OK – Turner Classic Movies run-down, part 3. Old movies in review time! Probably too many for one post… sorry about that!
Why Worry? – 1923 – a Harold Lloyd silent film about a idle rich hypochondriac who takes a mental health vacation to a small South American island that’s in the throws of a revolution. At first he doesn’t realize its going on, then he finds it very inconvenient. I didn’t like this flick… I found it corny and old hat on top of being a silent film (not a huge fan).
Hot Water – 1924 – another Harold Lloyd silent film, this one really pretty damn funny. So much better. It’s just about a bachelor who has gotten caught in a marriage, complete with all the mother-in-law jokes that may not even have been original then. The first half is weirdly focused on jokes like how he can’t carry all the groceries his wife asked him to pick up or another long sequence where he takes his new car for a spin. But the final sequence where he thinks he’s killed his mother-in-law based on overheard conversations and that the cops are coming to get him and that she’s turned into a ghost (she’s sleepwalking) are really laugh-out-loud funny (to me).
Loose Ankles – 1930 – a pre-code comedy about a rich family and the flapper grandaughter who will inherit all the money but only if she gets married… and only if the other rich and callow family members vote that the husband is appropriate. But if she winds up in a scandal in the papers, nobody inherits anything. So she puts an ad in the paper for a man with loose morals and comedy ensues. Pretty funny for the first half, especially with how scandalous the movie must have been in the day (the opening shot has *gasp* a bare female leg, foot bopping to the title song “Loose Ankes” *clutches necklace*. Side note: Loose Ankles = Footloose. Huh).
Remote Control – 1930 – a movie from 1930 called Remote Control? I had to see what it was about. It’s about a radio station that hires a phony psychic who transmits instructions to his gangster pals over the air. In other words, he controls them remotely. Decent enough flick, goes on too long though.
The Naughty Flirt – 1931 – if any movie screams pre-code, I guess a movie called Naughty Flirt would be it. A romantic comedy about an heiress who wants to marry a lawyer at her father’s firm. Conniving gold diggers try to grab her fortune. I honestly have forgotten most of the details about this one. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as pre-code naughty as the title suggests. Bait and switch! I wanted to see some more bare female legs and maybe some unmentionables *gasp*.
Footlight Parade – 1933 – a Jimmy Cagney and Joan Blondell song and dance movie with Busby Berkley productions. Cagney is a musical theater showman being put out of business by talkies… these new movies with SOUND. So he pivots and decides to produce prologues, song and dance numbers they can film and play before the movies. It’s a pretty good film that’s half behind-the-scenes putting-on-a-show production and half extravagant and very long, very elaborate, very impressive song and dance numbers.
The Scarlet Pimpernel – 1934 – an elaborate slog about an English aristocrat who is a dandy by day, and a crime fighter by night. Sort of. When he’s not pretending to be a fop, he ventures into France to save aristocrats from the guillotines of the French Revolution. The movie is mostly unending chamber/drawing room scenes where French and English people discuss who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. It’s SO tedious and everyone – the French included – speak in English accents and all dress the same so it got hard figuring out who was who. And I kind of didn’t care.
Mark of the Vampire – 1935 – a vampire movie starring Bela Lugosi? You don’t say! Just a few years after playing Dracula, Lugosi is already type-cast. And not in a very good movie… it’s really slow, and really tedious. Only good thing… an out-of-nowhere goof of an ending.
Whistling in the Dark – 1941 – a weird Red Skelton movie about a phony cult that wants to murder one of its critics but the leader knows he wouldn’t get away with it. So he decides to worm his way into the good graces of a radio personality who puts on murder mystery shows. The cult leader reasons that HE will know how to plan the perfect murder since he thinks about them all the time for the radio shows. Not a terrible flick and sometimes very funny. Certainly credit it for having a kind of bonkers plot.
