The Big Sleep (1946)

The Providence Public Library started running a Film Noir Sunday Matinee several weeks ago. They began with The Maltese Falcon, did Double Indemnity last week, and yesterday was The Big Sleep. I Finally had the chance to stop in. I dragged along my 13 year old kicking and screaming.

The movie was delayed a half hour. Seems that Netflix sent them the wrong movie. Which one did they get? The remake. They took a trip to a video store.

Humphrey Bogart is Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, private dick. Rich man hires him because somebody is trying to blackmail his hottie daughter. His other daughter is played by Lauren Bacall. Hey, my first Bogie and Bacall film. I remember Bacall back in the day as an elderly spokeswoman for polident or whatever and for that reason I have a hard time thinking of her as hot. I'll say this about the old broad: she's 86 and has three movies coming out next year.

The story twists and turns like film-noir is want to do. The big screen holds my attention better than the small so I think I followed it better than I did The Maltese Falcon, but I was still somewhat mystified. Who is in cahoots with who? Who killed that one? Why?

There is something to say about the media being the message. The jokes are funnier, the gun shots more dramatic, the suspense more intense, the kissing scenes more uncomfortable for a 13 year old boy. I noticed this effect in reverse recently. My Seven Samurai experience encouraged me to have the boys watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. On my second viewing, I rated it a real good movie. When I first saw it in a theater I thought it one of the best movies ever. It simply didn't translate to the small screen very well. Forrest Gump fell similarly.

Unlike the genre Horror, I don't have a good feel for what defines film-noir. All men wear suits, all women wear cocktail dresses or long flowing nightgowns. Men are men and women are young and hot. Lots of smoking and drinking. Everybody is serious and wants to be taken seriously. And it must be a detective story. Otherwise, Casablanca would be film-noir. Am I close?

Lets take a look at the ladies, shall we? Of the principle women in the film, the oldest was 23 when the movie came out. The OLDEST! Of course there was a cigarette girl who was the ripe old age of 29, but she barely had one line. 46 year old Bogie claimed to be 38. Must of been good to be a dirty old man in Hollywood back in the day.

What was that 13 year old's reaction at the end of the film? He applauded. This is a total Must See Again film. Great dialog. Wonderfully filmed sequences. Atmosphere, texture, all those film school phrases. It was great stuff. I have to bring the wife next time. AMRU 4.

Oh, and I am seriously considering elevating Lauren Bacall to hot.

The Monster Walks (1932)

The Ghost Walks, so why not the Monster?

Made two years before Ghost, this movie has many of the same horror devices. A rich man dies and his only daughter arrives for the reading of the will. She inherits just about everything, of course. Into the mix are the deceased man's brother, the lawyer, a housekeeper, butler, and the good lady's boyfriend (Rex Lease). Oh, yea, and a black chauffeur to be afraid of everything. Gots to have one of those.

Chauffeur Exodus is played by a very young Willie Best, credited as "Sleep 'n Eat". He would go on to a respectable career as a demeaning racial stereotype, but here he is quite forgettable.

The monster in question is a chimp kept in a cage in the basement. Yea, look at the poster again. Looks like a caged chimp to me too. Apparently Bobo hates the young Ruth. Strange things happen and Doctor Boyfriend becomes Detective Boyfriend. Is the chimp getting out of his cage? Was it "walking"?

Not much more to say about this movie. The old, spooky house has secret passage ways (of course) and there is an almost comic scene when Hunky Dr. Ted reassures Ruth that nothing could possibly happen to her, while a picture frame in the background rotates to reveal a hole. Maybe they weren't all sealed up ages ago after all. No soundtrack to speak of, paper thin plot, grainy film, and poorly edited. Not the worst of the genre but fairly unremarkable. AMRU 2.5. Quite skipable.

Maniac (1934)

I had free time after work and was too tired to do any reading. I popped in a disk from my public domain horror collection and watched Maniac. The greybeard scientist is working on his plan to reanimate dead tissue. Apparently he watched Frankenstein a couple years earlier and wanted to do exactly that. 

Dr. Meirschultz's Ygor is a vaudeville actor named Maxwell who is wanted by the police. His specialty is impersonations and here he is impersonating an actor. Seriously. The actor was apparently a makeup artist in his only acting role. Meirschultz needs a body to do a full scale experiment and has Max impersonate the coroner to gain entry to the morgue. Max is worried but agrees.

Is this supposed to be a comedy? The script is bad but the acting is among the worst I've ever seen. And that is saying something! "Once a ham, always a ham!" 

