PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 810

The Portrait Of Dorian Gray 1945 Based on the novel of the same name by Oscar Wilde, screenplay and direction by Albert Lewin.

 

I saw this picture back in 2006 but haven't seen it since. I recently got the DVD and decided tonight's the night to put it on. You probably know the story, man stays young while a painting of him ages. You can click the paintings for a larger size image. The picture on the left was painted by Henrique Medina and the one on the right was painted by Ivan Le Lorraine Albright. The Medina painting is shown in color in a brief scene in the B&W film. It's believed to be in a private collection. The Albright painting is in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago. Ivan's identical twin Malvin was hired to paint the good Dorian painting but it wasn't used in the film. Ivan made changes to both the good and bad paintings while the film was being shot.

Hurd Hatfield lays Dorian. I knew nothing about Hurd, even though his IMDb listing says I've seen him in a few TV shows and movies. He worked steadily from 1944 until 1991, he passed away in 1998 at the age of 81. The other fellow is George Sanders playing Lord Henry Wotton. I'm more familiar with George's work and a big fan of him as The Saint and The Falcon. He's a bit of a rotter here and he convinces Dorian that a lifestyle of pleasure and hedonism is the way to go. Dorian's pretty shallow and he's easily swayed by Wotton. Dorian is generally a pretty piss poor example of a human being.

Dorian is having his portrait painted by artist Basil Hallward, he's played by Lowell Gilmore. That's him in the middle between Peter Lawford and Donna Reed. Donna is Gladys Gilmore, Basil's daughter and Peter is David Stone, a man in love with Donna. Their lives become a mess from being involved with Dorian. Gladys is a child when the painting is finished, about 18 years pass and she grows into a lovely young woman. Dorian looks the same but his painting is growing more and more grotesque from his naughty life style. Dorian asks her to marry him and she excepts. What's wrong with these people?

Angela Lansbury is Sibyl Vane, a singer in a small tavern in a rough part of London. Shortly after the portrait is finished Dorian sees her sing and returns over and over to the tavern. He proposes to her but Lord Wotton's influence causes Dorian to offer her a choice, sleep with him before marriage or get out. She walks but returns. The next day Dorian sends her a letter telling of his disappointment in her giving into him, he ends the relationship and includes a pile of cash. She commits suicide.

Time passes and Dorian becomes known as a bounder and his portrait has become as grotesque as he is inside. Gladys brother vows revenge but fails. Dorian becomes more and more evil. In the end he destroys himself.

It's a pretty darn good looking film, plenty of great sets, really good cast, everything about it is top notch. Might be the best film I've seen this year. Well worth a look.

Molly And The Ghost 1990 No writer is credited on the film or the IMDb. Don Jones is the director. I can see why the writer might have taken his name off the film, there's nothing much good about it. A horrible 16 year old runs away to LA and moves in with her older sister. She steals money and jewelry from her sister and tries to seduce her husband. Thrown out she hires a hit man but she's so stupid she mails him a picture of herself. He kills her and she become's a vengeful ghost. It's a pretty piss poor film and should be punched in the face. I started fast forwarding after a while.

The Mind Benders 1963 James Kennaway wrote the original screenplay and adapted that into his novel of the same name, Basil Dearden directed.

Professor Sharpey jumps from a moving train and a huge pile of money is found in his briefcase. He's suspected of selling secrets to foreign interests. Major Hall comes to investigate Sharpey and he finds he'd been involved with a project studying the effects of cold and isolation on men. That project has morphed into a study on sensory deprivation, Professor Sharpey had worked on the project with Dr Longman and Dr Tate, scientists at the University. Major Hall is played by John Clements, he's on the right, the guy on the left is Michael Bryant who played Dr Tate. Dirk Bogarde plays Dr Longman.

The Major finds that the process of cutting off the body from all sensation leaves the mind messed up and the person susceptible to easy manipulation. If this is the case it might be that Professor Sharpey could have been an easy mark for spies after being in the tank.

Longman had been in the tank for four hours and taken a leave. He's at home with his wife Oonagh and their four children when the Major comes to call. Longman believes that Sharpey could have been easily swayed by some spies. The Major talks a reluctant Longman into going back into the tank. They leave him in for 8 hours and he's pretty much a broken man.

