Walt at Random

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.

Four of these are Studio One episodes from the heyday of live b&w TV drama—thus, they’re kinescopes (filmed from the TV), and presented including Westinghouse’s ads. The live format and limited resources of the time can result in somewhat claustrophobic dramas, but it’s at least interesting historically. In a way, viewing these with contemporary equipment is unfair. They were made to be viewed on screens probably no larger than 15″ diagonal (thus 9″ by 12″); viewing them on the 4×3 portion of a 54″ screen—which is to say an area 27″ by 36″, or nine times the area—warps the original staging expectations.

There Was a Crooked Man, 1950, b&w (TV). Paul Nickell (dir.), Robert Sterling, Charles Korvin, Virginia Gilmore, Richard Purdy, Robert Emhardt. 0:56.

A small boarding house with eclectic—even strange—tenants: One young man who avoids everybody, an eccentric professor supposedly writing a 12-volume history of education, a young woman waiting for her husband to return, another young woman in similar situation (both of them, apparently, working in the rare book room of a library), the woman whose house it is who’s expecting her husband to return after six years away, and an upstairs boarder who’s room-bound thanks to an accident but called on by all sorts of people.

And who winds up dead. Suspicion falls on the professor, but there are reasons to believe it must be somebody impersonating him: His beard and hair were bushier when he was encountered just after the crime, and he was wearing high-heeled shoes, which he doesn’t normally do. Lots more plot, including the arrival of one woman’s husband, the truly eccentric husband of the owner (who was actually a few blocks away and claims to have long-term amnesia), and a conclusion that leaves a whole bunch of question unanswered. Some scenery-chewing, too much plot for the time, but not bad as a mini-mystery. Note that the running time includes two lengthy Westinghouse commercials (one for a big screen TV—well, big for the time, I guess); it’s probably around 52 minutes of actual program. $0.75.

Two Sharp Knives, 1949, b&w (TV). Franklin J. Schaffner (dir.), Stanley Ridges, Wynne Gibson, Theodore Newton, Abe Vigoda. 0:59.

A surprisingly ambitious live drama, with scenes set in a (patently phony) train, police station, railroad station and cheap hotel—and an intriguing script by Dashiell Hammett. A father and his daughter are on their way to a small town to meet the mother, who the daughter really doesn’t know at all—and, when they arrive, the father’s detained because the police just received a “Wanted for Murder” message with his photo on it. The father’s never heard of the supposed victim and has no idea what’s going on… The police chief’s daughter (who’s engaged to a police detective) takes the little girl home with her, while the police chief, detective and suspect go to the hotel where he expected to meet his wife—who isn’t there and nobody’s heard of.

Next thing we know, the father’s apparently hung himself in his cell—and the police have discovered that the wanted message was a forgery and the supposed victim doesn’t exist. Although the coroner tells reporters that it was a suicide (in part because a conniving DA is gunning for the police chief), he tells the police chief that it was clearly murder (oh, there’s politics at play too). The plot continues from there, and it’s a tight plot for the 50-52 minutes of actual program. (Ads this time are for the Westinghouse Laundromat and Dryer, with the pitch that your Westinghouse dealer will be happy to wash and dry a load of your clothes to show how great they are—and a prominent “damp” setting on the dryer, for all those clothes needing ironing.) Note: I mention Abe Vigoda because he became so well known; as with all but three actors, his only credit was a voice-over at the end of the episode. He was 28 at the time; this was one of his first two roles.)

Well done, well-acted; since it’s also well under an hour, I’ll give it $1.00.

The Inner Circle, 1946, b&w. Philip Ford (dir.), Adele Mara, Warren Douglas, William Frawley, Ricardo Cortez, Virginia Christine, Ken Niles, WIl Wright. 0:57.

