MOVIE MYSTERY & SUSPENSE
John Howard Reid
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Copyright (c) 2011 by John Howard Reid
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2011 by John Howard Reid. All rights reserved.
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Hollywood Classics 13
2011
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Other Books in the “Hollywood Classics” series:
1. New Light on Movie Bests
2. “B” Movies, Bad Movies, Good Movies
3. Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
4. Movie Westerns: Hollywood Films the Wild, Wild West
5. Memorable Films of the Forties
6. Popular Pictures of the Hollywood 1940s
7. Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program
8. Hollywood’s Miracles of Entertainment
9. Hollywood Gold: Films of the Forties and Fifties
10. Hollywood “B” Movies: A Treasury of Spills, Chills & Thrills
11. Movies Magnificent: 150 Must-See Cinema Classics
12. These Movies Won No Hollywood Awards
13. Movie Mystery & Suspense
14. America’s Best, Britain’s Finest
15. Films Famous, Fanciful, Frolicsome and Fantastic
16. Hollywood Movie Musicals
17. “Hollywood Classics” Index Books 1-16
18. More Movie Musicals
19. Success in the Cinema
20. Best Western Movies
21. Great Cinema Detectives
22. Great Hollywood Westerns
23. Science-Fiction & Fantasy Cinema
24. Hollywood’s Classic Comedies
25. Hollywood Classics Title Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1-24
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Additional Movie Books by John Howard Reid
CinemaScope
One: Stupendous in Scope
CinemaScope Two: 20th
Century-Fox
CinemaScope 3: Hollywood Takes the Plunge
Mystery, Suspense, Film Noir and Detective Movies on DVD: A Guide to the Best in Cinema Thrills
WESTERNS: A Guide to the Best (and Worst) Western Movies on DVD
Silent Films and Early Talkies on DVD
British Movie Entertainments on VHS and DVD
Copyright 2011 by John Howard Reid
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Table of Contents
Ace in the Hole (see Big Carnival)
At Sword’s Point (see Sons of the Musketeers)
B
Bomba and the African Treasure (1952)
Bomba and the Elephant Stampede (1951)
Bomba and the Golden Idol (1954)
Bomba and the Hidden City (1950)
Bomba and the Jungle Girl (1952)
Bomba and the Killer Leopard (1954)
Bomba and the Lion Hunters (1951)
Bomba and the Lord of the Jungle (1955)
Bomba and the Lost Volcano (1949)
Bomba and the Safari Drums (1953)
Bomba on Panther Island (1949)
Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937)
Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938)
Bulldog Drummond’s Bride (1939)
Bulldog Drummond’s Peril (1938)
Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge (1937)
Bulldog Drummond’s Secret Police (1939)
C
Captain Mephisto and the Transformation Machine (see Manhunt of Mystery Island)
Chick Carter, Detective (1946)
Claw Monsters (see Panther Girl of the Congo)
Crest of the Wave (See Seagulls over Sorrento)
D
Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939)
E
Everything Happens At Night (1939)
G
Ghosts on the Loose (see Spooks Run Wild)
Glass Bottom Boat (see Spy in Lace Panties)
Government Agents vs Phantom Legion (1951)
H
Holt of the Secret Service (1941)
House of the Seven Hawks (1959)
I
It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)
I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. (1951)
J
K
L
Land of the Lost Jewels (1950)
Lost Planet Airmen (see King of the Rocket Men)
M
Manhunt of Mystery Island (1945)
Monsters from the Moon (see Robot Monster)
O
P
Panther Girl of the Congo (1955)
Q
R
Robinson Crusoe of Clipper {Mystery} Island (1936)
S
Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
Slippery Pearls (see Stolen Jools)
T
Three in Eden (see Isle of Fury)
Three in Eden (see Isle of Fury)
U
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Dennis O’Keefe (Mark Sitko), Gale Storm (Paula Considine), Jeff Chandler (Chief McRae), Meg Randall (Dottie Jensen), Raymond Burr (Kerric), Marjorie Rambeau (Mrs Donner), Jeanette Nolan (Major Ross), Mike Mazurki (Hoppe), Will Kuluva (Little Guy DeCola), David Clarke (Harry), William Page (Scoop), Sid Tomack (Mr Humes), Perc Launders (Dowd), Steve Darrell (Brenn), Clifton Young (Eddie), Ruth Sanderson (Mrs Spence), Bert Conway (Delaney), Bruce Hamilton (Doc Tilson), Francis McDonald (Wingy), Virginia Mullen (Nurse Sully), Edwin Max (Morrie), Isabel Withers (Mrs Humes), Charles Jordan (Charlie), Frank Cady (city editor), William Tannen (taxi driver), Marcella Cisney (Nurse Kay), Sally Corner (Head Nurse Tripp), Maudie Prickett (Nurse Ferris), Jerry Hausner (orderly) Earl Smith (Sammy), Edward Clark (clerk), Mary George (Nurse Ward), Beatrice Gray (nurse), Franklin “Pinky” Parker, Dick Ryan, Stuart Wilson (plainclothes policemen), Billy Gray (boy), Howard Mitchell (judge), Felice Richmond (telephone operator).
Narrated by Jeff Chandler.
Director: JOSEPH M. NEWMAN. Screenplay: Irwin Gielgud, with additional dialogue by William Bowers; from articles by Irwin Gielgud published in the Los Angeles Mirror. Director of photography: William Daniels. Special photography: David S. Horsley. Sound: Leslie I. Carey, Joe Lapis. Music: Walter Scharf. Art directors: Bernard Herzbrun, Robert Boyle. Set decoration: Russell A. Gausman, Ruby Levitt. Costumes: Yvonne Wood. Make-up: Bud Westmore, Emil LeVigne. Hair styles: Joan St Oegger, Emmy Eckhart. Production manager: Howard Christie. Dialogue director: Jack Daniels. Assistant director: William Holland. Script supervisor: Dorothy Hughes. Film editor: Edward Curtiss. Producer: Jerry Bresler.
Copyright 8 September 1949 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. New York opening at the Criterion: 26 October 1949. U.S. release: 28 October 1949. U.K. release: 24 October 1949. Australian release: 2 March 1950. 7,050 feet. 78 minutes.
Original release title: ABANDONED WOMAN.
SYNOPSIS: A young woman, Paula Considine, comes to Los Angeles to find her missing sister. She is befriended and assisted by a newspaperman, Mark Sitko. Unfortunately, they soon discover that the sister died of an apparent suicide shortly after giving birth to a baby. All the evidence points to a baby-stealing racket. Impersonating the distraught mother, Considine infiltrates the racket in the hopes of breaking open the whole scandalous operation while rescuing her dead sister’s child. Kerric, a mobster involved with the phony adoption scheme, decides to double-cross his partners.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Okay for all.
COMMENT: This film is spoilt by the crummy and all-pervading additional dialogue supplied by William Bowers. The purpose of additional dialogue is basically to pad out scenes when the original script does not run long enough for a feature. Of course, this basic purpose should never become obvious as it does here. This tedious dialogue slows the film’s pace to such an extent that only director Joe Newman’s skilled actuality filming and William Daniels’ striking low-key photography rescue it. The principals are not much help, though the racketeers as played by Marjorie Rambeau, Will Kuluva and Mike Mazurki make some impression. There is a good climax.
