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Monk: Mr. Monk Goes to a Rock Concert (2006)
A rather drawn out and static affair
Stottlemeyer gets a call from his ex-wife saying that their son has skipped school and has gone to a rock concert. Monk and Natalie tag along in the effort to retrieve him. While they are at the concert - which resembles a G rated stripped down version of Woodstock - the body of one of the "roadies" is discovered in one of the Port-A-Potties, with a needle in his arm, an apparent OD. His girlfriend intercepts Monk and Natalie and says that the roadie had been clean of drugs for 17 months, also there are not any needle tracks in the dead guy's arm other than the needle mark of the OD. Also, Monk notices the dead guy does not have any mud on his shoes while the area around the toilets is surrounded by mud. Did he fly into the toilet? An investigation begins. Meanwhile, Stottlemeyer is dealing with teenage angst from his son.
This episode had neither a really interesting murder case nor much character development, as Stottlemeyer's son is not part of the cast and is very seldom seen. I can't remember another episode where he appears. There's a few humorous bits, such as Monk thinking that a "rock show" was going to be a display of boulders. Apparently Monk had skipped school as a teen to go to a "rock show" and see "the stones". There is also Disher being caught by Stottlemeyer at the concert playing hooky from work, and just the general unease of Monk being caught in a large wave of people and the unsanitary conditions that arise from that.
Beau Geste (1939)
I hardly ever like these kinds of films...
... which is the kind that takes place somewhere exotic with lots of sand and has hordes of attacking natives. And you never know exactly WHY the natives are attacking so ferociously. But I digress. So I sat down to watch this one not expecting much, but since a 30s Paramount is so rarely shown on TCM, I thought I'd give it a whirl. I'm really glad that I did.
The film opens on a regiment of the French foreign legion coming to the fort that they are to relieve from attack, but they arrive and find not a soul alive. There is a note confessing guilt for a long-ago crime in the hand of one of the dead men, and then, when the regiment is reassembled outside the fort planning their next move, a massive fire breaks out inside. This got me wanting to know how we got to this point.
So the film now doubles back to 15 years before, when the Geste boys - Beau, John, and Digby are growing up on the Brandon estate with Patricia Brandon as a kind of foster mom. One night, after the boys are grown, the theft of an expensive jewel occurs, and the Geste brothers all write notes claiming responsibility, thinking that one of the others is guilty. They all join the French Foreign Legion to escape the reach of the law, and all three end up in the same place with each still wondering if one of the other two committed the crime back in England.
From that point forward, the story shifts to be about surviving the cruelty of one particular officer - Markoff (Brian Donlevy) and each brother trying to remain true to the other brothers while dealing with the fact that both Sergeant Markoff and their fellow legionnaires are not honorable people. Also, Markoff learns about the jewel and thinks that one of the brothers have it in their belongings.
The largest part of the film takes place inside one fort during one battle in which the fort is under relentless attack by a large band of Tuareg, but it's not boring. Donlevy as Markoff makes this part of the film, partly because he seems to enjoy sending soldiers to their death, and partly because of what he does with them after they've died.
If you like a good romance, that is not this film. It is all about comradery. The cast is truly remarkable with many later Academy Award winners -Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, and Susan Hayward. There's also some great character actors such as J. Carroll Naish, Albert Dekker, and Harold Huber. Brian Donlevy never won an Academy Award, but he's deliciously evil as the sadistic Markoff. Also look for Broderick Crawford just starting out. And only in America could Donald O'Connor ( Beau Geste as a child) grow up to be Gary Cooper (adult Beau Geste).
The Clinging Vine (1926)
Original and lively comedy if you can deal with the sexist drivel...
... and the sexist drivel is not what you'd expect from a 1926 film, as it makes all men look stupid and the women wise.
A. B. (Leatrice Joy) is the assistant to the owner of a paint company, T. M. Bancroft. AB is really the brains behind the operation, and the brawn for that matter. TM just wants to play and read about golf all day. His ineffective board of directors doesn't seem to be very useful either. AB dresses mannishly - She wears dresses but from the waist up they appear like a man's suit with vest and tie. Her haircut is very short and she uses no makeup.
TM's gout acting up makes it necessary for everybody to go to his Connecticut estate to conduct business. "Grandma" - TM's wife - takes one look at AB and sees a project. She gives AB lessons in how to make herself up, lets her borrow a couple of dresses, and tells her that men only want to hear two lines - "Aren't you wonderful!" and "Do go on!". This sounds ridiculous, but it works on all of the men at the estate. Furthermore, it works particularly well on Grandma's grandson, Jimmie (Tom Moore). The whole reason Jimmie is at their home? AB, whom he hasn't even met, has fired him by phone from his grandfather's business, and he's there to complain to TM. Complications ensue.
There is some original stuff here that works exceedingly well, like Snitz Edwards as a fellow employee of AB's who thinks she's lost her mind with the sudden feminine makeover. Just looking at him made me laugh. And then there's some stuff that is just plain ponderous - Like how grandma has dressed AB up like Little Bo Peep rather in the fashions of the day, and yet the men seem to like this strange get-up. Then there is grandma herself. She is supposed to be Tom Moore's grandmother and yet he looks about 35 and she looks about 50. In fact the actress who played grandma is only six years older than Moore. I know people married young in those days, but really!
Finally that AB would fall head over heels for Jimmie when she is so accomplished is just not very believable. This guy is just not that bright and AB saves the day for him at every turn. I can tell you from sad experience that saving the day every day of your life gets old in a hurry.