As part of the experiment they tell Dirk his wife is a pain and he doesn't really love her. Dirk seems to recover but the seeds have been planted and his marriage breaks apart. That's Dirk with Mary Ure, who plays his wife Oonagh. Now the Major has to try to rectify is awful blunder.

That's Wendy Craig, it was one of her early film roles, she'd been in a few TV programs and would go onto star in the beloved series Butterflies. There's a few people in the cast that I knew, Terence Alexander, Roger Delgado, Edward Fox, Geoffrey Keene and Norman Bird. The good script gives them good material to work with. It's well filmed and directed. Everything about it is way above average. It's also a good reminder that human's are fragile. Well worth seeing. It's another film that turned out to be one of the best films I've seen this year. I have the Kino Lorber DVD and it looks nice. There's a commentary that I listened to part of, might get around to it again someday.

The Interrupted Journey 1949

The Interrupted Journey 1949 Original story and screenplay by Michael Pertwee, direction by Daniel Birt.I didn't recognize any of the other dozen films Birt's directed but I have seen the 4 episodes he directed of The Adventures Of Robin Hood. That's a favorite series of mine.

Michael is both actor and writer, he's brother to Jon Pertwee and cousin of Bill Pertwee. His father Roland was an actor, same with his nephews Daniel and Sean. Michael only has three acting credits but over a hundred writing credits. You might have sen some of his movies, Too Many Crooks, Make Mine Mink, The Mouse On The Moon, Strange Bedfellows and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. He wrote for several popular shows and many I haven't seen. I've seen episodes of his on The Invisible Man, Danger Man, Adventures In Paradise, Secret Agent, The World Of Wooster and The Saint. 

A guy is running off with his mistress, they are on a train when he gets it in his head that he shouldn't do it. He also thinks he sees his mistress's hubby on the train and doesn't a confrontation. The train slows down near enough to his home that he pulls the emergency cord and jumps off the train when it stops. He walks to his house only to hear an huge noise, another train has hit the stopped train. All sorts of people are dead, including his mistress, and dozens injured. The train police investigate and find his name in the mistress's pocket.

He tells his wife he was there but left and she says she'll stand behind him. The train inspector hounds him but the news on the accident puts the blame on a faulty signal. No matter it turns out that the mistress was shot dead before the crash, they suspect our idiot, he says it wasn't him but they find the gun what did the deed in his pond. We'd seen a man throw it in there but the train inspector hasn't. The guy does some more investigating which leads him to the dead woman's husband, supposedly found dead in the wreck, and the hubby kills him.

When the guy wakes up it's all been a dream. Imagine my disappointment! He leaves the train the same way and returns home to his wife. This time there's no crash. I'm not much of a fame of dream fantasy and this one was the one of the more contrived ones. Other's seem to like it more than me but that's the way that rolls. I probably wouldn't bother watching it again. It's on YouTube, click the link above and watch.

Best Of British Classics Double Feature Vol 1

   

Tomorrow We Live 1943 Released in the US as At Dawn We Die, which I find sounds hopeless, that's the opposite of what the movie is about. It's WW2 and the German's have occupied France, John Clements is a Frenchman who has some intel on the German's U-Boat base to give to the British. The resistance operates in the town and they set up an escape to England.

The Nazis are harsh masters, fining the village for violations, abusing and killing the citizens for minor infractions. It gets worse once the SS get there. There's a whole subplot devoted to collaborators. The things people had to do to stay alive, didn't always pan out. A lot of people died.

Not a happy story but a hopeful one. Dorothy Hope wrote the original story, Anatole de Grunwald wrote the screenplay and George King directed. A good solid film that has interesting characters and a nice bit of danger. You can see it on YouTube. I've linked to it in the title above.

Inquest 1939 Elizabeth Allan is accused of murder and Hay Petrie plays the KC that defends her at the inquest. It's a nice complicated story that's based on a play by Michael Barringer, he adapted his own play with Francis Miller, the director is Roy Boulting. There's a good bit of humor, despite the hangman looking over Elizabeth's shoulder. Hay works to find out what happened and comes through a champion. Well worth seeing.

The Black & Blue Collection

The Black & Blue Collection is from Troma's Roan Group label. It's got three classic crime films starring Bela Lugosi, John Carradine and George Zucco. The films are all in the public domain and turn up on other collections.

