Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

A cabaret singer (Jean Arthur) steps off her ship at a South American port and meets a couple American fly boys who deliver mail under dangerous conditions. After one of the pilots has an accident, she gets to know their boss (Cary Grant).

There are elements of Rom and there are elements of Com, but make no mistake. This is no Rom-Com. This is the most dramatic role I’ve seen Grant in up to and including North by Northwest (1959). The stakes are high and the outcome is not guaranteed.

Here is an early appearance of Rita Hayworth. The twenty one year old had already appeared in a ton of films. She wasn’t far from Hollywood immortality. Also Thomas Mitchell, who was having a spectacular year. His five films that year were nominated for thirty six Oscars, winning thirteen. One of them was for his performance in Stagecoach.

Only Angels Have Wings is a solid drama. It's refreshing to see Grant play a character not exactly the Cary Grant type. It's perhaps a bit clunky at times, but it's very effective. 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.

The Return of the Vampire (1943)

A scientist kills a vampire in Britain back in 1918 by stabbing it with a railroad spike, as one does. Twenty five years later Nazi bombs open his coffin, the spike is accidentally removed, and Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi) is on the loose again. I’m starting to think that these Nazi people aren’t all that great.

This was intended to be a direct sequel to the 1941 classic but Universal threatened to sue. Bela is back as Dracula in everything but name. Same costume, same accent, same mannerisms. Fairly little of the story needed to be changed to avoid court.

This movie features perhaps the worst werewolf (Matt Willis) I’ve ever seen. In man-wolf form he is polite, articulate, and completely ineffectual. Wolfie was controlled by Tesla until 1918 when he became a kind and faithful lab assistant for twenty five years without aging a day. When Tesla returns, he goes back to being a mostly useless werewolf.

This was a hard film to find. It’s not in TCM’s regular repertoire nor could I find it streaming. It doesn’t have a great reputation but it is, mostly, Bela being Dracula, and if for nothing else was interesting for that. Turns out it was available on YouTube.

The Return of the Vampire Isn't great but it's not bad by any stretch. Coming in at a brief 69 minutes, some of the dialog seems inexplicably rushed. While it pales compared to the better in the genre, it’s fairly original and very watchable. It’s also nice to see Bela as Dracula, even if by another name. AMRU 3.

The Giant Claw (1957)

A civilian electronics engineer (Jeff Morrow) is flying an Air Force jet for some reason and witnesses a giant UFO. It is soon learned that the mystery object is a giant bird, as big as a battleship. Mitch and systems analyst Madam Mathematician (Mara Corday), team up to stop it.

1957 seems to be the year of the giant thing. It saw the release of Monster from Green Hell (wasps), Beginning of the End (grasshoppers), Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Monolith Monsters (rocks), The Deadly Mantis, The Black Scorpion, The Monster that Challenged the World (prehistoric mollusks), as well as two of Bert I. Gordon’s giant man movies. This trend would luckily slow down.

Longtime friends may remember Morrow as Exeter from This Island Earth, a movie I covered … holy crap, fourteen years ago! Our pretty mathematician was quite familiar with giant things that should be small, having also appeared in Tarantula and Black Scorpion.

The Giant Claw follows the convention of the genre. Threat is discovered, after initial disbelief, authorities scramble to neutralize it. A small team is assembled (including a pretty scientist), the threat appears to be invulnerable, Deus ex machina, roll credits. The acting, science, and dialog is all pretty standard, parts of it pretty good. One thing that falls short is the creature.

Filmmakers initially intended on hiring Ray Harryhausen, but budget considerations caused them to go in a different direction. That direction led them to a ridiculous looking marionette. And while it is a shame that the effects tainted what was otherwise an equal to many in the genre, it did make the film uniquely memorable. It would have otherwise been just another competent 50’s sci-fi film, not quite as good as Them!

The Giant Claw is a very watchable flick. The contrast between the seriousness of the actors and the loony puppet is quite amusing. The dialog varies between pretty good to pretty bad. It’s established that Mitch is an electronics engineer maybe a half dozen times, and characters make the battleship comparison I don’t know how many times. AMRU 3.