Still this is a very interesting silent comedy with some actors who aren't that well known today, and this film showcases them quite well.
Monk: Mr. Monk Goes to a Fashion Show (2006)
Mr. Monk and the distracted inspector
For once, Monk doesn't start with a crime. Instead, Monk is buying a shirt. His first bad news is that the sales person he likes has quit, claiming that there is a customer who always comes in who drove him crazy. Monk doesn't make the connection. The second bit of bad news is that when he gets his shirt, inspected by "#8", it has flaws in it. He goes and finds her and discovers that her son is in jail for killing a fashion model. Since this has happened, she has not been able to concentrate on her work or anything else.
Monk agrees to look at the case file and talk to her son. He finds some inconsistencies, but there is the problem that DNA evidence matching the inspector's son, Pablo, was found at the scene. Further investigation finds that the dead model's employer, Julian Hodge (Malcolm McDowell), is an arrogant jerk with a hot temper. Monk is suspicious, but then there is that pesky DNA evidence. Complications ensue.
I really didn't care for the fashion part of the show - Disher and Natalie are both trying to impress Hodge as though they were a couple of teenagers. Plus Hodge says some pretty cringe stuff sexualizing Natalie's 13 year old daughter, whom he wants to model in his shows. The part with the inspector was touching though. Monk wrote her a letter at some point, praising the quality of her work. She has it in a place of honor near her desk.
This might be the weakest episode of season four, even though it does barely make the grade to a 7/10 rather than a 6/10.
Monk: Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa (2005)
Good Christmas scenes, but a really dumb murder plot
The prologue shows an unseen person injecting poison into a bottle of port and putting a card on it indicating it is a Christmas gift for Leland Stottlemeyer. It shows up at the station, and Stottlemeyer sees that the card says that it's from a garage that does the auto work for SFPD and puts the bottle on his desk. Later, at the station Christmas party, Stottlemeyer can't find the "Secret Santa" present he got for Terry, an officer at the precinct. He gives Terry the port since he doesn't drink port. A few minutes later Terry falls to the floor dead. He had been drinking the port and it was loaded with strychnine.
The police investigate everybody who would have had a motive to kill the captain but come up empty. Stottlemeyer thinks it's Frank Prager, and for good reason. Months before Prager had confronted Stottlemeyer outside of a bar and shot at him multiple times, missing him. Prager has been in hiding ever since. Stottlemeyer killed Prager's brother when he was robbing a bank and Frank swore vengeance for his death. Complications ensue.
The murder plot turned out to be rather stupid. Like the murder plot of the astronaut, it's just dumb luck that it worked. The target actually WAS the guy who died, but it could have been that Stottlemeyer's wife really liked port and he was determined to let her have it and given Terry some other gift or told him that he would look for the lost gift and get it to him later. He also could have given the bottle to Disher - Disher was trying to commandeer it at one point. If Stottlemeyer had been in a generous mood - people often are at Christmas - he could have let Randy have the port and then it would have been Disher who would have drank the port and died. So the port would have for sure killed somebody, but not necessarily the target of the murder plot. How the case was solved was even dumber - Monk noticing the size of two Christmas cards relative to their envelopes. There was no reason to believe one had anything to do with the other.
So the mystery is a 5 or 6 out of 10. But the Christmas scenes are definitely 8/10 - Monk impersonating a mall Santa to catch a suspect and having to deal with the close personal contact of children, Monk and Natalie pretending to be carolers and their crazy explanation as to why there are only two of them, Monk being overjoyed at receiving a cheap little combo broom and dust pan as his Secret Santa present, and Nataile's daughter Julie experiencing a rare San Francisco Christmas snow.
The Silk Express (1933)
I wonder how this went over in 1933...
... because this is a film about getting silk to the New York mills in time for the latest Paris fashions to hit the market on schedule. In 1933 a quarter of Americans were unemployed, and it's not like the cargo is something vital to life like baby formula or iron lungs. I can't see how you are going to get an audience worked up about a shipment of silk. But I digress.
So think of the silk as a McGuffin. Donald Kilgore (Neil Hamilton) is head of the New York mills protective association. Bad guy Wallace Myton (Arthur Hoyl) has bought up all of the silk he can lay his hands on and is price gouging. Kilgore can get a huge shipment sitting on the docks at Seattle on a train and back to the east coast in three days. Myton says if the association does that he won't sell them silk at any price. They refuse his offer and go with Kilgore's plan. So Myton does everything in his power to sabotage Kilgore's mission and stop that silk from getting to New York, and that includes murder.
Kilgore is aware of this possible threat, and brings on a transportation attorney to help with any legal snags (Robert Barrat as Calhoun). Also on board is a man with a rare form of sleeping sickness who will die in three days if he can't get to New York and the only clinic that can treat him. Accompanying him is his doctor and his grown daughter. Along the way there are two murders. And we already know from the scenes with Myton that he has three men on the train. Two are common criminals, but the third is an elite criminal who never fails. That is the set-up for this transcontinental trip.
The man with sleeping sickness and the urgency of his situation was probably inserted to A. Get a pretty young lady into the cast B. Inject some human interest rather than making this all about silk. It's a taut little film, running at a fast paced 61 minutes. It gives both Allen Jenkins and Guy Kibbee a chance to be something more than just the comic relief for a change, with Kibbee being a railroad officer and Jenkins an erudite boxcar tramp. That's the nice thing about these WB precodes. Each player always played a certain type. For example, you see Arthur Hoyl and you know right away his character is probably a slimy little weasel. You don't have to waste script space showing the audience he is a slimy little weasel.
