The extreme case: The suspect was not only the only one who was loyal to the first victim, he was the second victim.) Although it’s a little on the slow side, it’s good enough; I’ll give it $1.25.

The Lady Confesses, 1945, b&w. Sam Newfield (dir.), Mary Beth Hughes, Hugh Beaumont, Edmund MacDonald, Claudia Drake, Emmet Vogan, Barbara Slater. 1:04.

A young woman answers a knock on her apartment door, to be confronted by her fiancé’s wife—who disappeared seven years earlier and was presumed dead. The wife says she’ll make sure he never marries the young woman or anyone else, and storms off.

Meanwhile, the man—Larry—shows up at a nightclub several sheets to the wind, downs two more double Scotches rapidly, and winds up sleeping it off in the singer’s dressing room, after first making sure he confronts the club’s owner. A few hours later, the singer wakes him up to answer a phone call from the young woman; he picks her up and drives her to his wife’s place (he says she showed up a couple of weeks earlier but intends to divorce him)…and when they get there, a bunch of police are present along with the wife, strangled with a cord.

He has a perfect alibi, clearly. Her alibi isn’t as good. The club owner also knew the wife (she’d loaned him serious money to start the club). As things progress, with the young woman doing her own detective work, we wind up with another murder along the same lines—the singer this time—and almost a third.

It’s pretty well done, but I think there’s one serious flaw: We learn the murder’s identity about halfway in, and it would have been a much better movie if we were in the dark. (Oh, and the Beaver’s dad had a darker side in his earlier movie career…) Given that (and, frankly, that portions of the motivation just don’t make sense), I can’t give it more than $1.25.

Christabel, 1988, color (TV). Adrian Shergold (dir.), Elizabeth Hurley, Stephen Dillane, Geoffrey Palmer, Ann Bell, Nigel Le Vaillant. 2:27.

When I look at the running time (nearly 2.5 hours), the date (1988) and the cast (Elizabeth Hurley), I immediately think “Why is this on a Mill Creek Entertainment set?” The answer—or a possible answer—comes at the end of the movie.

Christabel is an upper-class British woman who marries a German lawyer she met a Cambridge, to the considerable dismay of her father. Did I mention that this starts in 1934? The two move to Germany, start a family, and by 1938—well, you probably know what was happening in the late 1930s in Germany. At her husband’s request, she moves back to England for a while, but that doesn’t stick. A fair amount of middling intrigue later, it’s mid-1944—and he’s been arrested after a plot to kill Hitler fails. She’s off in the Black Forest (where he sent her after the bombing began, although she came back to Berlin at least once)—but she sets out to find him and see what she can do for him. It’s gritty, includes some interesting (and, I suspect, plausible) details about ordinary people in Berlin coping with the situation (they learn to count to eight for the bombs in each U.S. heavy bomber during nighttime raids), and—well, I guess it ends happily.

It’s a little slow, and maybe that’s intentional. It’s also quite good, with some remarkably good scenes and Hurley doing subtle, generally deglamorized work. If you don’t mind a fundamentally serious movie, you’ll probably like this. The print is usually better than usual: Somewhere between VHS and DVD quality—but about 10% of the time, something happens and it’s got jaggies and vertical jitters. All in all, though, the problems don’t distract from a very good picture.

The answer? It’s a BBC television production, and since it’s not a series, BBC probably didn’t think they could gouge sell pricey DVDs successfully in the U.S. (Reading IMDB, I see that this is apparently based on a true story.) This one’s worth $1.75.

Ginger in the Morning, 1974, color. Gordon Wiles (dir.), Monte Markham, Susan Oliver, Mark Miller, Sissy Spacek, Slim Pickens, David Doyle. 1:30 [1:33]

This begins with two entirely different scenes. In one, a young woman—OK, let’s say it, a hippie chick (Sissy Spacek)—is getting out of a truck, thanking the driver, and starting to thumb her way along the highway again, suitcase and guitar case in hand. In the other, a vaguely worried man (Monte Markham) is deplaning and being pestered by someone he must have been seated next to on the plane, a middle-aged dirty old man (David Doyle) telling him he should go out and get laid a lot (he’s been divorced for a couple of months), that he should say “motel” right away when picking up a woman so he knows where he stands… And then they come together, as he (Markham, not Doyle—thankfully, we never see Doyle again) passes her on the highway, turns around, gets a flat tire in the process, and they wind up in the car together.

After this “meet cute,” we have a three-day story (starting on December 30) that winds up with an odd sort of Happily Ever After ending and involves the worried man, the young woman, the man’s rowdy friend who’s in Mexico but flies back to see him, the rowdy friend’s ex-wife who also happens to be in town…and, for good measure, Slim Pickens as the sheriff of Santa Fe (where this is all set).

I want to like this movie more than I do. Unfortunately, much of it is drunken carousing, and neither of the primary characters seem concerned that they’re apparently both badly-functioning alcoholics. That, and the somewhat vapid characterization by Spacek, diminish an otherwise interesting little film. (OK, so Spacek was probably 22 at the time this was filmed, and had to work with a poor script. She apparently wrote her own songs; they’re actually pretty good.) Good print. This has the feel of a TV movie, but apparently it wasn’t. All told, I’ll give it $1.25.

The River Niger, 1976, color. Krishna Shah (dir.), Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett Jr., Glynn Turman, Jonelle Allen, Roger E. Mosely. 1:45.

A superb cast, a generally very good print (except that the music, written & performed by WAR, is sometimes wavering as though there were soundtrack problems), a Tony Award-winning play opened out into a movie.