Bluebeard 1944 Directed by Edgar G Ulmer, story by Arnold Lipp and Werner H Furst, screenplay by Pierre Gendron.You can see a copy of the film on YouTube, there's a link in the title.

John Carradine plays a Parisian puppeteer, times are hard, people aren't coming to his shows because of Bluebeard. That's the nickname for the man who's murdering young women on the dark streets of Paris. John's also a painter but uses another name. John's paintings bring out the worst in him and he's trying to stifle that urge.

Jean Parker and her friends meet John and take in one of his shows. Jean offers to make costumes for his puppets and John accepts the offer. One of John's painting is exhibited and a policeman recognizes the woman in the painting as one of Bluebeard's victims. Armed with a good clue to who the madman murderer is the police try flushing Bluebeard out with a decoy.

There are more murders before the climax and it's fairly exciting. It's better than average. I'd seen it some years ago and enjoyed it all over again.

The Black Raven 1943 Directed by Sam Newfield, screenplay by Fred Myton. Sam directed over 250 films in his career, including The Terror Of Tiny Town, The Mad Monster, The Monster Maker, White Pongo and plenty of westerns.

George Zucco is the proprietor of The Black Raven Inn, he's also a criminal called the Black Raven. The inn is located near the Canadian border and the BR can smuggle a fellow baddie out of the US and into Canada for a stack of greenbacks. Glenn Strange is George's dogsbody.

An escaped criminal tries to kill George one night and that's the start of all his troubles. Another gangster shows up, he wants the Black Raven to smuggle him to Canada but George isn't too keen on it. The heavy rain washes out a bridge and forces an embezzler and a pair of newly weds to take shelter in the inn.

Charles B Middleton plays the idiotic sheriff, he stumbles into the action but can hardly catch a cold. Eventually everything works itself out. It's looking up at average but it's sense of humor saves it for me. Like all the movies on the disc, I'd seen it before, I gave it a an OK on my Watched Movie List and I'd still watch it again.

The Black Dragons 1942 Directed by William Nigh, story and screenplay by Harvey Gates. Another on you can see on YouTube.

A bunch of scumbag businessmen are secretly 5th columnists sabotaging factories critical to the war effort. Bela Lugosi shows up and starts killing the men, all of whom are part of the Black Dragon Society. The BDS are Japanese and they're working with the Nazis.

The police are baffled by the stack of bodies but eventually they get enough clues to figure it out. It's even more below average than the previous film. It started filming a month after Pearl Harbor and seems like they rushed it out without spending time to make a better movie. Still watchable.

All in all nothing too special here, just average examples of low budget films of the time. Still glad to have them.

The Catman Of Paris 1946

The Catman Of Paris is a 1946 Republic Picture about a murdering cat guy. Sherman L Lowe wrote the screenplay and Lesley Selander is the director.

There's a catman killing in the streets of Paris. Carl Esmond has written a book about a catman of legend, the authorities want to ban it, his publisher is fearful of losing money. The police suspect Esmond is the killer and they set a trap.

Gerald Mohr, John Dehner and Anthony Caruso were cast members I knew from other work. It was the first of Republic's Horror double features and it was paired with Valley Of The Zombies. It was fairly decent but barely average. I enjoyed it enough to watch to the end and I'd check it out again someday but it's unlikely to happen.

John Mills Collection

John Mills Collection has four movies, each film on it's own DVD, from VCI Video. I found the set at Hamilton Books last year for a ten spot, it's currently $25 on Amazon. Worth the money for me, pushing it at $25, especially since I had a copy of The History Of Mr Polly already. It's still cheaper to buy the set than the individual DVDs.

Morning Departure 1950 Based on a play of the same name by Kenneth Wollard, screenplay by William Fairchild, directed by Roy Ward Baker. Morbid story of a submarine that gets sent to the bottom by a mine left over from the war. They have to pick lots to see who stays and who goes, there aren't enough diving suits for everyone, some were damaged in the accident. Fade to black on the last men in the sub. Not one I might want to readily watch again, though it's a fairly well told story, it's still pretty much a downer.

Tiara Tahiti 1962 Based on a a novel by Geoffrey Cotterell, he co-wrote the screenplay with Ivan Foxwell, the director is Ted Kotcheff. John Mills and James Mason knew each other during the war, John was a black market profiteer, James was responsible for getting him kicked out of the regiment. Years pass and John is living the life of leisure in Tahiti, he's got a beautiful girlfriend Rosenda Monteros. James comes to the island, he's director of a chain of hotels, he's looking to build there. Their paths cross and there's some amusement. I'd watch it again.