Penny Serenade (1941)

Julie (Irene Dunne) announces that she is leaving her husband Roger (Cary Grant) because they don’t need each other anymore. While looking through her record collection, she reminisces about their life together, the good times and the bad.

Dorothy Adams is a familiar face, memorable as Laura’s maid. Character actress Beulah Bondi also made a thirty year career playing old ladies, including It’s a Wonderful Life, which I rewatched this season. And if It’s a Wonderful Life is sappy done right, Penny Serenade is sappy done wrong. Starting in the second act the sentiment is poured on fairly thick, and it only got worse.

This was Grant’s first of two competitive Oscar nominations. He was up against Gary Cooper as Sergeant York, so he had no chance here. I never saw None But the Lonely Heart, so I don’t know what chance he had against Bing Crosby.

Penny Serenade is a tiresome watch. Grant is always entertaining, though I prefer when he doesn’t play an idiot. The story isn't very compelling, but it’s the sentimentality that ruins it for me. AMRU 2.5.

Strait-Jacket (1964)

Lucy (Joan Crawford) is sent to an insane asylum after catching her younger husband in bed with another woman. She caught them with an axe. Twenty years later, she is released and stays with her daughter (Diane Baker), who witnessed the murder as a small child. Lucy has difficulties adjusting.

Baker is quite charming as Lucy’s daughter. She would appear in the Hitchcock film Marnie the same year. A young Lee Majors plays the philandering husband in his first credited role. His role was short and got shorter. Us oldies remember him fondly as Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive. We can rebuild him, so long as we find the head. At 85, the dude is still acting. Maybe he really is bionic. George Kennedy pays a farm hand.

Two years after What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Joan must have known she had no business being in this low budget schlocky thriller. But she had reinvented her career twice before by switching genres, so kudos to her for taking chances. Not sure it worked out all that well for her this time. She would appear in only four more feature films, ending with the amazing train wreck Trog.

And Crawford didn’t miss the opportunity to pitch product. A six-pack of Pepsi is conspicuously visible in one scene and the role of the asylum doctor went to Michael Cox, Vice President of Public Relations for Pepsi-Cola. It is his only screen credit.

Strait-Jacket is no better of a production than any other William Castle film, but lacks the playful nature of his earlier work. Crawford puts in a full effort, but the material lets her down. And if you didn’t guess the twist during the first act, you weren’t paying attention. AMRU 2.5.

It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955)

The US Navy, with help from two scientists, fights an enormous hextopus. Will love bloom?

Released two years after “It Came from Outer Space”, it helped solidify the “It Came From” cliche for B movie titles. And say what you will, it is an accurate description of where the It came from. But one big difference between this film and the former is the budget. While From Outer Space was a B movie, From Beneath had practically no budget at all. Ray Harryhausen created his monster with only six legs to save money. Because it’s never seen in full, it is not noticeable. What is sometimes noticeable is that many scenes only got a single take. If it was good enough, it was good enough.

All the tropes of the subgenre are here. Military type partners with nerdy scientists, one being a pretty woman (Faith Domergue), to do some detective work and eventually save the day. Think of films like Them!, Cosmic Monsters, and The Monster That Challenged the World. 50’s audiences were always flabbergasted that a young, attractive woman could be an actual scientist. 50’s sexual politics rears its head again when Commander Pete pursues Domergue’s Professor Joyce a little too aggressively.

Short, watchable, and forgettable, It Came from Beneath the Sea is one of many also-rans of the era. It offers nothing new or interesting. The best think I can say is that it is inoffensive. Unless you are a woman scientist. AMRU 2.5.

Born Yesterday (1950)

A millionaire thug visits Washington DC to make a shady deal with a crooked congressman. He worries that his dumb showgirl girlfriend (Judy Holliday) will embarrass him and screw things up, so he hires the pest reporter (William Holden) teach her something. Will love … yes, love will bloom.