OTHER VIEWS: Told in semi-documentary style, this film is an exposure of well-organised crime in which the victims are usually unmarried mothers. It is very well and excitingly presented by Joseph Newman. Gale Storm is attractive as the heroine, and Marjorie Rambeau’s essay into villainy is distinctly effective.
— Lionel Collier in Picturegoer.
Abandoned is first and foremost a sensationalized melodrama. However, there are several elements that allow Abandoned to function as a noir film, most significantly William Daniels’ photography. Daniels, who had just received the Academy Award for best black and white cinematography for Jules Dassin’s New York based Naked City, imbued Los Angeles with a sinister, almost surreal, visual malevolence.
— Film Noir.
A fast-paced film noir gem.
— The Motion Picture Guide.
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Van Heflin (Frank R. Enley), Robert Ryan (Joe Parkson), Janet Leigh (Edith Enley), Mary Astor (Pat), Phyllis Thaxter (Ann Sturges), Berry Kroeger (Johnny), Nicholas Joy (Mr Gavery), Harry Antrim (Fred Finney), Connie Gilchrist (Martha Finney), Will Wright (Pop), Tom Hanlon (radio voice), Phil Tead (clerk), Eddie Waglin, Johnny Albright (bellboys), William Phillips, Dick Simmons (veterans), Larry and Leslie Holt (Georgie Enley), Garry Owen (attendant), Fred Santley (drunk), Dick Elliott (pompous man), Irene Seidner (old woman), Ralph Peters (Tim, bartender), Douglas Carter (heavy-jowled man), Frank Scannell (bell captain), Rocco Lanzo, Rex Downing, Mickey Martin (teenage boys), Bill Cartledge (newsboy), Don Haggerty, Paul Kruger, Wesley Hopper, Jim Drum, George Backus (policemen), Nolan Leary, Barbara Billingsley (voices), Harry Tenbrook (man), Everett Glass (night clerk), Phil Dunham, William Bailey, Wilbur Mack (ad lib drunks), Howard Mitchell (bartender), Ralph Montgomery, Cameron Grant, Walter Merrill (men), Roger Moore, Mahlon Hamilton (winos), Candy Toxton (veteran’s wife), Florita Romero (girl), George Ovey, Jimmie Kelly, David Newell, Fred Datig Jr, Margaret Bert, Mary Jo Ellis, Ann Lawrence (bystanders), André Pola, Rudolph Anders, Roland Varno (German voices), Robert Skelton (cab driver).
Director: FRED ZINNEMANN. Screenplay: Robert L. Richards; from an unpublished story by Collier Young. Director of photography: Robert Surtees. Sound: Douglas Shearer. Music score: Bronislau Kaper. Conductor: André Previn. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters. Set decoration: Edwin B. Willis, Henry W. Grace. Costumes: Helen Rose. Hair styles: Sydney Guilaroff. Make-up: Jack Dawn. Assistant director: Marvin Stuart. Film editor: Conrad A. Nervig. Producer: William H. Wright.
Copyright 8 December 1948 by Loew’s Inc. An M-G-M picture. New York opening at Loew’s Criterion: 22 January 1949. U.S. release: February 1949. U.K. release: 30 May 1949. Australian release: 2 June 1949. 7,477 feet. 83 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A disabled war veteran, Joe Parkson, has traveled from the East to find a man named Frank Enley. Enley is a respected contractor and civic-minded man, but in a prison camp during the war he was responsible for the death of his men by revealing their plans for escape. Actually, Enley informed his captors of the plan believing that the plan would not succeed and his men would be spared if he interceded; but all of the men were massacred except Parkson. No one knows of the incident except Parkson and the guilt-ridden Enley; and, as Parkson begins to create terror in Enley’s mind, he first confesses to his wife and then flees into the night world of the city. Taking refuge with Pat, a woman of dubious reputation, Enley meets Johnny who offers to help by killing Parkson for money.
NOTES: Act of Violence was originally announced in 1947 as an independent production starring Howard Duff. Subsequently in 1948, Hellinger Productions-SRO Releasing announced the film was to star Gregory Peck and Humphrey Bogart.
Locations at Big Bear Lake, California.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: Despite some sterling efforts by director and photographer, it is hard to work up much interest in this psychological thriller. The characters are unconvincing — and the stars don’t help: Van Heflin goes through his usual motions (“Register shock, Van!”), Janet Leigh lays on the mousey housewife bit with a trowel, Phyllis Thaxter once again does her duty by the worried and sympathetic friend, and Robert Ryan is so hammily obvious a neurotic nut, it’s impossible to understand why he was not carted off to the psycho ward the minute he stuck his head out of doors. The supporting cast is better, with Mary Astor, Taylor Holmes and Berry Kroeger trying valiantly to give their roles depth and conviction — though they are largely defeated by the script. Still, at least they succeed in making their portrayals interesting — which is more than one can say for the star performers. The actual plot mechanics are dated and old-hat now, but the script could have succeeded — despite its unconvincing characters — had it made some efforts to preserve the dramatic unities. Here is a yarn that is a natural for a ten or twelve-hour time span and for confinement to the environs of a particular locale. Instead, the story meanders all over the place, introducing superfluous characters at every turn and having no sense of urgency. And then it tacks on a ridiculous, melodramatic climax that conveniently avoids having to deal with the moral or social issues raised!
OTHER VIEWS: In Act of Violence, director Fred Zinnemann has arrestingly blended the varying styles of the semi-documentary and the psychological thriller. The bizarre prologue with its startling introduction of the limping man motif, is a masterful amalgam of outré Wilder (see the credits for Double Indemnity) and Fritz Lang. What greater contrast could possibly be offered to this than the scene with which the film proper commences? The setting is a small town in California, two years after the war. A young engineer, ex-G.I. Captain Van Heflin, is discovered with his wife, Janet Leigh, at the opening ceremony of a block of houses for which he has been mainly responsible. Notice how economically Zinnemann captures the atmosphere, the feeling of small town mores; how he has profited by his mistake on The Search by drawing upon the creative talents of his art director (Cedric Gibbons), his photographer (Robert L. Surtees, who later worked with him on Oklahoma), and his composer (Bronislau Kaper). The work of the costume department is especially noteworthy: Heflin, bare-headed, wearing an alpaca suit, Miss Leigh in a cloche hat and a drab suit with a wide collar, an official with a boater and a striped shirt, an elderly woman in a flowered print. One has the feeling that one really is in a small town, not on the sound stage of a Hollywood studio. That night, Miss Leigh is awakened by the sound of limping foot-falls prowling around the house. Heflin tells her that the stranger is Joe Parkson, who bears a grudge since they were in prison camp together. Parkson turns out to be Robert Ryan, who, despite the pleas of his fiancée, Phyllis Thaxter, persists in his vendetta against Heflin who had betrayed an escaped plot to the Nazi commandant. Heflin flees to an industrial convention, where he becomes involved with a prostitute (a wonderfully natural performance by Mary Astor) and a vicious thug (Berry Kroeger) who arranges to murder Ryan at a lonely railway station. Here the folly of both empty vengeance and moral cowardice is played out in a tragic climax.