This one’s not a Studio One kinescope—it’s a B film, humorous, fast-moving, complicated and thoroughly enjoyable. A private detective, Johnny Strange, Action, Inc., starts to call in an ad for a private secretary (young, blonde, good-looking, etc.), when the phone’s removed by…well, a young woman (Adele Mara, a stunner) who more than meets his criteria and says she’s there for the job. Before you know it, she’s calling to get his office cleaned—and on his other line there’s a call, which she answers (the first call’s busy), by a new client who informs the secretary that Johnny is to meet her in front of a jeweler’s at 7:30 that night.

This leads to a dead body, Strange being knocked over the head, the gun placed in his hand and the police showing up—and the secretary giving a thoroughly false story to clear him. He wants to know what’s actually going on, and this takes us through a bunch of characters, the secretary’s socialite sister (who she thinks might be the real murderer)…and eventually a re-creation of portions of the murder scene during a radio broadcast (the victim had a gossip radio show, with a side of blackmail). All fast, with snappy dialogue, the natural love interest between the private dick and the beautiful secretary. William Frawley—yes, that William Frawley (later of I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, and My Three Sons) does a fine job as the police detective lieutenant pursuing the case. Great stuff—light-hearted and well-done. It’s only 57 minutes (actually just over 56), so I can’t give it more than $1.25.

Things Happen At Night, 1947, b&w. Francis Searle (dir.), Gordon Harker, Alfred Drayton, Robertson Hare, Gwynneth Vaughan. 1:19 [0:56]

The biggest mystery here is why this odd little farce is in the Mystery Collection rather than being filler in a comedy megapack. The plot, such as it is, involves a poltergeist who’s possessing the daughter in a too-big house and causing all sorts of mischief. An insurance investigator (Gordon Harker) arrives to evaluate a claim for a hole in a rug (caused by a burning cinder in a room where the fireplace wasn’t used and had a grille that wouldn’t have allowed the cinder to escape in any case) and, somehow, becomes an overnight guest, formal dress and all. A “scientist” also arrives to photograph the poltergeist (?).

Mostly the plot is an excuse for cheap special effects and lots of Gordon Harker’s odd expressions, and whether you’ll enjoy it depends on whether you think Harker is side-splitting. Since I don’t, I mostly found this to be a wasted hour. (Harker was much better in The Farmer’s Wife both because it was one of Alfred Hitchcock’s rare comedies and because there was a script, something that’s lacking here.) Maybe the missing 23 minutes would make this better, but the flick seemed overlong as it is. Add to the missing script sometimes-sketchy video quality (bleached at times) and some odd filming, and I’m being extremely generous to give this $0.75.

Flowers from a Stranger, 1949, b&w (TV). Paul Nickell (dir.), John Conte, Felicia Montealegre, Yul Brynner, Robert Duke, Lois Nettleton. 0:59.

The beautiful young wife of a psychiatrist has trouble sleeping, mostly because she keeps thinking about a tune that she can’t quite place—and that may be evil. As a typical young professional couple, they of course have a housekeeper/maid, and she’s having friends to dinner—an odd number, and suggests her husband invite someone. He thinks of an older colleague, a famous psychiatrist who survived the concentration camps and has one bad hand for it. The psychiatrist, Yul Brynner with white hair (29 years old at the time, but a credible elderly psychiatrist), is free.

In short order, we get several dozen white carnations sent to the wife by an anonymous sender—and she hates white carnations. When the older doctor arrives he is, of course, wearing…a white carnation. He’s charmed by her; she believes he’s evil…and he refers to her by a name her husband didn’t know, her stage name when she was giving piano concerts in Europe as a child. Next scene: A violent inmate escapes and, next thing you know, she’s being subdued by the housekeeper. The wife concludes that the inmate was brought there by the old doctor to kill her and that the old doctor pushed her mother off a train platform…and goes in to New York to get evidence of a sort (the old doctor was briefly married to the wife’s mother, and he decamped to the U.S. a few days before the death).

A word about lengths for these Studio One kinescopes: Yes, they were longer than today’s ad-saturated hour shows, but not that much longer. I fast-forwarded through ads on this one, and it seems to come to about 50 minutes including titles—thus, five to seven minutes longer than today’s adfests. There were only three ads, but they were long ads.

