PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Mystery Of The 13th Guest 1943

I found a copy of The Mystery Of The 13th Guest on YouTube today. I hadn't seen it before and after watching a few minutes I decided to continue to the end. It's directed by one of my favorite directors, William Beaudine, and the screenplay is by Tim Ryan, Charles R Marion and Arthur Hoerl. It's based on a novel by Armitage Trail called The 13th Guest. The book was adapted in 1932 as The Thirteenth Guest with Ginger Rogers. I've seen that and it was OK. Trail also wrote the novel Scarface.

In the 1943 movie the Morgan family meets at the bequest of the rich patriarch. They all sit at a table with 13 chairs but there are only 12 of them. Morgan shows the 8 year old granddaughter an envelope and says she will see it again in 13 years, when she's twenty one. Only then will the rest of the family know who gets the cash. Thirteen years later the girl is a young woman, played by Helen Parrish, and on her birthday she's given the envelope. She's supposed to go to the closed up Morgan mansion to open the envelope. She does and some weird things happen. Later she's found dead and the police arrive. Tim Ryan and Frank Faylen play Lt Burke and his dopey sidekick. Dick Purcell plays Johnny Smith, a detective hired by one of the Morgan family. More suspicious stuff starts happening, the family lawyer is found electrocuted and Helen comes back from the dead.

There's a bit of mystery, some creepy old house stuff, and a good bit of humor. It's just about an hour and it moves along quickly, no wasted time there. I enjoyed the thing and would recommend it to those that like that sort of thing. It's pretty much a B programmer but it was fun and I'd be happy seeing it again someday.

The Great McGinty 1940

I don't remember ever seeing The Great McGinty before but it's possible that I'd seen it in the 80s when we first had cable. It's the sort of movie that would be run on Turner Classic Movies and that was a favorite channel then. It's a 1940 Preston Sturges comedy, he wrote and directed it. It was his first directing job, he'd written two previous films and sold this one, for $10, with the provision he'd get to direct. He did a good job. The film won the Original Screenplay Oscar.

It's got Brian Donlevy as McGinty. He's a bit of a hobo and the prefect target for the men under The Boss to hire to vote. Akim Tamiroff plays The Boss and William Demarest plays Skeeters, his right hand man. McGinty takes advantage of the offer and votes 37 times. Now he wants his $74 from Skeeters but the guy's near tapped out at the end of the day. He take McGinty to see The Boss.

One thing leads to another and the next thing you know McGinty is working for The Boss. He rises through the ranks to Governor only to burn his bridges around him. The whole story is told in a series of flashbacks to a drunken guy in a seedy bar in South America.

I lucked out and wound up buying a 7 DVD set of Preston Sturges films for 0nly 7 bucks. I've got 6 more movies to go. Should be fun.

Miss Grant Takes Richmond 1949

Lucille Ball plays Miss Grant in Miss Grant Takes Richmond and William Holden plays Mr Richmond.It's the second movie in the Lucille Ball First Lady Of Comedy 4 movie 2 DVD set. The movies look pretty good and two of them share a full dual layer disc. That's better than you can expect from Mill Creek Entertainment normally.

It's a 1949 comedy that was written by Nat Perrin, Devery Freeman and Frank Tashlin. It's directed by Lloyd Bacon. All those guys behind the camera have oodles of films between them. They worked in TV too. Check out their IMDb pages, if you a fan of classic movies, they've done some darn good ones.

Lucy is a secretary school student and though she's at the bottom of the class William hires her to be secretary at his real estate company. He hires Lucy because he thinks she's kind of dumb and he doesn't want her to find out about the bookie joint he's got in the back room. Instead of keeping the customers away Lucy brings real estate into the firm with a bang. Frank McHugh and James Gleason work for William in the business.

The basic premise is all pretty silly and there are some fun gags and situations. I got a few laughs from it. I liked the supporting cast, especially that James Gleason. I'll watch most anything he's in.

Her Husband's Affairs 1947

Her Husband's Affairs is the first movie on the first disc from the First lady of Comedy Lucille Ball 4 movie set from Mill Creek Entertainment. Miraculously, MC is bringing the entertainment today. The movie has an original screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer. Ben has an amazing body of work, much of it uncredited until recent years. Charles doesn't have such a large list of works but if you like Classic Movies then you've probably seen a couple of two of his films. I'm particularly fond of his 1951 screenplay for The Thing From Another World and I know John Carpenter is too. I'm not sure if John would like Her Husband's Affairs but he's a kid of the 50s so he probably grew up with Lucy too. She's fun in the movie, it's her husband in the film, played by Franchot Tone, he's such a pill. He's an ad man and she's smarter than him. Rather than except the fact that he's hooked up with a woman who can help him, or even make use of it, Franchot's male pride gets wounded over and over. By the end of the movie I was ready for him to get to the electric chair but Lucy swooped in and saved him. I got a few laughs and I always enjoy Edward Everett Horton when I see him. I was glad to have picked up this set used, cost $2.95 at the Minneapolis Cheapo Discs, and will be getting on with the rest of the films.

Lost In Harlem 1944

Lost in Harlem is the second of the pictures that Abbott And Costello did for MGM while they were working at Universal. It was common for studios to loan out stars to other studios. Often as punishment to keep the actors in line.

Lost In Harlem has a screenplay by Harry Ruskin, John Grant, Harry Crane and an uncredited Robert E Hopkins. The director was Charles Reisner. 

The guys are stage magicians, not every good ones, who are touring the Middle East. They get involved with Prine Ramo and help him regain his throne. There's plenty of shenanigans as the guys run rampant through the palace. It made me laugh. It was packed on the two disc set with Abbott And Costello Go To Hollywood. A good addition to the comedy collection.

Abbott And Costello In Hollywood 1945

In an effort to see all the Abbott And Costello films I picked up Abbott And Costello In Hollywood. It's a 1945 picture, the 3rd of 3 films that the guys made, on loan, at MGM. Rio Rita and Lost In A Harem were the other two.

Nat Perrin and Martin A Gosch wrote the original story, Nat wrote the screenplay with Lou Breslow, and S Sylvan Simon is the director. Nat would later go on to produce all 64 episodes of The Addams Family. He'd even direct an episode. Nat also wrote 2 of the 3 Whistling movies with Red Skelton as The Fox. Oooooh!! Lou was another prolific writer, nothing too big, but plenty of titles. Sylvan directed a nice bunch of films, including all three of the Red Skelton Whistling pictures, Rio Rita, and The Fuller Brush Man.

Bud and Lou are a barber and a porter at a Hollywood Salon. They get called to Hollywood agent Norman Royce's office to give him a haircut and a shoeshine. While there they meet a young singer and convince him to let them be his agents. Now they have to get him a job. They've already pissed off the head of the studio so the thing to do is disguise themselves and sneak onto the studio lot. They cause some chaos and get the kid a job. The movie ends with the guys becoming successful agents.

There were some jokes and silly things. There's a nice cast in Frances Rafferty, Bob Haymes, Jean Porter, Lucille Ball, Preston Foster, Dean Stockwell, Rags Ragland, Mike Mazurki and the more I don't really know. Worth watching and a nice addition to the pile.

Warner Brothers Horror/Mystery Double Features

Here's another Warner Brothers Archive Collection, Warner Brothers Horror/Mystery Double Features, featuring horror and mystery titles from the 1930s and 1940s. I'd seen some of them before, on Turner Classic Movies, it's probably what sent me looking for the DVDs. I ordered this set ages ago and it got buried on the To Be Watched shelves. It surfaced recently and got seen. Here's a list of the films, 2 to a disc. All of the films are short, ranging from 54 to 71 minute, they don't waste much time on padding. All of these films were under the First National Pictures banner when they came out. The company started in 1917, under another name, and in 1929 they were absorbed by Warner Brothers. They made films under the First National Pictures heading until 1936.

 

Find The Blackmailer 1943 This is based on a magazine story called Blackmail With Feathers by G T Fleming-Roberts, the screenplay was written by Robert E Kent and the director was D Ross Lederman. Robert E Kent has a good number of writing credits including Rock Around The Clock and Don't Knock The Rock (both of which I just coincidentally picked up on clearance DVD yesterday),  Zombies On Broadway, Charlie Chan In Reno, a couple of the Great Gildersleeve films, a couple of the Dick Tracy films, a Philo Vance, and so on.

Jerome Cowan is a private eye, he gets hired to find a talking raven. He finds the owner of the bird, dead. There's a mix of larceny and comedy going on. Jerome likes to quip and he cam take a punch. There's a politician getting blackmailed, a dead guy, a crooked lawyer, a pretty and sexy actress, some thugs, all the things that make a mystery fun.

The Smiling Ghost 1941 Stuart Palmer wrote the original story and he co-wrote the script with Kenneth Gamet. They had some help from Philip Wylie on the story and Ben Markson and Ralph Spence on the screenplay. Lewis Seiler is the director. Stuart Palmer is the creator of Miss Hildegarde Withers. I've read several of his books and seen many of his movies.

Wayne Morris a goofy guy who's out of work. He's got bills piling up and he puts an ad in the paper looking for any work that's legal. He's offered a $1000 to play the fiance of Alexis Smith for a month. Wayne thinks it's a bit goofy but he's a goofy guy who needs that 1000 samolians. That's a lot of money for a month in 1941. Turns out Alexis has a history of short lived husbands. She's gotten rich on the insurance and been dubbed the Kiss Of Death Girl by the news media. Lucky for Wayne he's got his valet, Willie Best, and spunky reporter Brenda Marshall on his side. They keep him from being victim number four. It's pretty much a comedy with bit of mystery and horror. The New York Times said it was predictable and inane. Sometimes that's what you need in a film. I liked it and I'd already seen it once before. I always like Willie Best, he always delivers on his roles, even if he's just playing a similar character.

Sh! The Octopus 1937 The movie is based on two plays, The Gorilla by Ralph Spence and Sh, The Octopus by Ralph Murphy and Donald Gallaher. George Bricker smashed the two plays together into the screenplay and William McGann directed. If the previous movie was a goofy comedy this is the same but with goofy turned up to 11. It's like George took all the gag scenes out of the two plays but didn't spend any time linking them all up. Still, I got a kick out of it.

That Hugh Herbert, Marcia Ralston and Allen Jenkins above. Hugh and Allen are a couple of bumbling detectives who are after the notorious criminal the Octopus. The script quickly puts everyone in an old lighthouse. The boat disappears and the lot of them are trapped. There's a dead body hanging from the underside of the light and a real octopus keeps attacking. The gags keep coming so you don't have much time to think about the plot holes. No matter. I had a laugh. Someday I'll watch it again.

 

The Hidden Hand 1942 Here's another film that was based on a play. Rufus King wrote the play Invitation to a Murder, Anthony Coldeway and Raymond L Schrock wrote the screenplay, Benjamin Stoloff is the director.

A rich old lady just happens to have a criminally insane brother. She arranges for him to escape prison and dresses him up as her butler. That's them on the left above. The rich old lady has invited her relatives for a reading of her will. Then the killing starts. Willie Best is the scaredy cat chauffeur. There's oodles of gags and plenty of slapstick. I'll certainly want to watch it again.

Mystery House 1938 This time the movie was adapted from a novel, The Mystery Of Hunting's End, by Mignon G Eberhart, Sherman L Lowe and Robertson White wrote the screenplay and Noel M Smith was the director. I don't care much for the poster above, the one below is better but no winner.

Dick Purcell isn't much interesting but Ann Sheridan certainly is. It's a locked room mystery with a dead CEO and a secluded hunting lodge filled with suspects. William Hopper, Paul Drake on the Perry Mason show, is one of them. There will be some more killin's before they get to the end of the movie. Ann plays the nurse of the CEO, she'll play the same character in the next movie, and Aline MacMahon played the same character in a 1935 movie called When The Patient Slept. I haven't seen that. I did enjoy Mystery House and would watch it again.

The Patient In Room 18 1938 Mignon G Eberhart wrote the novel with the same title, Eugene Solow, Robertson White wrote the screenplay and Bobby Connolly and Crane Wilbur directed. Ann Sheridan is a nurse again and this time she's working in a hospital. Patric Knowles is there for rest cure. Someone steals $100,000 worth of radium and kills a patient. Then the head doctor is murdered. Pool Patric has to solve the case and keep him and Ann from getting murdered. Not quite as funny as some of the other films int he lot but still entertaining.

All of them were worth seeing and the set's a nice addition to my pile of movies. I'll be wanting to watch them again.

Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive

I'm always on the look out for a movie collection. Usually that means a lower cost per film. The Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive is a collection of 5 films from the 1940s. I'd only seen the last in the list below so it was a nice treat for me. I got it from Amazon, $13.99, not bad for 5 movies. They're short ones, most about an hour, and they're all packed on 2 discs. The movies look and sound fine but there are no extras, other than 3 trailers. You can see John Carradine and Bela Lugosi on the box. They both worked a lot for Universal. They're joined in this box by Basil Rathbone, Milburn Stone, Lon Chaney Jr, Alan Ladd, Martha Vickers, Broderick Crawford, Paul Fix, Lionel Atwill, Russell Hicks and plenty of other good character actors who worked at Universal Studios.

The Black Cat is a 1941 horror picture that lays on a bit of comedy. Horror movies of the time were pretty lightweight when compared to the ones you see today. It's got a script from Robert Lees and Robert Neville with Albert S Rogell directing. Albert directed a good number of pictures in a career that started in 1921 and ended in 1954. Half of his 124 credits were silent films, half of those shorts. I just wasn't familiar with most of them. I'd recently seen his Painted Faces with Joe E Brown and his 1940 film Lil Abner.

The Black Cat is based loosely on the Edgar Allan Poe story. An elderly spinster is on her deathbed and the greedy relatives are hovering for a paycheck. With that start you won't be surprised that there's a murder shortly after. Th corpses start piling up, even the cat isn't spared.

Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Hugh Herbert, Broderick Crawford, Anne Gwynne and Alan Ladd are the cast members that I had heard of before. I liked it despite the annoying character that Hugh plays. That guy got on my nerve. Broderick was more fun. The house was fun too, lots of secret passages and nicely dressed sets. The story was full enough for the short running time of 71 minutes and there was fun stuff for the actors to do. It's probably my favorite in the set.

Man Made Monster is a 1941 mad scientist film. It's got a script by Harry Essex, Len Golos, Sid Schwartz and director George Waggner. This was one of 2 dozen movies George directed between 1938 and 1951. He directed the next film in this set and in 1942 he directed The Wolf Man. After that I can't remember seeing any of his other movies. In 1954 George started directing TV and he worked on a lot of popular shows. The last two programs he worked on were the 1966 seasons of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Batman.

Lon Chaney Jr is a carnival sideshow guy who does an act with electricity under the name Dynamo Dan, the Electric Man. Lon's just been in an accident, a bus hit a high power line, everyone was killed but Lon. Lionel Atwill and Samuel S Hinds are doctors and scientists. They take Dan into their home and laboratory to study the effects of electricity on him. Lionel is the guy that pushes Dan, charging his body with larger and larger doses of juice. Dan becomes a slave dependent on the current Lionel supplies.

Samuel tries to stop Lionel from going further but Lionel isn't going to put up with losing his greatest medical break through. He desires to create emotionless, brainless, electrically powered slaves out of humans. He can't seem to see how that's a bad thing. He orders Dan to kill Samuel and poor Dan has to obey. Powered up Dan can kill with the touch of his hand. Dan's tried and sent to the electric chair. Ironically, the juice makes him into more of a monster. He escapes and goes after Lionel, hellbent on revenge. Someone's days are numbered. It was pretty entertaining, they pack a lot into an hour. Nice sets and effects too.

Horror Island is a 1941 horror comedy that was based on a story called Terror Of The South Seas by Alex Gottlieb. The screenplay is by Maurice Tombragel and Victor McLeod with George Waggner directing.

Dick Foran and Fuzzy Knight are the owners of a boat that owes a lot of cash. They help Leo Carrillo out of spot of trouble and he shows them his treasure map. He has half of the map and some masked man has the other half. The masked man keeps chasing after Leo. The treasure map gives Dick an idea to raise some cash. He's going to use his island to host a treasure hunt event at 50 smackaroonies a head. Of course once they all get there, the bodies start piling up and the chase is on. There's some silly stuff going on and a bit of romance. It was entertaining.

Night Monster is a 1942 horror mystery about a vicious revenge. Clarence Upson Young wrote the script and Ford Beebe is the director. Ralph Morgan invites the three doctors who saved his life, but left him a cripple, to his house. There's a variety of characters there. Soon after the doctors are settled in their rooms, the killing starts.

Bela and Lionel get top billing on the poster but they aren't the main characters in the film. There's a mystic in the film and he really teaches the baddie to materialize missing flesh. Not quite as fun as the others but still entertaining.

Captive Wild Women came out in 1943 and it's a heavily circus themed story. It's directed by Edward Dmytryk, the story is by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher, and the screenplay is by Ted Fithian and Neil P Varnick. John Carradine is a mad scientist, he takes the glands from a live woman, killing her, and puts them into a gorilla. The gorilla turns into a pretty girl who gets a job at a circus. She's played by the lady on the poster, the shockingly savage Acquanetta. Her job is to stare at the lions while the lion tamer does his act, her eyes calm the lions. It's got way too many lion taming scenes and I was right quick on the fast forward button. The least interesting of the films in the set. Still, the whole package is mostly above average and that's fine with me. A good addition to my collection and some of those films I'll watch again.

Heavenly Days 1944

Heavenly Daze is a Fibber McGee and Molly movie. It came out in 1944 and Howard Estabrook wrote the screenplay and directed. The McGee's are in Washington DC to visit their cousin. Somehow or another, McGee gets right into the middle of some political shenanigans. It's sort of funny but the public didn't flock to it and it lost $205,000 on release. If you like Fibber and Molly, you'd probably like this. Sadly, it's not got the star studded cast the other two McGee films had, nor any of the supporting characters from the radio show. Barbara Hale and Eugene Pallette might be the other big names in the cast.

Sullivan's Travels 1941

Sullivan's Travels was written and directed by Preston Sturges. It came out in 1941 and it stars Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. I'm pretty sure I saw it in the 70s but I can't be sure. I got the Criterion disc from the library to see it again and watch the extras.

Joel is a big Hollywood director who thinks he needs to experience poverty to make his film of the novel O Brother, Where Art Thou? He goes on the road and has some adventures, he meets Veronica Lake and gets tossed into a prison work farm. He eventually finds a way out and gets back to work. It's fun and there some social commentary about the poor and the time.

I liked the commentary by filmmakers Noah Baumbach, Kenneth Bowser, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean. There a 1990 documentary by Kenneth Bowser, Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer, which appeared on PBS’s American Masters series. It was interesting and I learned that Preston invented a kiss proof lipstick. Who knew.