The bizarre elements of the film are the more effective for being contrasted with the ordinary domesticity of Heflin’s home, and the melodrama of the screenplay Robert L. Richards (who was later to collaborate on Winchester ‘73) worked up from a story by Collier Young, has been brilliantly channeled into a sensitive exposition of human conflict.
— John Howard Reid writing as George Addison in Films and Filming.
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Henry Fonda (Robert Leffingwell), Charles Laughton (Senator Seabright Cooley), Don Murray (Senator Brigham Anderson), Walter Pidgeon (Senator Bob Munson), Peter Lawford (Senator Lafe Smith), Gene Tierney (Dolly Harrison), Franchot Tone (the President), Lew Ayres (the Vice-President), Burgess Meredith (Herbert Gelman), Eddie Hodges (Johnny Leffingwell), Paul Ford (Senator Stanley Danta), George Grizzard (Senator Fred Van Ackerman), Inga Swenson (Ellen Anderson), Paul McGrath (Hardiman Fletcher), Will Greer (Senate Minority Leader), Edward Andrews (Senator Orrin Knox), Betty White (Senator Bessie Adams), Malcolm Atterbury (Senator Tom August), J. Edward McKinley (Senator Powell Hanson), William Quinn (Senator Paul Hendershot), Tiki Santos (Senator Kanaho), Raoul De Leon (Senator Velez), Tom Helmore (British ambassador), Hilary Eaves (Lady Maudulayne), René Paul (French ambassador), Michele Montau (Celestine Barre), Raj Mallick (Indian ambassador), Russ Brown (night watchman), Paul Stevens (Louis Newborn), Janet Jane Carty (Pidge Anderson), Chet Stratton (Reverend Carney Birch), Larry Tucker (Manuel), Johnn Granger (Ray Shaff), Sid Gould (bartender), Bettie Johnson (Lafe’s girl), Cay Forester (President’s secretary), William H.Y. Knighton Jr (president of White House Correspondents’ Association), Honorable Henry Fountain Ashurst (Senator McCafferty), Honorable Guy M. Gillette (Senator Harper), Irv. Kupcinet, Robert C. Wilson, Alan Emory, Bruce Zortmann, Jessie Stearns Buscher, Milton Berliner, Allen W. Cromley, Wayne Tucker (journalists), Al McGranary, Joe Baird, Harry Denny, Leon Alton, George Denormand, Ed Haskett, Virgil Johannsen, Paul Power, Maxwell Reed, Mario Cimino, Edwin K. Baker, Clive L. Halliday, Roger Clark, Robert Malcolm, Dick Ryan, Gene Mathews, Leoda Richards, Bernard Sell, Brandon Beach, Hal Taggart (senators), Meyer Davis and His Orchestra.
Produced and directed by OTTO PREMINGER from a screenplay by Wendell Mayes, based on the 1959 novel by Allen Drury. Photographed by Sam Leavitt. Music: Jerry Fielding. Title song lyrics by Ned Washington. Art director: Lyle R. Wheeler. Set decorations: Eli Benneche. Film editor: Louis R. Loeffler. Titles designed by Saul Bass. Costume co-ordinator Hope Bryce. Miss Tierney’s clothes designed by Bill Blass. Make-up: Del Armstrong and Robert Jiras. Hair styles: Myrl Stoltz. Sound effects: Leon Birnbaum. Assistant to the producer: Max Slater. Production manager: Jack McEdward. Technical advisor: Allen Drury. First assistant director: L.V. McCardle Jr. Costumes: Joe King, Adele Parmenter, Michael Harte. Title tune sung by Frank Sinatra. Sound recording: Harold Lewis and William Hamilton. Photographed in Panavision. Location scenes filmed in Washington D.C. An Alpha-Alpina Production, released by Columbia.
Additional credits: Camera operators: Saul Midwall, Emil Oster Jr. Music editor: Lee Osborne. Music recording: Murray Spivack. Sound effects editor: Leon Birnbaum. Script supervisor: Kathleen Fagan. Unit manager: Henry Weinberger. Production assistant: David de Silva. Production secretary: Florence Nerlinger. Assistants to the assistant director: Don Kranze, Larry Powell and Charles Bohart. Still photographs: Al St Hilaire, Josh Weiner. Construction manager: Bud Pine. Key grip: Morris Rosen. Property master: Meyer Gordon. Supervising electrician: James Almond. Westrex Sound System. An Otto Preminger Film.
Copyright 1 June 1962 by Alpha-Alpina Productions. Presented by Otto Preminger. Released through Columbia Pictures. New York opening simultaneously at the Criterion and Sutton Theatres: 6 June 1962. U.S. release: 6 June 1962. U.K. release: 14 October 1962. Australian release: 9 November 1962. Sydney opening at the State. Running times: 140 minutes (U.S.A.), 138 minutes (U.K.), 134 minutes (Australia).
SYNOPSIS: When the seriously ill President of the United States asks the Senate to “advise and consent” to the appointment of Robert Leffingwell, a highly controversial figure, as the new Secretary of State, official Washington is thrown into a turmoil. The President’s chief support comes from Bob Munson, the Senate Majority leader, while the principal opposition is raised by Seab Cooley, a Southern Senator who uses the testimony of a mentally unbalanced clerk, Herbert Gelman, to brand Leffingwell as an ex-Communist. Although Leffingwell confesses the truth of the accusation to the President, it is dismissed as a youthful indiscretion, and Leffingwell denies the accusation while testifying under oath before the Senate subcommittee. The committee chairman, Brigham Anderson, learns of the perjury and demands Leffingwell’s nomination be withdrawn. When the President refuses, Anderson decides that for the good of the country he must make the truth public. Before he can do so, however, he is threatened with blackmail by Fred Van Ackerman, an overly-ambitious Senator who warns Anderson that if he fails to approve the nomination his own youthful indiscretion, a wartime homosexual experience in Hawaii, will be exposed.
NOTES: Allen Drury’s Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller (over 2 million copies) was also adapted for the stage. It opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre on 17 November 1960. Loring Mandel did the script, Franklin Schaffner directed and Robert Fryer and Lawrence Carr produced. Chester Morris was Bob Munson, Richard Kiley was Brigham Anderson, Henry Jones was Seab Cooley, Kevin McCarthy was Van Ackerman, Ed Begley was Orrin Knox, Judson Laire was the President, Tom Shirley was the Vice President, and Staats Cotsworth played the Leffingwell role (in the play the character was called William A. Huntington). The play closed after a successful run of 212 performances.
A top box-office success in the U.S.A., the movie failed dismally in other countries.
Number seven on the New York Daily News list of the Ten Best Pictures of the year.
Burgess Meredith, Best Supporting Actor, — National Board of Review.
Charles Laughton was out-voted by Terence Stamp (Billy Budd) and Mickey Rooney (Requiem for a Heavyweight) for Best Supporting Actor in The Film Daily’s annual survey of American film critics.
Gene Tierney’s first film since The Left Hand of God in 1955.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: One of Preminger’s most spectacular box-office flops in England and Australia is still a quite interesting film. The early scenes showing the machinery of the election of the U.S. Secretary of State are carried out in expert dialogue and confirm the director’s skill in showing contemporary America. Note the filibuster by Walter Pidgeon spoken over Ayres clearing a point of order and Paul Ford trying to have a motion withdrawn. However, when the Don Murray sub-plot takes over, there are many errors of emphasis and the sunny ending negates the outspokenness of what has gone before — corrupt senators, personal grudges and a president ready to suppress the truth, included. Laughton remains magnificent but Pidgeon runs him close for acting honors.
