PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Sanders Of The River 1935

Sanders Of The River 1935 Based on stories from the Edgar Wallace collection Sanders On The River, screenplay by Lajos Biró, Jeffrey Dell and Arthur Wimperis, directed by Zoltán Korda.

The stories are set in Colonial Nigeria, Leslie Banks plays District Commissioner Sanders. That's Banks on the left, the guy on the right is Paul Robeson, the guy in the middle is Robert Cochran. Paul plays Bosambo, a local chief that's fairly supportive of Sanders, some other chiefs are not.

When Sanders is thought dead the rival chiefs start thinking about settling some old scores. Sander's replacement is killed by Chief Mofolaba. He's the worst of the baddies. Mofolaba kidnaps Bosambo's wife. Sander's returns, Bosambo gets his wife back and metes out some justice to Mofolaba.

The Wikipedia says that Paul Robeson was not happy with the way the Africans were portrayed in the film. He had agreed to do the film if the Africans were portrayed in a better light. His being screwed over is typical of the industry.

It's not going to be a favorite but I got through it with the help of some liberal fast forwarding. I wouldn't recommend it much.

The Four Just Men 1939

The Four Just Men 1939 It was released in the US in 1941 under the name The Secret Four. Based on the 1905 Edgar Wallace novel of the same name, screenplay by Angus MacPhail, Sergei Nolbandov and Roland Pertwee, directed by Walter Forde. Roland is Jon Pertwee's father, besides writing a fair number of films he was an actor. I've seen three other films he wrote:  The Ghoul 1933, King Solomon's Mines 1937 and Pimpernel Smith 1941. Andrew wrote the screenplay for the 1931 version of The Ghost Train, later he would write some films for George Formby. Walter directed a few films I've seen, The Ghost Train 1931, The Ringer 1931, Rome Express 1932, Chu Chin Chow 1934 and the 1941 Arthur Askey film The Ghost Train.

The four just men are actor Humphrey Mansfield, played by Hugh Sinclair, playwright James Brodie, played by Griffith Jones, fashion house owner Léon Poiccard, played by Francis L Sullivan, and foreign correspondent James Terry, played by Frank Lawton. They've banded together to punish criminals.

As the film opens Terry escapes a Prussian prison just before he's executed. He's got some good intel about 5th columnists inside the British government. A big problem with WW2 looming on the horizon.The four just men do their thing, they are ruthless, the baddies are barely a match. There's plenty of murder, some fist fights and gun shooting, plenty of running about and a slew of interesting characters.

The version of the film on the Internet Archive is the one with the tacked on anti-Nazi ending, the original film didn't call the baddies German out rightly. I enjoyed it and would welcome another view down the road. I've seen quite a few of the films made from Edgar Wallace's books. Lucky for me I've still got a few more adaptions left to see. Not many though.

Friday Night Movies 900

The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu 1929 Written by Lloyd Corrigan, Florence Ryerson and uncredited work of George Marion Jr and Joseph L Mankiewicz, directed by Rowland V Lee.

Warner Oland plays Dr Fu Manchu. He's a peaceful man who becomes a fiend after British soldiers fire at some Boxer rebels using the walls of the Fu compound as protection. In the attack Fu's wife and son are killed. Fu vows vengeance on the evil Westerners who killed his family. Many years pass.

Neil Hamilton plays Doctor Petrie, the grandson of General Petrie and his father is Sir John Petrie. The General was leading the British during the Boxer rebellion. Fu is well along with his revenge, he's only got Neil, his father and grandfather to kill. Fu comes up with a complex plan that's partially interrupted by Inspector Nayland Smith.

Jean Arthur plays Lia Eltham, she was a child staying at Fu's compound during the rebellion. He raises her with the idea in mind to use her in his revenge. Fu hypnotizes her and sends her to do his killing. She's used to lure Doctor Petrie into Fu's clutches.

There's plenty of running about, fist fighting, gun shooting, poison date bowing and murdering. Fu's henchmen are capable and ready to die for him. The Inspector has his own crew and some of them get murdered while trying to keep the Petrie's safe. The story is fairly entertaining but some of the dialog between characters is a bit on the goofy side. There's a even a comic relief machine in the form of Sir Petrie's secretary. There's a lot of nice sets and the like, the rebellion at the start of the movie is quite elaborately staged.

We watched the new Kino Lorber 2 film Blu-ray and the film looked quite good. It entertained me enough to ad the Blu-ray to my wish list. There's a sequel to the film on the disc.

