The Criminal Code (1931)

A young man is sent to jail after killing a man in a nightclub brawl. The DA (Walter Huston) who sent him away is the newly-appointed warden of the prison. The warden takes sympathy on the young man, who is given employment as the driver to the warden's daughter. His newfound position is threatened, however, when another inmate is murdered in retaliation for snitching, and the young man refuses to identify the killer.

Reminiscent of The Big House (1930) with its gritty, pre-Code depictions of prison life, and grappling with the social issues of the penal system. 

Boris Karloff has a supporting role as one of the inmates. He commands attention in every scene in which he appears, and it's easy to see why director Howard Hawks thought of him for the role of a rival gangster in Scarface. Peter Bogdanovich used a clip from this film with Karloff in his directorial debut Targets (1968).

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

This atmospheric French Noir thriller tells the story of a killer thwarted by an ironic twist of fate.

Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) conspires with his lover (Jeanne Moreau) to murder her wealthy husband. Tavernier pulls it off successfully, except he gets stuck in the elevator overnight on his way out of the building. Meanwhile, a young hood and his girlfriend steal Tavernier's car, and end up committing a murder of their own, which ends up getting pinned on Tavernier after eyewitnesses ID the car. When he finally gets out of the elevator, Tavernier is arrested for the murder he didn't commit, and in order to clear his name, has to confess to the one he did commit.

Miles Davis recorded the cool jazz soundtrack that perfectly complements the rich black-and-white images of Paris at night:

Pack Up Your Troubles (1932)

Laurel and Hardy's second feature is also one of their most shapeless comedies. The Boys are stationed at the front during WWI, where they promise their pal to look after his daughter if anything happens to him. After he's killed in action, the Boys go about trying to locate his estranged parents in New York City and reunite them with the little girl, encountering one mishap after another along the way.

There's more plot than usual here, but it's all so crammed into the 68 minute running time that the finished film feels more like a patchwork of sketches and scenes than a solid feature. Their first feature, Pardon Us, was similarly padded with extended scenes, but that one was at least held together by the prison setting. Here, the Boys go from the battlefields of WWI France to New York City and meet at least a dozen different characters who come and go from the story very quickly. It does allow room for appearances by some great character actors (and L&H regulars), including James Finlayson, Billy Gilbert, Grady Sutton, Charles Middleton, Tom Kennedy, the Boys' old nemesis Rychard Cramer (here playing an abusive stepfather in a genuinely menacing performance), and in a cameo appearance as the vengeful Army cook, director George Marshall. Child actress Jacqui Lyn turns in a delightful performance as the little girl, sharing a particularly funny scene with Laurel, who struggles to stay awake as she recounts the story of the Three Little Bears.

Some of the comedy highlights including an opening scene lifted from the team's 1927 two-reeler, Duck Soup, with the Boys attempting to evade a recruiting officer in the park; the Boys being assigned to KP duty and delivering the kitchen garbage to the dining room of General James Finlayson; interrupting a wedding and mistakenly claiming to have the groom's daughter; and an encounter with the mean orphan asylum agent ("How much would you charge me to haunt a house?" Hardy asks him).

Pack Up Your Troubles isn't one of Laurel and Hardy's strongest features, and the really good comedy scenes are just a bit too few and far between to sustain consistently through the hour-plus running time, but it's still a lot of fun, and is a nice showcase for many of the talented stock company that the team worked with throughout their time at Hal Roach Studios.

Amateur Crook (1937)

Bruce Bennett (still billed here as Herman Brix) stars in this mystery-caper about stolen diamonds. He plays an artist who finds himself wrapped up in a plot to retrieve the diamonds from a couple of crooks. He meets up with a young woman whose father left the diamonds with the two loan sharks, and sets out to get them back on his behalf. The two quickly find themselves at the center of an investigation for the missing diamonds.

The last 15 minutes or so takes a complete detour from the plot into some easygoing comedy before wrapping things up. It's a leisurely end to an otherwise tightly-plotted actioner.

Written by Basil Dickey, who had credits on many of the best serials of the era, including the three Flash Gordon serials, and directed by B movie stalwart Sam Katzman for the Poverty Row studio Victory Pictures.

Air Devils (1938)

This is a solid B action film, from Universal Pictures, about two buddies (Larry Blake and Dick Purcell) in the constabulary on a South Seas island, their rivalry over a girl, and quashing a native rebellion. There is a great deal of action packed into its 60 minute running time, and Blake and Purcell have fun with their roles, engaging in friendly competition with a running joke that keeps seeing one of them lose his rank in the constabulary while the other is promoted, and vice versa. 

