The Black Swan.

Review #2548: The Black Swan.

Cast: 

Tyrone Power (Jamie Waring), Maureen O'Hara (Lady Margaret Denby), Laird Cregar (Sir Henry Morgan), Thomas Mitchell (Tom Blue), George Sanders (Captain Billy Leech), Anthony Quinn (Wogan), with George Zucco (Lord Denby), and Edward Ashley (Roger Ingram) Directed by Henry King (#1687 - O. Henry's Full House, #2223 - The Gunfighter)

Review: 

It probably helps to cover a swashbuckler movie every now and then, even one that basically freewheels around its alleged "source material". Taking the title of the 1932 novel of the same name by Rafael Sabatini (you might remember that he previously had his novels adapted into films with Captain Blood [1922/1935], and Bardelys the Magnificent [1926]), the movie had a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Seton I. Miller. At the helm for direction was the solidly reliable Henry King, fresh in the middle of directing Remember the Day (1941) and The Song of Bernadette (1943). This was one of three films with O'Hara (who had joined Fox with How Green Was My Valley [1941] as among the leading cast, which included To the Shores of Tripoli and Ten Gentlemen from West Point. She had meant to co-star with Power with Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942) but dropped out due to illness. With this film, she noted her happiness in the film, once stating it was "everything you could want in a lavish pirate picture." The movie was a fairly decent hit at the time, and Leon Shamroy won an Academy Award for his cinematography (shot in color*) on the film.  

You've got a 1600s setting with a few interesting effects and shots to go along with a fairly efficient 85-minute runtime that freewheels with history (the real Morgan, a privateer and plantation owner who was knighted in 1674, served on the Assembly of Jamaica and also was a Lieutenant Governor and occasional interim governor before he died in 1688, as one does when living to his fifties) for a fairly decent effort. I don't think it's exactly on the level of say, The Mark of Zorro (1940) when it comes to a slapdash Power film, but it's still a pretty amiable time, mainly because you see enough enthusiasm from its main cast. It's the "love, gold, and adventure!" movie to swallow up like it was cotton candy, filled with hokum in the "loving care" type - you either have that patience or don't. With the war effort booming in 1942, Power enlisted in the Marine Corps in August, with Crash Dive being the last one before he went through training/combat missions until he returned in 1946. He has the panache required to just step into the swashbuckling type (debate all you want who managed it better between him and, say, Errol Flynn*) with general ease of charm without looking like he wants to be somewhere else. The leading ladies can change, the staging might differ, but you can still see the commitment present in the swagger to just go through the motions and not make it sound tired. O'Hara doesn't exactly as much to really grab onto for the character besides the usual swooning type for adventures where one sees the adventurer face the odds and beat them and, well, you know what happens. But at least she is game for matching with Power with fiery grace and got onto better things. Cregar (a stage-turned-film actor that got his supporting roles in 1941 and was going to be a leading man before his untimely death in 1944) hams it up with captivating warmth that probably captures the film more than anybody, and that includes the credible attempts from adversaries in Sanders and Quinn. It's a sword-splitting movie that looks decent enough, has a few credible moments in swinging around without swinging completely for the fences that doesn't dawdle - what more could you ask for? For a 1940s movie, an average movie of its time is still as desirable as ever.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Remember that folks could win for cinematography in black-and-white and in color for several years.

*At least people don't call Power a creep.

The Mummy's Ghost.

Review #2265: The Mummy's Ghost.