The Leopard Man – 1943 – an alleged creature feature about a leopard that escapes a dance club (where it was used briefly as a prop) and starts to eat people. The lead character is convinced (for some reason) the victims were murdered by a human pretending to be a leopard. Even though the leopard is real and did indeed kill the first victim. Surprise… there isn’t a Leopard Man in the movie. Bait and switch! Movie has a few eerie scenes but the weird plot machinations get in the way.
The Seventh Victim – 1943 – a suspense film about a boarding school girl who has to travel to NYC to find her missing sister who was paying tuition. Surprise! She fell in with a bunch of satanists. I watched this one curious to see how a 1940s film would handle a satanism plot. Very poorly. The Satanists want to kill the sister for leaving their cult but they have by-laws saying they don’t act violently. So they present a poison cup of wine to their victim and just kind of hang out and watch her, figuring enough being-looked-at will cause her to commit suicide. They are a very polite bunch of dowdy, proper upper-crust satanists who are shocked – SHOCKED – by the idea of murder. So it was actually interesting in that turn of events… if only it wasn’t so boring.
Youth Runs Wild – 1944 – a movie about teens on the rampage since their fathers are at war and their mothers are working in the factories. I was curious to see how a “won’t someone think of the children” warning film would work given the time period and the war. Not a very good film. Pretty square.. though the teens do occasionally commit actual crimes.
Key Largo – 1948 – a Humphrey Bogart / Lauren Bacall classic film noir about a hotel in Key Largo that has been taken over by gangsters (lead by Edward G. Robinson who probably never once in his life didn’t look like a gangster). Pretty good film but its ultimately a little too talky and a little too long. It’s meant to be pot-boiler where the tensions rise as a hurricane passes over but it shows its age.
Captain Horatio Hornblower – 1951 – based on the novels about a British naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars. Gregory Peck plays the Captain and he doesn’t even try a British accent, which amused me. But I generally really liked this film… I was very surprised by how exciting it was. I’m not sure if it’s accurate to the novels… I’ve only read one and he was Mr. Midshipman Hornblower at the time.
Suddenly – 1954 – a suspense film about a gang of criminals who take over a family’s home because it;s the perfect sniper’s nest for when the president arrives on the 5 o’clock train. Frank Sinatra is the lead crook, in full creep mode. Great performance from Sinatra. I really enjoyed this film. As an aside, Sinatra played another would-be presidential assassin in The Manchurian Candidate 9 years later, right before Kennedy was killed.
The Black Scorpion – 1957 – generic 50s giant monster movie. A giant scorpion appears in Mexico after a quake… somehow not mutated by radiation… just kind of big naturally. The scorpion stop-motion effects are REALLY good and I’m surprised I never heard of this one. Not a particularly good movie though.
Desk Set – 1957 – not sure what to make of this one… a Spencer Tracey / Katherine Hepburn office comedy? Romantic comedy? About an efficiency expert who arrives at a tv network, intent on installing an “electronic brain” (computer) in the research department. The super smart ladies in the department – including Hepburn and Joan Blondell – worry about their jobs. And have office parties and romantic triangles… and I’m not sure where this movie was trying to go or what it was trying to be. Not really a comedy, not really a romance. I guess it’s now just an artifact of office politics in the 1950s.
A Bucket of Blood – 1959 – fairly early Roger Corman flick about a bus-boy who wants to be a hip beatnik artist. When his landlady’s cat dies in an accident, he covers it in clay and presents it as his art. All the beatniks just LOVE It. It’s SO gruesome. So he starts to look to other, more human opportunities for sculptures. Very much a satire of beatniks and artsy fartsy folks. Pretty funny, not very suspenseful any longer though which kills the final act. Side note: it stars a very young Dick Miller who I know as the old man in Gremlins who explains to Billy how the creatures used to infest bombers during WW2. Real trip to see him as a young man.
Damn the Defiant! – 1962 – another movie about a British navy ship during the Napoleonic Wars, this one starring Alec Guiness! I really enjoyed this one. Guinness plays a captain with a viscous and violent first mate who he can’t control due to his political connections. He pushes the crew too hard and they stage a little mutiny.