The Black Cat (1934).

Review #2111: The Black Cat (1934).

Cast: 

Boris Karloff (Hjalmar Poelzig), Béla Lugosi (Dr. Vitus Werdegast), David Manners (Peter Alison), Julie Bishop (Joan Alison), Lucille Lund (Karen Poelzig), Egon Brecher (The Majordomo), and Harry Cording (Thamal) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday, #803 - Detour, #943 - The Man from Planet X, #1364 - Bluebeard, #2058 - Strange Illusion)

Review: 

Well, if you can make a movie loosely (loosely) based on the "Murders in the Rue Morgue", why not another? Universal did that in 1932 with Bela Lugosi as the star in a "mad doctor" role, and while the reception was not particularly favorable at the time, here we are anyway. The movie shares the title of an Edgar Allan Poe short story "The Black Cat". Edgar G. Ulmer co-wrote the story with Peter Ruric, which was one of the pen names for pulp writer George Sims (who also used Paul Cain as a name); they were inspired by psychiatry and the eccentricities of occultist Aleister Crowley; Ulmer apparently was quoted later as saying that the Poe story is "not a story you can dramatize". It is probably one of Ruric's better known efforts, since his other film credits include films such as, uh, Mademoiselle Fifi (1944). This was the first and only film Ulmer (who had one noted film with the co-directed People on Sunday to his name) made for a major studio, as he was soon blacklisted from the major studios after it was found that he had an affair with a woman (the script assistant on this film and later his wife) that happened to be married to the nephew of Carl Laemmle, the co-founder and owner Universal Pictures. As such, he would be relegated to a litany of lower-budget studios that saw him direct films that ranged from ethnic dramas to melodramas. It wasn't the first film to use the Poe story in loose inspiration, as evidenced by Unheimliche Geschichten (1919, 1932). By coincidence, Maniac (the exploitation film) was released the same year as this film that used the Poe story for loose inspiration. Seven years after the release of the film, Lugosi would star in a comedy horror remake that turned it into a mystery house feature. The next attempt at covering the Poe story came with Tales of Terror (1962). This was the first film to feature both Boris Karloff and Lugosi (both previously featured in Universal horror films as Frankenstein and Dracula, respectively) together, and they would appear in five further films for Universal (along with two others), such as The Raven (1935), which was an even looser inspiration from the Poe story of the same name.

Somehow, one finds a film (66 minutes) about revenge of genocide, preserved dead people, offscreen skin shedding, odd music cues, and a would-be cult ritual in a very modern looking house. On the middle of the clash is Manners and Bishop (who went by Jacqueline Wells until the 1940s). One only cares about the straight men (the former was in both Dracula and The Mummy) for about the length it takes to write a sentence when it comes to Universal horror films. Evidently, Ulmer felt the best way to deal with Lugosi and his apparent tendency to overact (combined with his accent) was to "cut him down" when it came to focusing to reaction shots with him on screen. Karloff (playing a character named after Hans Poelzig, who worked on The Golem like Ulmer did) on the other hand is let loose to do his impression of evil, which results in a tightwire act that makes for fairly useful struggle, even if the film itself is built on the loosest of motivations. It is an odd film that can't really decide whether to be a revenge film or a weirdo cult film, and the way they shoehorn the film title is especially amusing, as it is revealed that Lugosi's character is deathly afraid of cats and the main mansion (with its distinct architecture and strange choices and history) has a pack of black cats around. It is Lugosi and Karloff who carry the film (because it certainly isn't going to come from the two squares), a calm cat and mouse game waiting to fester that works best depending on which style of acting works best in bluster, since Lugosi seems to act with his eyes just as much as when you let the camera stay on him to contrast with Karloff having that cold stare of devilish intent. There of course can be credit for the weird stuff that is present (on screen or not) for a film released in 1934 while also noting that it is a weirdly constructed film. It has an odd runtime / pace comparison that might as well serve right for an odd film where the villains are more interesting than the heroes (you've got one blatant one and basically a co-conspirator waiting to strike). In general, it's a weird delight that sounds about right for an Ulmer film or for those interested further in the Universal line of wired horror films. 

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next up: 20 years later, what lies beneath The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)?

