THE PRETENDER (1947)

Billy’s slightly older brother, W. Lee Wilder, directed this sixty-nine minute B-movie noir for Republic Pictures, which may be best remembered as one of the earliest Hollywood films to use a theremin, by Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman, to good effect and for John Alton's wonderfully dark, moody cinematography. The screenplay was written by Don Martin and Doris Miller who also provided additional dialogue. I found the script lacking clarity with some characters confusingly intertwined. It is quite possible I dozed off. Somewhat cleverly adding to the confusion, a key character changes his name after the halfway point. Quite perplexing for the leading man, Albert Dekker. For the era, I imagine this was a good suspenseful drama. Had it been released years later, it would have been more efficient—and free—as an episode of, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Dekker had an inherent vocal ability to softly signify an unstable mind. At first, suggesting a reserved man, his real character here eventually comes to a breaking point. This role works for him. He plays a crooked investor, desperately embezzling money from a large estate bequeathed to the young Catherine Craig after her father’s death. Dekker is losing his shirt in the stock market and acting as a Robin Hood broker has been stealing from the rich and giving to himself. He is fortunate to have a secretary with zero scruples. She witnesses all his dishonest fund transfers without so much as a blink.

Typical of Hollywood's Golden Era, Dekker is old enough to be Craig’s uncle but he pours on the charm in his effort to woo her into marriage, giving him the ability to cover his debts with her inheritance. He even peels off his studio mustache to look younger. To himself. He has been a faithful and trusted friend regarding the estate, but she loves another in her age group. Dekker is not sure who that is but wants him killed, paying a nightclub owner/mobster, Alan Carney, to arrange an “accident” after their engagement picture appears in the newspaper. The lucky guy is Charles Drake, a neurosurgeon and doctor of psychology, whose responsibilities have left little time for Craig. They mutually call off their engagement. To Dekker’s surprise and queasiness, she decides to accept “Uncle Albert’s” earlier proposal and wants to elope. And the local paper knows about it.

In the meantime, Carney is killed and his right-hand man, Tom “Fingers” Kennedy, takes over the boss’s chair and decides to go upscale and use, I assume, his given character name. A name Dekker does not recognize but his paranoia tells him that anyone named “Fingers” would carry out the prepaid deed on him. Making it more difficult to trace, Carney, for anonymity, had bestowed upon Dekker’s character an alias, unknown to Kennedy. Throughout the balance of the film, the doomed groom is trying to make connections with Kennedy to cancel his prearranged funeral.

Dekker’s mental state is personified by the theremin. As the camera closes in on his face, now with a full mustache, he audibly shares his inner thoughts. Until the science fiction community confiscated the instrument, it was the perfect instrument to signify someone with psychological issues. His constant excuses and lies only go so far. He is afraid to eat for fear of poisoning. He does not trust their butler. Nor their second one. His paranoia increases to a ridiculous level while Craig becomes the most understanding woman on the planet. She gets Drake's free analysis and finds Dekker riddled with guilt and fear. They also find he has been dining alone in his room, eating canned food all along. Pretty creepy in the Dekker tradition. He dons sunglasses, even at night, for fear of being recognized. All his paranoia may be hard to sit through. Turns out, Carney left a note for Kennedy about canceling the groom’s elimination. One doubts that Dekker’s secretary will ever come forward about Craig’s monetary shortfall.

MAN IN THE DARK (1953)

Edmond O’Brien is serving a ten-year prison sentence for his early B-movies...I mean...armed robbery. He is offered immediate parole if he is willing to undergo experimental brain surgery to remove his criminal impulses. Sounds like the government's liberal pipe dream to abolish jails so we can all live happily together. It will also remove his memory. Not surprisingly, O’Brien impulsively is set on punching somebody in the jaw before surgery but finds serendipity in painting post-surgery. Ballet could not be worked into his rehab schedule. An insurance investigator, needing to recover the stolen money, thinks O’Brien is faking and tracks his every move. Likewise, Ted de Corsia is not buying his former partner's amnesia story. Stereo-typically, under his angled fedora, he is his usual gangster self, grumbling and angrily threatening to beat the truth out of him or burn an eye out with the lit end of a cigar. The latter used as a gruesome 3D stinger.