This was a good little precode era film with nothing precode about it. WB should have used it as a model on how to make comedy in the production code era that would pass the censors but, alas, they did not.
Monk: Mr. Monk Stays in Bed (2005)
Mr. Monk and the "plucky little microbe"
Monk, Natalie, and Julie are wallpapering Monk's hallway. They've ordered a pizza, the delivery man comes, and Natalie pays the guy. But after he's left, Natalie discovers that the delivery guy gave her fifty dollars in change by mistake. Natalie takes off after the guy, realizing that such a large dollar mistake could cost him his job. She follows him at a distance in her car, but when she finally catches up with the delivery guy's car, she finds the driver dead.
Stottlemeyer, Disher, and Monk are investigating the scene when word comes that a judge who is a close friend of the mayor is missing and they are to give priority to finding her. But Monk has just come down with a cold - the germs involved must have been on a reconnaissance mission to manage infecting him - and has gone to bed. Natalie goes to the police station to see how the investigation into the delivery guy's murder is going, and in the process sees that the delivery man - Julio Alvarez - is not the same guy who delivered her pizza. She now remembers that the delivery guy was trying to disguise himself, wearing a hat and dark glasses even though it was night. With Monk sick and Stottlemeyer's team working on the case of the missing judge, Natalie investigates the Alvarez case herself.
This episode has two things going for it. First there is the growing relationship between Monk and Natalie and Julie. With Sharona and Benjy, when the show started the relationship is already established as a close one. Then comes Natalie, and with her and Julie, we get to actually see their bond with Monk grow and develop, and that makes the moments when they help each other, like in this episode, equally as special in their own way.
The second thing it has going for it is Monk as someone with the flu. He's got a humidifier AND a dehumidifier and is completely convinced that he has Ebola.
Malice Aforethought (1979)
unintentionally ironic
This four part episode of PBS's Mystery was one of several films patterned loosely after the Doctor Crippen case of 1910. Dr. Crippen was not really an M. D. at all, and instead was a doctor of homeopathy who hawked patent medicines. He was convicted of killing his wife Cora in 1910. The only direct evidence against him - a "mass of torso flesh" buried in his basement, found after his wife disappeared and he panicked and ran as a result of the ensuing police investigation. His motive - wanting to marry his mistress. In 2007 DNA analysis showed that the "mass of torso flesh" was not Cora Crippen and was not even female. So Dr. Crippen more than likely did something wrong and maybe even killed his wife, but the body parts found in his basement upon which his conviction was based did not belong to her.
In 1979, when this was produced, there was no such knowledge. Everyone assumed the body found was that of Crippen's wife. In this extremely loose adaptation of the Crippen case, Dr. Edmund Bickleigh is an actual doctor with a general practitioner's practice in a rural place in England. He lives well but by no means is he rich. He and his wife Julia are strangers living under the same roof, but that's OK because the good doctor "gets around". And to be such a mousey looking fellow - but not mousey acting - he gets some very good-looking girlfriends. But one in particular, the beautiful and cultured Madeleine, has him wanting to marry her. Julia is first receptive to the idea of a divorce until she meets Madeleine and then says that the woman is just a flirt and a tease, and she will not divorce him since this woman could only bring him unhappiness.
At that point, Bickleigh decides Julia must die. That's not just because she is refusing the divorce, but because Madeleine says that her religion would not allow her to marry a divorced man. So Bickleigh alternately poisons his wife's grapefruit with a substance that gives her terribly painful headaches and then gives her morphine to kill the pain. He turns her into an addict, makes sure this is common knowledge , and then delivers the final deadly dose himself with a carefully scripted alibi. Nobody suspects murder as everyone believes that Julia delivered the final and fatal overdose herself. But Bickleigh has left a few loose ends around, plus he has made a couple of enemies who are suspicious of him. So complications ensue including a couple of unsuccessful murder attempts to cover up the original murder of his wife.
This was a very well done production, and for sure Dr. Bickleigh is a more deliberate character than Dr. Crippen ever was, as his character never panics the way Crippen did. It does look like the director changed strategies from episode to episode, though. In the first episode the score plays repetitively to the point of being annoying. It is completely gone in the subsequent episodes. Then there is a narrator saying what Bickleigh is trying to do. In the final episode, the narrator is gone and instead the audience hears the doctor's thoughts.
Monk: Mr. Monk vs. the Cobra (2005)
Mr. Monk and the sordid topic of coin
In just the second episode with Natalie as Monk's assistant versus Sharona as his nurse, there are problems between the two. Natalie needs a higher salary since she is having considerable expenses that come along with the job. Monk's argument is that he is paying her the exact same amount as Sharona. And then Natalie finds out Monk is still paying rent on a downtown office that belonged to Trudy when she was alive mainly because he can't bring himself to clean out that office of her things.
Separately, an expert on the deceased martial arts film star Sonny Chow is on a TV show eviscerating the guy - claiming he was never that talented and that he actually died of a drug overdose. After the show airs a man enters the expert's apartment and attacks and kills him in such a style that appears to be something Sonny Chow would have done. There is hair left behind at the scene that is a DNA match to blood that Sonny Chow had banked in case he ever needed a transfusion. Complications ensue.
