Blackmail (1929)

Pretty blonde Alice ditches her boring Scotland Yard boyfriend for a dapper artist. That doesn’t exactly go as planned and she finds herself being blackmailed. Cop boyfriend investigates.

For a film called Blackmail, the blackmail element is rather minimal and introduced very late in the story. Most of the movie is of the events leading up to it. But it's adapted from a play of the same name, so I suppose there’s nothing for it.

This is Britain's first talkie, sort of. It started as a silent feature but certain scenes were reshot with audio for theaters wired for such. Pretty Anny Ondra, the first Hitchcock Blonde, had a thick Czech accent so she was dubbed, Lina Lamont style. I sadly recorded the silent version.

The Hitchcock style really starts to show through here, more so than even The Lodger. And the plot is quite good: A man investigates the murder of a man that his girlfriend (perhaps fiancee) is suspected of killing.

Blackmail is pretty good but Hitchcock would do his best work fully in the sound era. I would have liked to have seen the “talkie” version, but I don’t expect it would have been much better. AMRU 3.5.

Ladies of Leisure (1930)

Awkward rich man (Ralph Graves) escapes a party and happens upon a “party girl” (Barbara Stanwyck) who is escaping a boat party she was “working”. He decides to hire her as a model. Will love bloom?

The movie jumps through hoops to establish that Stanwyck’s Kay isn’t a prostitute, despite all evidence. The source play was named “Ladies of the Evening” after all. And Kay’s third act “I know what kind of woman I am” declaration doesn’t read very much like an acknowledgement of class status. Still, nobody is under any illusions. This is unsurprisingly the catalyst of the “crisis climax” beat in the Rom-Com formula.

This was thirty two year old Frank Capra’s fourteenth film, but he had not yet hit his stride. It Happened One Night was four years and nine films off. Sound film was still very new and they hadn't quite gotten the hang of it. A silent version of this film was also produced. 

Ladies of Leisure is a pleasant enough watch. Capra was still Capra and Stanwyck was always Stanwyck, but had I not taken notes directly after watching, I might have forgotten about this film. Watch it to see a very early Stanwyck performance, but there is little else to recommend it. AMRU 3.

Phantom Lady (1944)

Handsome engineer Scott (Alan Curtis) goes out on the town alone and meets a pretty woman (Fay Helm). She agrees to accompany him to a show but insists they don't exchange names. When he returns home he finds that his wife has been murdered. When nobody seems to remember his unnamed alibi, the cops finger him for the murder.

This is that rare noir whose protagonist is female, the plucky and decidedly non-fatal Carol (Ella Raines). She is sweet on her newly single boss and never questions his innocence. Old Friend Elisha Cook Jr makes an appearance as a cool-daddy-o jazz drummer. His drumming was so good that they would make sounds even when he wasn’t striking them. This makes our eleventh visit.

For about a year prior to starting this blog I watched a large number of old films, this being one of them. I was mostly unimpressed back in aught-8 but always intended on returning to it. Finally I have and I think I regarded it a little better. When Carol gets closer to our mystery lady she is referred to as Miss Terry. That's pretty amusing. 

Phantom Lady is a fairly well-regarded if somewhat forgettable noir. It also has a serious plot flaw that nagged at me for much of the film. I’ll say no more on that, but it’s not mentioned in the IMDb Goofs section. That said, I'm definitely glad I revisited this film. AMRU 3.

Agatha (1979)

In 1926 mystery writer Agatha Christie disappeared causing a media sensation. When she was discovered after eleven days she claimed not to remember anything of what happened. As the opening crawl says, this is a speculative story about a very real mystery.

Agatha’s (Vanessa Redgrave) marriage to husband Archie (Timothy Dalton) is falling apart and, after ditching her car, checks into a spa using her husband’s girlfriend’s last name. Fictitious reporter Wally (Dustin Hoffman) is on the case.

What follows was certainly not what actually happened. My guess is Agatha, under serious emotional distress, experienced a well deserved nervous breakdown. She pushed her troubles out of her mind, consciously or otherwise. And what better place to do this than a spa. Well, maybe not the spa in the film. That place looked dreadful.

