Daughter of Dr. Jekyll.

Review #2603: Daughter of Dr. Jekyll.

Cast:

Gloria Talbott (Janet Smith), John Agar (George Hastings), Arthur Shields (Dr. Lomas), John Dierkes (Jacob), Molly McCard (Maggie), Martha Wentworth (Mrs. Merchant), Marjorie Stapp (Woman Getting Dressed), Rita Green (Lucy), and Marel Page (Young Man in Woods)

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (#797 - People on Sunday, #803 - Detour, #943 - The Man from Planet X, #1364 - Bluebeard, #2058 - Strange Illusion, #2111 - The Black Cat)

Review: 

Oh, you're going to love their type of twist on the spawn of Dr. Jekyll, just sit tight. The 1950s was an odd time for Edgar G. Ulmer in the road to trying to stick around in making cheapie movies with plenty of variety that ranged from The Man from Planet X (1951). comedies such as St. Benny the Dip (1951) to Italian productions such as Hannibal (1959), with Ulmer's 1960s output seeing a double-header filmed in Dallas with The Amazing Transparent Man and Beyond the Time Barrier (1960). You might remember that Jack Pollexfen, who had worked with Ulmer with the aforementioned Planet X, previously worked with Mortimer Braus on cobbling up a story idea for what eventually became The Son of Dr. Jekyll (1951). So obviously a few years later he decided to make another loose "continuation" from Robert Louis Stevenson's original novella. Pollexfen both wrote and produced this film (as one does). The movie was shot in an old mansion in Los Angeles; true to cheapie form, an establishing shot of the house and car coming up was done in miniature (as for the girl-monster scene, it apparently was shot in some burned over woods with ultraviolet film). It was released by Allied Artists in 1957 as part of a double-bill with The Cyclops. For Talbott's part, she apparently was quoted as being "amazingly surprised" by the final result, while Agar stated his role was strictly for the money that he just didn't believe it.

For whatever reason, the movie's prologue and epilogue basically go the same way, where it tells us about the death of Dr. Henry Jekyll and then asking, "Are you sure?" It's pretty corny, sure, but there are for more odd forces at foot. There are attempts at atmosphere with a bit of fog and a bit of attempted trickery within its 71-minute runtime about what lies beneath basement of lab stuff...and, well, a werewolf. Yes, really. In the same year where you could see hypnosis connected to someone possibly turning into a werewolf with I Was a Teenage Werewolf, you could try a different type of hokum here, complete with having to see if our hero will meet the same fate for werewolves (one where father Jekyll drank a potion to be who he was) in...getting staked through the chest. It basically is a goof-fest that you maybe check out when you have absolutely nothing better to do that may provide a few chuckles in its execution within such a limited space of time and money for a director that probably deserved better. Talbott is tasked with such a strange role of tension for who she is meant to be as a twentysomething that barely has their own name and a dubious sense of agency (trying to marry that cardboard cutout is one thing, being wrapped in fears about nightmares is another). Shields plays the cloying authority figure to basically the bare minimum for when the movie does its little twist that wouldn't do anybody that many favors when having to be depicted as a goofy wolf in yet another Pollexfen production with an evil guardian wanting to get the estate (for which it barely looks like it would be much to inherit at all). Hell, if you go by what the twist says, who's to say that Dr. Jekyll was even a nut at all, since I don't seem to remember "Mr. Hyde" being mentioned once. As a whole, it's a cheap curiosity that is basically held by Ulmer and company for the bare minimum of horror entertainment with the odds and ends of trying to be creative in such a limited format. It's a middle of the road movie that is marginally more interesting as a "continuation" movie than The Son of Dr. Jekyll but not nearly as worthwhile beyond calling it mediocre and moving on to the next oldie to wonder about.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

The Premature Burial.

Review #2434: The Premature Burial.

Cast:  

Ray Milland (Guy Carrell), Heather Angel (Kate Carrell, Guy's Sister), Hazel Court (Emily Gault, Guy's Wife), Alan Napier (Dr. Gideon Gault), Richard Ney (Miles Archer), John Dierkes (Sweeney), Dick Miller ("Mole"), Clive Halliday (Judson), and Brendan Dillon (Clergyman)

Produced and Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, #1186 - A Bucket of Blood, #1423 - The Wild Angels, #1425 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, #1674 - Machine-Gun Kelly, #1684 - Creature from the Haunted Sea, #1918 - House of Usher, #2030 - The Trip, #2113 - The Undead, #2211 - The Intruder, #2275 - The Wasp Woman, #2295 - The Pit and the Pendulum)

Review: 

Apparently, when Roger Corman was making films for American International Pictures, there came a time to settle differences of his fee with a coin toss. He and Samuel Z. Arkoff would flip a coin...and Arkoff won a handful of times that made Corman interested to venture for himself. He went to Pathe Lab to try and finance a film, since they did their own print work and financed a few AIP movies. He got Charles Beaumont and Ray Russell to do the script but had to go with Ray Milland for the lead due to Vincent Price being in an exclusive AIP contract. And then...AIP arrived on the first day of production to say that they were now partners on this film, as they leveraged the position of not having any more lab work to become partners on what became this film. While the movie made some money with audiences, Corman reflected later that the response meant that the formula "had to be varied." The next "Poe Cycle" movie was Tales of Terror (1962), released four months later that was an anthology feature with Price and other noted names. The movie is inspired by the short story of the same name, as written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1844 that had an unnamed narrator with fears of being buried alive with "catalepsy" that tries to cope with the phobia...although that story ends with one ending their obsession with death.