Strange Illusion.

Review #2058: Strange Illusion.

Cast: 

Jimmy Lydon (Paul Cartwright), Warren William (Brett Curtis), Sally Eilers (Virginia Cartwright), Regis Toomey (Dr. Martin Vincent), Charles Arnt (Prof. Muhlbach), George Reed (Benjamin, the butler), and Jayne Hazard (Dorothy Cartwright) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday, #803 - Detour, #943 - The Man from Planet X, and #1364 - Bluebeard)

Review: 

The basis for the film is two-fold: Adele Comandini wrote the screenplay based on a story by Fritz Rotter that the studio bought the rights to. Of course, there is a tiny little nugget of inspiration with William Shakespeare's Hamlet, as evidenced by the dreams that the lead character experiences that may or may not give him an inkling into figuring out the death of his father as murder rather than the accident people believe that just happens to coincide with his mother about to re-marry a certain man. Incidentally, the play featured its title character doing an act of going mad while the film features a lead character midway through the film voluntarily going into a sanatorium for psychiatric evaluation (of course, there is no Ophelia in this film, but I'm sure you figured that or didn't really ask). So, who ended up being the director of such an odd little film that seems right for the king of the cheapies in Producers Releasing Corporation? Well, who better but Edgar G. Ulmer? I picked this film for one particular reason: it happens to have been the film released between two other distinct Ulmer features: Bluebeard (1944) and Detour (1945). So that is what you get here for an 87-minute feature that is readily available in the public domain, although obviously seeing the film with the best quality is advisable. 

I think you can tell that the film will live and die on just how much you roll with its young star in the 22-year-old Lydon, who had broken into acting eight years earlier (most notably starring in a film series called Henry Aldrich for nine films). He can only go so far with such, uh, let's say "youthful spirit", but the dream sequences that occasionally come through undoubtedly do the best job in keeping the film as watchable as possible (so one rolls their eyes at the kid for a bit, but he at least makes a useful effort in not being a miserable presence). That part draws the most attention because it talks about the unconscious mind and just what the hell lurks in one mind that seems right and less than right in reality-shifting times. Ulmer takes it about as seriously as one should expect, which thankfully doesn't strain itself too hard in the mystery of just what the fuss is all about with this random man present in the here and now. Besides, I don't think you need a really-dragged out process to figuring out just who is actually making sense when we are talking about a quick-paced film. With that in mind, William (once called "King of the Pre-Code" in his third-to-last film appearance before his death in 1948) is probably the most effective choice to play it both ways, one who can be engaging on the one foot and slimy on the other side that probably could have made a quality King Claudius if he had the chance on the stage. Eilers is wrapped in the middle, ordinary but useful. Toomey and Arnt are the standard character presence that you would see in films like this, and that is totally fine when one is meant to be playing a second-fiddle to canoodling crime. As a whole, the film never really rises above what one's expectations are when it comes to cheap-rate noirs based on happenstance and murky foundations, but Ulmer is the right guy to move things around to satisfactory results in spending time broadening the horizons of picking films beyond the usual suspects. PRC, Eagle-Lion, whatever floats your boat, you will do just fine with this film.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Bluebeard (1944).

Review #1364: Bluebeard.

Cast: 

John Carradine (Gaston Morrell), Jean Parker (Lucille Lutien), Nils Asther (Inspector Jacques Lefevre), Ludwig Stössel (Jean Lamarte), George Pembroke (Inspector Renard), Teala Loring (Francine Lutien), Sonia Sorel (Renee Claremont), Henry Kolker (Deschamps Lutien), Emmett Lynn (Le Soldat), and Iris Adrian (Mimi Roberts) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday, #803 - Detour, and #943 - The Man from Planet X)

Review: 
Surprise, surprise, Onward will be delayed, since I could not view it in time before movie theaters began their temporary closure in light of the coronavirus. In any case, time to move on to continuing the tribute for the month.