Judy Holliday appeared in the Broadway version of the story but studio execs weren’t interested in taking a chance on an unproven commodity. But Katherine Hepburn beefed up her role in Adam’s Rib (basically the same character) to demonstrate that she could handle it. It worked, she got the role, and won the Oscar, Marisa Tomei style.

A very surprising element is how racy the script is by 1950’s standards. In the first scene between Holliday and Holden’s Billie and Paul she asks if he is a gigolo. Later she outright propositions him. Stage adaptations seemed to be able to get away with this sort of thing. See The Moon is Blue. Seriously, it’s pretty good.

Here again we have the trope where a smart person throws a couple books and big words at a dummy and transforms them into a deep thinker. We suspend our disbelief because despite Billie’s amusingly poor diction, we sense that she is smarter than that. Also, unlike My Fair Lady, the romance is plausible.

Born Yesterday is smart and witty, and the principles give excellent performances. I wanted to like it more than I did, and I don’t know what stopped me. That’s not to say I didn’t like it. Maybe my expectations were too high. Or maybe it was the clunky conclusion. I may watch it again, if for no reason than to see if it grows on me. As for now, AMRU 3.5.

“Are you one of these talkers - or would you be interested in a little action?”

Cry of the Werewolf (1944)

The estate of a lady werewolf is now a museum based on her legend. When her tomb is located her gypsy daughter is determined to protect it. Oh, and she’s a werewolf too.

Taking a cue from Son of Dracula they set the story in Louisiana, but still gave it an Eastern European feel. Nobody spoke with a southern accent and they wore winter clothes inside and out. It was December, but it still felt out of place.

The story centers on the son of the museum curator and a pretty museum worker from Transylvania. Gosh, they sure do make a cute couple. They are trying to solve the mystery of the professor’s death. And so are the cops. They have trouble putting it all together despite having all the clues handed to them. Suspicious people act suspicious.

I wanted to like Cry of the Werewolf. I really did. I wish I could edit the script while watching to fix the dialog and straighten the story out. It wouldn’t have been that hard. But it could have used more than a little tinkering. We know all the secrets early on. There is no mystery, no ambiguity, and it's a shame. I think the filmmakers simply didn’t want to ask much from the audience. We got them into the theater, why make them pay attention?

Clearly there was no budget for makeup and special effects. The wolf transformation is simply a dissolve from the shadow of the Gypsy Princess to that of a medium sized dog. Couldn’t even afford a big dog. And don't get me started on the rubber bands. On the plus side, Nina Foch was very good as the Gypsy princess trying to protect her mother’s grave. She went on to a long, successful career, so don’t feel bad for her.

As I said, I wanted to like this film, but it felt like the film didn’t want to be liked. An atmospheric werewolf story set in a spooky museum and a gypsy camp has promise for a B horror film, and the performances were pretty good. But clumsy dialog and an underdeveloped story sabotaged this effort. AMRU 2.5.

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Horny teens deal with life in a depressingly small 1950’s Texas town. Think American Graffiti if it were completely different.

First off, wow the cast is amazing. Our three principal characters are played by Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, and some other guy. Supporting actors include Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Randy Quaid, Ben Johnson, and Cloris Leachman. Each hint at interesting back stories we don’t fully explore. I can imagine a TV series that slowly explores each character over many seasons. There’s also a movie house but it serves only as a metaphor.

Everyone has secrets but secrets are not kept long in a small town. Our protagonist Sonny finds this out. In the end people grow up, move on, and occasionally die. The Last Picture Show is a fascinating film. It has a different look and feel than films that came before. It wouldn’t be right to say that nothing ‘happens’, but there is no big story arc. Just stuff and its consequences. Nothing happens but in fact, everything happens. Think American Graffiti if it were completely different.

The Last Picture Show is a remarkable film and I’ve done a poor job selling it. So if my description doesn’t convince you, at least watch it for Cybill’s pool scene. AMRU 4.