Cast: 

Lon Chaney Jr (Kharis), John Carradine (Yousef Bey), Robert Lowery (Tom Hervey), Ramsay Ames (Amina Mansori), Barton MacLane (Police Inspector Walgreen), George Zucco (High Priest Andoheb), Frank Reicher (Professor Matthew Norman), Harry Shannon (Sheriff Elwood), Emmett Vogan (Coroner), and Lester Sharp (Dr. Ayad) Directed by Reginald Le Borg (#1179 - The Black Sleep)

Review: 

Okay, so here we are with another Mummy film (in the timeline of 30 years after The Mummy's Hand as established by The Mummy's Tomb). It's hard to believe that this is the third of the four Kharis films released from 1940 to 1944, and yet here we are. It is funny that Zucco returns for this film, having apparently survived being shot and going down the stairs from the last two films just so he can go assign the task of getting the mummy to the character played by John Carradine (creatively called Yousef Bey, after the last film had used named the follower character Mehemet Bey and the 1932 film had used "Ardath Bey"), who was busy enough to be on four Universal horror films (the others being The Invisible Man's Revenge, House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula). The film was written by Griffin Jay, Henry Sucher, Brenda Weisberg, as based on a story by Jay and Sucher. The movie was shot quickly in August/September of 1943 but wasn't released until June of 1944. This is also yet another movie where a priest tries to get involved with a woman while trying to deal with Kharis. Oh, and reincarnations involving people thought to be the long-dead woman lover, which you might recognize as being from the 1932 Mummy film. The movie was done by Reginald Le Borg, an Austrian who had moved to the States in 1934 that rose from staging in film to bit part actor to directing by the late 1930s. He had made films for the Office of War Information during World War II but got to be part of Universal in 1943 for a handful of their films, most notably the first three "Inner Sanctum Mystery" films; he didn't care for his horror films, but he was a craftsman of several films in the B-level for many years.

You are not getting anything different that you saw in Tomb or Hand, but are you really that surprised? Sure, those movies weren't actually that good, but you could at least say they tried. Here, there just isn't anything to really grouse about, and this is a movie with Carradine in it. He just doesn't get that much to really do when compared to the stuff you saw before when it comes to goofy priests. Lowery might as well be an actual broomstick. Ames has one defining characteristic: a streak of white in her hair, which clearly means danger and sleepwalking. Since one knows that Chaney had a painful time with the makeup (couldn't even scratch an itch), it does amuse to see him try to go around with one good arm (such as with a fence). The people in the film sure have a fun time trying to avoid him, and it is pretty funny to see in a giant case of steps for the climax. Probably the most amusing thing about the movie is the use of a dog to help guide the people around to find the mummy, because then one can make a lazy Lassie joke. Nah, actually, my favorite joke is that a few times the movie has someone ask "Amon-Ra" to aid his quest and I could simply say "but Amon-Ra (St. Brown) plays in Detroit." The only thing that saves the movie is the ending, because for once, you don't get to have a happy ending wrapped up in the last five minutes. I do wonder just what the headline writers or folks did when it came to the time after the swamp episode ("Men Swamped By Swamp", anyone?). In conclusion, nothing has been improved from before in a series of serviceable but wholly "not particularly good" 1940s Mummy films. Making one have to debate between Hand and Tomb for the "best follow-up to The Mummy until being blown out by the 1999 rendition" is a sad task indeed.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Mummy's Tomb.

Review #1908: The Mummy's Tomb.

Cast: 

Lon Chaney Jr (Kharis), Dick Foran (Prof. Stephen A. Banning), John Hubbard (Dr. John Banning), Elyse Knox (Isobel Evans), Wallace Ford (Babe Hanson), Turhan Bey (Mehemet Bey), George Zucco (Andoheb), Mary Gordon (Jane Banning), and Cliff Clark (Sheriff) Directed by Harold Young (#511 - The Three Caballeros and #1799 - Carib Gold)

Review: 

Two years after the release of The Mummy's Hand (1940) came this film, which retained a couple of actors from this film as a sequel (of sorts) to this one. Foran, Ford, and Zucco return for this film, while Lon Chaney Jr replaces Tom Tyler as the title character. Honestly, I fail to see the point of having Chaney in the role, since he doesn't have a word of dialogue beyond all that makeup, and he would end up starring in the next two of these films. Given the time that the film it was made, it should only make sense that the film re-uses footage from the previous Mummy film, and this is done to recap what happened in a ten-minute opening (while Zucco is used to do other exposition before dying after monologuing). So yes, an hour-long film is really 50 when you take that out. You could call it incredibly redundant, but I guess it works if you really don't remember mediocre movies like before. I would like to point out that it is set "thirty years later", which would actually mean this film was set 30 years in the future and since the last one was a contemporary film...well, 1970 sure looks like 1940. 