The Long Memory 1953 Based on a novel by Howard Clewes, screenplay by Robert Hamer and Frank Harvey, directed by Robert Hamer. John gets framed for murder in this one, he gets 12 years in prison for killing a guy named Boyd, when he gets out he goes looking for the witnesses who lied. Problem is, one of the witnesses is married to a police detective now, the other witness is dead. John sets up housekeeping on an abandoned barge, he makes friends with an old coot who lives on the next abandoned barge, he finds a bit of companionship in a traumatized war refugee named Ilsa. John's presence stirs up the witness, her hubby and Boyd. The crooked guy had used the witnesses to lie and say it was his body in the boat, the police were onto him and being dead is a good get out of jail free card. With the help of the Ilsa and old coot things turn out rather better than expected for John. I found it more entertaining than the first two films and would watch it again.

The History Of Mr Polly 1949 Based on the novel by H G Wells, written and directed by Anthony Pélissier. It's Edwardian England and John is a man of 20 when the movie starts, he marries a woman and sets up shop at an outfitter. In the second act some years have passed, John's none to happy, he tries to commit suicide but it goes wrong and he becomes a hero and makes a pile on his insurance. He runs off with the money, leaving the wife he hates so much. The third act we spend with a much happier man as an assistant innkeeper. It's a bit dark but still funny. Id watch it again.

Three re-watchable films, not bad for a tenner.

Cottage To Let 1941

Cottage To Let is a 1941 British film that was titled Bombsight Stolen over here. It's adapted from a play by Geoffrey Kerr, with a screenplay by Anatole de Grunwald and JOC Orton, the director is Anthony Asquith.

A ditsy country lady has let the cottage on the estate to Alastair Sim. She's also offered it to the military as a hospital. The program to place city kids in safer places has an order to put 20 kids there. They wind up leaving two, one is played by a teenage George Cole in his first role. John Mills plays a British pilot who jumped out of his failing plane and wound up in Lock Tay. He's hurt so they take him to the cottage. He gets one of the rooms and pushes one of the kids out to the manor house. George follows when Alastair shows up with this paid rent receipt.

The daughter of the ditsy lady falls for John, leaving her current suitor out in the cold. The suitor works for her father, he's an eccentric scientist who's currently working on the best bombsight anyone has seen. George is a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan and he spots that the butler is a planted cop. There's a pack of Nazi spies working to get the bombsight and there are plenty of red herrings making this or that one guilty looking. We do find out who all the scumbags are and a couple of them get some heavy justice laid on them. That was funny. I did like the movies sense of humor and the nice brisk pace. There's a bit of action and a good ending. Nice job from all the cast, especially Alastair, George and John Mills. You can see a copy in the link in the title above.

Friday Night Movies 789

The First Of The Few is a 1942 British film that was called Spitfire in the US. I couldn't find any good poster images for the British title, I had to settle for the one on the left. The original story is by Henry C James and Katherine Strueby, the screenplay is by Miles Malleson and Anatole de Grunwald, the director is Leslie Howard. It was Leslie's last role as an actor, he died the following year, the plane he was in was shot down by the German Luftwaffe.

Leslie is RJ Mitchell, the man who designed the Spitfire fighter plane. He'd been designing planes since the early 20s and they won a lot of speed records. He was first guy to use one wing instead of the two that were popular at the time. The company he worked at didn't agree and he left them. They hired him back later and then they were bought out by a bigger company who wanted Mitchell as their head designer. The head of that company knew that the future needed men like Mitchell.

David Niven plays RJ's test pilot and Rosamund John plays RJ's wife. The trio visit Germany just after Hitler has taken control, the pro-war rhetoric convinces RJ he must build a war plane that's better than anything. He works too hard, gets sick and dies. It's all melodramatic in the movie, it's like he worked himself to death for the sake of the country.

In real life RJ got cancer in 1934, he slowed down some and totally stopped working in 1936, he died the following year. They don't even mention cancer in the film. Still, good work out of Leslie, David and the rest of the cast. I liked most of the film, a little too much melodrama mixed in with scientist working to solve a problem, but I was still glad to see it. I'd prefer a film like The Dam Busters to this.