Who better to deliver low budget noirs than Edgar G. Ulmer and Producers Releasing Corporation? The two almost seem made for each other. The film was inspired by famous French folktale Barbe bleue (written by Charles Perrault), first published in 1697 that told of a wealthy man who had a habit of murdering his wives. The story has been adapted to numerous media over the years, from a 1901 film by George Melies (among at least six other adaptations) to opera to ballet. Ulmer had first come to Hollywood in 1926, having worked as a stage actor and set designer in Austria (living in Vienna after being born in Olomouc, Austria-Hungary, now considered part of the Czech Republic). He would go on to a distinguished career with films in four different decades. His first directorial efforts were People on Sunday (1930), a production written by Billy Wilder that Ulmer co-directed with Robert Siodmak before moving on Damaged Lives (1933), an American/Canadian exploitation film about diseases. His one main studio film in The Black Cat (1934) was a huge box office hit. However, he was relegated to doing films for Poverty Row studios because he had an affair with Shirley Kassler, who was married to a relative of a studio head before divorcing him for Ulmer. She would later serve as script supervisor on most of the films that followed from Ulmer, spent primarily with ethnic dramas and low budget studios like PRC, which had been founded in 1939 to do low-budget fare that could be used for double bills while never spending more than $100,000 for productions, which worked for 179 films in seven years total before being acquired by Eagle-Lion Films (which later disbanded in 1950).

With a shooting schedule of six days, it is a triumph of Ulmer that this film noir (written by Arnold Lipp, Werner H. Furst and Pierre Gendron) turned out so well for what it does, a decent little gem. One must be impressed by how he made a spellbinding experience with a standout performance from Carradine, a prolific presence given a chance to deliver chills. He has quite an alluring power to him, trapped with obsession that makes it worthwhile to spend time with. Parker keeps up with him just fine, an innocent yet manageable counterpart. Asther does fine with making some authority seem to mean something without being completely washed away by Carradine and Stossel makes for a sniveling secondary aspect of the film count. One has an inkling of where the film is going to go (crime doesn't pay, or at least that's the lesson one is meant to get from films of the era), but it doesn't mean the methods are going to be cut and dry, where Ulmer makes something out of what would've likely been just another B-movie. It is an interesting experience at 72 minutes, a movie that is stagy but watchable when it needs to be that overcomes cash-strapped foundations with a can-do cast headlined by Carradine in generating interest in something that makes for a solid public domain pick. It's the journey that counts, and this one is helped by Ulmer in getting its foot in the door.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

The Man from Planet X.

Review #943: The Man from Planet X.

Cast:
Robert Clarke (John Lawrence), Margaret Field (Enid Elliot), Raymond Bond (Professor Elliot), William Schallert (Dr. Mears), Roy Engel (Tommy the Constable), Charles Davis (Georgie, man at dock), Gilbert Fallman (Dr. Robert Blane), and David Ormont (Inspector Porter) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday and #803 - Detour)

Review:
This film was made in just six days, while being shot on sets that had previously been used for the 1948 film version of Joan of Arc; fog machines were used not only for mood but also used in order to cover up parts of the set that weren't exactly there. This is the kind of movie where atmosphere and charm outweigh its cheaply thin nature to make a fairly decent movie. Clarke is a capable lead, carrying the movie with a good ounce of sincerity. Field and Bond are also pretty decent; Schallert is fine in an adversarial role; the film doesn't tell us what he did that apparently should've got him "twenty years", but he captures the ambitious but flawed type pretty well - even if he is also used in order to explain the plot later on. The movie runs pretty decently, lasting just 70 minutes and not seeming to waste any of its time either.

The alien is somewhat unique in that he communicates by modulated musical sounds; you never see his whole body throughout the film (due to the lighting), but his facial effects are pretty decent. One strange thing to note is the fact that there is no credit given to the actor who plays the titular character; it has been rumored to either have been Pat Goldin or dwarf actor Billy Curtis, though nothing can be confirmed (if one wants to go by Wikipedia, anyway). As stated before, the atmosphere of the film is quite nice, with nothing looks ridiculously out of place. The plot is a bit strange, with the main motivation not revealed until the last 10 minutes and the ending lines not exactly making sense. Field's character states that the creature was friendly and wondering what would have happened had Schaller's character had not "frightened him"...except that the creature was trying to get his people to invade the planet in order to survive, while they turned others in the island into zombies. No matter how the alien seemed, the fact remains that him and the planet mutually wanted to survive by invasion. In any case, this isn't a great flick, but it is at the very least a quick little film that manages to be fairly entertaining and overriding its limitations, with a good part of the credit going to the cast but also to Ulmer and his direction.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Detour.