I’m not sure how much more to say. I’m probably not the natural audience. The movie, set in an LA ghetto (presumably Watts), features James Earl Jones as an alcoholic house-painter/poet trying to keep his family together, Cicely Tyson as his wife, stricken with cancer, Louis Gossett Jr. as the best friend and local doctor—and a remarkable crowd of other actors. It’s a movie of its time, and very well done. Summarizing the actual plot would be of no particular use.

I don’t quite understand how this movie could be in this set, but that’s a common theme here. I’ll give it $2.

The Groom Wore Spurs, 1951, b&w. Richard Whorf (dir.), Ginger Rogers, Jack Carson, Joan Davis, Stanley Ridges, John Litel, James Brown, Victor Sen Yung. 1:20.

Romantic comedy with a plot line that may seem preposterous, but maybe not. A beautiful and all-business young female attorney shows up at a doorway, summoned to meet with an actor who stars in singing-cowboy films (but neither does his own riding nor his own singing)—and the first thing she sees is his awful fast-draw performance. But she likes him, and agrees to take on the unusual case: He lost $60,000 to a gambler in Vegas and doesn’t either want to pay the full amount or have the gambler’s friends-with-guns show up.

Next thing we know, she’s on his private plane to Vegas. They meet the gambler, but he has other problems and postpones a meet until 2 a.m. Now the two are in a convertible stepping out to view Hoover Dam, there’s some awkward/cute conversation, and next thing we know the two are married. And, as it turns out, the gambler was helped out by the attorney’s father, and writes off the 60 big ones as a wedding present.

She concludes she’s been had—in addition to mostly being a phony on screen, the actor’s clearly a ladies’ man. But she clearly still has Feelings. Lots more comedy, much of it pretty good, although there’s also a murder as part of the plot. If you accept the premise that two rational adults could meet and become engaged or married on the first date, the rest is semi-plausible. As for that premise…well, it’s absurd, of course, except that I’ve now been married for more than 33.5 years to a woman who I proposed to on our first date.

Ginger Rogers is Ginger Rogers: Lovely, amusing, and does a great job in any role. The rest of the cast is also excellent, part of the reason this lightweight film gets a solid $1.50.

Heading for Heaven, 1947, b&w. Lewis D. Collins (dir.), Stuart Erwin, Glenda Farrell, Russ Vincent, Irene Ryan, Milburn Stone. 1:05 [1:11]

The comedy setup here is common enough: Guy gets a physical exam, overhears the doctor discussing someone else’s case, assumes he’s dying when he’s actually healthy. In this case, the background is that a small-town realtor has held on to 100 acres east of town, where his father and grandfather both assumed the town would grow, turning down offers to make it an amusement park or a cemetery or whatever…while the town continues to grow west.

After the local banker says the town would like to buy the land for a town dump and gets turned down, two guys from an airline show up wanting to buy it for an airport—and, when he won’t take a pretty good price, suggest they might instead buy an adjacent 60-acre plot (which, as they note later, wouldn’t work because the adjacent land is overrun by power lines). The realtor buys the adjacent land—and then finds out he’s dying. Meanwhile, the banker and a swami who’s been doing séances for his wife and the local ladies wants to swindle him out of most of the airline’s money, so concocts a phony telegram saying the airline’s no longer interested.

That’s just the first part of a fast-moving plot that involves assumed suicide, hobos, applejack and an unusual séance. All turns out well. And it’s actually fairly amusing, although certainly lightweight. If you’re in the mood, it’s worth $1.25.

His Private Secretary, 1933, b&w. Phil Whitman (dir.), Evalyn Knapp, John Wayne, Reginald Barlow, Alec B. Francis. 1:00.

Previously reviewed as part of 50 Movie Hollywood Legends. What I said then:

A young John Wayne plays the playboy son of a millionaire businessman. The father demands the son take over as collection agent. He goes to a nearby small town to collect a debt, in the process picking up (and offending) a beautiful young girl—who turns out to be the daughter of the near-deaf minister he’s supposed to collect the debt from. He winds up forgiving the debt and getting fired for his trouble.

After various shenanigans and his continued stalking attempts to get on the right side of the girl, he succeeds and marries her—but his father assumes she’s a gold-digger and tells him to get rid of her. Somehow, she winds up becoming her father’s new private secretary—the best he’s ever had—but then leaves town because she thinks the playboy’s still a player. Everything works out in the end: This is, after all, a romantic comedy, if a surprisingly short one. Nothing spectacular, but not bad. I’ll give it $1.25.

I’m From Arkansas, 1944, b&w. Lew Landers (dir.), Slim Summerville, El Brendel, Iris Adrian, Bruce Bennett, Maude Eburne, Cliff Nazarro. 1:10 [1:07]

The sleeve plot description is almost entirely wrong, except for the key “plot” point in this set of songs thinly disguised as a comedy: It all starts with Esmerelda, a sow in Pitchfork, Arkansas who gives birth to 18 piglets. And ends with Pitchfork (now Pitchfork Springs) becoming a state spa resort for its healing springs—foiling the designs of a Pork Magnate to turn it into the world’s biggest pig farm.

In the middle, we have a Western radio big band, all of whom go back to Pitchfork for their summer break—and a female troupe of entertainers (singers & dancers) whose manager thinks the Sow Sensation should make Pitchfork a great place to play and takes them there, without bothering to find out whether Pitchfork even has a theater or nightclub (which it doesn’t). Naturally, the two groups wind up in the same room & board place, owned by the sow’s widowed owner, and the Western band plays a little joke on the female entertainers (who respond to a whole bunch of stereotypical hillbilly behavior by assuming they’re dealing with hillbillies) by turning into extreme hillbillies. Who also happen to be professional-quality musicians.