In the morgue they find what they are looking for: a young hottie who committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The undertaker, believing Maxwell as the coroner, makes some risque comments. The body is brought back to the lab. 

Time for the next step. Need to find a body with a shattered heart and replace it with a throbbing prop he has in a jar. Meirschultz had a great idea! He tells Max to kill himself and promises to bring him back from the dead. Nope, no red flags there. Instead Max kills his mentor. 

Here the story becomes a little disjointed. Max impersonates Meirschultz, a woman arrives seeking help for her schizoid husband and sees the body, schizoid husband goes berserk and carries reanimated hottie (who's goodies are briefly visible) off to a park to do the Zombie Mambo. Max's wayward wife learns that Max has inherited a fortune and seeks him out. Max sinks lower and lower into insanity while scenes from crazy-weird silent films are superimposed over him. 

And quite frankly, so do I. This film is nuts. There are montage scenes where it is implied Max/Schultz molests a woman (who's goodies are briefly visible). Oh, right, this is Sex Maniac, the exploitation film. Now I remember. 

Oh, and the cat fights. There are several scenes where cats are fighting each other, chasing mice, and being all around annoying. In one scene they tied a cat and dog together to make them really go at it. Charming. Don't get be started about the crazy cat man. All this was brought together at the end when the schizoid's wife and Max's wife have a cat fight of their own. There may have been a little boobage there as well. 

The schizoid's wife, by the way, was played by Phyllis Diller. Not THE Phyllis Diller, just a Phyllis Diller. I wonder if the original run time was longer. What I saw was just under 51 minutes and there were jump cut scenes that may have contained more naughty bits. There is a fully restored version but I won't be looking it up. 

The film was loosely based on Poe's The Black Cat and written by the director's wife. Imagine that. "Honey, I want to do a sex film. Could you write it for me?" There was another Poe reference, when The Murders in the Rue Morgue was mentioned. 

I kinda enjoyed the film but you can't get around the fact that it was a really poorly made film. The dialog was poor, the acting was terrible, the best thing I can say is the sets were good. The weird montage scenes were interesting if for no other reason that because they were so unique. In the final analysis, I can't truly say I'm glad I watched it. AMRU 2.5. Watch it for yourself.

The Ghost Walks (1934)

A playwright wants to present his latest play to a producer and somehow convinces him to drive to his remote mansion on a dark and stormy night to read it. His man-secretary is along for the ride. They get stuck in the road and have to walk to a nearby spooky mansion. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Strange things are a-foot. Writer Prescott Ames has a history in the house and at dinner, we learn a murder happened there ten years earlier, that very night. The lights go out, a ghost makes an appearance, and the widow disappears! Guess what. Mr. Ames is putting his producer friend (and his closeted secretary) on. This is HIS house, and they were all actors treating them to act 1 of his play. Oh, wait. Spoiler Alert! Was I too late on that?

Producer and secretary find a room ... I mean find the script and realize they were played. No longer frightfully fearful, they go back downstairs to enjoy the show. The actors fess up to the deception, but when they find the poor widow, she actually is dead! Producer and BFF don't believe them.

A guard from a sanitarium (of course) arrives saying a homicidal maniac is on the loose. Then we learn the house has a history of murder, and the eyes in the painting come alive and look at people and, well, they pull out just about every cliche in the book. The actors run around like mad and the producer and his guy-pal snicker, thinking it's all a gag.

This movie is old enough that the scare devices were fairly new, if not original. And for the title, well, there was kinda a ghost. I suppose he was walking. Other people totally walked. Had to. The car was stuck.

I'm torn on what to give it. Clearly it wasn't "great". The audio and video quality ranged from poor to pitiful. I hate to condemn it for that reason, but I simply cannot enjoy a movie I can't hear and barely see. Right now I give it a 2.5. Watch it for yourself.

The Living Ghost (1942)

I stopped into the library to pay my fines (totally worth it) and I saw a "vintage double feature" (Translation: two old, crappy movies with a similar theme). The titles were "A Walking Nightmare" and The Ghost Walks". Never heard of them. Or of anybody who was in them. Can't resist.

The first one, called A Walking Nightmare, is actually named The Living Ghost. But of course the name of the movie is called Haddocks' Eyes, but that's another story entirely.