We get a climax in which the young woman, apparently frail and easily breakable, suddenly turns into a victim-turned-pursuer, breaking down the older psychiatrist. I found this scene so wholly unbelievable that it compromises what’s otherwise a minor psychodrama. For some reason, I was more aware on this little drama that doctors are portrayed as all being smoking fiends: It was a different time! Overall, I’m being generous with $0.75.

Plan For Escape, 1952, b&w (TV). Paul Nickell (dir.), Peggy Ann Garner, Frank Overton, Jean Carson. 0:59.

Another Studio One presentation, this time with Betty Furness doing the ads (one of them for a Westinghouse sunlamp so you can get your tan in winter, back when tanning was supposed to be as healthy as smoking). The plot: A very young (21 years old) trophy wife of a gangster hates being a bird in a gilded cage, wants out…and sees her chance when her husband’s gunned down. But her minder (who’s in cahoots with the gangster who shot her husband) is on her trail, since she could rat on the killer. She winds up in a tiny town on the rail line, befriended by a handsome young mail clerk who’s deeply philosophical. Her problem with him: He’s not Somebody, being more interested in living a good life than in being a big financial success.

Lots of talk, then more plot leading to a shootout of sorts. Will the girl-woman ever grow up? Perhaps… This one’s fairly well done, but I still can’t give it more than $0.75.

Shaker Run, 1986, color. Bruce Morrison (dir.), Cliff Robertson, Leif Garrett, Lisa Harrow, Shane Briant, Peter Rowell, Peter Hayden. 1:31 [1:29]

A research scientist whose project has accidentally developed a lethal bioweapon (it suppresses the immune system) finds that it’s about to be turned over to the military—so to save mankind from that awful fate, she and her lover (also on the project) decide to steal the stuff and deliver it to…the CIA? Really? So that sterling institution can see to it that an antidote is developed. Oh, and the evil country whose military she’s trying to avoid: New Zealand.

Yep. That’s what we have: the New Zealand military vs. the CIA—except that it’s mostly stunt car driving with Cliff Robertson as a former race car driver turned stunt-car driver, who takes on the delivery job without knowing what he’s transporting (but he’s bad broke and she’s offering $3,000). Garrett plays Robertson’s mechanic (and son of the crew chief Robertson’s character accidentally killed at Daytona). The military presence includes a sinister head and an associate who’s pure assassin. All filmed on location and with decent production values, on roads covering a good portion of New Zealand’s South Island—lots of scenery. Lots of shooting, explosions, cars going over cliffs, and mostly lots of stunt car driving. The print’s pretty decent for VHS quality, and the movie moves right along. Even if…the CIA? Really? (When Robertson, as an American stunt driver, hears what she’s doing, he comments “Lady, you are really naïve.” Ya’ think?) I have no idea how MCE could get rights to a 1986 color movie cheap enough to include in a megapack, but there you go. All in all, a minor effort worth $1.25.

Against All Hope, 1982, color. Edward T. McDougal (dir.), Michael Madsen, Maureen McCarthy, Cecil Moe. 1:29.

Awful, awful, awful: A badly-done film that’s nothing more than a 90-minute sermon for one narrow brand of Christianity as being the five-second cure (and the only cure) for whatever ails you.

It’s all about a falling-down drunk and how he got that way, told in flashbacks as he’s sitting in a 4a.m. chat with a minister he’d never met, trying to decide whether to kill himself. It’s a mildly sad story, but mostly boils down to a man with no apparent self-esteem who lives for his drinks and has somehow stayed married. When he decides he’s in trouble, we get a display of how every other helping profession is worthless: A doctor blows cigarette smoke in his face while telling him there are no medical problems, a neurologist dismisses his issues, a psychiatrist wants to know whether he hates his mother or his father and then refers him to a minister from the Church of Good Times (or something like that), whose only advice is that the couple should come to Wednesday Night Bingo or Friday Night Dances at the church—and, of course, not one of these people asks anything about him being a drunk. No AA suggestions or anything that might actually help.