After twenty minutes, the first of two flashbacks occur as one gang member retells exactly, second by second, word for word, what happened during the robbery. One might accept this if it was O’Brien’s flashback. How he knew about O’Brien’s attempt to make a call from a phone booth after the heist is a mystery. What follows is a pursuit by two officers because O’Brien looks pretty guilty running down the sidewalk. In his early films, O'Brien was quite the runner. Really laying those dress shoes down. His stunt double climbs up a three-story fire escape followed by a silly implausibility: O’Brien drops a potted plant down in the officer’s vicinity in Merry Melodies cartoon fashion. A big clue as to his location. A clichéd chase on rooftops ensues as the frantic music score backs up the action. After a lot of running, O’Brien is not only exhausted but arrested on a painter’s scaffolding.

Audrey Totter is O’Brien’s girl but he does not know it. His recurring dreams, however, suggest she may be more than a stranger. One dream concerns a Santa Monica amusement park with a creepy seven-foot-tall laughing animatronic charwoman that is hard for O'Brien to forget. The following may answer why it is laughing so hard. The most humorous scene, and no doubt a highlight of the 3D processing, has O’Brien getting on The Whip car ride where individual pods rotate around an oval hub. The cars never stay in one position for any length of time, yet five police officers slip into their own car and “chase” O’Brien around the oval, never getting any closer. The officers shoot at him as their pod randomly twirls around. It is lucky a fellow officer was not wounded or a patron failed to dodge the stray bullets. The officer’s training never included this! Understandably, they cannot hit the broadside of a barn. The ride stops and all six orderly get out of their pods. 

O’Brien’s dreams come to life as he and Totter return to the amusement park. He knows where the money is hidden and with a dose of returning greed stuffs the cash inside his suit coat pockets. Perhaps that brain surgery did not work. Her disappointment shows and assumes he has reverted to his old ways. They go their separate ways. Later, the oft-used rear projection roller coaster ride is used with actors pretending their necks are being snapped back and forth. I imagine a real buzz in 3D. O’Brien gets off the coaster as it creeps to the top and climbs down the wooden structure to evade de Corsia, who stands up at the wrong end of the speeding coaster. A goon takes a final bow off the scaffolding after an officer’s bullet rings true. Give the officer a stuffed animal! Never far away, the insurance investigator arrives after bodies stop hitting the pavement and gets back the company’s one hundred thirty grand from O’Brien. The surgery really did work. He and Totter kiss as their roller-coaster relationship levels out.

Note: Directed by Lew Landers and produced by Wallace MacDonald, this was the first Columbia Pictures film released in 3D, all in glorious black and white. It is a remake of the 1936 film, The Man Who Lived Twice, with a premise that has been used over and over since. This seventy-minute B-movie offers up good pacing but the amnesia angle is pretty stale aside from the brain surgery concept. Decidedly more fantastic than John Payne’s war injury in the 1949 film, The Crooked Way.

THE RED MENACE (1949)

Directed by R.G. Springsteen, most associated with television westerns, this Republic Production release may suck—eighty-one minutes from your life—yet it offers a few timeless observations. The film’s opening credits have a male chorus singing wordless music of a slight Russian flavor. The composer is Nathan Scott, father of Grammy Award-winning saxophonist and composer, Tom Scott. The narration by Lloyd G. Davies, a Los Angeles City Council Member returns periodically throughout the film with prescient comments. He also garners a role as Inspector O’Toole. Republic’s own, Robert “B-movie” Rockwell, and co-star, Hannelore (Hanne) Axman are in the midst of a late-night automobile escape with Axman in a particular state of panic. Davies steps in to explain the necessary flashback of what led to the climactic scene.

