PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 934

Where The Spies Are 1966 Based on the novel Passport To Oblivion by James Leasor, screenplay by James Leasor, Wolf Mankowitz and Val Guest, directed by Val Guest. Niven and Guest optioned the next five Leasor novels but only two of them ever got written. I've not read any of them.

David Niven plays Doctor Jason Love, he's been recruited by MI5 to go to a medical conference in Beirut to contact another doctor. John Le Mesurier plays the MI5 guy MacGuillvray, he'd worked briefly with Doctor Love in WWII when they both were in Military Intelligence. Love is reluctant to go but MacGuillvray offers to buy him a rare Cord automobile to get him on board.

Françoise Dorléac plays a spy called Vikki, her day job is that of international model. She's Love's contact at the airport. They start a bit of a romance. Love misses his plane only to see it explode on take off.

There's plenty of spying activity as the Russian spy Stanilaus, played by Ronald Rudd, gets ready to assassinate the pro-British Prince of Zahlouf. Love turns up and nobbles the Russian's plan. The Russkies kidnap Love and plan to take him to Russia.

Vikki turns out to be a double agent. She does redeem herself by shooting Stanilaus but sadly her modeling career comes to an end when Stanilaus returns the favor. I figured she'd die, it's the mid-60s, there's usually payback for blowing up a plane full of people. Doctor Love escapes and returns home.

I liked the movie well enough, it's more a spy movie like Our Man In Havana than a James Bond thriller. The Wikipedia says it's a comedy adventure film, it does OK on the adventure but it lacks a good supply of jokes. Despite that it's got a fairly decent script, perhaps a bit too long at 112 mins, and cast of good British actors. I recognized Cyril Cusack, Eric Pohlmann, Paul Stassino, Noel Harrison, Alan Gifford, Bill Nagy, Basil Dignam and Nigel Davenport. It's different enough from the average spy film that I'd watch it again.

Dr Renault's Secret 1942 Written by William Bruckner and Robert F Metzler and directed by Harry Lachman.

I wasn't certain that I had seen it before but the title was familiar. I looked at my Watched Movie List but I couldn't see it. Well, I couldn't find it due to a typo when I entered the movie in November 2017. The post I did then is linked in the title above. I still feel the same about the movie.

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde 1941

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde 1941 Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, screenplay by John Lee Mahin, Percy Heath and Samuel Hoffenstein, directed by Victor Fleming.

Spencer Tracy plays Dr Jekyll, he's got an idea that he can separate the good and bad in people. We all know now how that's going to go. His experiments lead him to taking his serum and Mr Hyde is born.

 

He likes the night life, visiting the musical halls, and taking a fancy to Ivy, played by Ingrid Bergman. Hyde provides her with an apartment and sexually abuses her for his fun. Things get worse and worse and Hyde eventually kills Ivy. His transformations are out of control and that eventually leads to his death.

Hyde has some interesting visions when he takes his serum.

It's a fairly good adaptation. Before watching this I watched the 1911 and 1920 silent versions. Those were not anywhere near as interesting. Tracy is good but his Hyde isn't as repulsive looking as many of the other adaptations. Despite the lack of ugly his Hyde is still a monster. I'll want to watch it again sometime. Maybe have a Jekyll and Hyde marathon.

The Jester's Supper 1942

The Jester's Supper 1942 Based on a play called La cena delle beffe by Sem Benelli, screenplay by Sem Benelli, Renato Castellani and Alessandro Blasetti, directed by Alessandro Blasetti. The play was later turned into an opera.

In 15th century Florence aristocrat Giannetto Malespini is being bullied by aristocratic brothers Neri and Gabriello Chiaramantesi. That's Giannetto, he's played by Osvaldo Valenti, in his off screen life he was a fascist, in 1945 he and his wife Luisa Ferida were executed by partisans.

The lady is Clara Calamai, she plays Ginevra, a servant in the Chiaramantesi household. Neri brought her to a party at Giannetto's as an insult. Giannetto fell for her and Neri didn't care for that much. Gabriello is also interested in the woman but Neri controls her for his own sick pleasures.