Add in a barroom scene in which everybody in the bar gathers around him to force him to take a drink after he’s been on the wagon for a couple of months, a diner with a remarkably vicious waitress and even nastier other customer and the fact that not one character in the whole film, including the long-suffering wife and the protagonist, seems to be more than a convenient cliché. And even after the lead is miraculously saved (after a 30-second prayer, he walks out of the minister’s house, says everything suddenly looks beautiful, and of course everything goes great after that), he’s upset because his wife (who’s always been religious, even taught Sunday School for 11 years, but doesn’t much cotton to his particular fundamentalist group) “still isn’t a Christian yet.”

The lead character’s name—Cecil Moe–is also the name of the cowriter and executive producer (who also plays a different role, the minister who saves Moe). It’s really bad propaganda, of a sort that strikes me as wholly useless—I mean, would anyone outside the “you’re all doomed, but if you just Say the Magic Phrase, you’re instantly saved” camp be convinced by anything here? Madsen’s first movie; based on his stellar performance, it’s a miracle he was ever in a second one—but this one must have been seen by, what, 50 people including the cast? (If you read the IMDB reviews, note that the only semi-favorable ones are from those who think the “Christian” message overrides everything else.) I’d give it a flat $0, but as an example of really bad moviemaking that’s also remarkably awful propaganda it’s a weak $0.25.

Kangaroo, 1952, color. Lewis Milestone (dir.), Maureen O’Hara, Peter Lawford, Finlay Currie, Richard Boone, Chips Rafferty. 1:24.

An old guy, Michael McGuire, shows up at a cheap sailor’s rest (six cents a night for bedding and a bunk) drunk and with booze to share—and, as he’s singing and then becoming maudlin, Richard Connor (a young Peter Lawford—29 at the time) asks about it and finds that he’s mourning the long-lost son that he put in an orphanage as a child, from whence the son fled. Connor then leaves the sailor’s rest, tries to rob a gambler, John W. Gamble (Richard Boone), winds up robbing the proprietor of the gambling establishment with Gamble (a robbery during which Gamble shoots the proprietor)…and that’s just the start. (Interesting gambling hall: Most of the action’s betting on whether a person tossing two coins in the air will have two heads or two tails land, with one of each being a non-result.)

The primary plot: McGuire’s got a 10,000-square-mile cattle station in South Australia; the two, after taking him back to his ship (dead drunk), connive to go to the station…with the hope that they can convince him that Connor’s his long-lost son. Turns out he also has a beautiful daughter (Maureen O’Hara), and they’re just trying to hang on given a three-year drought that’s nearly wiped out the nearby town and threatens to wipe out their herds.

Most of the movie’s a combination of Australian scenery, driving cattle, aboriginal rites and a little action here and there. The ending’s not terribly important (indeed, other than a break in the drought, the ending’s not even very clear). It’s fair to say that the long con doesn’t work, partly because Lawford’s conscience gets the better of him.

Fine cast, generally well played, maybe a little heavy on the Australian exotica (supposedly the first Hollywood flick and first Technicolor movie shot entirely in Australia). While the print’s not terrible, it’s not as good as you might want for a movie this heavy on scenery. All in all, though, it’s entertaining enough. If the print was better, this might get more, but I’ll give it $1.25.

A Hazard of Hearts, 1987, color (made for TV). John Hough (dir.), Diana Rigg, Edward Fox, Helena Bonham Carter, Fiona Fullerton, Christopher Plummer, Steward Granger, Neil Dickson, Anna Massey, Marcus Gilbert. 1:30.

Romance-novel fans may recognize that as a Barbara Cartland title, and snobs may say “Oh, please, it’s a cheap romance novel.” Maybe, but it’s well-done and a distinct pleasure, some highly implausible plot issues be damned.