It isn't a forgettable movie, but it definitely is one that shows strain. It may interest you to know that Milland was an Academy Award winning actor, having previously won it for The Lost Weekend (1945). The Welsh actor had a lengthy career, and he was more than happy to be a character actor in his later years with the occasional lead or two, as one might recognize him from AIP's 1963 classic (at least that's how I remember it) X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes (1963); Milland acted until shortly before his death in 1986 at the age of 79. Unfortunately, The Premature Burial is not among his highlights, mainly because the movie does not give him to really do. It isn't merely a case of the movie needing the services of Price (four years younger than Milland, although each was already in their fifties by 1962), it just seems like a movie that is trying to coast on what you already saw from the last two Poe AIP movies and flailing. You want to see a worthy tragedy, you want to see something that could inspire anxiety and curiosity, but Milland can only do so much for a movie that doesn't really have a mystery or tragedy to it. You could almost pick a random actor from Milland's heyday to do this and possibly still have the same effect. It does not help that Court and Ney have absolutely nothing to contribute for what is meant to be a curiosity: a woman who wants to associate with a guy who believes he is doomed and a doctor in the middle of looking at his mental state. But they don't really stick in your mind for anything other than "okay". The sense of doom just seems like the previous two Poe movies but with diminishing returns besides the cemetary maybe being a different angle to look at this time. The dream sequence might be the most noted sequence in the whole film (which only runs at 81 minutes anyway) because it seems lurid and eerie in ways that actually makes one wonder where the rest of the energy went. The movie just isn't as fun as it really could be, managing to be a bit too cozy to really make anyone get chills for something that could've been a fun mystery or a look at a strange person. As it stands, it isn't a bad movie, but it just isn't accomplished enough to really recommend when there are better things elsewhere.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Shane.

Review #1382: Shane.

Cast: 
Alan Ladd (Shane), Jean Arthur (Marian Starrett), Van Heflin (Joe Starrett), Brandon deWilde (Joey Starrett), Jack Palance (Jack Wilson), Ben Johnson (Chris Calloway), Edgar Buchanan (Fred Lewis), Emile Meyer (Rufus Ryker), Elisha Cook Jr (Frank "Stonewall" Torrey), Douglas Spencer (Axel 'Swede' Shipstead), John Dierkes (Morgan Ryker), Ellen Corby (Mrs. Liz Torrey), and Paul McVey (Sam Grafton) Produced and Directed by George Stevens (#911 - Woman of the Year)

Review: 
“I’ve always been of the opinion that a director should never touch a film without his having a basic knowledge of its contents.”

There have been a countless amount of Westerns to choose from when it comes to picking a film to watch and plenty that came from the 1950s. It should only prove natural that a classic as timeless as this one is came from George Stevens. Born in a family of actors and film crewmen, Stevens honed his craft first as a cameraman with the Laurel and Hardy film series before soon cutting his teeth as a director for shorts and eventually his first feature with the comedy The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble (1933). In the prevailing next few years, he would go on to do comedies and romantic dramas before he left to serve in World War II, which had a diverse selection of stars ranging from Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (where he directed the first film to feature the two together in Woman of the Year) to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers with Swing Time (1936) to Cary Grant with Gunga Din (1939). He served with the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a head of the film unit, which filmed numerous events of the war such as the D-Day landings and shots of concentrations camps such as Dachau. When he returned to direct feature films in 1948, his films darkened in optimism, but he reached success with his ambitious efforts. He won two Academy Awards for Best Director for A Place in the Sun (1951) and Giant (1956), a feat matched by just twenty other directors before he closed his career with The Only Game in Town (1970). Stevens commanded respect from his fellow directors and stars, a man capable of keeping control of the film to himself and not at the whims of producers or big names, believing that films should be respected as more than just a tool to be used to sell products when they were aired on television.

It should only prove fitting that the film has a tremendous tense presence to headline a classic like this. Ladd (a man who tried his hand at extras and bit parts before getting his big break at the age of 29) is precisely the man for the moments required of him in this film, a weary presence that we see ourselves drawn to even before conflict has built itself to a boil. He doesn't have the biggest of backstories or the tallest of heights, but there is plenty to see within his eyes when interacting with the others, such as with deWilde or with Arthur, a graceful presence in her last performance before film retirement. Heflin keeps up with resilience fitting of a community man, while deWilde (who had his Broadway debut at the age of 7) makes a compelling coming of age presence that is crystalized with the final iconic scene with Ladd. The rest of the cast contribute in their own ways, such as a conniving Meyer. Palance utilizes his moments on screen with menacing precision through the way he says his lines, with the highlight being the sequence outside the saloon that builds tension right up until the gunshots are fired (done by shooting into a garbage can), complete with wires to jerk back the actor after being shot, a startlingly effective choice. The film was adapted from the Jack Schaefer's 1949 novel of the same name by Pultizer Prize novelist A.B. Guthrie Jr and columnist Jack Sher. It's interesting that the film turned out so well with the strange difficulties it faced at times with its stars. For example, Ladd, who disliked guns, took 116 takes when it came time to film the shooting demonstration sequence. Palance did not have much experience with guns or horses, and he had trouble in mounting (and demounting) his horse; the one take of him successfully mounting his horse would be used numerous times (along with being reversed for dismounts) during the film. This is a film that went from original plans of 58 shooting days to 75 (done in 1951) with extensive editing done by Stevens that led to delays. And yet here we are, talking about a classic for its decade because of how well-crafted it is, meticulous in its look in sets alongside award-winning cinematography from Loyal Griggs that go with a game cast and startling direction that certainly proved inspiring for future films (such as Pale Rider) while ultimately being a thought-provoking Western of a time that never ages and never dies.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.