Berlin Express is a 1948 American film that was partially shot in the ruins of Frankfort and Berlin in 1948. Curt Siodmak wrote the story, Harold Medford wrote the screenplay and Jacques Tourneur directed.

Robert Ryan is an American agricultural expert, Paul Lukas is a German peace activist Dr Bernhardt, Merle Oberon is a French woman who's Bernhardt's secretary, Charles Korvin is a Frenchman, Robert Coote is a British teacher and Roman Toporow is a Russian officer. They all meet on a train from Frankfort to Berlin. Bernhardt is blown up on the train but we find out it's really an agent who was killed, Bernhardt is in disguise. Bernhardt is only safe for a few minutes, he's kidnapped by the Nazi underground after the train arrives in Berlin.

Merle convinces Robert, Charles, Robert and Roman to help her find Bernhardt. They set out to find the guy. We know he's being held by a fanatical brew-master who wants the Reich to rise again. The investigation takes them around the city, there's an incredible amount of rubble and destruction, yet people continue on. A good few of them are still looking backward to the glorious Nazi past that's slipped out of their fingers. You can't be sure who to trust.

It's a bit pseudo-documentary style with a narrator filling us in on what we are seeing. The cast is great, the script is great, the rubble is great. Happy to add this to the small pile of Jacques Tourneur films I would want to watch again.

Millions Like Us 1943

Millions Like Us is a 1943 British propaganda film. The original screenplay is by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, the guys also directed. I like those guys quite a bit so I bought the DVD from Amazon. It appears to be a bootleg of unknown origin but it looks alright. You can see a decent copy on YouTube.

 

The movie starts in 1939 as we meet the Crowson family, they're heading off to the south of England for a seaside holiday in Hastings. There's plenty of interesting footage of  train stations, streets and countryside. When the war breaks out the family helps out with the war effort, dad is in the Home Guard, daughter Phyllis joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service, daughter Celia gets posted to a factory making airplane parts. Everyone has to make due with rationing and other hardships. The German's bomb the area around the factory occasionally and the women have concrete bunkers to hide in, they don't appear that safe, there's a lot of stress. Celia meets a Scottish flight sergeant and they marry. They honeymoon in Hastings, staying at the same B&B that Celia has stayed in since she was a toddler. The town is all sandbagged up and ready for the Nazi invasion from France. The war doesn't go the sergeant's way but Celia carries on at the factory.

Millions Like Us has the fourth and last appearance of Charters and Caldicott, played Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne. They appeared in The Lady Vanishes, Night Train To Munich and Crook's Tour. The two would appear together in other films but as different characters. They add a bit of humor to the hard times. There's some humor as the different classes of citizen rub up against one and other. One of the woman at the factory is pretty posh and she loathes working on a lathe making airplane parts. The foreman is always on her case and they wind up in a relationship.

I enjoyed Millions Like Us and was glad to have added it to my collection. I thought it was worth a look and would recommend it to people who don't mind a war time melodrama. I've seen most of the films by Gilliat and Launder and hardly any of them aren't re-watchable. The Wikipedia says the film was popular in Russia. 

White Cradle Inn 1947

White Cradle Inn is a 1947 British drama with Michael Rennie. It came out in the US under the title High Fury. It's part of The British Film series from Network. Harold French is the director, he co-wrote the story with Lesley Storm, they both worked on the screenplay with Basil Mason, there's additional dialog from George Barraud.

Madeleine Carroll is Magda, she's married to Michael, he's a jerk and a womanizer. They live in the White Cradle Inn in the Swiss Alps. They have been billeting a French orphan called Roger. He doesn't to go back to the orphanage and Magda would like to adopt him. Michael doesn't like the boy and says no, at least until he hits on using that to lever control of the Inn from Magda. She gives in and signs the inn over to Michael.

Roger wants to prove himself to Michael, he asks to be taken on a climbing trip. You can see Michael's bad thoughts in his face when he agrees to the trip but it turns out poorly in his favor. He gives up his life, not in a noble fashion but in a fatalistic way, the victim of his bad luck that day. Other than being a pretty much average drama there's some nice scenery and the baddie fell down a mountain. Not one I might get back to but who knows. it's on the shelf.