It sure is a shame that this sequel is only just the same kind of mediocre horror movie, complete with oddball decision making that goes along with the benefit of having less comic relief without dragging along for an intolerable hour. You get a body-count and a silly motivation for the climax, what more is there to say? At least Bey makes for a useful adversary, following in the footsteps of Zucco in terms of smooth devotion before the inevitable story bits come in. So yes, a bunch of actors in elderly makeup are taken down by a mummy that survived being burned that moves at an amusingly slow pace. Hell, one of the guys gets killed when he is cornered at a wall and doesn't think to just...run to the side of him. But hey, the townspeople get a bunch of torches and chase the mummy, which happens to remind one of the Frankenstein movies, with the mummy being a tool to kill, which isn't too fun. My favorite bit is the group of townspeople staying still with their torches before they decide to throw some of them into the house the mummy is present (while people happen to be in the house). In short, nothing really is improved from the last film despite the small improvements from before. Maybe it is a bit interesting to see where the story ends up for Foran and Ford along with Zucco (seemingly alive after getting shot down a staircase), but yeah, they don't really have much to do to make you care very much about what goes on, so the disposability of them isn't exactly a shocker. Hubbard is just kind of there, existing only to interact in the mildest of mild things when the mummy is not on screen. Knox is just as bland, only serving as an object for desires of the most predictable kind, because this is yet another Mummy movie where the priest wants the girl for himself (the last one had them plan to eat tana leaves to be immortal). Sure, it is nice to see Bey in the role rather than someone who would play it for stereotypes, but nothing really changes in terms of captivating drama beyond the mild horror things. As a whole, if you want only a movie that serves the basic requirement of mummy terror and nothing else, then it will probably rank better than the prior Mummy sequel, but otherwise, there isn't really much to say in terms of positivity besides calling it mediocre.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Mummy's Hand.

Review #1735: The Mummy's Hand.

Cast: 

Dick Foran (Steve Banning), Peggy Moran (Marta Solvani), Wallace Ford (Babe Jenson), Eduardo Ciannelli (the High Priest), George Zucco (Professor / Andoheb), Cecil Kellaway (Tim "The Great Solvani" Sullivan), Charles Trowbridge (Dr. Petrie), Tom Tyler (Kharis), and Sig Arno (The Beggar) Directed by Christy Cabanne.

Review: 