That's Amedeo Nazzari as Neri and Alfredo Varelli as Gabriello. Neri is the worst of the two and he's the one that abuses Ginevra. The film has one of the earliest nude scenes in Italian cinema, Neri rips off her nightgown in front of his pals and Giannetto.

 

Finally having enough of Neri and his brother Giannetto plots his revenge. He convinces others that Neri has gone mad and they chase him through the city and up a bell tower. He escapes and attacks a lot of people. He's recaptured and tortured by some of the people who hate him so much. Luisa Ferida plays one of the many women treated poorly by Neri. Giannetto tricks Neri into killing his brother. Neri is driven mad by the deed.

I found it quite entertaining. The DVD looks fairly good, be nice if they restored it. I got it at Hamilton Books for 6 bucks. Well worth it.

Jungle Captive 1945

Jungle Captive 1945 Screenplay by Dwight V Babcock and M Coates Webster, direction by Harold Young. The third and last film in the Cheela, the ape woman trilogy. The year before this film Harold Young directed the live action scenes for Disney's The Three Caballeros, a couple of years before that he directed The Mummy's Tomb. In 1934 he directed the Leslie Howard film The Scarlet Pimpernel. I haven't seen much of his other work.

Dwight V Babcock wrote about 20 other films and even more TV. I've seen several of the films he's penned: The Mummy's Curse, House Of Dracula, She-Wolf Of London, The Unknown and last Rondo Hatton film The Brute Man. I can't say I've seen much of his TV work. M Coates Webster also co-wrote The Brute Man with Babcock. I can't say I recognize any of his other titles.

This time it's Otto Kruger playing the mad scientist. This one's not an actual doctor but that doesn't stop him from all sorts of shenanigans. That's Amelita Ward in the car with Otto. Amelita plays Ann, the Otto's assistant. Otto's already restoring life to dead rabbits but he wants a bigger more advanced carcass to revive. He sends his man Morloch to the morgue to collect the body of the recently dead ape woman.

Rondo Hatton plays Morloch. He's a rather simple guy who doesn't mind a bit of murder to get what he wants. He strangles the morgue attendant to get the ape woman. Back at Otto's secret lab the mad scientist revives the ape woman and shortly after she turns into Paula Dupree. Otto kidnaps his assistant Ann, played by Amelita, to get some blood from her. Poor Moloch has feelings for her despite her liking Don.

That's Vicky Lane playing Paula. Phil Brown plays Ann's boyfriend Don and the doctor's other assistant. He comes to Ann's rescue but is caught by Moloch. Paula escapes and Don frees himself while the mads are off looking for her. Don rescues Ann but they get caught on the way out of the secret lab. Moloch tries to stop Otto from killing Ann with his experiment and gets a bullet in the gut. Otto experiences a crushing defeat when Paula turns back into a beast. Don and Ann are saved when the police arrive.

I thought it was the weakest of the trio but still enjoyed it. Mostly for Rondo and his mad scientist pal. I'm glad they put these out in nice editions, so I can see all the films in the series. I did like the commentary by Scott Gallinghouse, he had lots of stories to tell.

Jungle Woman 1944

Jungle Woman 1944 Story by Henry Sucher, screenplay by Bernard L Schubert, Henry Sucher and Edward Dein, directed by Reginald LeBorg. The sequel to Captive Wild Women cobbled together new footage and flashbacks from the first movie. It's the third film in the 5th volume of the Universal Horror Collection. Each film gets it's own Blu-ray disc. There's a commentary by Gregory William Mank and a still gallery by way of extras. Acquanetta returns as Cheela the Ape Woman despite being shot in the last film. Acquanetta doesn't return for the third film in the trilogy.

The story starts shortly after the first movie ends. A Doctor Fletcher is at an inquest into the death a young woman. He tells how he got to the state he's in. He'd been at the circus the night of the big storm from the first movie and seen the gorilla shot. Somehow he acquires the caress, finding a faint heartbeat, he revives the creature. Fletcher learns more about the experiments that mad scientist John Carradine was up to, he then buys all of John's equipment and sets the lab up in his sanitarium.