The Return Of Dr Fu Manchu 1930 Written by Lloyd Corrigan and Florence Ryerson, directed by Roland V Lee. Most of the surviving characters return to the screen with some new folks tossed into the mix.

The story pretty much takes up right where the first movie ended. Fu is being buried, unbeknownst to Petrie and Nayland Smith the evil one is alive. He escapes and gets back to the job of revenge. Doctor Petrie and Lia Eltham are getting married but that doesn't go so well once they find out that Fu's alive. Battle ensues.

It's almost as good as the previous film but with a bit more annoying comic relief machine and goofy dialog. I still enjoyed it. I'd watch them both again. Recommended for those that like classic movies with evil villains.

Night Key 1937

Night Key 1937 Story by William Pierce, screenplay by Tristam Tupper and John C Moffitt, directed by Lloyd Corrigan. The first film in the Universal Horror Collection Volume 4. Like the other sets there are 4 Blu-ray discs with a movie on each one. All have a commentary, four have stills and three have trailers as extras. This film has the trailer and some stills, the commentary is by Tom Weaver with a segment by Doctor Robert J Kiss. Tom's not much of a fan of the movie, he makes it sound like everyone wanted to pass on doing the commentary.

I hadn't seen Night Key before, I have it in a DVD set of Karloff movies but hadn't gotten around to watching it, I'd already watched all the other films in the set. Boris plays an elderly man who's invented a new burglar alarm system. He'd been part of an alarm company twenty years ago but was cheated out of his work by his partner. He offers the same man a chance to make it right and the guy cheats him again.

With the help of a petty crook Boris decides to show the cheater who's boss. His new invention can bypass any electronic alarm system. He breaks in to the cheater's client's stores and plays tricks but doesn't steal anything. The police are baffled and so is the cheater.

 

The petty crook, unable to get his head around revenge when stealing is what should be happening, pulls some local crooks into the mix. Boris finds himself kidnapped, he's forced to open shops for a massive round up of goodies. Boris struggles against the baddies who even threaten to kill his daughter to keep him in line. Boris eventually gets the upper hand and escapes.

The story kept me interested for the most part, though it isn't anything outstanding. I liked the characters, especially Boris. It's only 73 mins so they don't have much time to waste. I'd watch it again.

A Feather In Her Hat 1933

A Feather In Her Hat 1935 Based on a novel by I A R Wylie, screenplay by Lawrence Hazard, directed by Alfred Santell. A melodrama that I watched because it had Basil Rathbone.

Basil is a drunken guy that a shop keeper brings into her home. She's a widow with a young son who she wants to better himself. She works over the years to turn him into a gentleman and a playwright. There's plenty of melodrama and some romance.

Pauline Lord plays the widow, Louis Hayward plays the son as a grownup, Nydia Westman plays the young woman who hoped to marry Louis. She gives him up so Wendy Barrie can have him. Billie Burke plays an older actress that has success in Louis's play. David Niven plays Wendy's suitor before Louis showed up.

Nothing overly special about it. You can see it on YouTube, see link above.

Street Scene 1931

Street Scene 1931 Play and screenplay by Elmer Rice, directed by King Vidor. A drama isn't normally what I want to watch but I saw it was directed by King Vidor and read that it was a bit of a risk at the time of making. I haven't seen many of King's films, The Champ and The Fountainhead are the only two that jump out of his list of films. I guess you can count the black and white scenes of Kansas he shot for The Wizard Of Oz. Street Scene is the first film with a complete score by Alfred Newman. The title theme has been used in several other films. Film Daily said it was one of the 10 best films of 1931.

Street Scene is just that, a long scene that starts one hot evening and ends the next afternoon. The camera, expertly piloted by George Barnes, moves around as people come and go, we never get to see their apartments or where they go when they leave the scene. We do get a good idea of what sort of people they are and there's a vivid lesson on what happens when people make mistakes in their day to day. It gets very serious and lives get wrecked. That's people for ya.

You can find out what happens by checking out the link above. You might like it, it's well made and the cast is quite good.

Absolute Quiet 1936

Absolute Quiet 1936 Screenplay b Harry Clork, directed by George B Seitz.

Lionel Atwill is a well off business man who collapses at work, his doctor tells him to take a rest with absolute quiet. Lionel goes to his ranch with assistant. Wallace Ford and Bernadene Hayes are a Bonnie and Clyde pair who are on the run, they take over the ranch at gun point.