Marketed as a horror story (at least by Alpha Video), this is a comic (maybe screwball) mystery along the lines of The Thin Man series (which are GOOD movies). Maybe a little too closely. Released twelve months after Shadow of the Thin Man, the reluctant, smart alec detective is named Nick. Nick Traynor, played by James Dunn. Retired from the detective business, he is badgered into taking the case by his light haired Nora, Billie Hilton played by Joan Woodbury. She was a kinda hottie who's career dwindled as 30 got further in her rear view window. Two big differences with The Thin Man is that Living Ghost takes itself far less seriously and the lack of conspicuous drinking.

The story surrounds the mysterious disappearance, and later reappearance, of the wealthy Walter Craig. When he returns he is in a catatonic state. The actual doctor's description of what happened to him is rather stupid. The peculiar family hosts many suspects. Nick does his sleuthing in the scary mansion while doing vaudeville shtick and dodging verbal barbs from Billie.

Now, let me make fun of the titles. Living Ghost? Craig was indeed living, and he was sorda like a ghost in the sense ... no, he wasn't anything like a ghost. More like a zombie. But he was living! (Although the actor would be dead in four years.) Walking Nightmare? Maybe Craig was having nightmares while he was walking? I swear they made up movie titles based on what word was popular that month.

Clever, witty, short, all good traits of a B movie. Not horror by any stretch, but mildly thrilling if one is willing to be so. Don't confuse it with a quality film and you'll be happier. AMRU 3.

Seven Samurai (1954) - part 2

The new copy came in an I watched the last of disk one and about half an hour of disk 2. Daily life disallowed me to watch the last hour and change until last night.

So, we take up the story of a village under oppression. Their crops were robbed by bandits, and when they return, they realize the village has nothing. So they decide to return when the barley ripens. A villager hears this and know that if this crop is taken, they are doomed. Give up the crop without a fight and beg the bandits to leave them something?

No, says grandpa. Hire Samurai to defend the village. It is a tall order to find Samurai to fight for nothing more than rice. In all seven agree. One is young and untested. One's Samurai credentials are in question. Others are not great warriors but posses other skills. They fortify the village and train the farmers.

There are a few side stories. The villagers fear the Samurai. One forces his daughter to dress as a boy. Another villager has a secret. Some of the houses are outside the protection perimeter and that causes concern. Add to it the idea of Ronin staying loyal not to a lord, but to a noble cause, and the Samurai who isn't a Samurai. All of this works together.

Partly the way I watched the film, I could readily identify with only four of the seven. The leader was distinct, being older and having cut his hair early in the film. The young Katsushiro was timid and unsure. Kikochiyo moved unlike the others. You did not have to see his face to know who which one he was. Unlikable at first, he becomes very endearing. The others kinda blended in. A second, uninterrupted viewing would be in order.

A few things to mention. For a movie with such a high body count, there was no gore. The Samurai slices his sword near an opponent and the cut is implied. I didn't feel it was missing. A three and (almost) a half hour movie is quite daunting, but it didn't drag. The pacing was perfect.

There are many elements in this movie. Action fight scenes, a love story, a noble cause, youth proving one's self, and it's all done expertly. Maybe technically perfect. Far be it for me to make such a declaration, but put this much stuff into a 207 minute, subtitled, black and white film, and if you get an eight year old video game junkie glued to the screen, and you have something special. I returned the disks two days late at $2 a day. It was worth it.

AMRU 4.5. Now maybe I can get the boys to watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)

William Powell is still a witty drunk. Myrna Loy is still a hottie. Baby Nickie is a little older. Same kind of story, different details. Nick keeps walking into a murder investigation, and tries as hard as possible to avoid getting involved, but it's no use. First, a jockey is shot while in the shower. Then there's this binder that everybody is trying to get their hands on. Another murder and way more characters than I am able to keep track of. 

Maybe I started the movie when I was just too tired. Maybe I'm growing tired of the series, but the charm factor was gone. About an hour into the film I shut it off and went to bed. 

More awake after work, I watched the end. Guess what? Detective stories are way more entertaining when you have enough brainpower to actually follow the story. The characters and format are basically identical to the first three movies, but here are my observations: 

A 20 year old Donna Reed was basically forgettable in the second role of her career. Asta again provided comic relief. The joke here being that he was afraid of everything. To illustrate the point there were sequences of sped up film of Asta running and hiding. Funny stuff. The cops are incompetent, of course. 

Maybe I will watch it again. I really enjoyed the last twenty or so minutes. I have a busy weekend, we'll see. I'm curious to see the mystery when you know who the murderer is. And it'll be nice to see it while awake. AMRU 3.5.