All of which is probably more discussion than the “plot” deserves. There are ten songs, all well done, in a 67-minute flick; the rest of the movie comes off as a semi-amusing wrapper for the songs. I would have been offended by the stereotyping (pretty extreme in some cases), except that the band playing with it defuses it somewhat. Oh: The daughter of the sow-owner/hotelier is the damnedest yodeler I have ever heard, and the female troupe’s manager does some great doubletalk routines. Amusing, and probably worth $1.25.

Another case in which the order of movies on the sleeve is not the order of movies on the disc. Reviews are in the order of movies on the disc.

The Most Dangerous Game, 1932, b&w, Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack (dirs.), Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong. 1:03.

Reviewed as part of 50 Movie Pack Hollywood Legends; not re-reviewed. What I had to say in 2007:

Rich hunter on a boat trip. The buoys don’t look quite right to the captain, but the hunter insists they continue—leading to a shipwreck which he alone survives. He winds up at a castle on a remote island, hosted by Count Zaroff, who recognizes him as a great hunter and boasts of hunting “the most dangerous game.” Other than a bunch of Russian-only servants, the only other ones there are a couple (also survivors of a shipwreck), with the man a somewhat drunken mess. Eventually, it becomes clear just what the most dangerous game is. Scratchy soundtrack but an effective, fast-moving flick. $1.50.

The Phantom Broadcast, 1933, b&w. Phil Rosen (dir.), Ralph Forbes, Vivienne Osborne, Arnold Gray, Gail Patrick, Guinn Williams, George ‘Gabby’ Hayes. 1:12.

A slow movie where the mystery is revealed halfway through and isn’t about who committed the murder. The setup: A radio crooner, who receives hundreds of love letters each day, is also a Lothario—we see a valet deliver several little boxes to various women, each containing a little bouquet and a message saying the crooner hopes to have dinner with the woman (on a different night in each case) and is singing for her. Another twist: One of his flames, who believes she’s going to move in with him and marry him, is part of a group of mobsters that wants to get rid of his manager/accompanist and take him over to rake in the big bucks.

Oh, one oddity: When the crooner sings, he’s always in a studio…with a curtain set up so you only see the hands of the accompanist. It doesn’t take long to learn the reason for that: The accompanist, a hunchback (a word that’s repeated frequently, sometimes with “little” added), is the one actually doing the singing—the crooner’s just there for appearances.

Let’s see. We get a young woman with a great voice who has to choose between her vocal career and marrying her doctor fiancée (who’s going off on a six-month cruise as a ship’s doctor to earn enough to set up his practice), since an artist can only serve one master. We get a rubout that doesn’t happen. We get someone taking the rap for someone else who, as it happens, wasn’t involved at all. And, of course, we get an ending that could be worse.

Damned if I know what to think of this one. Lethargic, and deep emotion seemed to be expressed by the same long slow looks as, well, boredom or anything else. Maybe $1.00.

Murder on the Campus, 1933, b&w. Richard Thorpe (dir.), Charles Starrett, Shirley Grey, J. Farrell MacDonald, Ruth Hall, Dewey Robinson, Maurice Black, Edward Van Sloan. 1:13 [1:09]

Lots of plot, but none of it hangs together very well. We have a gambler, a wise-cracking reporter who’s in love with a singer at the gambler’s (I guess?) nightclub and who’s also working her way through college, a murder in the campus campanile and, shortly thereafter, two other murders… And the reporter always seems to be On The Scene.

All too complicated, and far too much of it hinges on the reporter being both incredibly clever and a complete numbskull, as he privately confronts the person he believes responsible for all the deaths—apparently a Professor of Everything, as he has high-power recording and playback equipment, lots of other electronics, and oodles of chemistry equipment in his lab, along with a full darkroom—with his suspicions and evidence. There’s so much else that’s wildly implausible in this mess that the climax is no worse than anything else. At best, I give this $0.75.

Death from a Distance, 1935, b&w. Frank R. Strayer (dir.), Russell Hopton, Lola Lane, George F. Marion, Lee Kohlmar, John St. Polis. 1:08 [1:10]

This one also has a wise-cracking reporter (a 23 year old woman), along with a sometimes-wisecracking homicide detective, with the two fighting so much you know they’re going to wind up together. That’s not the primary plot, though.

The plot: We’re in a planetarium at an observatory, with a famed European professor giving an illustrated lecture, by invitation only. Suddenly, a shot rings out…and, as people start panicking, the head of the observatory tells the—well, I’m not sure just what he is, so let’s say “general functionary”—to lock the door. Thus, whoever shot the man (one of the audience, not the lecturer) must still be in the room. Police are called. Oh, by the way, the reporter was part of the audience. One audience member wasn’t on the original invitation list (but must have had an invitation to get in): a Hindu who knew the victim but asserts his innocence…and is arrested, even though the detective’s pretty sure he’s not the culprit.

That starts things off. As the movie goes along, we get an ex-con who’s changed his name and become an astronomer, lots of plot involving Arcturus (“Job’s star”) and double-dealing, an apparent second murder (or maybe suicide), the use of Arcturus itself as a murder weapon (you’ll just have to watch the picture), and a culprit who may be obvious to some viewers. Or not.

Unlike the previous movie, and apart from one or two odd plot twists, this one all seems to work, and was a pleasure to watch. Unfortunately, the sound track’s not great, there are synchronization problems, and for the first few minutes there are flashes of color noise. Those technical problems reduce this to $1.25.

Sucker Money, 1933, b&w. Dorothy Davenport & Melville Shyer (dirs.), Mischa Auer, Phyllis Barrington, Earl McCarthy, Mona Lisa. 0:59.