Cheela turns back into a young woman called Paula, this time she can speak. Fletcher's daughter Joan and her fiance Bob come for a visit. Paula get jealous and tries to drown Joan. The big guy in the lobby card above is Willie, he disappears that day. A dog and some chicken are killed, crushed, and Willie's suspected. We know he didn't do it and a bit later Willie would be found dead in the woods.

That's Paula and Bob with another doctor. This doctor thinks she's a bit mentally unstable, he also notices that she's very strong. Doctor Fletch discovers that the fingerprints from Paula and Cheela are the same. Bob and Paula return to the sanitarium. Bob tells Paula that he's going to marry Joan. Paula runs off. Fletcher gets attacked by Paula and he gives her a fatal dose of sedative. The movie ends with a shot of Paula being pulled out of the coroner's freezer and everyone seeing she's reverted to a partial gorilla state.

I didn't think it was as entertaining as the first in the series. The commentary by Gregory Mank had a good bit of info to take in. Turns out Acquanetta was really a black woman called Mildred Davenport who was passing as white. . She made a few more movies and dropped out of Hollywood. Mank covers a good bit of her life post-Hollywood. The commentary is more entertaining than the movie. It's certainly one of the poorer films in the series.

Captive Wild Woman 1943

Captive Wild Woman 1943 Screenplay by Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher, directed by Edward Dmytryk. A Universal picture it was followed by 2 sequels Jungle Woman and The Jungle Captive. All three films are collected in the 5th volume of the Universal Horror Collection along with The Monster And The Girl. Each film gets it's own disc and a commentary, a couple of the films get a trailer, and all have new 2K transfers. I wouldn't recommend the series for everyone but the Universal Monsters are favorites of mine and I was happy to pick the sets up. This post is an update of a post I did last year when we watched the movie at a Friday Night Movie Night.

John Carradine is a doctor scientist who's working with glands as a method of curing deformities. He takes an opportunity to steal a gorilla and turn it onto Acquanetta. John has to kill someone to get the glands to transplant in the gorilla and he's the sort of doctor who doesn't see a problem with that.

Mildred Davenport is Acquanetta's real name, she appeared in 10 movies between 1942 and 1953. She didn't appear in another production until she guested on The Adventures Of Grizzly Adams in 1990.

Milburn Stone is a big game hunter and lion tamer, he's supplies the lions and tigers for Lloyd Corrigan's circus. He's the one who captured the gorilla. Evelyn Ankers is Lloyd's secretary and Milburn's gal. Martha Vickers is Evelyn's sister, she's getting some curing at John's clinic. Clyde Beatty does Milburn's lion taming scenes via footage from The Big Cage and Ray "Crash" Corrigan plays the gorilla.

I thought it was entertaining but I found the circus lion taming scenes to drag a bit. I guess I'm just not that interested in lion taming. Seems unnecessarily dangerous and nothing good for the cats. The movie looks nice.

The commentary by Tom Weaver has some comments from a man who's knowledgeable about lion taming. Clyde used to dominate the cats with a chair, a whip and a gun. Now they use treats. Still dangerous. Weaver's commentary features words from the gal that plays the gorilla as a human, Acquanetta, they were recorded by an actress from a printed interview in a horror magazine. She had some interesting stuff to say and some stuff I would take with a grain of salt. She sounds very new agey to me. Weaver had enough other stuff to say to keep it interesting.

The Monster And The Girl 1941

The Monster And The Girl 1941 Story and screenplay by Stuart Anthony, directed by Stuart Heisler. Heisler had a pretty good career starting in 1936 and ending when he retired in 1962. He passed away in 1979. I've only seen a few of his films: The Glass Key, Along Came Jones and 1956 film The Lone Ranger. He worked in TV from 1958 with an episode of 77 Sunset Strip. Anthony has 54 credits on the IMDb but I can't say I've seen many of his films, other than the two Charlie Chan films he did.