The basic plot: A British nobleman (Christopher Plummer) is an inveterate gambler and loses not only his entire fortune but his estate and his daughter’s promised hand in marriage (which brings with it an £80,000 inheritance) to a villainous lord who his daughter detests. Another lord takes on the villain, winning back the estate and daughter…while the nobleman shoots himself. Then, the other lord (an oddly distant sort, but handsome) discovers the youth of the daughter (Helena Bonham Carter, 21 at the time) and decides he can’t possibly wed one so young—and decides to sell the estate and send her to live with his mother at his estate. His mother, played by Diana Rigg, is a proper scoundrel—another inveterate gambler who runs her own gambling operation and also a smuggling franchise, and who regard the girl as an annoyance to be dealt with.

That’s just the start of a hearty plot involving hidden doors, staircases and even apparently-dead fathers, subterfuge, betrayal, and eventually both a pistol duel and a swordfight. Virtue triumphs—how could it not? And, frankly, it all works—because the actors are first-rate. Also, this is an unusually good print for a Mill Creek movie, nearly VHS quality: It was a pleasure to watch on the big screen. Yes, the plot’s silly, but the staging and acting are both fine. I’ll give it $1.75.

The Great Flamarian, 1945, b&w. Anthony Mann (dir.), Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea, Steve Barclay. 1:18.

We begin in a theater in Mexico City (1936), where an odd act with a guy swirling a cloth is ending and one with a clown is beginning. Suddenly, shots ring out… The woman in a husband-and-wife team is dead, the husband’s the obvious suspect, but we’ve seen somebody climbing up into the rafters and hiding. We soon find that the woman was strangled, not shot—but the husband’s still the obvious suspect because, you know, he’s the husband. It doesn’t help that the wife apparently had eyes (and whatever) for others within the troupe.

As the police leave and the clown closes down the theater, we hear a thump, as the guy in the rafters falls to the stage, almost but not quite dead—he was the recipient of the shots. He tells the clown that he’ll be dead by the time the police arrive and tells his tale: The rest of the movie, told as flashback. The guy (von Stroheim) is The Great Flamarian, a remarkable trick-shot artist with a little act built on him catching his (stage) wife with her (stage) lover. The woman (Mary Beth Hughes) is a gold-digger out for herself. Her husband at the time (and lover in the act), Dan Duryea, is increasingly a drunk but knows she was a petty crook until they got married.

We have a tale of conniving, an innocent man who lives only for his work, and the results you’d expect—death and betrayal. It’s quite a story, and although it’s short of greatness, it’s good noir, well-acted and done well enough to get $1.75.

Parole, Inc., 1948, b&w. Alfred Zeider (dir.), Michael O’Shea, Turban Bey, Evelyn Ankers, Virginia Lee, Charles Bradstreet, Lyle Talbot. 1:11.

Based on the opening title, this is propaganda for tough parole laws and boards, with the implication that parole boards are commonly releasing dangerous criminals. The actual film is sort of a potboiler, with a federal agent going undercover to prove that one state’s parole board is being bribed to let people out. Good cast, but to me, the whole thing felt a little forced—and, frankly, I don’t believe a real undercover agent in this situation would tell the three men setting him up for the sting what his cover name was going to be, since he’d have no way of being sure one of them wasn’t corrupted and it’s information they don’t need.

Good cast, mixed acting. Overall, OK, but it didn’t quite ring true for me. And, of course, there’s no real mystery, since the movie’s all flashbacks while the injured agent’s dictating his report from a hospital bed—where if things had really gone bad, he wouldn’t be dictating any report $1.00.

Baby Face Morgan, 1942, b&w. Arthur Dreifuss (dir.), Richard Cromwell, Mary Carlisle, Robert Armstrong, Chick Chandler, Warren Hymer. 1:03 [0:59]

We open with telegrams being delivered to cheap grifters in four different areas—and, separately, a cute scene with a soda jerk/waiter and his somewhat more worldly cousin and the cousin’s girlfriend (a remarkably vapid girl who’s never heard from again). Then the plots converge: The telegrams are bringing the grifters back to re-form the mob that had once ruled Central City with a protection racket, back before their boss, Big Mike Morgan, was killed. One smart guy’s decided to rebuild the racket, using Big Mike’s son as a front (without his knowledge). First, though, he wants to check out the son—who turns out to be the soda jerk who, thanks to an overheard and wildly misinterpreted phone conversation (his boss’s initials are DA, he dropped off some pineapples—which the mobsters assumed to be grenades—at the sheriff’s office, and he picked up bill payments from some customers), is assumed to be a hardass criminal and immediately nicknamed Baby Face Morgan (he does indeed have a baby face), although he doesn’t know that.