Without giving too much away, what makes this episode is that Monk is given an extended period of getting to converse with Trudy. Whether he really is seeing her and talking to her spirit or it is just a coping mechanism given the circumstances, it was very touching.
It Happens Every Spring (1949)
A great film to watch if recovering from a nervous breakdown...
... as it is completely conflict free. There are literally no bad guys to be found. It is quite enjoyable as long as you just relax and just forget everything that you ever knew about baseball, physics, chemistry, or hair follicles.
Vernon Simpson (Ray Milland) is a chemistry professor still working on his Ph. D. at a relatively late age. His boss, Dr. Greenleaf (Ray Collins), explains Vernon to a colleague as follows - From October to April he's a steady reliable hard worker. But from April to October he's distracted. The problem is that Vernon is a baseball fan, and the game distracts him six months of the year. One day Vernon is working on an experiment to help him finish that Ph. D. when the baseball from some kids' baseball game crashes through a window and smashes the experiment. In the process of cleaning up he sees the baseball has fallen into the solution he was making, and that the baseball is now repelled by wood. He does some experiments and realizes that this solution, when applied to a baseball, enables him to become the world's greatest pitcher as the ball will do loops to avoid contact with a baseball bat.
Vernon has always wanted to be a pro ball player, so he gets a leave of absence from the college and becomes the pitcher for the St. Louis team. His objective is to live out his dream of playing major league ball AND make enough money to marry his girlfriend who just happens to be the boss's daughter. Complications ensue.
Vernon is asking for 1000 dollars a game for every game he wins. This gives the owner pause. But consider that DiMaggio was the first ball player to make 100K a year in 1949 - about 1.2 million in 2024 dollars. In 2024 the mean baseball salary in the US is five million dollars. So these ball players are just working class guys in 1949.
One odd thing is that the production code is still being rigorously enforced at the time, and yet Vernon is allowed to cheat with this magic potion of his and never faces any consequences. With Paul Douglas as Vernon's gregarious and henpecked teammate, Ed Begley as the involved team owner, and the lovely Jean Peters as Vernon's girlfriend who starts to believe that Vernon has taken his leave of absence to become a jewel thief and get involved with gangsters.
Modern Times (1936)
Chaplin saved his best silent film for his last...
... as I find it to be the combination of the most relatable and the funniest of his films.
Normally I start these reviews with a short synopsis of the plot with a few personal observations, but it's hard to do that in this case without it turning into a bunch of "And then's". I've read that Chaplin had the general idea of what kind of film he wanted to make in this case, and came up with the specific skits and gags he wanted, and then built a specific plot around it. It was unusual for Chaplin to put any of the women in his life into his films, at least while they WERE the women in his life, and it was also unusual for them to get away without having at least one child by him. Paulette Goddard managed to do both. So Goddard is "a gamin" - a street urchin, also known as Ellen. Chaplin is just "the tramp" character that he normally is.
At first, the tramp is all alone facing these "modern times" of the 1930s - a dehumanizing factory job that causes a breakdown, then he's falsely labeled as a Communist leader and instigator and jailed, and when released he finds himself looking for work among the many millions of unemployed during the Great Depression. His fate joins with Ellen when she is caught stealing a loaf of bread and he takes the blame for it to spare her from jail. When they both escape - they are both arrested for the thievery - they join forces and try to find happiness around the edges of society, finding jobs when they can.
This is Chaplin's last silent film, but it really is more of a mute sound film than a true silent. The factory boss speaks - "Get back to work!" and Chaplin himself sings the gibberish song towards the end of the film - the first time his voice had ever been heard on film. You can also hear the crowd noise in the cafe when Chaplin sings.
This film has lots of blatant anti-capitalist themes, based on Chaplin's long held beliefs and observations from a childhood rife with poverty, as well as the contrast of the America he found when he returned after being abroad for a good long time versus the one he left, before the Great Depression had taken hold. Had he not been playing his Little Tramp character while making all of these statements with his art, the film might not have been passed by the censors.
Monk: Mr. Monk and the Election (2005)
Mr. Monk and democracy
Natalie is running for school board, based on the school district wanting to close her daughter's junior high and combine that school and the local high school into one, which is a position that she opposes. She's working on the campaign one day when shots ring out from across the street that shoot up her campaign office. On the roof across the street, the origin of the shots, a flyer is found threatening more violence if Natalie doesn't cease her campaign. Mr. Monk is on the case.
A complicating factor is that Harold Krenshaw, Monk's rival for the affections and attention of Dr. Kroger, is Natalie's opponent in the race. And he also owns a rifle and is an excellent shot. One of the funniest scenes in the episode is when Harold is brought downtown for questioning and Monk and Harold get in an argument on how to organize the donuts in the box of donuts that Stottlemeyer brought. Besides being jealous of each other over Dr. Kroger, these two have completely different and dogmatic views of what constitutes order.
This is a low-key episode that reveals one important detail about Natalie's late husband. Also, note that it is almost always illegal in this country for a candidate to hang around the voting machines instructing voters on how to vote.
Twenty Plus Two (1961)
Meandering and incomprehensible!!!
The film starts with the murder scene of a woman who manages the fan mail for film star LeRoy Dane. Private detective Tom Alder (David Janssen) is told about the details of the case by a cop friend of his who drops by for a drink. Actually, Alder is a particular kind of private detective - He tracks down the long-lost beneficiaries of estates for a cut of the proceeds.