The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Having burned his way out of town, Orson Welles focused on the stage. In order to get his stage musical financed he promised to make a traditional, Hollywood, action thriller. What he actually made was a two and a half hour mess. He wanted voice level to be almost too low to hear and blast the audience away with sound effects. Because EvErYboDy lOvEs ThAt! Fortunately, studio meddling turned it into something watchable.

Our hero is poor Michael O’Hara who is actually Orson Welles with an Irish Accent. He earns a job on a rich lawyer’s yacht by hitting on his hot young wife (Rita Hayworth). And by saving her from thugs. There he continues his infatuation with hot Elsa and gets caught up in what we here are referring to as ‘intrigue’.

Hayworth was Welles estranged wife at the time, fun fun. He had her hair cut and bleached, which was a no-no back in the day. Rita’s strawberry blond hair was her trademark and you just don’t go messing with studio property. Were you to film in Fenway park you don’t go and paint the Green Monster blue. Welles was his own worst enemy.

I refrain from spoiling the story but in actuality the viewer has no clue where it's going for the majority of the runtime anyhow. Even Welles' O'Hara seems to have a dumbfounded expression on his face throughout the film. Studio boss Harry Cohen said he'd never hire the same man to produce, direct, and star in a film because he could never fire him. But, you know, Cohen was an ass.

Film purists will defend Welles artistic vision, but that’s not what he promised the studio. Maybe his version would have been a masterpiece, but he hadn't earned the right to make it. Not from Hollywood's perspective, at least. What we got was an interesting, weird as hell, and watchable hour and a half long film. AMRU 3.5.

“George, that’s the first time anyone ever thought enough of you to call you a shark. If you were a good lawyer you’d be flattered.”

Taxi Driver (1976)

Troubled ‘nam vet Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) drives a taxi at night because he can’t sleep anyhow. He becomes infatuated with a hot blonde way out of his league, becomes interested in politics, and befriends a pre-teen hooker. Stuff happens and they all live happily ever after. Or Do ThEy!!!

Taxi Driver doesn’t fit genre nor narrative conventions. Is Travis a hero, tragic figure, villain, or just a character in a story? Is it a film about racism, desperation, or just graphic violence? Travis rails against the filth and scum but we are not directly led to his racism, but nor are we led away. Take that what you will. This isn’t film criticism, here. I’m not that good. Suffice to say this is the film that earned Martin Scorsese his reputation.

I do want to explore the idea of crossed communications. You’ve seen it, two people holding a conversation thinking they were on the same page but in fact they were not. We see that here between Travis and the other cab drivers, the hot Betsy, and the candidate Palantine. He thinks they understand each other, but they don’t.

Taxi Driver is a fascinating film. The cinematography is fantastic, the ending enigmatic, and it stays with you, almost hauntingly, long after viewing. Interestingly it has the same flaw as Pulp Fiction: The director’s acting performance. Little piece of vanity spoiling the masterpiece. Still, it’s a fantastic film. AMRU 4.

“I got some bad ideas in my head.”

The Black Room (1935)

Family history has it that the de Berghmann family started when twins were born and the older murdered the younger in The Black Room. Consequently, the family would end the same way. For this reason the Black Room is sealed up. Enter Gregor and Anton.

The evil Baron Gregor (Boris Karloff) is much despised by his people. Something about young women disappearing, although that is never fully explained. Good brother Anton returns (also Boris Karloff, but with a paralyzed right arm) and ties to mend old grudges. Grumpy Gregor has his eye on hot young Thea. When another young woman disappears the townspeople storm the castle for Gregor’s head. Instead Gregor abdicates his position to gentile Anton, whom everybody loves. And everyone lives happily ever after, and there is definitely no comeuppance, prophecy be damned.

While the split screen effects were not extensive, they were very well handled, especially considering the year. And whomever played the back side of Karloff’s head while talking to him definitely looked the part. Low budget horror is rife with examples of poor stand-in choices (I'm looking at you, Plan 9!). Also, Karloff was enough of an actor to pull off two characters.