The opening titles call this an exposé of phony psychics—but it’s really a remarkably slow-moving B movie. Newspaper editor sees an interesting help-wanted ad, tells reporter to go undercover on what might be a human-interest story. The job turns out to be one of the actors in a swami’s theatricals, as the swami works to con marks out of big money, then move on.

We get danger, hypnotism, lots of nonsense, a swami who’s fond of killing as many associates as possible and an eventual happy ending. In the process, we also get some absurd acting and one of the most lethargic suspense flicks I’ve ever seen. Very charitably, $0.75.

That’s the first movie on Disc 19 of the 60-disc Mystery Collection. Others are better…trust me.

For the rest of the story (Discs 19-24 of the collection)… or read it as part of Cites & Insights 11:7.

False Pretenses, 1935, b&w. Charles Lamont (dir.), Irene Ware, Sidney Blackmer, Betty Compson, Russell Hopton, Edward Gargan, Ernest Wood, Lucy Beaumont. 1:08 [1:04]

A beautiful young waitress who’s unfortunately dating a brutish truck driver gets fired because of his abusive behavior and somehow manages to lose her final check, blown away in the wind—at a bridge where she sees a drunk gentleman who seems to be contemplating suicide. One thing leads to another; she finds that he’s a wealthy, well-known man who’s lost his money (but wasn’t really suicidal). She talks him into a scheme wherein he’ll find investors for an unknown venture, using the proceeds to put her up at a resort hotel where she’ll meet wealthy friends of his, get one of them to marry her, and repay the investors—and the gentleman, who incidentally is trying to avoid marrying a wealthy woman—with a premarital settlement.

Oddly enough, it’s all rather innocent. We also get a former bootlegger trying to become a socialite (and his butler, who just can’t stop being a burglar) and an oddly satisfying Happy Ending. The only one who winds up disappointed, presumably, is the truck driver—and that’s as it should be. Not falling-down funny but mildly amusing with a fine cast. Unfortunately, there are some missing frames leading to a little choppy dialog. Still, probably worth $1.25.

The Gang’s All Here, 1941, b&w. Jean Yarbrough (dir.), Frankie Darro, Marcia Mae Jones, Jackie Moran, Keye Luke, Mantan Moreland, Laurence Criner. 1:01.

The first problem is that this isn’t funny—unless you’re just wild about a particular brand of racist humor that was unfortunate in its day and just doesn’t work these days. That’s right—Mantan Moreland in full flower as a deliberately lazy bug-eyed stereotype—this time coupled with another black actor (Laurence Criner) with the name “Ham Shanks.” Other than that, it’s a plausible mystery plot of sorts: A trucking company’s trucks keep getting hijacked with the drivers killed, but insurance covers the losses; an out-of-work type (Darro) and his good-for-nothing sidekick (Moreland) sign up as drivers and wind up uncovering the complex situation, with the assistance of Keye Luke as a Chinese-American investigator for the insurance company.

To be honest, I found the whole thing faintly embarrassing. Decent print. If you’re fond of this sort of thing, it might be worth $0.50.

The Inspector General, 1949, color. Henry Koster (dir.), Danny Kaye, Walter Slezak, Barbar Bates, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Lockhart, Alan Hale, Walter Catlett, Rhys Williams. 1:42 [1:39].

Here’s what I said when I reviewed this as part of the Family Classics set: Wonderful, wonderful. Based on the play by Nikolai Gogol, this film is a delight—not only Danny Kaye’s character but also the rest of the cast. Very good to excellent print with a few tiny flaws; fine color and sound. Even if the print was damaged, this would be a wonderfully enjoyable movie.

I usually don’t rewatch movies I’ve already seen in another set, but for this one I made an exception. This time around, the only thing I would change is that the color is typical of aged Technicolor—that is, mostly washed out. Was I just being kind in 2005? I spotchecked that version. Turns out the movie in the Family Classics megapack and the one in this set are from different sources (which I’ve never seen before): The older one really is full color, but the print is sub-VHS quality, while the new one is extremely faded color but the print’s good enough that, even expanding it to fill my big HDTV (for this movie, the “just” function produces a wider picture without fat-faced actors), I was never aware of video issues. (The old one, on a large screen, has persistent problems.)

So: two different versions, each with its own flaws, but both wonderful—if you like Danny Kaye. It’s a great story (illiterate gypsy is mistaken for the Inspector General when he wanders into a corrupt town; just wants something to eat but winds up doing wonders) with some musical numbers and plenty of Kaye at his best. Given the washed-out color, I’ll only give this $2.25.

The Kid, 1921, b&w (silent). Charles Chaplin (dir., writer, star), Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan, Carl Miller. 1:08.

This one was also part of the Family Classics set, and I’m not enough of a Charlie Chaplin fan to watch it again. Here’s what I had to say then, adjusted only for my different price limits in 2010—and I know it’s short, but I’m not sure there’s a lot more to say about Chaplin’s silent Little Tramp movies:

One of the classic “Little Tramp” movies, in a good-quality print. If you like Chaplin in his silent roles, this is a must-see. $1.75.

An interjection just for this post: I read the IMDB reviews for The Inspector General–including some very negative ones. I would say something about the difficulty of watching comedies with a stick stuck that far up your posterior, but others might say the same thing about my attitude toward the East Side Kids, so let’s just say that tastes differ. And if you think Danny Kaye is a talentless buffoon or that it’s a bad thing that he’s strong on physical comedy and facial expressions–well, then you probably won’t enjoy the movie.