Believe it or not, the Univeral line of horror movies was not a constant cycle that just churned out interesting monster after monster; sure, Universal opened the door with The Phantom of the Opera (1925), but it was Dracula (1931) that set the stage for a craze of films in the next five years that generally adapted literary material such as the works of Edgar Allan Poe or H.G. Wells. The Mummy (1932), however, was instead inspired by the public interest in Egyptian tombs and curses. By 1936, the cycle of these films would take a pause because of the power struggle that came about over ownership of Universal Pictures, which struggled with financial overruns with the Laemmle family in charge. Until the fall of 1938, there were no plans for future films...until Universal heard about the positivity coming from the Regina-Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills, which showed a double feature of Dracula and Frankenstein and attracted crowds, including Bela Lugosi being used to promote it; they would make their own prints to show around (while having Lugosi do a wide tour) and soon found themselves in a decision to return into the world of horror. As such, Son of Frankenstein (1939) started a new cycle of horror films from the company, which would include old and new monsters with features such as The Invisible Man Returns (1940), The Wolf Man (1941), and others. However, with the Mummy series, a re-imagining would be done for the four feature films done in the 1940s (each with the title of "The Mummy's [blank]" with this one, Tomb, Ghost, and Curse). The 1931 film featured a mummy by name of Ardeth Bay / Imhotep, while this one features a mummy named Kharis, which would be the name for each of the subsequent films (this does not include the Abbott and Costello crossover film, which spelled it as Klaris). The story was done by Griffin Jay, who also did the screenplay with Maxwell Shane; the film was made on a modest budget of $84,000 while having a bit of footage re-used from the original feature (because why re-stage something you already shot in a time where you couldn't just watch the other film on a whim?) and sets re-used from Green Hell (released the same year, incidentally directed by James Whale). At the helm of director was Cabanne, a stage/film actor-turned-director that would turn out films at a proficient rate from the 1910s all the way until his last film in 1948, with a good deal of them being Westerns. Oddly enough, it was a guy known for Westerns that would play the title character for this film with Tom Tyler. One can imagine why anybody would only want to do one feature where cotton is glued to the face for wrinkles (I imagine it took less than eight hours to get the job done this time around).

This, along with a handful of the horror films of its era, belong to the B-movie classification, ones that could be slickly made and shown out to fill the billing for whatever theatres needed in the era of the 1940s, for better or worse (Frankenstein would turn into a monster mash with varying results, for example). One could probably do better with 67 minutes than to watch a curiously average affair that this film proves to be, one that has a bit more of the Mummy than the original but without as much interest in actually doing anything useful besides attempts at building a quartet that go about as well as riding a bike blindfolded. Technically, the only interesting presence is Zucco, who certainly had a knack for playing the heavy (whether suave or mad), although Tyler and a frame-by-frame blackening out of his eyes is a close second (incidentally, Lon Chaney Jr would play the title character in the next three films, while Zucco would appear in two of them). The effects are fairly decent here too for the character, so there is that to consider. To add one more Western connection, Foran was actually known for his performances in Western musicals and supporting roles. For such a wooden time, he is probably the better of the main four, if only because he fits the requirements of a calm middle man with the bare minimum (the same could be applied to Moran, but playing the one in distress on a slab doesn't help). Nay, the flaws rests with the attempts at making comic relief with Ford and Kellaway. Sure, each actor had a handful of films to show their stuff as character presences, but they seem wasted here because the comic stuff just isn't that interesting. With such a short time to spare (particularly after spending the first few minutes with Zucco in relaying the plot), one doesn't have much patience with goofy things that revolve from trying to trick a magician in a bar to talking about a trick with a pebble. Besides, the mummy doesn't exactly have as much threatening power if all it does is being used as a tool to kill everybody but the main group (involving extinct leaves being turned into tana liquid). The climax is especially annoying in this regard, since Zucco and Ford get to engage in a short gunfight where they somehow shoot at each other but only one manages to hit anything (and if you remember correctly with Zucco, this means nobody really shot the other!) while the mummy stumbles around with a tied up person (brought in by Zucco because he wants to be immortal with her because...guarding the mummy isn't enough?). Honestly, besides torching the mummy, the quarter getting spoils of the tomb they eventually found is probably the most insulting thing, because we are here for the tiniest bit of horror, not fortune. As a whole, the film served as a quick way of getting folks back in the seats for a mummy after eight years of seclusion, and while I can't say I liked the film, it might prove a curiosity for anyone wanting quickly-done horror or for folks already interested in just where Universal liked to go with their monsters.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Sherlock Holmes in Washington.

Review #925: Sherlock Holmes in Washington.