The first of 4 films in the 5th volume of the Universal Horror Collection Blu-ray set. Each film gets it's own disc and each film has it's own commentary, two have stills and two have a trailer. The films look nice and some of the commentaries are more interesting than others. This film has a commentary by Tom Weaver and Steve Kronenberg with comments from an interview with Bob Burns. I enjoyed this commentary quite a bit, Weaver has plenty of interesting info and a real fondness for the film.

 

That's Phillip Terry and Paul Lukas on the left, Phillip plays a poor sap that gets framed for murder by scumbag gangster Lukas. The other photo is Rod Cameron, Ellen Drew and Paul Lukas. Rod's a reporter, Ellen plays Phillip's sister and Paul is still a scumbag gangster. Ellen's under Paul's thumb, he's tricked her into owing him some money and he's forcing her to be a bar girl for him. She wants out before he turns her into a prostitute. Phillip doesn't care for the life Ellen's fallen into and he causes some waves in Paul's pool. In typical scumbag gangster fashion Paul decides to frame Phillip and rid himself of another problem guy at the same time.

Phillip gets convicted despite Ellen passionate speech to the court. Before the execution George Zucco turns up with a proposal. That's George in the picture on the left. He has often played a crazy doctor with inappropriate thoughts in his head. He wants Phillip's brain for research, Phillip signs off , the body goes to George's lab where he plunks it in the gorilla's brain pan. Once Phillip gets used to the gorilla's body he starts going out and mangling the people who sent him to his death. Sadly poor Phillip is killed finishing off the gang that framed him.

I wound up enjoying the movie quite a bit and the commentary only reinforced my enjoyment. I'd highly recommend it to those interested in this sort of thing.

Here's a look at the King Of The Gorilla Men.

Charles Gemora became known as King Of The Gorilla Men for his numerous appearances in films as a gorilla. He was from the Philippines and he arrived in the US as a stowaway. He worked as fruit picker before moving to Los Angeles. He was discovered by the Universal Art Department outside the studio doing portrait sketches. In 1923 he worked in the sculpture department on The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

He wore his first gorilla suit in the 1928 film The Leopard Lady. He played gorilla's in 55 films, including The Unholy Three, Murders In The Rue Morgue, The Marx Brothers At The Circus, Road To Zanzibar, Charlie Chan At The Circus, Gildersleeve's Ghost, Africa Screams and The White Witch Doctor. He plays a bear in one movie, a Martian in The War Of The Worlds, and the alien in I Married A Monster From Outer Space. I've seen many of his films without knowing anything about him. Sadly he died rather young at age 58.

Charles did makeup on a lot of films and he made his own gorilla suits. That's Charles in the 1932 film The Sign Of The Cross. The suit for The Monster And The Girl is a great one. Charles really brings the gorilla to life and once Phillip's brains inside he makes that believable. The gorilla is my favorite character in the film.

Bob Burns, a huge fan of gorilla's in films tells a story of meeting Charles at the Universal makeup department in an interview. He spent an afternoon with Charles and had a great time. Charles passed on a lot of tips on making gorilla suits and how to act more gorilla like. Charles had spent a lot of time observing gorilla's in their day to day at the local zoo.

That's my second favorite character in the movie. Skipper plays Phillips's dog and he's missing his pal. Skipper eventually connects with the gorilla, seeming to know it's Phillip. He follows the gorilla around as he goes about his deadly business. I was really impressed with Skipper, he did a good job, his sad scene at the end of the film brought a tear to my eye.

Tom Weaver mentions Skipper in the commentary, the dog trainer thought he might be scared of the gorilla costume so they introduced Skipper to Charles without the suit. Charles put on the suit and Skipper recognized his smell through the suit and everything was fine. Skipper willingly followed Charles around as the gorilla.

Little bits like that add up to a darn good film and one I'll be watching again. Already I'm thinking the set has paid back it's cost.