Another Title Too Important For The Post candidate…

I might as well alienate all my Netflix-using colleagues at once, instead of bit by bit on FF and G+.

Namely:

• We’re on a budget (not having earned income will do that to you), and part of that–and our distance from the nearest telco office–is that we have 1.5Mbps broadband, and would have to pay a LOT more, to a company we despise, to get faster broadband.
• Which means Netflix streaming is useless for us–the picture quality is too poor to even consider.
• Which means I wasn’t happy about the previous rate increase, which got us unlimited streaming–that we can’t and don’t use–along with the three-DVD-with-Blu-ray paln that we do use.
• I complained to Netflix about this.
• So I’m real happy with the forthcoming rate changes: we’ll pay for what we use, and won’t pay for what we can’t use. We get a $4 or $5 monthly decrease for no change in service. Sounds good to me.
• On a broader basis, I have yet to figure out how $16/month is “twice as much” as $10/month, and to the best of my knowledge there is no rental+streaming plan that now costs twice as much as it used to.

Looking at it more broadly:

• I see people saying “Well, I’ll just go to streaming and use Redbox if I want a DVD.” I suspect that’s just fine with Netflix.
• I see people saying “Netflix is trying to push everybody to streaming-only.” If Netflix is doing that in a way that rewards those of us who really just want discs, more power to them.
• Realistically: Next time around, you can pretty well bet that Netflix’ agreements for streaming are going to be, at least in part, based on actual streaming usage. That’s partly true for DVDs: If Netflix has more demand, it spends more on discs–and only one account can use a disc at a time.
• So: If, say, 20% of Netflix users don’t stream at all, then it’s to Netflix’ benefit–and, ultimately, to the subscribers’ benefit–for those 20% not to have streaming: The eventual cost of streaming licenses is likely to be roughly 20% lower.
• Am I sympathetic to those who (a) pay enough to have really high-speed broadband, (b) watch enough TV to “need” both streaming and discs, (c) in some cases even admit that the new rates will still be cheaper than cable, but (d) are complaining bitterly about the new rates? Perhaps less so than I should be. In the long run, I’m pretty sure those folks will be a lot worse off if Netflix insists that everybody have both streaming and discs.

I could be wrong, of course, and I’m sure I’m not going to get much agreement on this. But unless you can convince me that Hollywood would never, ever do something like make streaming licenses usage-dependent (and if you believe that, talk to Pandora and other streaming radio services…), then we’re dealing with economic reality.

Update, July 13: While nobody’s commented directly on this post, it’s pretty clear from watching other streams that I must be an Evil Employee of Netflix to even suggest that this is anything other than:

• Doubling prices! (In the new math, 60% of one plan is now doubling all plans.)
• UnAmerican! (You know, “Life, liberty, and unlimited streaming plus one DVD at a time by mail for $9.99 total”–isn’t that in the Declaration of Independence?)
• Vastly increasing the price of every Netflix service! (I’m apparently hallucinating about saving $4/month)
• A deliberate attempt to force people to stop using DVDs! (And the statements by Evil Netflix Employees that some folks–like me–prefer to stick with DVDs are clearly lies, lies, lies…)
• A huge crisis requiring tens of thousands of semiliterate complaints on Netflix’ Facebook page (many of them along the lines of “This food is terrible…and the portions are so small!”) and the like.

Oh, OK, there is Jenica, but hell, she’s rational anyway, so she doesn’t count.

Anyway: I hereby apologize for trying to add logic to the discussion. I’ll stop now. After all, $6 can buy two lattes or, what, about three days of cable TV, so this is clearly a Very Big Deal.

The Missouri Traveler, 1958, color. Jerry Hopper (dir.), Brandon De Wilde, Lee Marvin, Gary Merrill, Paul Ford, Mary Hosford, Ken Curtis, Cal Tinney, Frank Cady, Will Wright. 1:43.

A charmer all the way through. A 15-year-old orphan (De Wilde) is running away from the orphanage and gets picked up by the biggest landholder in Delphi, Missouri—and, eventually, “adopted” by the whole small community. The landholder/farmer (Lee Marvin) is gruff and rough, and will only stand by agreements if they’re in writing. The other protagonist, the local newspaper editor (Merrill), is much softer. Lots of other characters involved, and at one point I had to remind myself that the lead woman was not Marian Peroo. (The local restaurant owner, who was running a beer parlor until the temperance ladies made the town dry, is also essentially the mayor—and is the same actor (Ford) who was the mayor in The Music Man.)

Not a terribly deep picture, but a charming one. Good cast. Decent print. I’ll give it $1.50.

Rogue Male, 1977, color (TV movie). Clive Donner (dir.), Peter O’Toole, John Standing, Alastair Sim, Harold Pinter. 1:43.

Peter O’Toole is a British aristocrat and author of books about hunting who attempts to assassinate Hitler in 1939—missing and being captured because of a stray quail. (Don’t ask.) The interrogators torture him, including pulling out all his fingernails—then, finding out that he really is related to a high-up in British government, stage an accident to explain his death. An accident that doesn’t actually kill him.

The rest of the movie concerns his flight back to England, his discovery that he’s still being hunted by Gestapo agents, and his attempts to survive. It’s slow and gritty (much of it takes place in and about a small hand-dug cave) and with O’Toole, it’s well worth watching. Not great, but worth $1.50.

Agency, 1980, color. George Kaczender (dir.), Robert Mitchum, Lee Majors, Valerie Perrine, Alexandra Stewart. Saul Rubinek, George Touliatos. 1:34.

Robert Mitchum is the new owner of an ad agency, a tad secretive and with little known background in the biz. Lee Majors is the creative head, prone to jogging, getting in late and being, well, Lee Majors. He’s divorced and sometimes dating Valerie Perrine, a doctor. And his buddy Goldstein, a brilliant copywriter, thinks Mitchum’s up to no good.

It’s all about the sure-fire wonders of subliminal advertising and how they can enable any group to take over the world. I’m not sure how much more there is to say about it. It’s lackluster but not terrible (although there are a few bizarre digitization errors and some really crude censorship, as certain words are obviously blanked out). The sleeve calls this “The Agency,” but there’s no pronoun in the flick’s title. A paranoid trifle, worth maybe $1.25.

The Steagle, 1971, color. Paul Sylbert (dir.), Richard Benjamin, Chill Wills, Cloris Leachman, Jean Allison, Suzanne Charney, Ivor Francis. 1:27 [1:30]

Richard Benjamin is a professor in New York who hates to fly and has a typical suburban family: one wife (Cloris Leachman), two kids. Then comes the Cuban Missile Crisis and he goes—well, let’s see, he gives a lecture of complete nonsense language, tells off his dean and starts hopping across the country on first-class airplane flights, making up a new identity each leg, screwing a married colleague at work, the daughter of a former wartime flame in Chicago and anybody who’s convenient elsewhere. We also see a minister turn lecher in Vegas. Benjamin winds up in LA, getting drunk at the Stork Club and thrown out after a strange scene involving Chill Wills as an over-the-hill, drunk, befuddled old Western actor who supposedly thinks he’s Humphrey Bogart—and the two of them wind up shooting live ammo and exploding live grenades at midnight on a studio set.

After which a cop wakes the two and doesn’t run them in—because the Russian ships have just turned around and Kennedy’s saved the day. Exit Benjamin, back across country, by train, across from a loudmouth Texan who thinks we shoulda’ bombed Cuba flat.

I found it more annoying than anything else, and as a “comedy” it lacks humor. So the crisis was an excuse to abandon all morality, your family, everything? Really? That’s not quite the way I remember it (I was at UC Berkeley at the time.) Maybe if you find Benjamin charming enough you’d like it. For me, meh. But a good print and good cast; I’ll charitably give it $1.

The Admiral was a Lady, 1950, b&w. Albert S. Rogell (dir.), Edmond O’Brien, Wanda Hendrix, Rudy Vallee, Johnny Sands, Steve Brodie, Richard Erdman, Hillary Brooke. 1:27.

A post-WWII romantic comedy with a little screwball comedy added in, and an absolute charmer. “The Admiral” is four vets’ nickname for a returned WAVE (Hendrix) after they all meet in an unemployment-insurance line. The four guys are dedicated to not finding jobs and living well without spending money—they work really hard at not working in style. The woman has been waiting for her fiancée to return, but now finds he’s not coming—so she’s heading home for Walla Walla.

It gets more complicated. The leader of the four (O’Brien) gets a phone call threatening promising a job for him and the others—unless he makes sure the girl stays in town. It has something to do with her fiancée and a juke box tycoon’s twice ex-wife who he wants back. Things go on from there. We eventually find out why the leader’s so intent on keeping the four together. All ends reasonably well. Hendrix is an absolute charmer, O’Brien is handsome and funny, Rudy Vallee (the jukebox king) is quite wonderful, and it’s all funny and well played. One of the best old movies I’ve seen in quite some time. $2.00.

His Double Life, 1933, b&w. Arthur Hopkins (dir.), Roland Young, Lillian Gish, Montagu Love, Lumsden Hare, Lucy Beaumont. 1:08.

A charming comedy, somewhat undone by heavy-handed direction. The setup: England’s foremost painter (Young) is an introvert, so much so that he’s spent years traveling around Europe with his valet to avoid the public—even his agent’s never seen him, and his first cousin hasn’t seen him since he was 12. But the valet’s also corresponding with a women (Gish) he “met” via a marriage/introduction service and would like to actually meet her—and convinces the painter that they could move back to their house in London and nobody would recognize him.

But when they arrive, the valet’s down with double pneumonia. The doctor arrives, assumes that the valet (who the painter’s put in the master bedroom) is the painter and vice-versa, announces him dead…and things go on from there, especially after the officious cousin arrives, regards the “valet” as an incompetent and shoos him away.

He winds up running into the young woman—who also assumes he’s the valet. As things progress (including the “painter” being buried in Westminster Abbey), she doesn’t much care who he is and assures him that between his modest bequest and her brewery shares, they’d be fine. They marry, and they are fine—and then he starts painting again, this time without signing the paintings. She sells the paintings to a framer for modest sums; he sells them, framed, to someone else for a substantial markup…and they wind up with the artist’s agent. That agent guarantees them to be genuine and sells them for many times as much to a collector…who gets a bit upset when he notes a date on the back of one that’s two years after the artist was buried. Oh, along the way, the valet appears to have walked out on his wife 25 years earlier—and she shows up, twin sons (both clergy) along, claiming that the artist (using the valet’s name) is clearly her long-lost husband.

All of which leads to a trial—the collector suing the agent for fraud, the agent (who found the earlier wife) claiming that the valet’s really the painter, a charge of bigamy…all eventually resolved thanks to two birthmarks.

It’s an interesting plot. Gish does a remarkable job as a wholly unflappable young woman who’s quite happy with her husband whether he’s a former valet or an artist. Young’s good also (I was thinking he reminded me of Cosmo Topper—and, indeed, he was Cosmo Topper). The problem? The trial is wildly overdone (with jurors acting as a chorus of sorts), other “messages” that should have been delivered once are delivered six times, and it’s all a bit heavy-handed. Even with that, it’s worth $1.50.