Review #803: Detour.

Cast
Tom Neal (Al Roberts), Ann Savage (Vera), Claudia Drake (Sue Harvey), Edmund MacDonald (Charles Haskell Jr), Tim Ryan (Nevada Diner Proprietor), Esther Howard (Holly, Diner Waitress), and Don Brodie (Used Car Salesman) Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday)

Review
Detour (by varying accounts) was made on a low budget that was filmed in a few weeks with the movie being released by Producers Releasing Corporation, a low-budget studio that made and distributed their own films in the 1940's, making over 100 films before it was acquired by Eagle-Lion Films Inc, which merged into United Artists by the 1950's. But in any case, Detour has thrived over the 71 years since its release, even being added onto the National Film Registry (alongside other noirs previously reviewed on this show, such as The Hitch-Hiker and Shadow of a Doubt). Nearly half way through the movie, we are introduced to Savage's character with a bright theme as she is picked up by the main character on the road. It's a nice scene because the rest of her scenes depict her as a sharp tongued hostile contrast to Neal, with the two exchanging multiple times in banter that gives the movie a sharp kind of edge.

Neal plays the everyman kind of character well, and it's interesting to see him have to adjust to the ever changing nature of his situation, what with a man plopping dead on a rock and all, with narration helping to set the movie up quickly. It's a movie all about guilt, with a hero that seemingly traps himself into a situation that gets more precarious by the minute. The movie ends on a quote the essentially sums up the movie: "Fate, for some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me, for no good reason at all." Neal is easy to relate to along with being easy to watch, with a unique sort of ending (Yes, the Production Code of the time dictated that murderers were to not get away with it...but the movie finds a way to get around it of sorts). Detour, despite only having a few characters to focus on, a low budget, and a short run-time of 67 minutes, manages to rise above b-movie status to become a winner, and I would recommend this film for anyone looking for a film noir to watch.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

People on Sunday.

Review #797: People on Sunday.

Cast
Erwin Splettstößer (Himself - taxi driver), Brigitte Borchert (Herself  - record seller), Wolfgang von Waltershausen (Himself - wine seller), Christl Ehlers (Herself - an extra in films), and Annie Schreyer (Herself - model) Directed by Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer.

Review
People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag) is not only the first film from 1930 reviewed on Movie Night, but it's also the first German film reviewed here since Metropolis (#500) over two years ago, alongside being the first silent film and second world cinema film reviewed this year. The subtitle of the film is "a film without actors", in light of the fact that the people in this movie were amateurs who (according to the opening titles) returned to their normal jobs by the time the movie was released in February 1930. It's interesting to see a movie like this, with ordinary people being spotlighted on their day (Sunday) off in Berlin, with the emphasis on five individuals. This is a movie not made for a complex plot, nor standout performances to win awards, but a movie made as it is, with no real inflated sense of artificial stock, feeling very realistic for its time about Berlin.

Though the movie was released as the Great Depression was in swing, the movie was made in the previous year on a low budget, but the movie nevertheless has an aura of innocence to it, especially Berlin, with regards to the decade (and more) that followed. I do love this one scene in which a photographer photographs a bunch of people's faces, from old to young, and I love the scene because there is a certain sense of charm to seeing people enjoying leisure time that fits well with the movie. It should be noted that this movie was written not only by the Sidomak brothers (Robert and Curt), bu also Billy Wilder, who left Berlin for Hollywood in 1933, writing and directing several classics, such as Some Like It Hot (#106), Ace in the Hole (#194), The Fortune Cookie (#422), The Apartment (#641), and several other movies in an over 40 year span. Fittingly, the movie ends on this title card: "And then on Monday...it is back to work... back to the everyday... back to the daily grind... Four... million... wait for... the next Sunday. The end." Ultimately, the movie is both an interesting time capsule into the lives of people (who never acted again) in Berlin along with being a hallmark of realism that is interesting to watch even today.

Countdown: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3...

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars,