A Slight Case of Murder.

Review #2370: A Slight Case of Murder.

Cast: 

Edward G. Robinson (Remy Marco), Jane Bryan (Mary Marco), Allen Jenkins (Mike), Ruth Donnelly (Nora Marco), Willard Parker (Dick Whitewood), John Litel (Mr. Post, banker), Edward Brophy (Lefty), Harold Huber (Giuseppe 'Gip'), Eric Stanley (Mr. Ritter, banker), Paul Harvey (Mr. Whitewood), and Margaret Hamilton (Mrs. Cagle) Directed by Lloyd Bacon (#562 - It Happens Every Spring, #898 - Larceny, Inc, #1340 - 42nd Street)

Review: 

Edward G. Robinson doing comedy isn't too out of left field, really. Actually, Roy Del Ruth had directed him in 1933's The Little Giant (which dealt with a bootlegger trying to go into the legit business) and John Ford had directed him in a crime comedy with 1935's The Whole Town's Talking, which dealt with a lookalike killer. A Slight Case of Murder is based on the 1935 play of the same name, which had been created by Damon Runyon (the famed writer and his one attempt at making a play) and Howard Lindsay (who actually became noted for his work in Broadway plays and musicals with Russel Crouse beginning in 1935). Earl Baldwin and Joseph Schrank were credited for the script behind this movie. Incidentally, Bacon (a very busy director in the 1930s, he apparently made over three dozen movies in that decade)* and Robinson would team up again with a gangster-related comedies with Brother Orchid (1940, which had Baldwin as a writer) and Larceny, Inc (1942), which is probably the more famous Robinson movie about a convict trying to go straight. Incidentally, Roy Del Ruth would direct a remake of A Slight Case of Murder with Stop, You're Killing Me (1952), which starred Broderick Crawford.

With a plot involving a bunch of corpses turning up in the middle of foreclosure and a cop for a possible son-in-law, you've got plenty here for a neat little comedy, even with the apparent age on display in terms of its subject matter. Every so often, I have to remember that there was some pretty crappy beer people had to deal in the old days (as opposed to now, I suppose). To be honest, even with the amount of movies that I've seen with Robinson in the cast (ten, now), I sometimes think I haven't given him his proper due as an actor, and this is saying something for a guy who honed his talents for several years on Broadway and thrived when it came to dramas, particularly since he had the temperament to sell damn near anything, from the tough guy role to the biopic (sure, that doesn't include dancing, but who's asking?). He clearly seems to be having fun here, having the talent to make the hijinks bounce off him with useful timing without turning it into straight farce or just being the straight man to strange stuff, he just happens to be involved in a silly little dark comedy that won't have too much violence but will have enough silly shifty people for 85 minutes. Donnelly pops into the action with attempts at playing natural class that results in a few chuckles, although the cast of goons-turned-assistants such as Jenkins and Brophy are worth a few laughs as well. The buildup to resolve the dead body problem is pretty amusing if not a bit abrupt (seriously it goes from calling the cops to fainting like that). These are the kind of movies that could be stamped out a dime a dozen in the old days that will work exactly for those who like something that will deliver most of the time with colorful enough people and execution in a specific age and place (dated or not) that you could call the epitome of "quick yarn". Hit or miss, you won't have your time wasted here, suffice to say. As a whole, if you are in the mood for Edward G. Robinson and a bit of silly fun with a quick pace and resourceful company around him, you will find a neat little movie here to enjoy from the old years.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Welcome to the four-timer club, Lloyd Bacon.

The Walking Dead (1936).

Review #2267: The Walking Dead.

Cast: 

Boris Karloff (John Elman), Ricardo Cortez (Nolan), Edmund Gwenn (Dr. Beaumont), Marguerite Churchill (Nancy), Warren Hull (Jimmy), Barton MacLane (Loder), Henry O'Neill (Werner), Joseph King (Judge Shaw), Addison Richards (Prison Warden), and Paul Harvey (Blackstone) Directed by Michael Curtiz (#125 - Casablanca, #416 - Yankee Doodle Dandy, #505 - The Adventures of Robin Hood, #529 - Mildred Pierce, #719 - Mystery of the Wax Museum, #1370 - Life with Father)

Review: 

Sure, of course Warner Bros. thought they could have some fun making a horror film. Sure, you can see the clear inspiration when it comes to having Boris Karloff star as a lumbering man back from the dead, particularly since this came out a year after Universal's Bride of Frankenstein (1935) ...but here it is arranged within the trappings of a gangster film. Of course, the obsession with trying to bring back people from a fate worse than a broken leg wasn't limited to the current day. The "perfusion pump", for example, is shown for a moment during the pivotal resurrection scene. This glass device was designed by Charles Lindbergh and Dr. Alexis Carrel to try and keep organs functioning outside of the body (the process can be explained better in articles such as this); Lindbergh wanted to find ways to help his sister-in-law, who had a bad heart. Labeled as a "mechanical heart" in some circles, Lindberg and Carrel were even featured on magazine covers for their invention (better ways of "organ perfusion" eventually came around in the next couple of years, naturally). In 1935, a film wad made called Life Returns, which featured the exploits of Dr. Robert E. Cornish, a biologist that had an interest in restoring life that tried using a teeterboard/see-saw to try and get the blood flowing of the dead...it technically worked, albeit not perfectly, on dogs (interestingly, the film didn't exactly get a great release). Incidentally, Karloff would star in two subsequent features in the following years dealing with resurrection with The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) and The Man with Nine Lives (1940), which took inspiration from Cornish. Evidently with this film, Karloff was slated with little dialogue to speak before he raised issue with said matter. Five people were given credit for the writing: Ewart Adamson, Peter Milne, Robert Hardy Andrews and Lillie Hayward wrote the screenplay, while Adamson and Joseph Fields wrote the story. The movie was directed by Michael Curtiz, a particularly busy director in the 1930s that had some experience in horror (among others in the 30+ films he did in the decade) with Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933).

Okay, you're going to love the way the "resurrected" man decides to handle being framed for murder. After he is brought back from being electrocuted, he seems to have developed a certain type of clot in his brain that gives him a strange knowledge of just who had framed him. Oh, but it gets better, he actually gets his revenge, in perhaps the most curious way possible. Of course, the film is pretty fast and loose at getting there with a 66-minute runtime. Karloff proves a quality knowing presence to unnerve the soul when it comes to second sight with select times to speak or just stare. The funny thing about this horror/crime feature is that there isn't really much of a villainous presence or even a ham actor. Gwenn might be the lead scientist presence, but it ends up coming off as just warm curiosity that is fine for someone with as much experience on stage and film as you'd expect from him (one can take a guess what film you would recognize that voice from). Churchill and Hull are serviceable enough when you consider that the rest of the folks don't have much to do besides being casually terrorized after the execution. Okay, so the array of deaths that happen in the film are done not by any one man but are actually a string of accidents that just happen to involve our lead character because of his "sense" of knowing who led to his death. Probably the most amusing is a guy nervous about who just stumbled in to confront him that decides to run only to encounter a train. The movie has plenty of shadows and fog to keep things looking ideal rather than just being a Frankenstein cheapie. In general, the movie is a quietly solid one, not rocking the boat too much in unnerving horror (the resurrection scene might be the most involving for the sheer execution of it, although the last scene is interesting) but generally working well with one's expectations. This is the kind of movie you can sense was made in a few weeks by professionals that came and went to get things done without too much fuss (five writers, but still) that will prove up to code.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Algiers.

Review #1348: Algiers.

Cast: 
Charles Boyer (Pepe le Moko), Sigrid Gurie (Ines), Hedy Lamarr (Gaby), Joseph Calleia (Inspector Slimane), Alan Hale (Grandpere), Gene Lockhart (Regis), Walter Kingsford (Chief Inspector Louvain), Paul Harvey (Commissioner Janvier), Stanley Fields (Carlos), and Johnny Downs (Pierrot) Directed by John Cromwell (#1008 - The Racket and #1341 - Of Human Bondage)

Review: 
It should only figure that some films come from doing it over again for a different audience. As much as one can bemoan the shrinking originality of doing the same source material numerous times (then and now), interest does tend to rise a bit when it comes to how a remake fares in a different country. In this sense, Algiers is a remake of Pépé le Moko (1937), a French film based on the novel of the same name by Henri La Barthe, featuring Jean Gabin as star and Julien Duvivier as director (there also was a musical remake with Casbah in 1948). Of note is the American debut of Sigrid Gurie (who was born in New York but had grown up primarily in Norway) and Hedy Lamarr, who had made appearances in five films (all but one being from either her native Austria or Germany) from 1930 to 1933, with an encounter of Louis B. Mayer scouting for European talent helping to lead her to a Hollywood career, with Walter Wanger serving as producer for this feature. Another emigrant serving as star for this film was Boyer, who had started his career in his native France in 1920 before making a move to do Hollywood films alongside his French films in 1930. He soon gained a reputation as a leading man for romantic dramas, with his work being recognized through four Best Actor nominations (including one for this film) before his last film in 1976. The remake would keep certain aspects of the original, most notably with a majority of the music alongside background sequences (at least ones that weren't shot in Algiers and later integrated later into the film by cinematographer James Wong Howe), although censor demands led to the ending being different (murder rather than suicide), along with other aspects. Boyer was not a big fan of his work on the film, since Cromwell wanted him to emulate Gabin (even running scenes from the original), which he disliked doing as an actor, although Cromwell later gave compliment to Boyer on how his performance had been different from each other in terms of nuance. He certainly does a fine job with this film, where one gets a sense of allure and curiosity from whenever he is on screen, a certain kind of confidence that resonates whenever on screen with someone like Lamarr or his on-screen cohorts. The romance that occurs within this triangle comes out with a bit of passion, although Cromwell felt that Lamarr's problem was that she could not act (stating that he could take some of the credit for making her acting passable, while sharing it with Boyer). She provides some exotic charm, a raw but expressive presence that does tend to benefit when on-screen with Boyer more than anyone (which I suppose isn't too surprising). Gurie pulls off an anguished side of this triangle neatly enough, not getting lost in the shuffle too much. Calleia makes for a decent adversary, while Hale provides a bit of wise levity alongside an effective sniveling Lockhart among the rest. The film moves at a fair pace with 99 minutes, although one does not really seem to sense too much suspense inside it. One gets a fair amount of fleeting pleasure, which should be enough for most. At least one can see why it served as one of the inspirations to be patterned for Casablanca (1942). It goes on the strengths of curiosity over its atmosphere and romance with agreeable results, and its free status in the public domain makes this a curiosity worth seeking out without any doubt.

Next Time: It won't be Love Affair, since an addition has been made to go right before that film to make for a 1939 trifecta to close out February's 30s tribute. That film will be Stagecoach.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Spellbound (1945).

Review #446: Spellbound.

Cast
Ingrid Bergman (Constance Petersen), Gregory Peck (Anthony Edwardes/John Ballantyne), Michael Chekhov (Alexander Brulov), Leo G. Carroll (Dr. Murchison), Rhonda Fleming (Mary Carmichael), John Emery (Dr. Fleurot), Steven Geray (Dr. Graff), and Paul Harvey (Dr. Hanish) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (#219 - Rope and #223 - North by Northwest)

Review
With my laziness at reviewing films probably noticed for August (Seriously, I did 7 reviews in 31 days. That month doesn't even have any holidays to celebrate) and September having just started, I figured I needed something to start off September before someone might've complained over the general lack of reviews. Anyway...

Spellbound is notable for its psychoanalysis and a dream sequence designed by notable artist Salvador Dalí, which occurs near the end of the film. Setting the notables aside, this is a really good film. Ingrid Bergman shines, along with Gregory Peck, and they pair off each other extremely well, but the film is more than just that, it's a gripping mystery, a strange tale that only Hitchcock could do. The dream sequence by Dali is extraordinary, and while it may not last too long, it certainly does leave an impression. It's a (pardon the pun) spellbinding film, and it certainly is excellent. 

Countdown to 450 Reviews: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3...

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.