House Of Horrors 1946

House Of Horrors 1946 Story by Dwight V Babcock, screenplay by George Bricker, directed by Jean Yarbrough. The last film in the 4th volume of the Universal Horror Collection. It's got a commentary by Scott Gallinghouse. He wrote a book on Rondo Hatton. Rondo made a fair number of films, mostly small uncredited parts, starting with the 1927 Uncle Tom's Cabin where he played an uncredited slave. Rondo had acromegaly and it killed him shortly after he shot this film and The Brute Man. Gallinghouse's commentary was entertaining and covered a lot of Rondo's life and a good bit on the film.

Martin Kosleck is a sculpture. He's not having a good career, his art isn't that interesting and a critic lets him know in no uncertain terms. Poor Martin can't pay his rent. On the way to kill himself he winds up saving Rondo from the river. He takes Rondo back to his apartment and offers him a place to stay. He doesn't know that Rondo is The Creeper, a murderer who escaped from the police. Rondo doesn't say anything but he appreciates Martin's help. The Creeper goes out when Martin's asleep and kills the people Martin thinks have done him wrong. Nothing good is coming from that.

Martin is fascinated with The Creeper's face and he believes his sculpture is the best work he's done. It will lead the police there and everything ends badly for Martin. The Creeper escapes so he can star in The Brute Man.

I enjoyed this better than The Climax. It's got a good villain and a fairly good story. Done with volume 4, onto box 5 soon.

The Climax 1944

The Climax 1944 Very loosely based on the 1909 play of the same name by Edward Locke, adapted by Curt Siodmak, screenplay by Curt Siodmak and Lynn Starling, directed by George Waggner.

This is the 3rd movie on the Universal Horror Collection Volume 4. It's a 4 Blu-ray set with a commentary for each film. This one is by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones. It's fairly interesting and more entertaining and informative than the previous two commentaries in the set.

Boris plays a doctor who's in love with an opera singer. That's Boris with Susanna Foster, she plays the singer. She's got good reason to look like that. Being with Boris is not anything healthy and she doesn't even know he killed his previous fiance, who now resides in a coffin is a secret room in his big house.

 

Turhan Bey is also in love with Susanna. Boris uses hypnotism on Susanna so she'll only sing for him. Lucky for her Turhan comes to the rescue. It's a bit more melodrama than horror and it's a rather slow film. It's not overly exciting and there is a lot of opera. It's in color, it was Karloff's first color film, the Blu-ray looks very nice. I liked it better this watching, I'd last seen it in 2008 at a Friday Night Movie night.

Night Monster 1942

Night Monster 1942 Written by Clarence Upson Young and directed by Ford Beebe. Ford has 125 writing credits on the IMDb, he's only got 105 director's credits. His first film was in 1921 and he made 31 silent shorts before graduating to features in 1931. He directed quite a number of serials, I've seen some of them, including Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, Flash Gordon's Trip To Mars and Secret Agent X-9. 

It's the second film in the 4th volume of the Universal Horror Collection. I'd seen it couple of times before and enjoyed it. There's a commentary by Gary D Rhodes, it's fairly decent but way too slow. The Blu-ray has a nice looking picture, a trailer and stills.

A wheel chair bound rich man invites three doctors who were trying to cure him. He blames them for their failures and one by one the men are murdered in the house. The police suspect the rich man but he has no arms or legs.

That's the rich guy in the wheel chair, he's played by Ralph Morgan, I'd seen him in quite a few films from the thirties and forties. Bela Lugosi is the butler, the man next to him is Francis Pierlot, one of the soon to be murdered doctors. Don Porter is the guy in the light coat, he'd have a nice long career in TV that lasted until 1988. The guy sitting down is Nils Asther, he's playing a mystic, the short man next to him is Frank Reicher, he's another of the soon to be murdered doctors. The lady is Irene Hervey, her career lasted nearly 50 years but I can't say I've seen more than a few of her pictures, I've probably seen her more often on TV.

I enjoyed the movie, it's got a nice creepy vibe going on. It's only 73 mins and it moves along quickly. The cast is good and the characters suspicious. I'd certainly want to watch it again sometime.