Rockwell, in his second film role, gets hoodwinked into joining the Communist Party in America simply because of his disillusionment with governmental procedures as a returning war veteran. His selfish anger provides a ripe mind for the red menace. He is befriended by an undercover comrade who takes him to “Club Domino.” Maybe a subliminal message behind that name as America will fall like dominoes under a Communist takeover. Across the alley is their underground newspaper, subliminally titled, “The Toilers.” All the patrons at this alley bar have orders to recruit saps like Rockwell. Cute Barbara Fuller is first to soften him up. A young convert who later begins to question the organization's intentions.

Sensing Rockwell is a bit green around the red menace, he is later saved from arrest by Axman, a Communist instructor from Europe. He thinks Communism is where everyone shares things equally. Golly, that sounds keen. She tells him that it is a naive American opinion. In Communism, there are no internal principles of right and wrong. The basic doctrine is Atheism which is sugar-coated with high brow terms. Lying is second nature. If you disagree with them you are silenced. As an example, a man stands up in protest at a secret meeting. Betty Lou Gerson, in her first movie role, berates him and identifies him with an ethnic slur. It is shockingly accurate to describe radicals or liberal social media in the twenty-first century. She looks and acts the part here. Devoid of any outward femininity, she is a bit jealous of Fuller and Axman. In the end, immigration officials bring her in for questioning. They are tired of her loud-mouth disloyalty to the United States and also uncover she is a murderer. Bingo! She ends her role in an angry, over-the-top tirade indicative of an unhinged person. Gerson was still a popular radio character and voice artist. Her final scene would have been less amusing on the radio. You may roll your eyes during her final laughing exit.

Davies returns with closing comments. Rockwell and Axman end their escape with a tall, baritone-voiced Texas sheriff who doles out wisdom after listening to their three-hour backstory. The ending is too simplistic to be believed. Before leaving on an assignment, he says they have nothing to fear in America and they should get married. The couple did not get the sheriff’s name but a little boy walking by in a cowboy outfit helps a bit. Scratching his head, 'Oh him? It’s some kind of a long name but us kids just call him Uncle Sam.' The closing moments have the male chorus singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” over images of the Statue of Liberty. Try that today.

Notes: This film is too idealistic but perhaps makes a point. Many protesters are hired to pit social classes against one another. These are the same people today who set fire to buildings or parked cars because they disagree with someone's viewpoint, existence or judicial verdict. Totally out of control, ignorant people. Stalin said it best: 'Dictatorship means unlimited power, resting solely on violence, and not on law.' 

In another scene, a man confronts his comrades. He has had enough of the party and tears up his card. I quote: 'All the years in the party I thought I could be an American Democrat and a Communist at the same time. You pretend to fight racial discrimination but you keep reminding me I’m a Jewish-American. Molly, over there, is an Irish-American. We are not hyphens! We’re just plain Americans!' 

ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO (1961)

The screenplay for this seventy-five-minute oddity was by Jane Mann and Don Devlin and rumored to include Ed Wood, Jr. This Plymouth Picture Inc. film was distributed by the “renowned” Unitel Productions. It is a rare occasion when I use the character names instead of the actor’s name, but with an essentially unknown cast, this seems to make more sense. Ronnie Burns (Mickey) stars with Pamela Lincoln (Pat) and her on-screen brother, Chet, played by Darrell Howell. We see a lot of third-billed Chet in this movie. Each actor does a fairly decent job given the assumed direction by Boris Petrof and a crew with little imagination. Michael Grainger (Lt. MacGowen) brings the most acting experience to the quartet of performers.

Lincoln had a number of television acting roles prior to this turkey and it displays her emotional range. And a powerful set of upper teeth. Likewise, Burns was not entirely unknown, being seen frequently on his parent's television show, Burns and Allen. Then he disappeared after this film. Burns’ larger list of acting credits gives him top-billing. Some reviews are confused, thinking Mickey is the psycho. But the film’s title refers to Chet, whose performance gets better the more psychotic he becomes. His somewhat anemic, dazed, acting is actually effective for his character. Similar to a couple of Johnny Cash’s performances sans Western apparel.

