Maisie (1939)

Aspiring showgirl Maisie Ravier (Ann Sothern) arrives in a small Wyoming town to learn that the show is canceled. Stranded with no money, the plucky Maisie finagles her way into a maid job on a dude ranch run by a grumpy cowboy (Robert Young). Will love bloom?

I’ve touched on these movie series in the past but if unfamiliar, in the days before television Hollywood made many series of fairly short, low budget films. Sherlock Holmes, Boston Blackie, Philo Vance, Andy Hardy, The Falcon, and also Maisie. Each episode would be released once, sometimes twice a year, world war permitting.

I thought this series was also in the mystery/detective genre but that wasn’t true for this first one. It is more in the romantic-ish/comedy-ish/drama-ish realm. Initially designed as a vehicle for Jean Harlow, but she became unavailable when she died. They found another pretty-ish sassy blonde with somewhat less sex appeal in Ann Sothern. It was successful enough to produce another nine more over the next eight years.

TV fans might remember Robert Young as the father from Father Knows Best and the doctor from Dr. Marcus Welby, M.D., but he had a minor film career in the 1930’s and 40’s. Ruth Hussey has a secondary role here. I always felt she had the looks and talent to be an A actress but it never happened for her.

Except for Holmes, I haven’t found these B picture series interesting enough to continue watching, and Maisie follows the trend. Sothern’s Maisie wasn’t very likable and the story was nothing special. And as most of the rest are rated lower, I think we should stop here. Not western enough to be a western, funny enough to be a comedy, or interesting enough to be rewatched. AMRU 3. Maybe that’s a little generous.

The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)

Edmond Dantes (Robert Donat) is framed for conspiring against the King and imprisoned for twenty years. With the help of another prisoner, he tunnels to freedom, finds buried treasure, and plots his revenge.

At first glance I didn’t recognize any credited names, not even the studio (Reliance Pictures). But on closer inspection I realized that Donat was the lead in The 39 Steps. Also principal villain Louis Calhern’s name should have been more familiar to me, having appeared in some big films, everything from Notorious to Duck Soup. He was once married to Lovey Howell.

Nineteenth century pulp adventure stories aren’t exactly my thing but I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the story. I had difficulty at first keeping the characters straight, but soon the story focused on the few that matter. While not compelling, the story was interesting enough and well paced. Some of the scenes, particularly the underwater and ocean voyage scenes, were impressive considering the era. I am a little surprised the Academy didn’t nominate it for anything. AMRU 3.

The Window (1949)

Tommy (Bobby Driscoll, by special arrangement with Walt Disney) sleeps on the fire escape to escape the summer heat, where he witnesses a murder. His parents don’t believe him because he’s a kid, and also because he’s a big fat liar. Well, normally. Things escalate when his murderous neighbors catch wind that he may know something.

Filmed in 1947 and shelved because it was “not worth releasing”, it became a sleeper hit in 1949. RKO had been purchased by a man who knew nothing about business. What was his name again? Oh, yea, Howard Hughes. The Window stretches the Noir definition a bit, with a few of the standard elements missing. Most notably the hard-boiled protagonist is played by an imaginative ten year old. Let’s talk about little Bobby Driscoll, shall we?

A talented child actor, he was awarded the outstanding juvenile Oscar for 1949. Similar acclaim came for his roles in Song of the South, Treasure Island, and a whole host of films I’ve never seen. And he was quite good here, even if I found myself occasionally rooting for the baddies. But sadly for Bobby, tragedy struck. Did I say tragedy? I meant puberty. Puberty struck. His voice changed and his drug troubles followed him wherever he went. Washed up by 30, dead at 31.

An interesting side effect of the film is watching how ten year old kids behaved in post-war America. Not just sleeping on fire escapes but playing in abandoned buildings and being locked in their bedroom while the parents went to work. This I’m sure rang true back then but would be strange in my youth, and completely alien to kids today. Now they lock themselves in their bedrooms.

The Window is a well made, well paced film. Despite the child protagonist, it isn’t just a kids movie. I might quibble with the ending, but all in all it’s a pretty good watch. AMRU 3.5.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)

Sanna and two other women are being sacrificed to a glowy thing in the sky for the crime of being born with a blonde wig. But Sanna escapes and is rescued by the handsome Tara from another tribe. He is already paired with the beautiful Ayak, but blonde wig, am I right?

Soon Sanna is cast out by her new tribe because of the glowy thing in the sky, and befriends a dinosaur. Believing her dead, Tara goes about his life of dealing with dinosaur mayhem. It’s the classic story. Cave boy meets cave girl, cave boy loses cave girl …

An unofficial sequel to One Million Years B.C., it features all the tropes of the genre. Scantily clad cave people, nonsense language, throw-away story, hominids coexisting with dinosaurs, and scenes stolen from better pictures, this time The Lost World (1960). At first I thought for a G rated film, the women were wearing some seriously PG-13 costumes. Things escalated when the costumes came off. Only the American edit was G. Still …

The stop-motion dinosaurs and their interactions with the human cast (and not the lizards in prosthetics from The Lost World) were actually quite good, resulting in an Oscar nomination. And Victoria Vetri was quite beautiful. She had a small part in Rosemary’s Baby but her career would never fully take off. She would spend six years in prison for the attempted murder of her husband.