That’s the start of what could be film noir but is, in fact, a nicely done little comedy—as the son & cousin, set up as heads of the shell Acme Protection Agency, get bored doing nothing (they have no idea what’s actually going on) and start selling insurance to local business owners, beginning with one cute young woman (a trucking company owner) who’s resisting the racketeers. The racketeers blow up one of her trucks; the Acme Protection Agency immediately writes a check to cover it—that check, unknown to them, being funded by the protection money—and we’re off. Rabbits play a role as well. The close is a little improbable, but it’s an interesting blend of noir and comedy. Despite its short length, I’ll give it $1.25.

The Woman Condemned, 1934, b&w. Dorothy Davenport (dir.—credited as “Mrs. Wallace Reid” in the film itself), Claudia Dell, Lola Lane, Richard Hemingway, Jason Robards (Sr.), Paul Ellis, Douglas Congrove, Mischa Auer. 1:06 [1:01]

I’m not sure what to make of this one—part noir mystery, part romantic comedy, part farce (I guess), and for most of its length, a short movie that seems very slow, as though it was written as a 15-minute sketch and expanded to a one-hour movie.

The plot involves a woman singer who takes a “vacation,” tells her boss & would-be fiancée that she doesn’t know when she’ll be back, and tells her maid to tell everyone she doesn’t know where she is. There’s a phone conversation with a mysterious and evil-looking man who points out that, while something is expensive, she wants to be free to live her life—and he doesn’t take checks. (A contract murder?) There’s a female detective from out of town, hired by the boss to find out what’s going on—a detective with a truly lousy skill at being unnoticed. And there’s a wisenheimer reporter (or something) who hangs around night court and, thanks to an even more wisenheimer judge, winds up married to this detective he’s never met before. Oh, and identical twins are crucial to the plot.

That’s just the start of a complex plot; there is an actual murder, which if this is intended as a comedy makes it a bit less amusing. Everything gets resolved, more or less, in a final eight minutes that almost makes up for the lethargic pace of the rest of the movie. All in all, though, it felt underdone and confused. Charitably, $0.75.

Here Comes Trouble, 1948, b&w. Fred Guiol (dir.), William Tracy, Joe Sawyer, Emory Parnell, Betty Compson, Joan Woodbury, Beverly Lloyd. 0:55 [0:50]

“Filmed in Cinecolor”—but this print’s in black and white, unfortunately. It’s pretty good slapstick in the service of a reasonable plot. We have a crusading newspaper publisher/editor whose police reporters keep getting beaten up and quitting and whose daughter’s in love with a returning serviceman who was a copyboy at the paper. The father isn’t wild about the copyboy marrying his daughter…and figures that promoting him to police reporter might kill two birds with one stone.

That’s the setup. Add a service buddy of the son who’s just joined the police force (and in his case “police farce” might be better), the fact that the criminal mastermind is also the comptroller of the newspaper, a burlesque queen…and you have a very good, almost 20-minute climactic sequence. Color would have been better, and this is a short one, so I’ll say $1.00.

Hollywood and Vine, 1945, b&w. Alexis Thurn-Taxis (dir.), James Ellison, Wanda McKay, June Clyde, Ralph Morgan, Franklin Pangborn, Leon Belasco, Emmett Lynn. 0:58.

A romantic comedy, emphasis on the comedy, with a surround story that makes no sense. It’s told in flashbacks from the office of a tycoon, and is supposed to be the story of how he got started—but there’s not a thing in the picture that suggests the guy (who started as proprietor of Pop’s Burgers) would go anywhere.