Chet and his buddies frequently meet at “the shack,” a rundown house that epitomizes that very word. His best friend, Moe, an ex-Marine, calls it home. He is the elder statesman of the clubhouse. The band of buddies resides in a neighborhood where students are “held back” a few grades more than in the average town. Most of the young characters appear to be in their early to mid-twenties, masquerading as teenagers. Chet increasingly experiences paranoia and mental delusions after his brother is sentenced to die for a murder he committed, ultimately losing touch with reality. His condition is compounded by this but it is pretty obvious he was not diagnosed with mental issues before the movie began. Pat tries to encourage her brother to bring in some income and take his mind off the subject. She pleads, 'I wish you'd go back to school. I'm a girl. I don’t need to go.' A popular statement during the early nineteenth century. But he is determined to seek revenge on those who testified against his brother.

Parents are scarce in this film. The only one is Mickey’s father, one of those who testified. When Chet finds this out both are in his sights. The son of the DA gets beaten by the masked “flour children” and Lt. MacGowen visits the young men—a sack mask over his head in a joke—to question them about a sack found near the crime. Known as “Mac” at the shack, he might have gone into social work full-time had he not chosen to be a police officer. He has real empathy for Chet and is determined to give him some sort of electro-shock treatment. I mean, counseling.

Chet’s girl, Sandy, played by Judy Howard, playfully twirls through her first of two scenes in slow motion outside her mobile home seemingly rolling off a fence and then a garage while always looking back at him with the neck flexibility of a swan. She wants a man with money. A man with a larger trailer. Chet has neither.

While attending a dance party at the very swank home of the local judge, Pat accepts Mickey’s proposal of marriage. It is a bit of a shock to witness the breathtaking view of a large immaculate pool against Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs. As if the producer blew the entire film’s budget on this scene. It seems out of place after experiencing dark, low-rent neighborhoods for the first thirty minutes. Sandy shows up with a new beau, the son-of-a-judge, dressed intentionally to get noticed. Mickey invited Chet. Perfect. He hates the judge and his son, too. Perhaps the reason to progress the film under the guise of a dance party is so Chet can set fire to the judge’s mansion.

Mickey and Moe get into their second tussle at the shack. Moe pulls a knife but it accidentally ends up in his stomach. Mickey flees. Chet kneels down while Moe pleads with him to not pull the knife out, he will bleed to death. In order to pin the crime on Mickey, Chet pushes the knife in further. What are best friends for? Slow-learning Bobbie witnesses the murder and a dreaded courtroom scene ensues at about the fifty-minute mark. The judge is particularly amateurish. The swearing-in of McGowan seems to have caught the registrar off guard as he stumbles, then repeats his opening words. The usual theatrics raise their head as the prosecuting and defense attorneys badger the witnesses. Bobbie lies under oath after acknowledging he knows what perjury means. It is authentically boring stuff for an audience who knows the truth. I thought the jury turned in a solid performance because outside of the foreman announcing the verdict, they had no lines. Bobbie cannot stand by Chet any longer and confirms the truth about Moe’s demise. The shack and its contents are “auctioned” off.

Notes: Slowly but surely over the years, the "enlightened" have been convinced of their own importance. By the end of the Sixties, Hollywood codes and lifestyles began to change, but in 1961 there were restraints in place to not get too graphic with Chet’s revenge nor was there anything perverse about having a young boy admire an older friend as a role model. Most were naturally conscious of not offending anyone. This is silly now, but when Mickey introduces Pat to his father he comes out of his room in a white tank top undershirt, reminiscent of men’s 1920s swimwear. He is totally embarrassed to have Pat see him “half-dressed” and crosses his arms to cover himself as he backs into his room. 