But the murdered woman's entire estate was less than three thousand dollars, so why the interest? Alder looks around the murder scene late at night - apparently crime scene tape was not in the budget - and finds some old clippings in the murdered woman's apartment concerning a rich couple's 16-year-old daughter who went missing 13 years before. This is what apparently piques his interest, although there is no estate involved, and nobody has hired him, and thus nobody is paying him to do any investigation. And yet he spends more on airlines and hotels than the Beatles on tour as he goes about looking for answers. Along the way he meets a host of colorful characters, none of whom seem related to any of the others, but all with an interest in his investigation. Complications ensue.
The "Big Sleep" this is not, but it has some of the same problems and features, but for its time versus the time of The Big Sleep. It's a great example of an industry in transition - one that is exiting the production code era and entering the swinging sixties. It's just not quite there yet, and it has a great jazz score. But the plot just wanders all over the place.
It scores some in the casting department - William Demarest as a washed-up homicide detective who has turned alcoholic and waxes poetic. And it busts some there too - Brad Dexter looks more like the muscle for the mob than he does some matinee idol that teens go crazy at the sight of. And I always liked Jeanne Craine in her 20th Century Fox vehicles, but she is cringeworthy here as someone from Alder's past who sees him one night in a bar after ten years apart, and then pesters the guy, apparently proud that her breaking his heart years ago caused him to become hard and cynical - at least so she believes.
The Leopard Man (1943)
Strong on atmosphere, weak on story
Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe) decides to build some PR for his girlfriend's act by having her walk into the bistro where she performs with a black leopard on a leash. Her rival, Clo-Clo, retaliates by getting close to the leopard and clicking her castanets. The leopard is scared, pulls free of Kiki, and runs off.
Later that night, a girl coming home from the grocery store is mauled and killed by the leopard. Then two more mauling deaths occur - one a young girl, one a young woman. The leopard's owner, Charlie How-Come, says that he can't figure out why the leopard would kill the second and third victims rather than hide out away from the town. Manning agrees with him, and they search for the truth of what is happening in these maulings.
This film is full of brief but indelible little characterizations tangential to the storyline. There's so often an emphasis on the primitive, uncontrollable sides of our nature, that gives a deeper feeling to the sometimes over-busy plotting.
There's some strange characterization going on here too, For example, the first victim is a victim precisely because she has the world's worst mom. First she sends the girl out late at night to get groceries, and then when she returns, terrified because the leopard is after her, mom teases her and won't unlock the front door. Mom's mood and sense of urgency doesn't change until she hears the girl scream and sees her blood pool under the front door. And mom has the nerve to wear black at the funeral.
The Power of the Press (1928)
Charming little film with Wheeler Oakman as Boris Karloff
Cub reporter Clem Rogers (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is stuck writing the weather report and death notices. The editor dismisses him when he asks for something meatier. And then one night the district attorney is murdered in his home and all of the other reporters have gone home for the evening. The city desk editor has no choice but to send Clem out to report on the killing.
Clem loses his press pass, so the police won't let him go inside the DA's home. Thus he's forced to just rummage around outside. While doing so, he sees a girl run past him from the house. She was there when the DA was shot and has since been hiding in a closet. A man sitting in a car nearby ID's her as Jane Atwill (Jobyna Rolston), the daughter of the reform candidate for mayor. Clem turns in his story and it is front page news, sure to kill Atwill's chance for election. Jane is cleared of any involvement in the killing, but still the publicity has done its damage. When she comes to Clem and turns on the water works he agrees to help her find who actually killed the district attorney and thus clear her name and reinvigorate her dad's campaign. Complications ensue.
Fairbanks Jr. Is all of 18 so there is an unexpected bonus of watching the kid take a star turn. There are lots of directorial flourishes from young Capra but the story is just minor league material. The charm is in its performances. It's nice to See Harold Lloyd's former leading lady, Jobyna Ralston, in one of her last films, while Chaplin's ex, Mildred Harris, plays a floozy whose insider knowledge of the gang running the city is key to blowing the DA's murder wide open. Mildred Harris is actually two years younger than Ralston but comes off convincingly as the cynical brassy party girl compared to Ralston's young innocent character.
In the middle of the film there is a montage showing the process of printing a newspaper. I don't know how many times that process has been captured on film, but it is historically important to see how a story made its way from the manual typewriter on the reporter's desk all the way to the newspaper boys hawking the headline on the streets. I thought that sequence was fascinating and very well done.
My title about Wheeler Oakman and Boris Karloff comes from this film being made just three years later as "Graft" with Regis Toomey as the cub reporter. In it, Karloff plays the same part of mob muscle that Oakman plays here. He often played gangster roles before Frankenstein. Also, the sound remake has Toomey playing the cub reporter role as slow-witted instead of just being overlooked as Fairbanks is here.
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Does a great job of building mood and atmosphere
Canadian nurse Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) is employed by wealthy Paul Holland (Tom Conway) to take care of his catatonic wife Jessica in the West Indies. It is never said exactly where in the West Indies this is, but it is mentioned that there is a strong presence of voodoo on the island.
Betsy is told by Jessica's doctor that Jessica has been this way since she had a bad case of a tropical fever, and the catatonia was the aftermath. Jessica can walk and follow simple commands, but she is mute and doesn't seem to comprehend what is going on around her.