There’s not much else to say about the film. The story really is a nothing burger, not far afield of a modern rom-com. There are quite a few of these films, but I doubt I have the stamina to watch many more. That said, I kind of enjoyed it, even if it was more than a little forgettable. AMRU 3.

Three Ages (1923)

Three stories of love, set during the prehistoric, Roman, and modern times. Buster, of course, is our underdog protagonist, Margaret Leahy is the object of his affection, and Wallace Beery is his brutish competitor.

Twenty year old Leahy was a beauty contest winner, the 1923 Wampus Baby Star (which was a thing), and was signed to a three year movie contract. She was fired from her first film for being terrible and overweight before appearing here with Buster. Negative reviews followed and thus ended her film career. She married a businessman but divorced him because he forced her to wear last season’s fashions. Life was tough for her. Distraught after her mom passed, she drowned her sorrows with Draino. She was 64.

But this is the beginning of Buster Keaton as we know him today. The first of a dozen films he had creative control before selling his soul to MGM. Three Ages was done in three eras so if it failed, he could release them as three separate shorts. Fortunately this did not happen and a star was born.

Perhaps not as inventive as his later work, Three Ages still contains comic bits that hold up today. His sundial wrist watch has been done many times since but likely not prior. It has tedious moments intermingled with genuine laugh out loud gags, plus a pretty fair stop motion dinosaur. AMRU 3.5.

The Maltese Falcon (1931)

A private detective becomes caught up with a shady group scheming to steal a jewel encrusted falcon statuette worth millions.

It is hard not to compare this film with the 1941 masterpiece, especially since the major beats of the story are the same. The tone, however, is quite different. Also, the story makes sense. While John Huston wrapped every character’s motivation in mystery, director Roy Del Ruth was more respectful to his short attention span audience.

Ricardo Cortez’ Sam Spade is a smarmy womanizer in fancy suits compared to Bogart’s world-weary detective. While Bogart seldom cracked a smile, the smirk on Cortez’ face did not disappear for more than a moment. Spade approached every woman with an uncomfortably handsy eagerness. The relationship with Archer’s wife is an ongoing affair rather than a regrettable past indiscretion. And then there is how he behaved towards his secretary.

Lost in the mix is how the film features three big female stars of the era: Bebe Daniels as our femme fatale, Una Merkle as Sam’s secretary, and Thelma Todd as the bitter Mrs. Archer. While these names may not be familiar to the casual film fan, they were pretty big names in their day.

Daniels was a bona-fide leading lady in her day, taking top billing here, but did very little post 1940. Merkle, quite charming in her small role, had a long film and TV career but never seemed to graduate to leading lady. And Todd was a successful comedian, appeared in two Marx Brothers films, and teamed with Patsy Kelly for many successful shorts. Murdered by criminal elements before her 30th birthday, the LAPD did a thorough “nothing to see here” investigation and ruled it a suicide.

Hey, look, it’s Dwight Frye as Wilmer. You remember, Renfield. None of the other male actors had noteworthy careers.

The Maltese Falcon started out pretty rough. Early talkies have a shouty quality and the dialog was pretty stilted, but I quickly got used to it. I did find it annoying that our three ladies looked too much alike. I was sometimes unsure which pretty petite blonde I was looking at. In the final analysis, I cannot overstate how superior the remake is over this. Just about every aspect of film making is markedly better. But that’s not to say the original isn’t interesting in its own right. Fans of the latter should see it. For everyone else, AMRU 3.

Queen of Blood (1966)

In the futuristic world of 1990, Earth makes contact with an alien race. The aliens send an ambassador, but they crash land on Mars. Our intrepid astronauts go on a rescue mission but a “sunburst” damages their vessel and they might not have enough fuel to return to Earth. So, a second rescue mission is dispatched with the only ship available: one that doesn’t carry enough fuel to land on Mars. I didn't get it either. Instead they land on Phobos, and from there they can take their escape vehicle to Mars. Problem is they find the alien ambassador, injured, on Phobos, and she (it’s a lady ambassador!) must take one of the two seats in the escape vehicle, while one astronaut remains behind.

Long story short, she’s some kind of green skinned alien vampire creature.

John Saxon is our heroic leading man. He had a long career of B movies and television guest appearances. His menacingly strong looks served him well in lead and villain roles. I most associate him with Enter the Dragon, which I haven not covered yet for some reason. Cub astronaut Paul is played by Dennis Hopper. I hardly recognized him.

The big name is Basil Rathbone, on the final hole of his storied career. He was very much in the “read lines while on camera for money” stage of his career. He was also roped into appearing in Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, which was ripped off from Planeta bur (1962). Peter Bogdanovich would later edit Basil out and make Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, because Mamie Van Doren.

Basil would pass a little over a year after the film’s release, but still had time to appear in the classics The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini and Hillbillys in a Haunted House. They sound dreadful. I must watch.

Long shots of the aliens and their world have a surreal appearance heightened by the trippy music. This contrasts in style and tone with the main story because those scenes were stolen from two higher budget Russian films, Mechte navstrechu (1963) and Nebo zovyot (1959). Was Roger Corman the producer? Of course he was. Much of the story comes from the first of the two, and the second was Americanized as Battle Beyond the Sun. After we meet lady ambassador monster near the midpoint, those sets are gone and we are left with the sparse Corman sets.

Queen of Blood is a watchable, if confounding film. Too convoluted for its own good (see paragraph one) and the action is facilitated by the characters being dumb. It's not without its charm, but much of that charm came from better films. AMRU 2.5.