OPEN SECRET (1948)

There is a strong film noir atmosphere established in this film even before the opening credits roll. The cryptic dialogue among a masquerading band of patriotic poker players is both intriguing and confusing. Some great camera work by George Robinson in this opening scene. Among them is second-tier actor, King Donovan, in his first movie role. The viewer is probably hooked at this point. This is another film of the era about antisemitism coming after World War II and it has its place. Distributed by Eagle-Lion Films for Marathon Pictures, the entire cast accounts for themselves quite well. Inevitably compared to other major studios' expensively produced antisemitic films, this portrays hate from within a low-income, less-educated crowd. There is not much to fault during its sixty-seven minutes with John Ireland about to hit Hollywood star status for his role in Red River the same year.

Newlyweds Ireland and Jane Randolph, acting on an invitation, travel for a stay with Ireland's World War II buddy, now working as a photographer. But he cannot be found. His apartment has been ransacked—a frequent occurrence—but Ireland suspects something more sinister than mere robbery. Anne O’Neal stands out as the busy-body, yet gracious, landlady of Ireland's friend. The actress who may be the most frequently misidentified as Margaret Hamilton of Wicked Witch fame. While Ireland goes off in search of his buddy, he asks if he would have dinner with his wife to keep her company. O’Neal says that is awfully nice but she is on a diet. Apparently, she only eats once a week.

After shooting a few rolls of film, Ireland gets them developed and printed. He is unaware there is an extra film role included by Randolph. Frames were taken by his buddy with incriminating evidence of an antisemitic murder. George Tyne has a pivotal role as a Jewish camera shop owner who is regularly harassed. The thugs want that film and track down Ireland’s buddy to get it. The couple soon realizes the problem as they encounter uneducated, myopic thinkers. Randolph does not understand how people can behave this way. Ireland tries to explain in a foretelling bit of scriptwriting about Twenty-First Century liberals. 'I guess some people can't live without hating. The only way they can feel superior. Some people hate because they're stupid. Some hate because they're told to.'

Though initially skeptical of Ireland's theory, Sheldon Leonard agrees to look into finding the missing buddy. Leonard is one laid-back detective, totally in control and unflappable. Also a guy with empathy for local delinquents. It would have been fun to have him reprise his role in a film series based around his character, though he was more often associated with the opposite side of the law given his trademarked gangster vocal delivery. One thing is for sure, Leonard is a great marksman. He casually nails a fleeing bigot more than once while he is escaping down an alley. All at a sizable distance leaning out Ireland’s apartment window. The cinematography stands out again during a cemetery gravesite scene for Ireland's buddy, killed for getting too close to the opinionated. All the standing attendees are in dark silhouettes against a contrasting light sky, giving off an eerie vibe.

Ireland infiltrates the bigotry boys club led by the sometimes lovable, but not here, Arthur O'Connell. Ireland's identity is soon discovered and a closing fistfight in near-total darkness. With the film’s budget on the producer’s mind, that darkness may have hidden the need for any re-shooting. The ending has a confident Leonard walking the urban neighborhood at night knowing they are safer than when the film began.

Note: Herschel Burke Gilbert was a monumental force in early television music scores. He was the first to provide an original score for a television series, the popular western, “The Rifleman,” where lead characters had their own cues for funny, sad, or dangerous scenes. This soundtrack was reworked in 1952 into a library of music cues for several shows of the era, the most obvious may be, “The Adventures of Superman.”

MONEY MADNESS (1948)

This bargain-basement, seventy-three-minute film noir, distributed by Film Classics, opens with one of the most poorly executed flashbacks I have seen...um...not seen. We witness young Frances Rafferty standing before the judge as he passes out her ten-year sentence for being an accessory to robbery and murder. A reporter makes a call, telling the person on the line you never know who will get off the next bus. There are no wavy, ghostly transition film frames to suggest a time shift. What the viewer actually sees is a bus coming to a stop. Out steps the movie’s lead, Hugh Beaumont, against type with an out-of-balance personality. One might logically assume it is ten years later, after Rafferty’s release. Essentially, the movie begins after the end. Overall, for the mad money spent, the film is not half bad. More like one-third bad. But do not blame the cast.