The producer credit goes to Trem Carr, a king of low-budget productions who normally worked for Monogram, but this film was a production of Universal Pictures. It still has the look of one of Carr's Poverty Row productions. 

The script is based on a story, "The Fighting Marines", by Harold Robert Buckley, a WWI flying ace and recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross, who wrote a number of stories based on his experiences in the US Army Air Service. I haven't seen any of the other films based on his stories, but according to IMDB he has writing credits for 13 films.

The Crooked Web (1955)

The owner of a drive-in diner is pulled into a plot to retrieve some looted gold, buried in Germany before the end of the war. Little does he know this plan is just a ruse to bring him back to Germany, where he is wanted by police for a crime committed there during wartime.

There's a lot of plot packed into this dense little thriller, with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing even after you think you've got it figured out, although it does get a bit far-fetched at times. The detectives posing as brother and sister stretch credibility with how close they come to blowing their cover and risk jeopardizing this elaborate mission over and over again, though Frank Lovejoy is suitably gullible as the subject of their investigation.

Inside Job (1946)

A remake of Tod Browning's Outside the Law, which he'd filmed in 1920 and 1930. This version, based on Browning and Garrett Fort's original story, was produced by Universal in 1946, directed by Jean Yarbrough. A reformed ex-convict, working in a big department store around the holidays, is confronted by a gangster who knows his past about pulling off an inside job. The ex-con and his wife decide to pull off the job on their own and start a new life, but the gangster gets wise to their double-cross.

This version suffers from the same problem as the 1930 version -- it turns deadly dull when the couple is holed up in their apartment hiding from the cops for most of the second half of the film. It also lacks the star presence of the previous versions (Lon Chaney in the original, Edward G. Robinson in the first remake), although Preston Foster delivers a solid performance as gangster Bart Madden, and Ann Rutherford and Alan Curtis are sympathetic as the romantic leads.

Although he'd filmed the story twice before, it would be interesting to see what Browning would have done with the material in the post-war era of this version.

Mad Love, The Devil-Doll

I recently watched a double-feature of these two '30s macabre thrillers from MGM. Mad Love is probably the most "Universal" picture MGM ever made -- an quasi-Expressionist horror film based on the 1924 German film The Hands of Orlac. It's directed by Karl Freund, the top cinematographer of the German Expressionist movement who had recently come to Hollywood and was moving in to directing around this time. This version tells the same basic story about the brilliant concert pianist (Frankenstein's Colin Clive) who loses his hands in a horrific accident, and has them replaced with those of a recently-executed murderer. Before long, he begins to feel the same compulsion to kill. The emphasis in this version is put on the character of the mad, possessive doctor, played by Peter Lorre in a truly sinister performance, who obsesses over the musician's wife and only helps her husband for his own selfish reasons.

The Devil-Doll is the penultimate film from Tod Browning, one of Hollywood's most singular visionaries. It tells the fantastic story of a wrongly-accused man (Lionel Barrymore) who escapes from prison and returns to exact revenge on his business partners who framed him, by using miniaturized and re-animated human figures who carry out his diabolical demands. It's hard to imagine any other director making this film at MGM in 1936. Erich von Stroheim was one of the screenwriters.

A Chump at Oxford again

I've written about this one here before, but it was on TV again this morning and I just had to note again what a perfect showcase this is for Stan Laurel's talents as an actor. He played the same character for so long and became so closely identified with it that it's striking to see him here in his stuffy, pompous "Lord Paddington" character, a real testament to his acting range and a glimpse at the different character parts he could have played.

And Oliver Hardy is wonderful as usual, frustrated and put-upon under Paddington's condescending orders one moment and then jovial and happy when he has his old friend back at the end.

The Unknown (1927)

Lon Chaney is Alonzo, an armless knife thrower in a gypsy circus in old Madrid. He loves the circus owner's daughter, Nanon (Joan Crawford), who detests being touched by men (consequently rejecting the affections of the circus strongman) and only feels safe around Alonzo. 

Little does she know that not only does Alonzo actually have arms (which he keeps tightly and uncomfortable bound in a corset), but he actually is a wanted murderer, easily identifiable by his deformed double-thumb on one hand.

After a brutal fight with the circus owner, Alonzo strangles him, and Nanon witnesses only the telltale double-thumb on the murderer's hand. Realizing that his future happiness with Nanon depends on concealing his true identity, Alonzo blackmails a surgeon into amputating his arms.