— Barrie Pattison.
OTHER VIEWS: Part of the appeal of Allen Drury’s best-selling, Pulitzer prizewinning novel was that it was a tantalizing Who’s Who of Washington, a hint-and-run foray among the political movers and shapers of the 40’s and early 50’s. In Otto Preminger’s film, the identity tags are so blurred as to be almost unintelligible. Preminger has selected elements of the original and has re-arranged them, altering the highlights and shadows. The President is less of an immoral pragmatist; the secretarial nominee, although he still tells his lie, is more sympathetic; the homosexual blackmail is more extensively articulated; Drury’s anti-intellectual, anti-liberal bias is watered down.
All the scenes in public buildings were shot on location, except those in the Senate chamber and in the President’s office. These scenes, plus multitudinous details of authenticity, give the film a realistic background that jars somewhat with the ceaseless Renaissance plotting and counter-plotting in the foreground. The risk in dramatizing any profession is in making that profession seem continually dramatic. Here one might infer that a senator is more private eye than public official.
Acting is the film’s strong point. Walter Pidgeon is the best I have seen him — that is, he is entirely credible, which he has never been before. Henry Fonda and Don Murray are their accustomed selves. Franchot Tone is convincing and Burgess Meredith is poignantly restrained as a neurotic witness. Gene Tierney is back on the screen, deserving a welcome with her portrayal of a Washington hostess. George Grizzard is particularly strong as the McCarthy-type villain. Bosley Crowther criticized Tone’s performance as “tasteless” because he portrayed the President as “a sick, testy man of peculiar principles, tolerant of cheap conniving and the telling of lies under oath.” I think this displays an astonishing political naivety. To me, while Tone is not building a recognizable portrait in whole or in part of any actual President, he does build a recognizable portrait of a man. In his last role before his death, Charles Laughton gives one of his most memorable portrayals. In the words of Time’s reviewer, “A jowly, jiggling panorama of obesity, Laughton’s Seab Cooley drips rhetoric like a honeyed asp.”
Advise and Consent is a story of Washington politics centering about the bitter conflicts set in motion when the President of the United States asks the Senate to confirm his controversial choice of Secretary of State. Superbly equipped to advise on the intricies of national politics and the intrigues in the Senate, since he covered the Senate and the national scene in all its aspects for over 15 years, Drury acted as Mr Preminger’s technical adviser.
Places where cameras turned on Capitol Hill include the historic reception room just off the Upper House chamber, the Senate sub-way and the Rotunda, the vast circular hall directly below the Capitol Dome. Scenes were filmed in the Old Senate Building’s large caucus room in which were held the dramatic McCarthy, Kefauver and McClellan hearings. Other location sites in Advise and Consent were the New Senate Office Building’s cafeteria and the Treasury Building. Exterior sequences took in the Washington Monument, the Mall, Washington Air Terminal, the Capitol Building and grounds and the Potomac River.
A major sequence — a glittering Washington party — was photographed at “Tregaron”, the estate of the late Joseph Davies, one-time Ambassador to Russia.
— Columbia Publicity.
Advise and Consent, which I made in 1961 after I finished Exodus, had a cast of wonderful performers: Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Burgess Meredith, Lew Ayres, a quiet man who hadn’t been in a film for a long time, Franchot Tone who also had been out of films for more than a decade, Peter Lawford, Walter Pidgeon, a newcomer George Gizzard, who was just beginning his successful career, and Gene Tierney, making a comeback attempt after her serious mental breakdown.
The novel had a complicated plot about some unpleasant wheelings and dealings in Washington. It wasn’t critical of the American political system but of the men who hold high office and abuse it. It was both prophetic and understated, as Watergate demonstrated almost twelve years later.
Nevertheless, at the time it was considered in some quarters practically an act of treason. There were complaints that making a film about misbehaving politicians constituted a sinister attempt to overthrow the government.
I was convinced that just the opposite was true. The fact that we could make the picture in Washington with the co-operation of the government, even shooting some scenes in Congress itself, proved that our system was sound and strong. This country’s tolerance of free expression is its greatest asset. I believed that the picture would show the world that liberty isn’t an empty word in America.
Years later, there was a retrospective of my films in Paris and I met with some students from the Sorbonne. They were obsessed with the fact that the film had been made in Washington with the government’s knowledge and participation. Their reaction made me proud of my American citizenship all over again.
I remember the cast of that film appreciatively, mainly because it introduced me to Charles Laughton, who became a close friend. A highlight of the shooting, however, was provided by Burgess Meredith. He gave one of the greatest performances I have ever seen in the short but important role of Herbert Gelman, a witness who lies. I didn’t direct him, he did it all himself.
— Otto Preminger.
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Myrna Loy (Nora Charles), William Powell (Nick Charles), James Stewart (David Graham), Joseph Calleia (Dancer), Elissa Landi (Selma Landis), Jessie Ralph (Aunt Katherine Forest), Alan Marshal (Robert Landis), Sam Levene (Lieutenant Abrams), Penny Singleton (Polly Byrnes), Dorothy Vaughn (Charlotte), Maude Turner Gordon (Helen), Teddy Hart (Floyd Casper), William Law (Lum Kee), William Burress (General), Thomas Pogue (William), George Zucco (Dr Adolph Kammer), Tom Ricketts (Henry, the butler), Paul Fix (Phil Byrnes), Joe Caits (Joe), Joe Phillips (Willie), Edith Kingdon (Hattie), John T. Murray (Jerry), John Kelly (Harold), Clarence Kolb (Lucius), Zeffie Tilbury (Lucy), Donald Briggs, Fredric Santley, Jack Norton (reporters), Baldwin Cooke, Sherry Hall, Jack E. Raymond (photographers), Ed Dearing (Bill, the San Francisco policeman), Dick Rush (San Francisco detective), Monte Vandergrift, Eddie Allen, Jimmy Lucas (men), Heinie Conklin (trainman), Mary Gordon (Rose, the cook), Ben Hall (butcher boy), George H. Reed (porter), John Butler (racetrack tout), Vince Barnett (wrestler’s manager), Ethel Jackson (girl with fireman), Arthur Housman (man rehearsing welcome speech), Jack Daley (bartender), Bert Scott (man at piano), George Guhl (San Francisco police captain), Norman Willis (fireman), Edith Craig (girl with fireman), Kewpie Martin (boy friend of girl standing on hands), Bert Lindley (station agent), James Blaine (San Francisco policeman), Guy Usher (chief of detectives), Bob Murphy (arresting detective), Harry Tyler (fingers), Bobby Watson (leader of late crowd), Eric Wilton (Peter, the butler), Henry Roquemore (actor’s agent), Constantine Romanoff (wrestler), Sam McDaniel (Pullman porter), Ernie Alexander (filing clerk in morgue), Louis Natheaux (racetrack tout), Jonathan Hale (night city editor), Jennie Roberts (girl who works with Jerry), Charlie Arnt (drunk), Harvey Parry (man who stands on hands), Jesse Graves (red cap), Alice H. Smith (Emily), Richard Powell (surprised policeman), Cecil Elliott, Phyllis Coghlan (servants), Frank Otto (taxi driver), Jack Adair (escort of dizzy blonde), Irene Coleman, Claire Rochelle, Jean Barry, Jane Tallant (chorus girls), Sue Moore (sexy blonde), Edith Trivers (hat check girl), George Taylor (Eddie), Lee Phelps (flop house proprietor), Chester Gan (Chinese waiter), Richard Loo (Chinese headwaiter), Lew Harvey, Jimmy Brewster (thugs), Harlan Briggs (Burton Forrest), Billy Benedict (newsboy), Murray Alper (kid), Charles Trowbridge (police examiner), Eadie Adams (girl), “Asta” and “Mrs Asta”.