The movie plays like a costume period piece with horror overtones. Predictable but atmospheric and short, and is one of Karloffs highest rated thrillers. Better than the prior two, but still AMRU 3.

Night of Terror (1933)

A maniac is killing people with a comically large knife and the police are hapless to stop him. Not a typo. Now the killer is near the Rinehart estate where lots of other things are going on.

Old man Rinehart has a strong willed daughter who insists on going the the theater with random newspaper reporters despite the presence of a killer in the neighborhood, and a nephew Arthur who is working on a groundbreaking discovery that save countless lives. A serum that will allow someone to live without oxygen for several hours without harm. He has an experiment planned where he is buried in a coffin for eight hours to prove it works. Also, nephew and daughter are engaged. #FAMILYSECRETS.

Well, our friendly neighborhood maniac offs good ‘oll dad and random-other-guy and the police come in for more comic relief. Once finished bumbling, Artie goes on with the experiment. That very night! No need for grief to wreck your plans. Enter the household is dad’s brother and niece, heirs to the Rinehart estate. Also we learn that the house servants are included in the will, making them suspects. First is the fearful stereotype chauffeur, whom we can dismiss because of his fearfulness. Also are Degar (Bela Lugosi) and Sika who seem not to have a role to play except to behave strangely. The Bela Lugosi character is particularly suspect because he’s played by Bela Lugosi.

But we don't seem to need another suspect. We see the maniac murder people, seemingly out of the sheer love of murder, but we know that there is. The reporter, would be love interest, and sexual assault perp (I calls them as I sees them!) is played by Wallace Ford, whom old friends may remember as a clown in Freaks (1932). Ingenue Sally Blane played ingenue Mary Rinehart. Mr. Maniac is played by Edwin Maxwell, mostly, maybe, we think. Seems that nobody is entirely sure.

Early in the sound era audio equipment wasn’t all that great and the quickie B pictures like this didn’t get to use the best the studio had. As such the actors had to annunciate at the top of their vocal range just to be picked up, and we get a fairly difficult to watch film. The scratchiness of the print made matters worse.

What partially saves Night of Terror is the better than fair ending. Everything is bundled up nice and neat. Plus we have Lugosi near the top of his game. AMRU 3.

The Terror of Tiny Town (1938)

The Villain Bat Haines plays two ranches off each other so he can rustle cattle from both sides. Oh, and everybody are dwarfs.

This low budget exploitation flic was inspired when the producer overheard someone saying "if this economy doesn't turn around, we'll have to start making pictures with midgets." The result is a film with little value beyond this novelty.

Many little people in films of this era sport thick Austrian accents. Hollywood apparently put out word that they were hiring and they didn't need much encouragement what with racial purity being on the march.

While the majority of the cast lacked acting talent, our hero (Billy Curtis) had better than fair horsemanship skills. His physicality was noticeable compared to the rest of the cast, who had difficulty with the full sized set. They rode ponies and Curtis being tall for a dwarf (4’2”) seemed over sized on his mount. His love interest, if IMDb is to be believed, celebrated her 101st birthday in January.

I felt a few of the actors appeared to be children, and I discovered that I wasn’t too far off. Fern Formica (that cannot possibly be her real name) would have been thirteen when the film was released, making her randy barroom song all that more inappropriate.

Poor acting, throw-away story, and bad diction. Other than the actors short stature and the films short run time, The Terror of Tiny Town has little to offer. AMRU 2.5.

Meet Boston Blackie (1941)

Reformed jewel thief Boston Blackie (whitey Chester Morris) returns from abroad and is under close watch by Inspector Faraday who would love to pin a pearl heist on him. He tries to catch the eye of a pretty blonde by defending her from a rude man. Later that rude man turns up dead in Blackie’s cabin and he now has to solve the mystery to clear his name.