The music underlying the opening scenes with Beaumont, who is convincing in this role, is just too whimsical. Its use is totally mindless for his character and for what is about to unfold. The viewer suspects he is up to no good yet he seems so Cleaverish. After he gets a job as a taxi driver, his charm flows directly, by pure happenstance, in Rafferty’s direction. She is burdened by the care for her selfish, bitter aunt who always moans or fakes an attack of some sort when her niece attempts to go out. Beaumont wins them both over with Rafferty becoming his bride in whirlwind fashion. She likes that he seems different. Not like the others. At about the twenty-five-minute mark she discovers her husband is psychotic. Absolutely nothing like the others. He needs a place to hide his unearned cash—two hundred grand—temporarily held in a bank’s safe deposit box. An old suitcase in the aunt’s attic is the perfect location for the money transfer. Thanks to bipolar Beaumont, the aunt comes down with a bout of death, leaving the estate and an attic surprise in Rafferty’s inheritance.

When Rafferty meets with her attorney concerning the will, he senses she is distracted by something. Still using her maiden name, he unknowingly asks her for dinner. Every male in town is hitting on this attractive female. Naturally, Beaumont might take a cleaver to her if he finds out, so she declines, missing her first chance to escape her torture. As Beaumont has already reminded her, she cannot testify against her husband anyway. The attorney later meets with an elderly citizen who speculates about that taxi driver. This bit of gossip and the newspaper headline photos of the three robbers have the attorney wondering if one might be Beaumont, who obviously has had an extreme makeover since that photo was taken. In suspended disbelief, the photo is taken to a photo lab and he asks them to remove the mustache, clean up the pockmarked face, do the eyebrows this way, and take all the shadows out. This they do. They also changed his lips to give him a more amused expression and rotated his head slightly. No extra charge. It all happens in a matter of seconds as the original photo transforms right before our very eyes in a blurry “flash-forward” transition. Exactly how a flashback should be done. Only in reverse.

Beaumont is there to greet one of the robbers with a revolver. Long before Al Pacino, Beaumont refers to his gun as, “My little friend, here." Before releasing a bullet from the chamber he has the wife turn up the radio’s volume, apparently with the belief all three of them will not hear the gunshot inside the house. Like a young child closing his or her eyes believing they cannot be seen. Beaumont tells his wife to get rid of the dead man’s car and hands her the keys. Logically, this might be a great opportunity for her to get out of this nightmare. She could just keep on driving or go to the police with her story. But not in any dim-witted Hollywood script. Escape number two is obliterated.

Our mental patient gets all melancholy after that murder and insists, above all else, he really loves Rafferty. Sure. When the attorney arrives at the house of the “happy” couple, Beaumont once again asks his wife to turn up the volume on the radio ‘cause he’s in a shootin’ mood. Fortunately, a patrol car happens by and hears the raucous party with Artie Shaw music. The good news, Beaumont will not have to serve any time in prison. The bad news, Rafferty is about to start the beginning of the film.

THE YESTERDAY MACHINE (1965)

When one person is in charge of directing, producing and the screenplay, beware. They might be a genius or like Russ Marker, the man responsible for this eighty-five-minute debacle. The executive producer nor the entire crew offered any concerns, even for its length. This budgeted film for Carter Film Productions could not even afford a lobby poster for me to post. I doubt there is one cast member of familiarity with the possible exception of the bloated Tim Holt, hardly recognizable here. He is only two nails shy of sealing his career coffin. One could write numerous paragraphs on why Don Zimmers’ music was used. Worse than the score may be the inept sound engineering by Nick Nicholas, one of the musicians saddled with playing Zimmers’ creativity. There are simply too many disastrously funny things to mention but here are some obvious points.