Redgrave’s frightened and vulnerable glances contrast with the impeccably dressed and supremely confident Hoffman. Wally was initially intended to be a tall, blonde Englishman but when Hoffman became involved, he changed to, well, Dustin Hoffman. His role in the film was also greatly expanded.

I’ve been on a sizable Agatha Christie kick lately and I figured I needed to watch this before my DVR deleted it on me. Agatha was reasonably watchable, but with the potential of a mystery about a mystery writer, and two of the top acting talents of the day, this should have been better. Both actors may have been miscast but did what they could with the material. AMRU 3.

What Else I Watched, 2025Q1

I'm still evaluating if I want to do these posts, but until I decide I should just get on with it.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
I had heard this version was superior to the classic original, but I was surprised how much better. It is an impressively smart, well acted, and engaging film. Perhaps the best heist film I've ever seen. AMRU 4.5.

The Hangover (2009)
Still pretty funny but the humor didn’t hold up to a second viewing as well as I hoped.

Blue Velvet (1986)
I had only seen two films by David Lynch, Eraserhead and the misguided Dune. Blue Velvet was, well, weird. Lynch is among the most original filmmakers of all time. I'll pick off his filmography over time.

Double Indemnity (1944)
I’m a sucker for Billy Wilder dialog, even when it's corny to capacity. I will never tire of his top five films.

Bob le Flambeur (1956)
Slower burn than how I remember, but still fascinating. And it's good to see a classic film that isn't handcuffed to the production code. Another great heist film.

Only five non-blog films this quarter? I almost included another until I realized it fits my date restriction, just barely. See a trend yet?

Call Her Savage (1932)

Wild child Nasa (Clara Bow) leads an eventful life. So did Clara, come to think of it.

The film begins as a terrible western. A wagon train is led by a man who is spending time with his girlfriend rather than his wife and family. They are attacked by Indians and their bad luck is blamed on his wicked ways. The worst part is that his behavior will cause his young daughter to also be wicked. It’s in the bible, you can look it up.

Clara Bow became a huge star after 1927’s It and lived a wild Hollywood lifestyle. Things started to fall apart with the advent of sound cinema and the press taking a more moralistic stance on her behavior. She took some time off for a well deserved nervous breakdown and returned with Call Her Savage. It was a critical and box office success and completed her return to Hollywood royalty. She would appear in one more film before retiring.

Bow’s former lover and matinee idol Gilbert Roland appears as Moonglow, a half Indian. Thelma Todd plays Nasa’s romantic rival. Pretty, charming, and funny, she is best remembered as appearing in other people’s films, most notably the Marx Brothers. Her star was on the rise when she was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning at age 29. Ruled a suicide but was it murder?

Call Her Savage is Bow thumbing her nose at her detractors. Heralded a triumph in its day, it is merely watchable now, mostly because of its "pre-code" elements. Filmmakers initially struggled making dialog sound natural in the early talkie era, and this is on full display here. Also, Bow’s acting style was stuck in the silent era. I’m curious how she would have evolved had she stuck around another ten years. AMRU 3.

Death on the Nile (1978)

An odd collection of people embark on a luxury cruise down the Nile river. Most have an antagonistic connection to the lovely Linnet Ridgeway. I hope she enjoys the cruise.

This follow-up production to Murder on the Orient Express swaps in Peter Ustinov for Albert Finney for the role of Hercule Poirot. Finney found the makeup uncomfortable and the train too hot, so filming in Egypt was out of the question. Ustinov went on to play the role five more times, three being in TV movies.

Like Orient Express, and the Kenneth Branagh versions, we have a star studded cast. David Niven, Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, Maggie Smith, and Olivia Hussey are traveler suspects. Mia Farrow was delightfully hysterical. Davis was quoted as saying "In the older days, they'd have built the Nile for you. Nowadays, films have become travelogues, and actors stuntmen." I can’t help but hear that in her voice.

The wife an I seem to watch a lot of crime mysteries, and recently been going through the Miss Marple’s from the 1980s, so this fit in nicely. It's interesting that Marple is turned into TV shows and Poirot into feature films. Mostly. I'll keep an eye out for the Margaret Rutherford films.

Death on the Nile is an excellent mystery with fantastic performances. It's a bit long but well worth the time. It deserves a rewatch. AMRU 4.

"What the hell is going on?
We're going through your private papers, sir, isn't that obvious?"