The flashback, though, is charming, and that’s 95% of the picture. It’s the old Hollywood story but with several cute twists and relies heavily on a remarkable stunt dog. Cute and well played, albeit short and with an outer plot that doesn’t lead anywhere. All things considered, including its length, I’ll give it $1.00.

Lost Honeymoon, 1947, b&w. Leigh Jason (dir.), Franchot Tone, Ann Richards, Tom Conway, Frances Rafferty, Clarence Kolb. 1:11 [1:09]

Somewhere between a B programmer and a feature, this one’s interesting—part romantic comedy, part identity confusion, with just a little slapstick thrown in. The gist: A young woman returns to the British boarding house she’d formerly stayed in, knowing that a friend of hers died, leaving two very young (twin) children, who the landlady’s taking care of. The woman also knows the friend was a GI bride in WWII—and apparently the husband’s disappeared to America, with known city but not address. She decides to assume the dead mother’s identity (modifying her passport) and take the children to America to confront the husband.

That’s the setup. Now there’s the apparent husband—a young architect, engaged to the somewhat-shrewish social-climbing boss’s daughter. He’s astonished when he gets a cable from the Red Cross informing him that his wife and children are on their way, because he’s not aware that he had a wife and children. But he did have a six-week amnesia episode during the war, a period of which he remembers nothing, so maybe…

Everything follows from that, and it’s actually pretty well done. The ending’s silly, and maybe it had to be. Not great, not bad. Some missing frames and a problematic picture at first, so I won’t give it more than $1.25.

The Animal Kingdom, 1932, b&w. Edward H. Griffith (dir.), Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy, William Gargan, Ilka Chase. 1:25.

I guess this is a comedy of manners, and that’s the only basis on which I can call it a comedy at all. The primary character is a small-press publisher, a terrible disappointment to his wealthy father who wants him to be a Proper Person. The publisher’s about to marry a socialite who his father much admires—after having spent a couple of years with an artistic woman who left (but is now returning).

I’m not sure what to say about the rest of the plot, such as it is. I found it dreary, and in fact found the movie tiresome. Myrna Loy as the socialite with a heart of dollar signs certainly makes the most of backless gowns, but I didn’t find any of the acting worth more than a yawn. I’m being very generous in giving this one $1.00.

Behave Yourself, 1951, b&w. George Beck (dir.), Farley Granger, Shelley Winters, William Demarest, Francis L. Sullivan, Margalo Gillmore, Lon Chaney Jr., Hans Conried, Elisha Cook Jr., Glenn Anders, Allen Jenkins, Sheldon Leonard, Marvin Kaplan. 1:21.

Reviewed previously: The plot: A CPA (Granger), somewhat browbeaten by his mother-in-law, realizes almost too late that it’s his 2^nd Anniversary. He goes to a store to buy his wife (a svelte and wonderfully funny Shelley Winters) a nightgown. Meanwhile, a dog (trained to go to a certain spot) has come into town as part of some odd scheme—and, somehow, breaks free and starts following the CPA, in the process demolishing enough of the store so that the CPA flees. And, when the dog keeps following him, pretends that the dog is his present for his wife.

Then an ad shows up about the lost dog, with precise physical description. The CPA wants to do the right thing…and that’s just the beginning of a wonderfully funny, fast-moving blend of caper and farce, with lots of mistaken identities, bad guys getting shot (sometimes with the CPA’s business card in hand), mother-in-law stuff, counterfeit money (that wasn’t supposed to be counterfeit), overeager cops…and one charming dog. It’s a 50′s movie: The married couple have twin beds. But never mind…

The cast is remarkable—William Demarest as a cop, Lon Chaney, Hans Conried, Elisha Cook Jr., Glenn Anders, Sheldon Leonard and Marvin Kaplan as gangsters and other criminals, Margalo Gillmore as the mother-in-law. They all do good jobs (Farley Granger, the CPA, is probably my least favorite character of the lot—he’s OK, but so many others are better). Good print, good sound. Thoroughly enjoyable. $2.00.