I imagine the casting interview might have gone like this for Linda Jenkins, who plays Baton Margie:

"So, Miss Jenkins, we were reading over your resume. Not really that good, is it? Except your baton-twirling abilities are pretty hot. We would like your baton to open our newest movie in the tradition of the snow globe in “Citizen Kane.” Picture yourself in front of a 1960 Buick, with the hood up, twirling the baton while doing an "ants in your pants" dance. You know, something like the Twist. Just sign here and here."

Despite her limited screen time and acting ability, Margie's baton routine is arguably the most famous segment of the film. She turns out to be central to the film. In contrast, Howie’s stalled Buick has not gotten the attention it deserves. As cheerleaders, they have to get to the football game by walking. They are totally lost by nightfall and end up at the wrong campus! Spotting a campfire in the middle of nowhere is an encouragement but danger lurks there. Howie tells Margie to ‘run like the devil’ back to the car. He fends off two Civil War infantrymen, one of which, strangely, he knows by name. Howie uses his cheerleader skills to knock out one soldier with a capital “T” gesture, but running away takes a musket ball above the kidney. The credits resume rolling.

Cut to a jazz score and a newspaper office studio set covered by one area microphone. Two “community players” are delivering their lines with the reporter, Jim (lower left above)  He is sent out in his 1964 Rambler American...a cinema first...to make sense of the film’s strange opening and to interview Howie, recovering in the hospital. Jim’s performance is one of the film’s better efforts but, in perspective, do not forget how awful this film started. He later meets with the police lieutenant, Holt, who recalls a preposterous experience he had in Germany during World War II about a young Nazi officer and his experiments. The kind of scary story a camp counselor would make up around a crackling fire at a YMCA youth camp. Meanwhile, Holt's own conversation with Howie about what happened is totally irrelevant. Holt learns nothing. But we do learn of the reporter’s sense of humor. Jim: Dr. Wilson Blake and the rusty scalpel. Nurse: Oh, you know him? Jim: I should. He broke into me once and stole an appendix. I was disappointed that the sound department did not include a drummer’s rim shot.

One investigator, turning in a credible monologue, returns with a grocery bag. Inside are Margie’s sweater and a Confederate soldier’s cap. He has confirmed the cap is authentically from the Civil War period. The sweater is definitely from Sears and Roebuck. Every time he mentions a strange about his discoveries, the sound department throws in a one-second weird effect. The first as a glass handbell choir then as fingers strumming across the wires of a grand piano. One of many funny insertions from the sound department.

Margie’s older sister, Sandy, is a nightclub singer in a blonde costume wig from a Dollar Tree store. This is her only film role and that becomes quite obvious as the movie unravels, unlike her wig. Her solo number, unsurprisingly written by Russ Marker, is agonizing. By all accounts, she apparently did the singing but her deadpan engagement with the camera is so unconvincing it appears dubbed. The bombastic vocal does not match her limp physical delivery. She enlists the help of Jim to find the disappearing Margie. The perfect team! They ultimately find themselves briefly in the 19th Century before being transported to the laboratory of that Nazi youngster Holt referred to. Now an old crotchety Nazi, he is a raving lunatic with extreme mood swings. This time machine scientist is simply laughable with a ridiculous bit of overacting on cue. The guy can really hold a grudge, too. The madman reveals all the groundbreaking Nazi things happening near the end of the war. A war he thinks the yesterday machine would allow them to win if given a second chance. Prophetic words from a delusional Nutzi.

But good news! Margie was simply whisked away to the Nazi lab on her devil run back to the Buick. Jim and Sandy, after a bit of imprisonment themselves, get help from an "Egyptian Princess" who sets the wheels in motion for their escape. They rescue “Miss Baton of 1965” and escape from the underground lab through a steel escape hatch at ground level. How grass could possibly grow on top of a steel door is a great mystery. Against the most inappropriate, comic background music, Holt goes into the bunker, shoots the Nazi sympathizer and destroys the time machine. The scientist slumps into the time machine’s transportation chair and vanishes as if the unthinkable might happen...a film sequel. Holt ends the film under military-style muted trumpets and a lame warning to Jim about their current real dangers. The hydrogen bomb. Your neighbors. High-fat foods. History is so...yesterday, Jim.