Cast:
Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes), Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson), Marjorie Lord (Nancy Partridge), Henry Daniell (William Easter), George Zucco (Heinrich Hinkel), John Archer (Lt. Pete Merriam), Gavin Muir (Mr. Lang, government agent), and Edmund MacDonald (Detective Lt. Grogan) Directed by Roy William Neill (#846 - Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and #873 - Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon)

Review:
This is the fifth film to star Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes (#583 - The Hound of the Baskervilles, #721: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, #798: Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, #873: Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon). This was released in April of 1943, barely a few months after the previous film was released (having gone into general release in February after premiering in December). At 71 minutes, this runs a bit longer than the previous two films, with a fine climax involving Rathbone and Zucco, who exchange a good amount of dialogue with each other that is nifty while helping the movie get some sort of momentum. Much like the last film, it goes through the motions of a spy flick made during the war with some sort of coherence and logic. The parts in the beginning (on a train) do have some cleverness to them in watching how it is executed, though the middle edges (with occasional use of stock footage) don't compare as well. Rathbone and Bruce are up to their usual level of class, with the latter having brief moments of amusement, such as drinking milkshakes (after all, they are in America). Lord is decent as the innocent, with some degree of entertaining nature. Here's a brief summary of the film: Secret info gets turned into microfilm that is hidden into a certain type of object that falls in innocent hands. Obviously this isn't something too new (nor something that wasn't done after this film), but it works in some part to see how far the thrills try to go. There is at least some sort of effort by the others to make it seem tolerable. Notably, the movie ends with the main two characters having an exchange about America and a quote by Winston Churchill about justice and peace. It's a feel good kind of movie that will work for anyone looking for some more Sherlock things. Is it good? Not particularly (for me, anyway), but I'm sure that it'll work for others looking for some form of entertainment.

Footnote: At least this film isn't The Boy Next Door.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

House of Frankenstein.

Review #847: House of Frankenstein.

Cast
Boris Karloff (Dr. Gustav Niemann), Lon Chaney Jr. (Lawrence "Larry" Talbot/The Wolf Man), John Carradine (Count Dracula), J. Carrol Naish (Daniel), Elena Verdugo (Ilonka), Anne Gwynne (Rita Hussman), Peter Coe (Karl Hussman), Lionel Atwill (Inspector Arnz), George Zucco (Bruno Lampini), Sig Ruman (Bürgermeister Hussman), William Edmunds (Fejos), Charles F. Miller (Tobermann), Philip Van Zandt (Müller), Julius Tannen (Hertz), Hans Herbert (Meier), and Glenn Strange (The Monster) Directed by Erle C. Kenton (#845 - The Ghost of Frankenstein)

Review
Released one year after Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein not only brings in Dracula and a hunchback to the monster mix, but it also has Boris Karloff, now starring in a main role who gets more time on screen than the monster he had originally played less than a decade before. This time around, Glenn Strange (the fourth actor to play him) plays the Monster for a very brief amount of time, which I guess makes sense considering how much we've seen of the character in the past few films, only being in the climax. Karloff and Naish do go well together, having some fine banter along with seeming right for the roles. Chaney is good as ever, just like the effects. If you're looking for a Dracula meet up with Frankenstein's monster, you will be sorely dissappointed, as Dracula is killed off less than an hour into the film. It is funny that he was brought back to life only because Karloff's character removed the stake from his heart. Carradine is fairly decent, but he doesn't really seem to evoke any creepy charisma that Lugosi had in the role. Verdugo is not as interesting to watch, although her calling Naish's character "mean and ugly" (the whole exchange is pretty strange itself) is somewhat enjoyable cheesy. The characters aren't really anything too special, but it is fun at least to see the ways that everything tries to be set in place, even if it comes off as cheesy, though that can work for most. At least it isn't the Wolf Man fighting Frankenstein's monster again, though there really isn't a full on monster mash. At 71 minutes, it works okay enough to pass for at least somebody. I find it to not be as good as the previous film, but it is marginally entertaining.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Review #721: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Cast
Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes), Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson), Ida Lupino (Ann Brandon), George Zucco (Professor Moriarty), Alan Marshal (Jerrold Hunter), and E. E. Clive (Inspector Bristol) Directed by Alfred L. Werker (#676 - Shock)