In his absence, Nanon comes to trust the strongman and to feel comfortable in his embrace. Alonzo returns from his surgery to the news that she and the strongman are to be married. He exacts his revenge on the strongman by sabotaging his dangerous new act, which consists of his arms being bound to horses running on a treadmill, and almost results in the strongman being torn limb from limb. When his beloved Nanon intervenes to save the strongman, putting herself in harm's way of the wild horses, Alonzo sacrifices himself to save her, finally being trampled to death under the horse's hooves.

It's the kind of gruesome, offbeat film that is hard to imagine coming from a major studio like MGM. It runs only 49 minutes -- a testament to giving just as much time as needed to tell the story without any padding or extraneous material. It's beautifully photographed by Merritt B. Gerstad, who shoots some of Crawford's scenes through a gauze filter. Chaney gives one of his best performances as Alonzo, bringing sympathy to the character even when overcome with homicidal jealousy. It's also a strong contender for the best film that director Tod Browning made in his career, bringing together his favorite themes with the highly accomplished visual storytelling that silent films did best.

Mr. Boggs Steps Out (1938)

This was a nice little comedy that I found on Pub-d-Hub, looking for something short and funny to watch tonight. It's based on a story by Clarence Budington Kelland, author of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

Mr. Boggs, as played by affable Stuart Erwin, would be right at home in the world of Frank Capra -- a good-hearted, naïve small town man who takes on the big guys. After he wins a small fortune in a bean-counting contest, statistics expert Mr. Boggs arrives in an economically-depressed small town to purchase a barrel factory that has been shut down for some time. He knows nothing about manufacturing barrels, of course, but is sure he can learn. With the help of the barrel-maker and his daughter, Boggs sets about getting the factory up and running and putting the townsmen back to work. But he finds himself up against a crooked swindler who attempts to cheat Boggs out of his business.

I've always liked Stuart Erwin. He's one of those familiar faces who turns up in many films during the '30s and '40s, and has the kind of likable personality and low-key sense of humor that's fun to watch.

Blonde Crazy (1931)

James Cagney is a bellhop who dreams of becoming a big-time grifter. He teams up with maid Joan Blondell, and the two small-time crooks embark on a series of schemes to strike it big during the depths of the Great Depression. Along the way, they get mixed-up with other con-men and get taken by a few schemes themselves, but in the end, they'll always have each other.

This is one of the best of the Warner Bros. pre-Code crime pictures. Cagney and Blondell have great chemistry together, and the film is filled with the kind of salacious moments that just a few years later would be prohibited on the screen, giving it a "down and dirty" quality that perfectly captures the atmosphere and attitudes of the Great Depression years.

At a brisk 79 minutes, it's also a model of economic storytelling and pacing. There's not a wasted minute of screen time.

British Intelligence (1940)

I'd watched this one last week and didn't get around to writing anything down about it. There's not much to say, really -- it's a pretty routine wartime espionage thriller about double-agents operating in London, set during WWI but designed as a bit of propaganda for 1940 audiences.

The plot itself is a bit confusing, packing so many character twists into its hour running time that the motivations and relationships aren't always clear. 

The highlight is Boris Karloff in the role of a double-agent. He's always fascinating to watch and gives the part his all.

The Gorilla (1939)

I read an interview once with Mel Brooks where he said that he considered Harry Ritz, of the Ritz Brothers, the funniest of all comedians. The madcap comic energy he and his brothers, Al and Jimmy, bring to this fun 1939 riff on "old dark house" mysteries is certainly in line with what Mel Brooks would do years later with comedies like Young Frankenstein and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

Directed by Allan Dwan with swift pacing, the film opens with a newspaper montage detailing a series of murders carried out by a killer known as The Gorilla. The killer has notified his next victim, a wealthy businessman (Lionel Atwill), of his impending doom. Atwill owes someone a great deal of money that he cannot pay, and then there's the matter of the forthcoming inheritance to be split between him and his niece (Anita Louise), so Atwill hires a trio of detectives (the Ritz Brothers) to protect him, who of course only add to the chaos. Things are further complicated when an actual escaped gorilla (actually Art Miles in a gorilla suit) shows up at the house, as well as a mysterious stranger (Joseph Calleia). Also on hand are Patsy Kelly as the zany maid and Bela Lugosi as the creepy butler. 

The whole thing is a good deal of silly fun, especially if you enjoy these kind of haunted house mysteries, with lots of creaking doors, lights flickering on and off, and people disappearing into hidden passageways around the elaborate mansion set. The plot (based on an old play by Ralph Spence) is just straight enough to work on its own, and the added comic presence of the Ritz Brothers just cranks everything up a notch. Recommended for a good late night comedy.