Boys of the City, 1940, b&w. Joseph H. Lewis (dir.), the usual Dead End Kids/East Side Kids (Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, etc., etc.) 1:08 [1:00].

I gave it ten minutes. That was more than enough. Life really is too short to sit through yet another Dead End Kids/East Side Kids movie. The rave reviews on IMDB do not convince me otherwise.

Escape to Paradise, 1939, b&w. Erle C. Kenton (dir.), Bobby Breen, Kent Taylor, Marla Shelton, Rudolph Anders. 1:00.

Let’s see. The handsome son of a millionaire, on a cruise in South America, is hounded by one annoying young woman who regards him as her boyfriend…and manages to escape by zipping off with a young guide while ashore in “Rosarita” (certainly much darker and less interesting than the actual Rosarito, Mexico). After cutely meeting a beautiful young woman, he decides to stick around for the 21 days before the ship stops again on its way back…and gets involved in maté exporting as a way of meeting the girl again (don’t ask).

A local businessman who wants the girl for his own also wants to monopolize the mate trade and pay prices so low they’ll ruin the growers. One thing leads to another (including an amusing scene of workers unloading 200 bags of mate in the hero’s hotel room), and…well, happy ending and all that.

Except that it just doesn’t work. For one thing, the print’s lousy, sometimes so bad as to almost be unwatchable. For another, the mix of languages (in the obligatory musical numbers and conversation) is little short of bizarre. For a third, well, it just doesn’t work very well even as a light concoction. Charitably, $0.75.

Big Town After Dark, 1947, b&w. William C. Thomas (dir.), Philip Reed, Hillary Brooke, Richard Travis, Anne Gillis, Vince Barnett. 1:09.

Crime reporter sells her first novel, gets teased about it by the managing editor (who’s also fond of her), resigns with two weeks notice. Owner of paper has niece who wants job (but he’d just as soon see her not get one); managing editor decides to hire niece as new crime reporter as tactic to convince the other one to stick around. Yes, there’s a nod to similar plots: someone in the newsroom at police headquarters mentions “Remember what happened to Hildy?”

Seems that the niece isn’t exactly the innocent journalism student she claims to be. There’s a fairly complex and quite lively plot involving semi-legal private gambling clubs, “kidnapping” and more. It all works quite well, and was a pleasure to watch. $1.50.

Born to Fight, 1936, b&w. Charles Hutchinson (dir.), Frankie Darro, Kane Richmond, Jack La Rue, Frances Grant, Fred “Snowflake” Toones. 1:05 [1:08]

The mystery here is mostly why this is in this collection. It’s a boxing film primarily—with lots of stuff about honor and, strangely, two big musical numbers. The hero is a handsome young lightweight boxer in New York who devastates his opponents with a 1-2-3 punch combination and then makes sure the opponents are OK. His manager won’t take him on the road, but he’s still Destined for Greatness.

Until the local hotshot crooked gambler encounters him at a swanky restaurant, yells at him for not taking a dive in the latest fight and costing the gambler a chunk, and punches him—to which he responds, of course. At which point, with the gambler injured, his manager tells him he has to get out of town—thumb his way to Chicago.

During which process, as he winds up in a hobo camp, we get a bunch of hobos staging a multipart-harmony original song, conductor and all; we get an even younger and small hobo who’s being picked on by the other hobos and who fights back; we get a free-for-all with the boxer involved; and, before we know it, the kid and the boxer are on the lam, make their way to Chicago, and the boxer becomes the kid’s manager, using an assumed name…and trying to teach the kid to lead with his left, not his right.

I won’t bother with the rest of the plot. There’s another bizarre musical number. It’s interesting that we get a happy ending only because somebody gets shot dead at a convenient plot point. Lots’o'boxing, not a whole lot of acting, a somewhat sketchy print and, at best, worth $0.75.

Borderline, 1950, b&w. William A. Seiter (dir.), Fred MacMurray, Claire Trevor, Raymond Burr, José Torvay, Morris Ankrum. 1:28. Previously reviewed (C&I 8:5, May 2008):

Maybe I saw too much of Raymond Burr on TV, but his bad-guy movie roles always strike me as suiting him better than Perry Mason. This one’s no exception. Burr is a drug ringleader (or one rung below leader) in Mexico. MacMurray and Trevor are two different American agents sent—by two different agencies—to infiltrate the gang. Naturally, each of them thinks the other one’s part of the gang. Naturally, they fall in love. Naturally, it all works out. It’s an odd combination—part comedy, part noir, part “melodrama” as the sleeve says—but, to my mind, it works pretty well. For that matter, MacMurray makes a fine leading man and tough guy. I found it enjoyable and the print’s pretty good. $1.50.

The Girl in Lover’s Lane, 1959, b&w. Charles R. Rondeau (dir.), Brett Halsey, Joyce Meadows, Lowell Brown, Jack Elam, Selette Cole. 1:18 [1:16].

We begin with a young man in a suit being chased in a trainyard by two punks—and at one point he tosses his wallet into an open freight car, just before the punks catch him, knock him out and complain that there’s no wallet. The drifter who’d been in the freight car pulls him in and, after he wakes up, discusses the realities of being a hobo. (The drifter is notably also fairly well-dressed and clean-shaven.) The kid has $100, a fortune apparently; he’s running away from his wealthy parents (because they’re thinking of divorce) and is willing to provide the dough if the two can travel together for a while.