Betsy gets to know both her boss Paul, who is a joyless curmudgeon who proves to be secretly sensitive, as well as his brother Wesley, who is outwardly charming but dangerously embittered. But it's the permanently unavailable Paul whom she grows to love. When a voodoo-believing servant tells Betsy that voodoo has the power to cure Jessica, Betsy takes Jessica to the voodoo encampment to see if they can cause her to reclaim her sanity. Complications ensue.
The film is for sure atmospheric, like all of the entries from Val Lewton during this time period. That atmosphere includes lumbering women in billowing long white gowns, tall stone staircases, and high gray ceilings. A great sense of unease runs through the veins of this movie from start to finish.
What did I not like? Character development is very abbreviated. And the locals who inhabit the island seem more like they are sporting the accent of the blacks of the American south than the West Indies. Plus the explanation of events is delivered in just a couple of sentences at the end and left me very unsatisfied - Show me, don't tell me! But then this was meant to be a 70-minute RKO quickie, not a horror classic, so it is remarkable that with such a small budget it has managed to have such staying power over the years. I'd recommend it.
Sweet Music (1935)
Exhibit A in how the production code fouled things up at Warner Brothers...
... at least for a couple of years, and at least for the short B comedies they were making in the production code era. Losing Darryl F. Zanuck at about the same time didn't help matters either, but I digress.
Skip Houston's (Rudee Vallee's) band and dancer Bonnie Hayden (Ann Dvorak) are both on the same radio program, and go about antagonizing each other for no good perceivable reason. Secretly, Skip is trying to help her by planting positive comments in the columns about her performance and the fans' reaction. In fact, the fans are lukewarm. The two are starting to fall in love, but when Bonnie gets fired, she blames Skip and gives him the cold shoulder. Complications ensue.
In the precode era, Warner Brothers could turn out a zippy fresh 75 minute comedy pretty easily - some fresh precode one liners and situations punctuated by musical numbers after Busby Berkeley brought musicals back into vogue. But then the production code came along and all of that stopped for awhile, and dreck like this was made for a couple of years. Another film in the same vein as this is "I Live For Love". The problem is that the jokes that could pass the censors just weren't funny.
In this case, trying to pass for humor, you have bandmembers that smash each other over the head, men doing a fan dance, and Allan Jenkins telling jokes that weren't funny when bustles were still in fashion. For some reason, the wonderful Helen Morgan is imported to sing a torch song, but it just doesn't fit here at all. Plus Dvorak and Vallee have zero chemistry. The only bright spots are Robert Armstrong as a thug who wants to be a crooner and Ned Sparks as a sardonic agent.
I'd avoid this as it truly is awful.
Monk: Mr. Monk Goes to the Hospital (2007)
Mr. Monk becomes tedious...
... and that's unusual, especially for a season finale episode.
It's late at night at St. Mark's Hospital, and everything is quiet. An old man is seen walking down a corridor with his oxygen tank in tow. He enters the office of neurotrauma surgeon Dr. Graydon Whitcomb It appears that the old man lifts his oxygen tank up and beats the doctor to death with it, then shuffles out and returns to his room.
The next day Monk is there with a nosebleed. Natalie leaves Monk to go on a date that she's postponed several times due to Monk. Nothing seems to stop this nosebleed, so Monk seeks out Dr. Whitcomb, and this leads to him discovering his body. Investigation leads Monk to a patient so infirm that he simply could not have done this crime. Complications ensue.
Season finales on Monk have usually been a cut above the rest, and this one is probably the most mediocre of the season, which is unusual. I found Monk holding his nose because of the nosebleed for a good portion of the episode to be distracting, and there was really no mystery as to who committed the murder. There isn't even a confrontation at the end where the perp is arrested. It was just disappointing considering the usually high quality of Monk episodes.
Bad Guy (1937)
A B film with a shocking conclusion...
... and forgive me for that review title.
John Lucky Walden (Bruce Cabot) is a lineman working on a power outage at a carnival. Perched high above the ground, he sees the guy who cheated him in a game of cards the night before. After electricity is restored, he asks about the card cheat and finds out where tonight's game is. Lucky shows up and demands his winnings back. Intimidated, the guy returns Lucky's money. But when Lucky demands interest on his money as well, the cheat refuses and Lucky hits him in the head with his wrench. The man dies instantly. One witness to the killing runs, and when the police show up, they arrest Lucky. Lucky tells a completely false version of the crime to the jury, claiming it was self-defense, but he's convicted of murder anyway and sentenced to death.
Before the execution date, Lucky's brother Mike finds the witness who ran. Afraid that Lucky knows enough to implicate him in a bank robbery, the witness lies and confirms Lucky's version of events. The governor has enough reason to doubt that this was deliberate murder and commutes Lucky's sentence to life. Later, after committing an act of extreme bravery, Lucky is paroled.
Back on the outside, again working as a lineman at a power company, Lucky continues his reckless ways of wanting what he wants when he wants it, regardless of the consequences to his family and friends. Complications ensue.
The actual plot didn't quite make it to an hour, so about 5-10 minutes of a scene of the linemen attending a lecture on low and high frequency power with some imagery of electricity ladders is added. None of this has anything to do with the story.
Bruce Cabot was convincing as Lucky, a guy who was maybe not as bad as he was unlucky. He's definitely not living the life of Tom Powers of Public Enemy, and he wouldn't have gotten the death penalty for what happened to that gambler, not even in 1937, considering it was an impulsive act that killed the guy. He would have likely gotten a verdict of manslaughter. But then we'd have no story. The supporting players were forgettable but not embarrassing.