A plane needs to make an emergency landing in a fog and crashes when the ranch's runway lights aren't lit. The pilots die and the governor shows what a scumbag coward he is by pushing a woman out of the way to escape the plane. There's a reporter and an actor on the flight. The actor gets a couple of cuts on his face. He dismayed it probably means the end of his career.

Things stay civil for a while then Wallace and Bernadene pull their rods and start bossing people around. Their short career as criminals comes to an end when the actor finds a gun and blasts them repeatedly. It's a comedy with some romance, some political commentary, and some murder. Some parts of the script don't make much sense, especially the part where they plan to white wash Wallace and Bernadene being on the scene and letting them run away. They were the ones that caused the plane crash when they stopped Lionel from turning on the runway lights. If anyone deserved to die in a hail of bullets, it's those two.

I thought it was OK but still think the gangster aspect is sill annoying. You can take a look at it on the Internet Archive. See link above.

The Ghost Camera 1933

The Ghost Camera 1933 Based on a short story by H Fowler Mear, screenplay by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon, directed by Bernard Vorhaus. An RKO quickie quota film make at Twickenham Studios.

Henry Kendall arrives home from a bit of a holiday only to find a strange camera in his car. He develops one of the five pictures and sees two men fighting. A buzz at his shop's front door takes him from the darkroom and gives the baddie a chance to sneak in and try to steal the camera. The sash falls on the baddie's exit, when he can't raise the jammed window, he has to leave the camera behind. The four other pictures are still in the film pack that was lying unnoticed on a table. Those pictures lead Henry to Ida Lupino and her missing brother John Mills. Ida was only 15 when she made the film, it was her 6th film. She's playing older, other wise, the romance part of the movie becomes a bit creepy. Ida and Henry spend the rest of the movie chasing around the countryside trying to figure what's going on and looking for her brother. Eventually John gives himself up and the whole story is revealed. There's some nice ruins in part of the film, Corfe Castle in Dorset fills in for the fictional one. It's got a good story and characters, nice locations, my only complaint is the film's not at it's best anymore. I read there's a restored DVD in the UK. I suspect it will be awhile before the shipping gets cheap enough to order DVDs from there.

The 9th Guest 1934

The 9th Guest 1934 It started as a 1930 mystery novel called The Invisible Host by Bruce Manning and Gwen Bristow, Owen Davis adapted that into a play called The Ninth Guest in 1930, Garnett Weston adapted that lot for the film and Roy William Neill directed.

Eight people get invited to a party in a big fancy penthouse apartment. Most of them know each other and they aren't the best of pals. At first they think that one of them invited the lot but soon a mysterious voice comes over the PA system. They're all the voice's enemies, soon they're going to die. There's no way out, the doors are locked and electrified.

The murderer says someone is going to die every 15 minutes and he's a man of his word. He invites them to outwit death and escape. Some doe. You can find out by watching the film in the link above. I enjoyed it, it's a bit better than average, but it managed to keep my interest and it's short. A lot of people gave it a 7 on the IMDb but I only gave it a 6. Those two rankings are over 55% of the votes. It's got 453 of them, not too bad for an old movie. You can get a DVD for 6 bucks on Amazon. It's from Reel Vault, part of Oldies dot com. They have a lot of odd stuff including a lot of public domain titles.

The Ghost Walks 1934

The Ghost Walks 1934 Screenplay by Charles Belden, directed by Frank R Strayer. Belden would go onto write 4 of the Charlie Chan series, Mr Moto's Gamble, Dracula's Daughter and a bunch of films I haven't seen. Frank started in the silent film era and his 27 year careen ended in 1952. He directed a few films I've seen, Murder At Midnight, The Monster Walks, Gorilla Ship and The Vampire Bat. He also directed a dozen of the Blondie and Dagwood films. I have a set with a bunch of them that I haven't watched yet.

It's dark, the rain is fierce, the roads slick. A playwright is driving a producer and his secretary when they skid into a fallen tree blocking the road. He suggests they go to a local house to get out of the rain. The playwright turns out to know the man of the house and they are admitted. Once inside strange things begin to happen and a woman is murdered.

The playwright confesses it was a put up job, he's hired his actor pals to act out the play he wrote, but the producer doesn't believe him, at first. Enter a guard from a sanitarium who's looking for an escaped madman. Now everyone is jumpy.

It's a nice take on the old dark house story but as a comedy. There's a fair number of OK jokes, fun characters, and plenty of secret passages, yelling and larking about. I got a kick out of it and would watch it again someday. You can see if you like it by clicking the link in the title above.