Smarmy and wise cracking, Blackie is helped by his trusty servant “the runt” without any explanation why. Much of the story revolves around a carnival, because why not. Pretty blond vaguely outlines part of the drama he stepped into in the tunnel of love. Will love last? Hey, here’s Schlitze! Old friends will remember him from Freaks (1932). Here he plays a pinhead.

Meet Boston Blackie is a paper-thin mystery with cheesy-ass dialog. But it’s short run time (61 minutes) and upbeat tone made for a pleasant watch. They did fourteen of these things in nine years and I’ll see at least one more. Thin Man it’s not, but enjoyable nevertheless. AMRU 3.5.

“We’ve got Faraday in a cage for you. Just like a canary. Come on, maybe he’ll sing for us.”

In a Lonely Place (1950)

Troubled but talented screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is assigned to adapt a terrible novel for the screen. Hot coat check girl Mildred (Martha Stewart - No, not THAT Martha Stewart!) loves the book, so he invites her back to his place for her to describe the story to him. Or whatever else. He gets nowhere with the girl or the script so he sends her packing via taxi. When she turns up dead, Dix is the prime suspect. The only witness for his whereabouts is a hot neighbor (Gloria Grahame) who noticed him from her window. Love blooms.

So, rather than a who-done-it, we’ve got a did-he-do-it. We’re used to the old and decrepit Bogart playing the romantic lead, and he is no stranger to morally ambiguous characters, so this is right up his alley. But maybe a bit more morally ambiguous than we are used to. At the onset the audience and his alibi-then-lover are certain of his innocence but soon we both become unsure as his darker nature reveals itself. His relationship with too-young-for-him Graham rings true. Besides, she was about a year older than his real life wife.

Speaking of Graham, perhaps you recall me retelling of a certain friction between her and her second husband, director Nicholas Ray. Graham and Ray’s marriage was on the rocks while he was directing her here. You remember, dabbling with the step-son. That's a recipe for disaster.

Despite being the sole suspect for the murder, and Dixon’s violent tendencies which frequently get him into trouble, his friends all repeated say how much they love Dix. They love Dix so much! They'd never say no to Dix. Yea, sometimes I’m twelve.

In a Lonely Place is sometimes dark, sometimes amusing, and has great atmosphere. Don’t expect Bogart to be his regular hero character. He is far more real here. An excellent film-noir. AMRU 4.

“There's no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality.”

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

A wealthy man dies and the search for an heir turns up eccentric small town man, Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper). Unfamiliar to big city ways, he is taken in by reporter Babe Bennett (Jean Arthur), wise in the ways of city life, and becomes the target of the popular press and those who get rich handling rich people’s money. When his folksy home-spun wisdom interferes with their plans, they use the bad press to question his sanity.

Jean Arthur could have been a bigger star. She was the female lead in plenty of pictures, some of them good, and was liked by her directors, but she never rose to A level stardom. Maybe because she was slightly older than her female contemporaries, hitting the big 3-0 when talkies became standard. Maybe she just managed to miss that one big roll. She turned down the Donna Reed roll in It’s a Wonderful Life because she didn’t want to work with Jimmy Stewart again. She retired fairly young. Her Columbia contract ended when she was 44 and she appeared in only two more films. Whatever the reason, she was always charming in the films I’ve seen, even the one I don’t care for much.

Here also is character actor Lionel Stander. His voice and looks are very distinctive and I remembered him as Max from Cheesy TV Hart to Hart four decades later. I noticed something Cooper would do. He’d make quirky facial expressions from time to time. I also Harrison Ford from Raiders doing something similar. I found it peculiar.

Here is Frank Capra at his Capriest. Pretty standard Rom Com format. I wasn’t charmed this time around. The principal reason was I didn’t find Deeds all that likeable. He was rude, quick to fight, and acted like a buffoon. Normally a Rom Com’s success relies solely on the chemistry of the two loves, and little else. Here, Deeds likability interferes. Overall not too bad, but (and I will say this again), it was too long. Fifteen minutes shorter would have been fifteen minutes better. AMRU 3.