I 'm pretty sure I saw Robert Young in an uncredited role with just one line as his voice is pretty distinctive. That would have been odd, though, since Robert Young had been playing lead roles since 1931 or at least played in strong support.
Out West with the Hardys (1938)
Make it a 6.5/10!
In this entry of the popular series, the Hardys visit a ranch in Arizona.
Judge Hardy gets a letter from an old friend, Dora Northcote, who owns a ranch in Arizona along with her husband Bill. She is having a problem with water rights to her land that may lead to her and her husband having to sell out to a neighboring landowner who has designs on the property. The complicating factor is that years ago, in his single days, the Judge and Dora got lost after a picnic and caused a minor scandal. The judge says this one secret is one he wants to continue to keep from Mrs. Hardy.
In a separate subplot, Andy Hardy has recently gotten a letter in high school basketball, and it's given him a swelled head, making him think for some reason that his opinion, time, and general athletic prowess are above that of everyone else. Judge Hardy decides that going to the ranch would be a fine vacation for the family, plus it would give him a chance to look into the water rights problem firsthand, so off they go.
This entry gives the characters the opportunity to have many humorous "fish out of water" moments. MGM contract child actress Virginia Weidler plays Jake, the daughter of the Northcote ranch's foreman, who has some humorous moments outsmarting and outdoing Andy Hardy who goes around dressed in a ridiculous western outfit complete with chaps. I wonder if he even knows what the chaps are for? Weidler was always a cut above most child actors of the time, being genuinely engaging and not participating in so much of the cornball sicky sweet stuff that child actors did during the early production code era.
Also note that in the opening scene Judge Hardy is sentencing a well-groomed young man - obviously not a hooligan - for acting precisely like a hooligan. That unapologetic young man is played by Tom Neal in his screen debut. Unfortunately, Neal's screen career was cut short for actually acting like a hooligan.
If you like the Andy Hardy series and like the characters you will like this entry.
Reds (1981)
They don't make them like this anymore
Imagine going into a room and telling a studio you want to make a film about American Communists reporters during the 1917 Russian revolution and that it will be over three hours long and you won't even get to Russia until almost two hours in. But it was really very simple. It was Warren Beatty doing the plugging. And it actually made money. Today getting this kind of film made would be impossible for anybody. The suits want creatures from some other world wearing capes and carrying tridents spouting vague dialogue that is supposed to sound deep with lots and lots of special effects. But I digress.
So this is basically the story of John Reed and Louise Bryant, two left-wing writers and activists whose affair and marriage only lasted five years, ending with his death in Russia in 1920, but covering some incredibly important American and world history. Bryant first meets Reed when he speaks at the Liberal Club in Portland, Oregon. She's pretentious - denying that she's married or even believes in marriage - as she and Reed have an all-night discussion of writing and politics - and nothing else - at her studio around the corner. When they encounter each other by chance some days later, surrounded by people who know them both, the truth comes out in an extended meet cute encounter that Bryant is married to a dentist and living a bourgeoisie lifestyle. But she is dissatisfied and wants more.
At Reed's invitation, Bryant follows Reed back to New York City and moves into his apartment. But at first she isn't respected when she's cross examined by Reed's highbrow circle of radical friends, asked what she does, and she says she writes about "everything". The couple fights, makes up, engages in socialist politics and activism, and are separated for long periods of time, usually because Reed is galivanting about the country writing about this or that. Ultimately, the Czar is overthrown in Russia and the pair go there when it looks like the Bolsheviks will overthrow the provisional government instituted after the downfall of the Czar.
It's downhill from there for our socialist couple, because it is at this point they encounter the tired but true old saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Back in the United States, energized by what has happened in Russia, the Socialist Party fractures into a conventional and Communist wing, and then the Communist wing fractures yet again, largely over the issue of control. When Reed returns to Russia after the Communists have had a chance to consolidate power, he finds them to have become dogmatic and are censoring what he is allowed to say when speaking to crowds. He dies young and disillusioned in a Russian hospital.
Technically this was for sure a great accomplishment. It does a good job of drawing you into the time and place it is set. The witnesses add some context, although I wish I knew more about them. I remember at the time wondering when these conversations were recorded, because in 1981 they would have had to be over 90 to have known either Reed or Bryant. The love story is convincing although the couple spends long periods of time apart.
I'd recommend it, but realize it is not for the faint of heart or those short in attention span.
Boom Town (1940)
Fast paced and very entertaining
Square John Sand (Spencer Tracy) and Big John McMasters(Clark Gable) start out their partnership as wildcatters in Burkburnett, Tx in 1918. That is an actual city in Texas that was an oil boom town at the time. The trouble starts when the girl Sand loves (Claudette Colbert as Betsy) comes to town without Sand knowing and she and McMasters fall in love at first sight and marry with each not knowing who the other is. Sand accepts the situation, but the fault lines in the relationship between the two originates from Sand feeling that if he is going to sacrifice his happiness and be a good sport for the sake of Betsy's happiness, then McMasters better make her happy.
They argue and part company more than once, sometimes one is up and the other is down, other times both are up or down as they both make and lose entire fortunes over the years. The story is quite engaging and sprawling, like an Edna Ferber novel, and it works minus the courtroom scene. The point of the courtroom scene is the reconciliation of all parties involved, but it comes across as silly as McMasters seems to be on trial for bad personal behavior rather than for violating anti-trust law, if the prosecuting attorney's questions are to be believed. That's probably a minor quibble overall though.