They get to a small town, Sherman. Almost immediately the kid gets in trouble in a pool hall by flashing his money—and the four punks at the pool hall clearly want to beat up the two guys and take the $100. Somehow, that’s not how the fight works out. There’s also a café with a lonely beautiful young waitress (daughter of the owner/cook)…

Long story short, the older guy gets involved with the girl (but still aims to leave town) while filling part-time at the café; a local creep (Jack Elam) who “seems harmless” but pretty clearly isn’t resents the older guy; as the two are ready to leave town, they split up, the younger one does leave, and the local creep kills the waitress—who’s discovered, just before she actually dies, by the older drivter who’s decided he does love her and wants to stick around. Naturally, he winds up at the sheriff’s office and it’s clear a lynch mob will form. Which it does.

A real paean to small-town life: There’s a house of prostitution involved as well, half of the kids are criminal punks, the townsfolk immediately set out to lynch someone who might have done something; and the obviously-bizarre local isn’t suspected until he confesses. The print’s not very good, with some dialog missing and some fuzziness. Still, the flick’s not without some merit. I’ll give it $1.00.

Catch Me a Spy (orig. To Catch a Spy), 1971, color. Dick Clement (dir.), Kirk Douglas, Marlène Jobert, Trevor Howard, Tom Courtenay, Patrick Mower. 1:34.

It’s a spy movie—or, rather, a spy romantic comedy. Hot young teacher (and daughter of a British Minister who seems to spend most of his time playing with games) is courted by a handsome young import/export businessman and, after three months, marries him. They begin their honeymoon in Bucharest so he can take care of some business…at which point, he’s arrested as a spy and taken to Moscow. Shortly before that, there’s some business with a “waiter” (Kirk Douglas) who tapes something into the lining of one of their two suitcases.

Things progress at a dizzying pace, as the wife tries to fly to Moscow, is drugged by the waiter in the airport, winds up flying to London, and manages to convince the government to trade her husband for a Soviet spy—the only Soviet spy that British intelligence has captured, apparently. That goes badly, and we proceed from there. (By now, we know that the husband is actually a double agent—near the end of the film, his ‘captor’ notes that he’s the only Soviet prisoner to gain weight.) There’s lots of plot, a fair amount of silliness, and generally good fun.

Great cast, well played in the light manner that suits the plot, flawed mostly by the soft print and panned-and-scanned version. Not a movie for the ages, but it’s fun and worth $1.50.

There Goes the Bride, 1980, color. Terry Marcel (dir.), Tom Smothers, Phil Silvers, Jim Backus, Broderick Crawford, Martin Balsam, Hermione Badderley, Twiggy. 1:30

Concussions sure are funny! Or at least that’s one way to read this comedy, since the plot turns on four concussions, each of which involves an immediate recovery but a changed view of reality. Tommy Smothers is an ad man always on the verge of a breakdown, whose daughter is getting married the same day he’s supposed to pitch for a new account. He also has some necessary errands to run—like, for example, picking up the groom’s parents from the airport.

As played, the ad man is so incompetent with reality that things would have gone wrong anyway, so bringing in an invisible flapper who’s later his invisible flapper wife just adds to what I guess is supposed to be insanely funny mixups. Maybe you have to be in the right mood. One key plot point: Apparently, in this universe’s version of the late 1970s or 1980, it was shocking for a young woman to have slept with her fiancée before the wedding—clearly, this wasn’t the 1970s I grew up in.

Great cast. I think a better script, livelier acting and better direction might have made more of this—but what the hey, it is a TV movie. Oh, wait—apparently it isn’t: It’s a production that sure feels like a TV movie and was first shown in the UK. Soft picture—even more so during sequences when Twiggy, the invisible flapper, is visible, but there the softness is apparently intentional. Charitably, if you’re really easily amused, $1.00.

Scandal Sheet, 1985 (TV), color. David Lowell Rich (dir.), Burt Lancaster, Lauren Hutton, Pamela Reed, Robert Urich. 1:41 [1:34]

What a cast! Burt Lancaster, Robert Urich, Lauren Hutton, Pamela Reed and others. What a…sad, trashy little movie. It’s about tabloid journalism, big pay, friendship and betrayal—except that it’s never quite clear who’s betraying whom. I couldn’t care about any of the characters. The script’s mediocre, the better-known actors don’t seem to much care, the picture’s a little soft. Even by TV movie, this one’s mostly a waste. If there’s a moral, it’s one most celebrities have learned: If you’re going into rehab for alcoholism or drugs, your publicist should announce it openly. The best I can do is $0.75.

The Driver’s Seat (orig. Identikit), 1974, col0r. Giuseppe Patroni Giffi (dir.), Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol. 1:45 [1:41]

How you feel about this Elizabeth Taylor vehicle will depend a lot on how you feel about Elizabeth Taylor (and, I suppose, truly strange Italian filmmaking). If you believe she was a gloriously beautiful woman and great actress at all times, you’ll thrill to this rarity, since she’s front and center in all but maybe 10 minutes of the film. Even then, though, you may go “wha?” from time to time.

The plot: A woman wants to meet the perfect man…to kill her. Along the way, she encounters various people, including several men, virtually all of whom attempt to rape her. (At least one of them has a schtick: He’s on a macrobiotic diet that requires him to have an orgasm a day.) That’s about it. Andy Warhol plays two brief scenes as a wholly disinterested lord, with all the vibrant flair of most Andy Warhol appearances—that is, he kept his eyes open throughout his scenes.

The print in this case was really very good—I’d say better than VHS quality—but there was a tiny disc flaw rendering 90 seconds unwatchable. I’m convinced that I didn’t miss anything that would have made this more than a very strange movie. I think the only people who would sit through this movie are Taylor completists and fans of vague Italian cinema. For them, it’s probably worth at least $1.25.