Marilyn (1953)

aka Roadhouse Girl

British noir about a young mechanic who gets a job at a garage in the English countryside. He falls in love with the owner's wife, and when the husband catches the two of them together, the mechanic kills the husband. Although the mechanic is acquitted, his problems are only beginning.

The plot reminded me a bit of The Postman Always Rings Twice. I love the bleak atmosphere of these post-war British B movies, and this one evidently has a strong reputation among them.

Laurel & Hardy: One Good Turn, County Hospital, Blotto

One Good Turn is an interestingly topical short for Laurel and Hardy, explicitly referencing the hard conditions of the Depression. The boys are down on their luck vagrants, living out of their car, who offer to chop some wood for an old lady in exchange for food. When they come to believe the kindly old woman is in danger of being evicted from her home, they set about trying to raise the money to help her. The ending reverses their roles somewhat, with Stan turning on Oliver and getting revenge for his cruel treatment of him.

County Hospital is one of my favorites. Stan comes to visit Oliver in the hospital, and sets in motion a series of mishaps. That set-up is all they need for one of their funniest shorts. There's a great scene of Laurel eating a hard-boiled egg and making it uproariously funny as only he could. The climactic scene, with Laurel falling asleep at the wheel after sitting on a hypodermic needle, is often cited as a weak wrap-up to the short, with its overuse of obvious back-projection, but for me it works in exactly the same way as the back projection in W.C. Fields' The Fatal Glass of Beer or Man on the Flying Trapeze -- hilarious in its sheer artificiality.

Blotto is a good situation comedy for the Boys. Stan and Oliver sneak out to a fancy new nightclub for an evening of drunken carousing. Stan steals a bottle of liquor that his wife has been stashing away since Prohibition, but she's on to him, and ends up getting the upper hand on the Boys. It's an odd thing to comment on here, but I've always been struck by the elaborate production design of the Art Deco nightclub set. No art directors are credited on the Laurel and Hardy films before 1936, and I have never read any information about the set designers on these short subjects. I'd love to know more about the unsung designers who came up with that set.

The Naked Kiss (1964)

An explosive melodrama written and directed by Sam Fuller. A prostitute arrives in a small town and, after spending the night with a cop, leaves her former life behind and gets a job at a nurse at a local children's hospital. From there, she ends up becoming engaged to the wealthiest man in town, and she seems to be living a fantasy until she discovers his extremely disturbing secret.

The opening scene of this film, which I won't give away here, grabs you and throttles you and pulls you right in to this tense story. It is truly unforgettable.

Beautifully shot in B&W by Stanley Cortez.

He Was Her Man (1934)

Rather subdued Warner Bros. pre-Coder with James Cagney as a gangster on the run after he double-crosses the crooks who put him in jail. He meets Joan Blondell, on her way to meet up with her fiance, and the two travel to the remote California fishing village where he lives and works. Along the way, Cagney and Blondell fall in love, but the mobsters seeking revenge eventually track him down.

Victor Jory, usually cast as a heavy, is good as Blondell's kindly fiance.

Not filled with the kind of action and wise-cracking dialogue you'd expect from Cagney and Blondell, but it's an effective melodrama that offers Blondell a good leading role, something she certainly deserved more of in her career.

Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938)

These Bulldog Drummond movies are a lot of fun. They're perfect viewing for late at night, when you're looking for something to watch that isn't too long or doesn't require a great deal of attention to follow. Most of these are just under an hour long.

This one finds gentleman detective Col. Hugh Drummond (John Howard) on the trail of a scientist (B movie favorite George Zucco) who's invented a death ray. On the eve of Drummond's wedding to fiancee Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel), he and his loyal sidekick Algy (Reginald Denny) and valet Tenny (E.E. Clive) head off on an adventure to track the inventor down and stop him before he can cause mass destruction.

As with many Hollywood programmers, the recurring supporting cast come to feel like old friends, and it's fun to see them return in each film. Paramount, who produced this particular series, did a good job of re-creating the atmosphere of the British Scotland Yard thrillers on their Hollywood sound stages.

Don't Look Now (1973)

A married couple, who recently lost their daughter in a drowning accident, are in Venice, where the husband is working to restore an old church. After his wife receives an ominous warning from a psychic she's met, the husband becomes haunted by visions of his dead daughter.

That's the plot, but there's so much going on here with Nicolas Roeg's stylistic direction that evokes the fear and dread lurking beneath the surface, that creeping unease that something awful is always about to happen. One of the best '70s horror films. I'd recently watched Roeg's Walkabout and he really does strike me as one of the most interesting filmmakers of the era, a master of tone and atmosphere.

Based on a novel by Daphne du Maurier.