Hedy Lamarr plays the New York socialite who wants to break up the McMasters marriage. Frank Morgan is an oil well supply salesman who serves as the comic relief. Gable plugged for the story to be made into a film because he had worked in the oil fields of Ohio as a kid.
The film was a hit at the box office and won Oscar nominations for B&W cinematography and for special effects. That's understandable since the oil rig fire scene is spectacular although there is a big reliance on rear-screen projection and the stunt doubling is obvious. I'd still highly recommend this one as very entertaining and is representative of "peak MGM".
Monk: Mr. Monk Meets the Godfather (2004)
Mr. Monk deals with the mob
An unidentified man steps into a barber shop, doing a crossword puzzle. He waits until everyone but one customer is in the back room. Then he walks to the gumball machine and attempts to take it. When the customer hears the noise he is making, he takes the towel off of his face and attempts to stop the man, who then opens fire and kills five people in the shop. It turns out that the barbershop is a front for the mob and everyone killed was working for the mob.
Monk is asked by the mob to investigate the killing and find out who did it. He declines, but then the feds tell him if he'll take this job, helping them to infiltrate the mob, they will call the police commissioner the next time he is up for reinstatement, so Monk agrees, though he fears that if a rival mob was behind it there will be bloodshed before the police or the feds can intervene.
Monk is a show that is definitely anti-feds. They are always portrayed as boisterous, bullying, and technically adept yet with little to no instinct for solving crimes. Also, in this episode, Sharona starts dating the mob boss's nephew. She says that the bright side is that she already knows he's a criminal and that it could only go uphill from there.
Die Nackte und der Satan (1959)
The big giant head is very unhappy
A mysterious new doctor arrives at Dr. Abel's laboratory. Abel is doing advanced surgical techniques, but he has an urgent problem. He needs a heart transplant or he will die shortly. When the doctor's heart begins to fail before the operation can take place, the new mysterious doctor takes an extreme step to save him.
What a fascinating and ambitious picture this is. It's a curious amalgam of styles and forms. It has the pace and luminosity of an old silent (little wonder; it's German); the stateliness of a Universal classic; the surrealism of a French art-horror film; the visceral draw and psychological depth of the Italian Giallo; the seedy glamor of a Roger Corman cheapie; and the liminal otherness of a Mexican horror flick. The set design and compositions are superb, making the most of limited resources; and the use of space and the fluid camera work help to lend some real style.
It's well acted too, and manages to generate genuine pathos (the 'head' of the title could be either doctor). The director keeps things moving and there are no boring lulls at any point, but it doesn't speed along and leave incomprehensible gaps in the plot either. Great use of mirrors and symmetry; and it has a fantastic score with a nightmarish quality that adds to the creepy atmosphere. It is an obvious inspiration for 1962's The Brain That Wouldn't Die, only this is much, much better.
Der blaue Engel (1930)
So this is college?...
... As I was surprised at the way college students behave and the way that they were treated in Weimar Germany as depicted in this film. Professor Immanual Rath (Emil Jennings) behaves tyrannically towards his students, and they try to undermine him at every turn. They mercilessly bully one student just because he wants no part of their nighttime carousing. In short, they act like high school kids, not college students, so I am somewhat wondering if this was a college as I understand the word in the United States. But I digress.
Rath finds postcards with music hall performer Lola (Marlene Dietrich) on them among his students' things, and initially goes to The Blue Angel to catch his students in the act of - I dunno, acting like college students? - again, I'm not sure why there's the need to so tightly control the behavior of adults. But Rath gets caught up in the atmosphere himself. He's been shut inside his ivory tower so long that he's forgotten what the outside world is like, and once he ventures out, it's game over. He's utterly unequipped to see Lola for who she really is - a woman who makes a living by charming men, and who does a good job of it. When he has the opportunity to talk to her and becomes sympathetic, he suddenly sees her as a victim of what we call today human trafficking rather than a corrupter of his students.
The more time he spends with her, the more he falls for her, but by proposing to her, he again puts her into a box in which she doesn't fit, that of a wife who will do the wifely duties he expects of her. Lola, though never explaining herself and that's part of the greatness of the film, seems amused by Rath's naive and simple ways and goes willingly into the marriage. But, again, Roth doesn't realize that marriage probably does not mean to Lola what it means to him.
Although Jannings puts in a powerhouse performance, I understand why Marlene Dietrich stole the show. Rath changes drastically over the course of the film, and he has to sell that, but Dietrich has the more subtle job of selling the changes in how Rath sees Lola without changing who Lola fundamentally is. Director Von Sternberg gives her much less to do than in their subsequent collaborations, but she does the most she can with the material.
There's lots that's never said. For one thing there is, from the first time Rath enters The Blue Angel, the haunting presence of "The Clown". The actor who plays him is not uncredited- his role is billed as "The Clown". Rath sees him with that constant sullen expression, hears him being scolded and chided by the empresario of the troupe, and you never hear him speak. Considering all that happens, I'm wondering if he too is a past husband of Lola's. One that she also cast aside once she got bored and perhaps never bothered to divorce. After all, she can't help it, as she is so fond of saying.
The only bad thing I can say about it is the pacing, which seems to be a problem in many Von Sternberg films. But it is worth sticking with to the end.