Director: W.S. VAN DYKE. Screenplay: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett. Based on the 1934 novel The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. Photographed in black-and-white by Oliver T. Marsh. Film editor: Robert J. Kern. Music score composed by Herbert Stothart and Edward Ward. Songs: “Blow That Horn” (Singleton) by Nacio Herb Brown (music) and Arthur Freed (lyrics); “Smoke Dreams” (Singleton) by Walter Donaldson, Chet Forrest, Bob Wright. Dances staged by Seymour Felix. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons, Harry McAfee. Set decorator: Edwin B. Willis. Costumes designed by Dolly Tree. Sound recording: Douglas Shearer. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Hunt Stromberg.
Copyright 21 December 1936 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. New York opening at the Capitol: 24 December 1936. 110 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: No sooner do Nick and Nora Charles return to their San Francisco home from New York than they are confronted by family problems. Selma Landis, Nora’s cousin, pleads with Nick to help find her husband, Robert Landis, who has been missing for three days. Nick locates him in a Chinese cafe, and learns from the intoxicated man that he has been having an affair with cafe singer Polly Byrnes. David Graham, Polly’s former sweetheart, gives Robert $25,000 in bonds to go away and leave Selma alone. Robert accepts the funds and prepares to leave town when he is shot. Selma, who had been following Robert and planning herself to shoot him, is unaware that Robert was being trailed by several others, including David and the cafe owner, Dancer, the latter having planned to blackmail Robert with the help of Polly. David takes Selma’s gun, instructing her not to speak with anyone, and then throws the gun into the river. Selma is later held on suspicion for the murder. In the course of the investigation, three other people are killed. Nick finally solves the case. The case concluded, Nick and Nora leave for New York, with Selma as their guest. Nick is overjoyed when Nora informs him she is going to have a baby.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Borderline.
COMMENT: If the fourth estate and popcorn munchers alike were skeptical whether the sequel could measure up to the original Thin Man (1934), the new entry was engineered to put all viewers at ease by creating an ambiance that made them feel they were merely watching a continuation of the original. There were the same delightful co-stars. William Powell, Myrna Loy, and “Asta” the dog, the same producer, director, author, and screenwriters. The result for the most part proved to be a “brisk-paced and intriguing mixture of violence and brash fooling . . . it recaptures a great deal of its notable prototype’s bright, insouciant quality” [Howard Barnes (New York Herald-Tribune)].
Kate Cameron in her three-and-one-half-stars New York Daily News review expressed the wish that this detective series “might go on indefinitely” because Powell and Loy were “the most amusing couple on the screen.” The Times (London) expressed the thought that the star team “. . . play into each other’s hand with the full confidence of two expert bridge players who have perfected a system of their own, and it is the gaiety, the proper but never exaggerated sophistication, the charm and the irresponsibility, within limits, they bring to their lives which more than justify this sequel.” The Newark Evening Journal quickly summed the value of Powell and Loy to the Metro production, “If After the Thin Man does nothing else, it proves that the reason all the Thin Man imitations failed to come off was because none of the imitators were William Powell and Myrna Loy.”
A perfect illustration of the Powell-Loy screen chemistry occurs appropriately at the finale of After the Thin Man. Abroad the San Francisco-to-New York express train, Powell comes upon Loy in their drawing room compartment knitting a baby garment of all things. He registers astonishment. She absorbs his surprise with a knowing look and then casually flips out with, “And you call yourself a detective.”
— Great Love Teams by James Robert Parish.
OTHER VIEWS: All of us are a bit too hard on sequels. All of us. Critics, fans, general moviegoers, we all tend to judge the sequel by the standard of the original movie. Thus the thumbs down to Son of Kong, Belle Starr’s Daughter and The Return of a Man Called Horse. Yes, it’s certainly true that studios often skimp on production values when they have a ready market for a sequel. It’s equally true that the script is often hastily written and the film directed by a man whose emphasis is on celerity rather than meticulous craftsmanship. But many of these scruples do not apply to After the Thin Man. Here we have the same leads, the same director, same writers, same producer, even the same film editor. Mr Powell is the same sharp, inebriated, self-indulgent Charles, and Miss Loy continues to be gorgeously gowned by Dolly Tree. Only the supporting cast has changed. Instead of Nat Pendleton’s reasonably intelligent, co-operative police lieutenant, we now have Sam Levene’s more aggressive yet equally co-operative police lieutenant. Instead of Maureen O’Sullivan’s pleadingly lovely damsel-in-distress, substitute Elissa Landi’s slightly more hysterical yet equally attractive damsel-in-distress. Instead of a missing father, make it a missing husband. Instead of a more mature low-life friend for dad, introduce a more hoydenish bit of low-life for hubbie. Instead of a bookish brother for the heroine, conjure up a more sensitive, more helpful ex-lover. Don’t forget the matriarch and the blackmailer, they’re virtually the same. Mix them all together and round them all up for a final confrontation and there you have After the Thin Man. Never was there a truer title!
Yes, same plot, same characters — but less action and more songs — why are we complaining that the sequel isn’t as bright, as witty, as agreeable as the original?
I like it as much anyway. Maybe it’s a bit too talky — and loudmouthed Sam Levene does get on our nerves a bit — but it does have at least three incomparable advantages: — James Stewart, Penny Singleton and Jessie Ralph.
To catch Jimmy Stewart in an unsympathetic role — I believe this is the only time he ever played a heel in his entire screen career — is reason enough to see After the Thin Man. But he does the part really well. In fact, it’s a performance that actually improves the more you watch it, full of subtleties that you miss on a first viewing: little bits of business, fleeting facial expressions, body movements and gestures that give more than a clue to the character’s real persona behind the oh-so-friendly and politely diffident mask.
In another turn-up for the books, Penny Singleton here essays a characterization as far removed from Blondie as Peter Ibbetson from Count Dracula. She’s not only totally convincing, bogus accent and all, she doesn’t even look like Mrs Bumstead. And she has a couple of songs as well. What a wonderful bonus!
For matriachal roles, you simply can’t go past Jessie Ralph. She’s the queen. Minna Gombell, by comparison, can rise no higher than upstairs maid.
To these three reasons for catching After the Thin Man, add Bill Powell, Myrna Loy and a marvelous support cast. If Van Dyke’s direction isn’t quite as stylish, and if you tend to agree with some reviewers that too much time is wasted on the dogs, surely this rich assembly of favorite players more than compensates?