“When the servant comes in, Mr. Hallor, I'm going to ask him to show you to the door. Many people don't know where it is.”

Bell Book and Candle (1958)

Hot witch Gillian (Kim Novak) is bored and wants to meet her elderly neighbor Shep (James Stewart). When she learns that he is soon to marry a hot mortal, she uses magic to intervene.

Lovers meet, lovers love, lovers part with hard feelings, lovers reunite through grand gesture. Roll credits. The Rom Com formula is like clockwork. You can set your watch by it. The key to its success is how much we believe in the romance, and how much we like the characters. While Novak’s Gillian is mostly emotionless (witches can’t cry, you understand) and her interest in twice-her-age Stewart is somewhat confounding, we do become invested in their story.

Jack Lemmon was at his prime as Gil’s somewhat mischievous brother. Elsa Lanchester was great as her batty aunt. Hermione Granger .. I mean Gringots ...I MEAN GINGOLD was also delightful. Janice Rule played the young woman Gil had to steal Shep away from. I remembered her from a Twilight Zone episode.

One functional complaint of the movie is that we aren’t to sympathize with the undeserving girlfriend. See Susan Hayward’s shrewish and tragic bride-to-be in I Married a Witch. She was both beautiful and wonderfully unsympathetic. Here we are told why Rule’s character isn’t nice, but we don’t actually see it. I felt sorry for her.

Enigmatic comedian Ernie Kovacs was understated as an author of books on witchcraft. His unconventional and sometimes controversial comedic style made him a legend with comedians, but because much of his television work was lost, he is all but forgotten by audiences today. He died in a car accident less than four years later, and ten days before his 43rd birthday.

Beautifully filmed, well acted, visually stunning, very charming, and amusing when it needed to be, Bell Book and Candle (no commas!) is delightful. It was, along with I Married a Witch, a principle inspiration for Bewitched. AMRU 4. Elizabeth Montgomery was hot. Ask your dad.

“Shep, you just never learned to spell.”

The Big Heat (1953)

Detective Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is a cop that doesn’t play by the rules. When investigating the suicide of a fellow cop, he is told to back off. Not Dave Bannion. Back off isn’t in his vocabulary.

Big fan of Fritz Lang. M (1931) and Metropolis (1927) are wonderful films. Always liked Glenn Ford, too. And Gloria Grahame is one of my favorite Marilyn Monroe knockoffs. IMdb and Rotten Tomatoes both give The Big Heat very high rating, and I am more than a little confused by this. The story itself is fine. Cop investigates, gets too nosey, is burned, then the story is revealed. Been done a million times, and sometimes not as well. But oh, but the acting, it’s brutal. The dialog seems like it was written as a group project in a film-noir 101 class, and the over the top score beats us over our heads with the message. It's pretty cheesy.

A young Lee Marvin played the heavy. Blink and you'll miss a very young Carolyn Jones (Morticia in The Addams Family). Here, she’s a blond. Marlon Brando’s sister is also here. But let’s talk about Gloria, shall we?

Longtime readers may remember Grahame from such hits as The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and small parts in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Song of the Thin Man (1947). Eventually I will see her in a Lonely Place (1950) and maybe never in Oklahoma! (1955). She got this job as the babydoll floozy because Marilyn was too expensive. She didn’t get along too well in Hollywood, perhaps bristling over the stream of shallow sexpot roles she was offered, and quality work dried up.

Her personal life wasn’t much better. Her marriage to second husband Nicholas Ray may have been doomed when he found her in bed with his thirteen year old son. But don’t get the wrong idea, she made an honest man of the younger Ray when he later became her fourth husband. She ended up doing a lot of stage and TV work then died young of cancer. Cancer is a bitch.

The Big Heat isn’t terrible, but I am mystified by its reputation. It is over stylized in a bad way, almost laughable. When Bannion is having a touching moment with his family I don’t need the score to smother me with sentiment. I get it. Never-the-less, I won’t punish it for high expectations. AMRU 3.