Review
It's been a while (#583 - The Hound of the Baskervilles) since I reviewed a Sherlock Holmes film, and it's only fitting that it's the second film of the Rathbone series, which had 14 films in total in seven years. In fact, this was the second Holmes film with Rathbone released in 1939, because in those days, films were made really quickly, with the gap between the two films being only 5 months (and 1 day). It is in this film that the phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" came into popularity, and while it wasn't a phrase used in the Doyle stories (though it was used in stage adaptations before this film), it has entered into Holmes' lore mainly because of the quality of this movie, which is exceptional. The interactions that Rathbone has with Bruce are well paced and make for a good duo, though his scenes with Zucco are also well done, especially their last scene, which has some good action. It may be a little typical at times, but it at least is a good way to spend 81 minutes while watching Rathbone steal the show (as usual) and see a little mystery play out nicely.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Scared to Death.

Review #534: Scared to Death.

Cast
Bela Lugosi (Prof. Leonide), George Zucco (Dr. Joseph Van Ee), Nat Pendleton (Bill Raymond), Molly Lamont (Laura Van Ee / Laurette La Valle), Joyce Compton (Jane Cornell), Gladys Blake (Lilybeth), Roland Varno (Ward Van Ee), and Douglas Fowley (Terry Lee) Directed by Christy Cabanne.

Review
The movie claims to be filmed in "natural color", and while it may seem utterly ridiculous to market especially in the title card, the movie doesn't look that bad, though even if it was in black in white, this would still be a mediocre film. The movie has a premise that could either be seen as creative or entirely useless. And what's the premise? The character that was scared to death narrates (I put that one loosely, given that all is speaking brief lines while just lying on the table) over the film, complete with really silly screamy music that occurs every time the corpse narrates (The narration lasting about 30 seconds)...and after it ends, which makes me wonder why didn't they just have narration over the film itself, and not these stupid interruptions that aren't long enough to be called interruptions. Lugosi is hamming up to the max, and hey, he's not the villain here, though he does have a short sidekick, which is really bizarre because it doesn't really add anything to this shoe string plot. The actors look like they don't care, and the film's plot is so ludicrous that you'll be begging for it to end by the half way mark. It's a strange, but ultimately useless film that shows its age, and it's lack of scares. It actually would work better as a comedy, but even that sounds too generous. For the next film on Bela Lugosi Week, we'll be dwelling into...the 1950's.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Dead Men Walk.

Review #436: Dead Men Walk.

Cast
George Zucco (Dr. Lloyd Clayton / Dr. Elwyn Clayton), Mary Carlisle (Gale Clayton), Nedrick Young (Dr. David Bentley), Dwight Frye (Zolarr), and Fern Emmett (Kate) Directed by Sam Newfield.

Review
What? Oh sorry, I was busy trying to remember what I was watching earlier. All I remember is watching this 64 minute 1940s film, took a nap after watching it, and then watching some show to block this film out of my memory. The Powerpuff Girls don't do a very good job at that, unfortunately. I'd say something like "But at least this has some entertainment value right?", but this isn't really much in terms of entertainment. It ends quicker then it begins and it feels like a low budget Dracula at best. In fact, Dwight Frye is even in this, previously featured in Frankenstein, Dracula and The Maltese Falcon, and he's okay in this. The budget is low, as noticed when I keep hearing sound issues, such as their being a faint tap, which sounds like what happens on a record player. The film starts with some sort of book about "The History of the Vampires" being burned, which puzzles me because I'm wondering who would make such a book about that? The next book presumably would be The History of Zardar, the Clown Terror from Beyond Outer Space, or The History of the World, Part II. The actors are okay, and the film sometimes does have a creepy vibe, but it's mostly forgettable, yet very easy to find on the Internet.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.