— J.H.R.
A big box-office success in the U.S.A., but, oddly, the movie failed to achieve the same spectacular results in England or Australia, although it did take good money in all situations. This was the second in what turned out to be a six-picture series. Whilst it is not as zestful as the first and the script is obviously merely a variation on the original Thin Man novel (not based on a new “original story” by Hammett as the credits imply), it has been produced on the same grand scale, with a cast list as long as your arm, including more interesting lead players than the Natalie Moorheads and Minna Gombells of the 1934 film. Powell, as usual, is an absolute delight.
— George Addison.
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Albert Dekker (John Raden/Paul Raden), Susan Hayward (Millie Pickens), Harry Carey (Dr Ben Saunders), Frances Farmer (Elaine Raden), Gordon Jones (Bill Oakley), Jean Phillips (Peggy Nolan), Ernest Whitman (Pompey), Maude Eburne (Mrs Pickens), Frank M. Thomas (sheriff), Harlan Briggs (judge), Archie Twitchell (Tom Reilly), Dorothy Sebastian (woman in café), William Stack (minister), Kit Guard (worker), Ella Neil, Catherine Craig (mill girls), George Tenbrook, Harry Truner (mill workers), Patti Lacey, Roy Lester, Jane Allen, Ray Hirsch (jitterbug dancers), Delmar Watson (newsboy), Eddy Chandler (motorcycle cop), Richard Webb (hotel clerk), Mimi Doyle (telephone operator), John Kellogg (reporter), Blanche Payson (woman at trial), Ethan Laidlaw, Charles Hamilton (guards), Frank S. Hagney, Lane Chandler (neighbors), Lee Shumway (scissors grinder), Clarence Muse (waiter in Riverbottom Café), Len Hendry (drugstore clerk), Rod Cameron, Keith Richards (men), Besse Wade, Abe Dinovitch, Chris Frank, Jack Curtis (bits).
Director: STUART HEISLER. Screenplay: Garrett Fort, Lester Cole. Original story: Lester Cole, Brian Marlow. Photography: Theodor Sparkuhl. Film editor: Everett Douglass. Art directors: Hans Dreier and Haldane Douglas. Set decorator: A.E. Freudeman. Costumes designed by Edith Head. Process photography: Farciot Edouart. Music score: Gerard Carbonara. Make-up: Wally Westmore. Assistant director: Arthur Black. Sound recording: Hugo Grenzbach, Gene Garvin. Western Electric Sound Recording. Associate producer: Colbert Clark. Producer: Sol C. Siegel.
Copyright 28 August 1941 by Paramount Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Rialto: 12 December 1941 (ran nine days). U.S. release: 19 December 1941. U.K. release: 18 May 1942. Australian release: 14 May 1942. 8 reels. 6,222 feet. 69 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: John Raden, with his wife, Elaine, returns to his hometown for his father’s funeral. John is reputedly the sole survivor of a once proud and prosperous Southern family; but the family physician, Dr Saunders, informs him that his identical twin brother, Paul, thought to have died as a child, is alive. Paul is hopelessly insane and lives in the abandoned family mansion, cared for by a faithful servant, Pompey. The insanity is a result of abuse by his father and Paul has never matured. He has fits in which he hears his dead mother cry out and holds his ears attempting to block out her screams. To conceal the family scandal, the doctor falsified Paul’s death and received the money to build a badly needed town medical center. Saunders and John decide to visit Paul at the mansion, but they find that old Pompey has been killed and his hands placed carefully over his ears. Realizing Paul is responsible, the doctor believes Paul can be found and institutionalized, convincing John to cover up Pompey’s death. But a woman’s body is found in an alley with her hands placed over her ears, and a reward is offered for her killer. John wishes to tell the truth to the police, but Doc Saunders threatens to accuse him of insanity.
NOTES: In his fifth film as a director (if you count his small but important contributions to the climax of John Ford’s The Hurricane), Stuart Heisler reveals himself as a master of atmosphere, mob scenes and other chilling effects.
An equally interesting credit is the presence of Garrett Fort as co-screenwriter. Other Fort films include Mamoulian’s Applause (1929), Browning’s Dracula, Whale’s Frankenstein and Carewe’s Resurrection (all 1931), Whale’s The Invisible Man (1932), Ford’s The Lost Patrol (1934), Browning’s The Devil Doll and Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter (both 1936), and Mamoulian’s The Mark of Zorro (1940).
COMMENT: A classic what-she-didn’t-know-was, this compelling film noir, evocatively photographed and for the most part grittily played, must be one of the most stylishly imaginative “B”-movies to emerge from a major studio.
OTHER VIEWS: Among The Living was released in the fall of 1941, about the same time as The Maltese Falcon, and these films stand at the beginning of the film noir period, before many of the conventions of this type of film had been established. It is not surprising then that Among the Living wavers between the noir tradition and Southern Gothic, a literary tradition made quite respectable by writers like Poe and Faulkner and which can be seen sporadically in several postwar Hollywood films such as Dark Waters, Night Of The Hunter, and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. What makes Among The Living more than a curio, however, is the near brilliant photography of Theodor Sparkuhl, who worked on a number of classic German films in the 1920s and was Renoir’s photographer for La Chienne. Sparkhul’s work is one indication of the American noir film’s debt to German Expressionism and French poetic realism.
— Bob Porfirio in Film Noir.
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Robert Mitchum (Frank Jessup), Jean Simmons (Diane Tremayne), Mona Freeman (Mary), Herbert Marshall (Mr Tremayne), Leon Ames (Fred Barrett), Barbara O’Neil (Mrs Tremayne), Kenneth Tobey (Bill), Raymond Greenleaf (Arthur Vance), Griff Barnett (judge), Robert Gist (Miller), Morgan Farley (juror), Jim Backus (Judson), Morgan Brown (Harry), Frank Kumagai (Satsuma), Lucille Barkley (waitress), Herbert Lytton (doctor), Lewis Martin (police sergeant), Max Takasugi (Chiyo), Alex Gerry (Frank’s attorney), Bess Flowers (Barrett’s secretary), Buck Young, Roy D’Armour (assistant district attorneys), Mike Lally, Bob Peoples, Clark Curtiss (reporters), Frank O’Connor (bailiff), Bob Haines (court reporters), Jeffrey Sayre (court clerk), Gertrude Astor (matron), Brick Sullivan (deputy sheriff), Grandon Rhodes (prison chaplain), Cora Shannon, Charlotte Portney, Mary Martin, Doreen Tryden (patients), Theresa Harris (nurse), Jack Ellis (jury foreman), Marvin Jones (policeman), Charmienne Harker (secretary), Larry Blake (Brady), Pete Kellett, Jim Hope (detectives), George Sherwood, Jack Chefe, Sam Shack, Carl Sklover (men), Mary Jane Carey (woman), Ralph Volkie (good humor man), Peggy Walker (TV girl), Charles Tannen (TV broadcaster).
Director: OTTO PREMINGER. Screenplay: Frank Nugent and Oscar Millard; from an unpublished story by Chester Erskine. Director of photography: Harry Stradling. Sound: Earl Wolcott, Clem Portman. Music score and conductor: Dmitri Tiomkin. Music director: Constantin Bakaleinikoff. Art directors: Albert S. D’Agostino, Carroll Clark. Set decoration: Darrell Silvera, Jack Mills. Costumes: Michael Woulfe. Make-up: Mel Berns. Hair styles: Larry Germaine. Film editor: Frederic Knudtson. Assistant director: Fred A. Fleck. RCA Sound System. Producer: Otto Preminger. Executive producer: Howard Hughes.
Copyright 31 December 1952 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. release dates: 11 February 1953 (U.S.A.); 19 January 1953 (U.K.); 10 September 1953 (Australia). New York opening at the Mayfair: 24 April 1953. 8,234 feet. 91 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is called to a hillside estate and saves the life of Mrs Tremayne, who was almost asphyxiated by gas in her bedroom. When Frank tells Diane Tremayne that her stepmother has survived, Diane becomes hysterical. Despite this, he is attracted to Diane. She in turn, encourages her father to hire Frank as the family chauffeur. Frank suspects that Diane now desires to murder her stepmother by contriving a car accident.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: This glossy magazine story, with one of those ironic endings you can see coming a thousand feet off, gives the director plenty of scope to photograph Jean Simmons in loving close-up and to use some of the long takes and fluid camera movements that characterize his technical style. In fact, the craftsmanship throughout is crisp black-and-white at its most professional. The leads are excellent. The art direction and music score convey an atmosphere of tasteful luxury that is well in keeping with the escapist nature of the story, though the psychological thriller side is less well served by the slow pace.
OTHER VIEWS: I had just finished The Thirteenth Letter and was reading stories for my next Fox assignment when Zanuck summoned me to his office. He told me that Howard Hughes, who owned the RKO Studio at the time, wanted me to make a film for him. Zanuck had already agreed to lend him my services. He handed me a script entitled “Murder Story.” I read it and found it very bad. The next day I returned to Zanuck and told him that I would have no part of it. Zanuck pleaded with me. He was indebted to Hughes for many favors financially and otherwise and wanted to show his gratitude by making him a friendly gift of me. But I remained firm.
That night, about three in the morning, my telephone rang: Hughes wanted to see me. He picked me up half an hour later in a battered old Chevrolet so noisy that you had to speak very loud to be heard. That suited Hughes, who was hard of hearing but didn’t want to admit it.
He drove me around the deserted streets for hours. He explained that he wanted Jean Simmons, who was under contract to him, to play the lead. However, her contract was to expire within three months. During those three months she was committed to only eighteen shooting days. As we kept on driving, he confessed that he had had a violent quarrel with her. In a fit of anger she had grabbed a pair of scissors and cut her hair to the roots, being well aware that he despised short hair on women.
Now he wanted to squeeze one more film out of her before she left RKO. “I’m going to get even with that little bitch,” he said, “and you must help me. I went to Darryl for advice and he recommended you. He said you are the only director I could rely on to complete her role in eighteen shooting days. Look, you walk into the studio tomorrow morning like Hitler. It’s yours. You hire any writer you want to, any number of writers to re-write the script, as long as they are not Commies. Nobody will interfere with you and that includes me. All I want to see is a test of the lady wearing a wig of long beautiful black hair.” I finally accepted. He was a persuasive man.
I changed the title to Angel Face. Frank Nugent and Oscar Millard worked with me on the new script. Miss Simmons was most co-operative. I enjoyed working with her.
I wanted Harry Stradling to be the cameraman on the picture. He was fast, and particularly good at photographing women. He was under contract to Goldwyn, who was willing to lend him to us. But Stradling balked. He had just finished a picture and was tired. He needed a rest and financially it did not mean anything because under his contract with Goldwyn he was paid by the week, regardless of whether he worked or not.
“What would you like?” I asked him. He thought for a moment, then he said, “For a long time I have been planning a trip to Europe with my wife. If you can get us two tickets on TWA from Hughes, I will do the film with enthusiasm.” Hughes owned TWA at the time. I tried to telephone Hughes all through the day and the following night. In vain. So I took the chance and promised Stradling the tickets. If Hughes said no, I could buy them and charge them to the budget as part of Stradling’s pay. However, when I finally reached Hughes there was no problem. “Give him the airline,” he told me.
— Otto Preminger.
Robert Mitchum rounded out the year in Angel Face which marked his first work with director Otto Preminger. Based on the Beulah Overell murder case in California in 1947, in which Miss Overell and her boyfriend, Bud Gollum, were acquitted of the murder of the woman’s parents, the melodramatic film had Robert as the chauffeur of a half-mad heiress (Jean Simmons) who is planning to murder her step-mother (Barbara O’Neil). The title seems to refer to a fluffy love story, but it actually refers to Miss Simmons as the ruthless girl who brings death to those who love her.
— James Robert Parish.
A smattering of favorable reviews turned up. Newsweek called it “a good, unwholesome picture, and, as directed by Otto Preminger, moves at an alarming pace [with] a thoroughly consistent and shocking ending. It is a good thriller.” And Variety found it “a fair suspense melodrama.... Mitchum and Jean Simmons make a good team.” Less enthusiastic was Manny Farber, critic for The Nation, who wrote: “Unlike many of Howard Hughes’ hard-working murder films, this one is too often verbal instead of visual, with a lot of time spent in a dimly-lit boudoir where Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons mutter forlornly and wear dressing gowns.” Assessing the film for The New York Times, Howard Thompson called it “an exasperating blend of genuine talent, occasional perceptiveness and turgid psychological claptrap that enhances neither RKO, which should know better, nor the participants . . . Mr Mitchum’s laconic utterances may or may not be perfectly in keeping with the chain of events . . . and why the film itself commits hari-kiri only the Sphinx knows.”
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Alice Faye (Emmy Jordan), Warner Baxter (Hank Topping), Charles Winninger (Sam Cady), Arthur Treacher (Upton Ward), Keye Luke (Ling), Willie Fung (Yen), Doris Lloyd (Mrs Ward), Eily Malyon (Mrs Little), Joan Carol (Winifred), Leonid Snegoff (Russian consul), Jonathan Hale (assistant secretary of state), Moroni Olsen (editor), Philip Ahn (Colonel Wai Kang), Shirley Louie (Chinese girl), Eddie Lee (Wah), Edward Earle (under-secretary), Paul McVey (copy reader), Victor Wong (2nd bandit), Chester Gan (1st bandit), Richard Loo (colonel), Philson Ahn (trainman), Harry Hayden (telegraph editor).
Narrated by Charles Tannen.
Director: GREGORY RATOFF. Story and screenplay: Granville Walker. Photography: Karl Freund. Film editor: Jack Dennis. Art directors: Bernard Herzbrun, Haldane Douglas. Set decorations: Thomas Little. Costumes: Royer. Music: David Buttolph. Sound recording: George Leverett, Roger Heman. Associate producer: Edward Kaufman. Executive producer: Darryl F. Zanuck.
Copyright 8 December 1939 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 8 December 1939. U.S. release: 8 December 1939. Australian release: 15 February 1940. 6,608 feet. 73 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Chinese bandits attack the American consulate in Pangchow. Amongst the refugees are Emmy Jordan, wanted for murder, and Hank Topping, a disgraced reporter.
NOTES: The intended but non-existent introductory sequence in which Alice murders Joseph Schildkraut and sings “There’ll Be Other Nights” was, according to reports, only partly filmed. J. Edward Bromberg’s role has also been completely deleted. As Arthur Treacher receives fourth billing, yet has only three lines and appears in but two scenes, it’s obvious that his part has been considerably cut.
VIEWERS’ GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: Odd to find Alice Faye cast in a non-singing role in a contemporary story of Chinese banditry. Actually, the film took several years to make. It was commenced in 1938 under the title The Girl From Brooklyn, shelved while Miss Faye, Freund and Ratoff made Rose of Washington Square and taken up again when that film was completed — which explains why Warner Baxter looks older in some shots than in others. Miss Faye does an excellent job as a dramatic actress, phoney Russian accent and all, but the film does not wholly come off. Part of the reason is the miscasting of Charles Winninger as the American consul. He does his best, but it is hard to take him seriously as a dramatic figure. The film is really a threesome, the rest of the cast (with the exception of Willie Fung’s comic relief) has very little to do. Arthur Treacher has only two or three insignificant lines. The Chinese setting leads us to anticipate the entrance of Philip Ahn, but in this one, instead of his beautifully cultured tones, he affects a broken Chinese accent — and does it very badly!
The film has a bit of action, but it has too much dialogue, its characters are uninterestingly one-dimensional and do not hold the attention, and its budget is on the borderline. There is a tingling climax, but all in all the film is little more than a minor curiosity. What the picture needed was a strong villain on the other side, but as the bandits are leaderless, the film suffers from a lack of dramatic punch and tension. Ratoff’s direction is competent, but undistinguished. Freund’s photography is appropriately somber.
OTHER VIEWS: Superbly photographed, exotically set and backgrounded, this is an exciting variant on Shanghai Express (see Hollywood Classics 7).
Unfortunately, whilst this film is lavishly produced so far as it goes, it doesn’t go far enough. Our excitement is further curtailed by obvious story cuts. What’s more, although he has achieved some fine visual effects — most notably the episode in which Faye and Baxter escape into the looted town and are then pursued across a vast wheat field — director Gregory Ratoff would be the first to admit he is no Von Sternberg. Even more importantly, the lovely Alice Faye, winningly photographed and costumed, is no Marlene Dietrich. Even Karl Freund’s attractively Germanic lighting cannot quite match Lee Garmes’ efforts.
All the same, Barricade is an entertaining offering. We’re certainly glad the film was released in its present incomplete form and not just shelved and forgotten (and then later to surface in all the reference books as a mysterious half-filmed and abandoned potential masterpiece). It’s a pity the scissors weren’t taken to some of Winninger’s patriotic speeches as well.
— George Addison.
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Lewis Wilson (Batman), Douglas Croft (Robin), J. Carroll Naish (Daka), William Austin (Alfred), Shirley Patterson (Linda), Charles C. Wilson (Captain Arnold), Charles Middleton (Ken Colton), Robert Fiske (Foster), Michael Vallon (Preston), Gus Glassmire (Martin Warren), Earle Hodgins (barker), Anthony Warde, George Chesebro, Tom London (henchmen), Dick Curtis (section one), Jack Ingram (Clyne).
Director: LAMBERT HILLYER. Screenplay: Victor McLeod, Leslie Swabacker, Harry Fraser. Based on the “Batman” comic series created by Bob Kane. Photography: James S. Brown Jr. Film editors: Dwight Caldwell, Earl Turner. Music: Lee Zahler. Assistant directors: Gene Anderson, William Austin, Charles C. Wilson. RCA Sound System. Producer: Rudolph C. Flothow.
Copyright dates as follows: Chapter 1: “The Electrical Brain: (16 July 1943); Chapter 2: “The Bat’s Cave” (23 July 1943); Chapter 3: “The Mark of the Zombies” (30 July 1943); Chapter 4: “Slaves of the Rising Sun” (6 August 1943); Chapter 5: “The Living Corpse” (13 August 1943); Chapter 6: “Poison Peril” (20 August 1943); Chapter 7: “The Phoney Doctor” (27 August 1943); Chapter 8: “Lured by Radium” (3 September 1943); Chapter 9: “The Sign of the Sphinx” (10 September 1943); Chapter 10: “Flying Spies” (17 September 1943); Chapter 11: “A Nipponese Trap” (24 September 1943); Chapter 12: “Embers of Evil” (1 October 1943); Chapter 13: “Eight Steps Down” (8 October 1943); Chapter 14: “The Executioner Strikes” (15 October 1943); Chapter 15: “The Doom of the Rising Sun” (22 October 1943). Copyright by Columbia Pictures Corp. 30 Reels. (2 reels each chapter). 261 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Wealthy playboy and his ward by day, caped crusader and boy wonder by night, Batman and Robin battle Japanese fifth columnists.
NOTES: Columbia’s 21st of 57 serials.
The first screen translation of Bob Kane’s famous comic strip.
Thanks to massive re-issue grosses in 1965-1966, the most financially successful serial of all time.
Negative cost: less than $150,000 (excluding studio overheads).
Worldwide rentals gross (including TV and 8mm sales) to date: around $6 million.
Columbia made another Batman serial, Batman and Robin in 1949.
Following its successful television series, 20th Century-Fox made its first feature film in 1966. This was re-made in 1989. I believe there have since been a number of sequels.
VIEWERS’ GUIDE: Frequent use of racial slurs make this one unsuitable for children.
COMMENT: Crude war-time standing sets, breaches of Bob Kane lore (no Batmobile, using guns and not the utility belt), implausibilities, non-matching stock shots and all, this one still preserves enough Gotham City gothic to fascinate. Hillyer’s lot gradually warm to the material and begin staging all the action at night and devising striking images of the caped crusader — his head inverted as he peers through the hole blasted in the roof of the armored car by the uranium gun, or his standing in silhouette against the day-for-night sky, black on white after the bat signal has sent the heavies tumbling into the open. Some of the later climaxes are genuinely rousing as the lift descends on the prone bat-man till its trailing ropes brush him, or the knived walls close in while the heroine becomes the cinema’s first lady zombie.
None of your childhood innocence either — Naish steals the show with his splendidly racist conception of the prince of Nippon fifth-columnists whose “actions are the same color as your skin”. The leads are better looking than most of the players in these too, but what a pity they could only afford three zombie hats.
—Barrie Pattison.
OTHER VIEWS: Even though the first chapter introduces us to the Cave of Horrors (via a nice tracking shot), a demonstration of the ray gun (whose destructive effects are smoky enough, but a bit mild) and the disappearing car (a process screen effort that succeeds more in its intention than in its actual mechanics), Batman starts off rather slowly. Chapter two is also on the dull side, except for a punch-up preceding its high-wire cliffhanger (which is somewhat similar to the previous one). Things pick up considerably in chapter three with Alfred’s impersonation, another brawl and a reasonably exciting train climax. Chapter four is one of the most fascinating in the serial, not so much for the action — there are some good stunts but poor miniatures — as for the exceptionally racist dialogue, as one of the chief villain’s own henchmen turns on his master, telling him in no uncertain terms that he’s off to join the winning side. This certainly is a novel touch, but this sort of inventiveness, alas, is not matched elsewhere in the serial.