Note: Tim Holt bowed out of Hollywood in 1971 after one more film and a television appearance. For his early fans, this film would be an embarrassing end to a career that started out strong with films like, “The Magnificent Ambersons” or “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” He was a popular Western star, something he predicted upon graduation from Indiana’s Culver Military Academy.

CAUSE FOR ALARM! (1951)

To Have And To Hold Until Paranoia Do Part

This seventy-four-minute MGM film, directed by Tay Garnett, suffered a six-figure loss at the box office. But then, it did not cost much to make. The screenplay is by Mel Dinelli and Tom Lewis with the film being produced also by Lewis, Loretta Young’s second husband. Young narrates the entire film to retell her frightening day of the week. I found it difficult to ignore her over-the-top performance. Young had some good successes in the Thirties and Forties, winning an Oscar four years before in, The Farmer's Daughter. No nomination this time around. Young seems to be the wrong actress for this paranoid character. Perhaps a “stronger” actress in the mold of Anne Baxter or Patricia Neal might have toned down the hysterics. Neither, of course, was married to the producer. Then again, here, Young is “married” to Barry Sullivan who is also paranoid. 

Sullivan has a limited role as a bedridden patient with a scripted bad heart. He is also a little touched in the head with irrational jealousy, convinced Young and his doctor, his old Navy buddy, dull Hollywood newcomer Bruce Cowling, are having an affair and both plotting to kill him. Sullivan goes so far as to write a detailed letter to the district attorney suggesting so. His plan is to kill her before she gets to him. But before firing a shot, he collapses from a fatal heart attack. Young’s posture and expression, wedged between the door frame and dresser, (lower right image above) are straight out of a Carol Burnett show skit. She is acting so hard it is laughable. 

It is near this point, that the film is cause for alarm as hysterical Young discovers the contents of Sullivan's letter and tries to get it back after giving it to the postman, the always befuddled or opinionated Irving Bacon. A by-the-book postal carrier with the gift of gab and concern about securing his pension. His impeccable performance should allow one to hang on until the end. The exchanges between him and Young are good, though she is obviously rattled to the point of being ridiculous. She pleads with Bacon to give her the letter, but he cannot. It is Sullivan who wrote the letter to the D.A. and he must sign for it. Bacon is more than happy to take it to him. Young bursts that is not possible so he instructs her to pick up the letter at the post office later. In the meantime, angst prevails. As the only good news for Young in the film, Bacon returns to inform her the letter could not be delivered anyway. Insufficient postage. My preferred title for the film. 

Note: There is a brief uncredited appearance by Robert Easton and his pal, Carl Switzer. Both are involved in their personal automotive maintenance program.

A STRANGE ADVENTURE (1956)

A decade before this film's release, William Witney was directing Republic Pictures cowboy serials so he may have felt at home in the mountain setting of, “Suspended Disbelief,” my alternate title for this film. The official title works. It is every bit that. It comes off, at times, like a filmed stage play with everyone knowing their cues and what expression to provide. The opening score is appropriate. If it were a soap opera. The score may also burst onto a scene without warning. I will give Republic the benefit of the doubt by assuming I watched an inferior print. There are abrupt edits as if the film broke and then was spliced together. This actually complements the film’s pacing.

An apparent “upper teen,” the twenty-three-year-old Ben Cooper (speaking of cowboy Westerns) still lives with mom, assisting in running her mountain motel. His hobby is a souped-up 1939 Mercury coupe for which he is always in tinkering mode. His other tinkering hobby is gawking at the visiting Marla English, poolside. Her intentions are rather obvious, except to Cooper, who plays it cool like a typical high-school senior of the era with limited social experiences. Suspended disbelief. She is a nightclub singer—we have no evidence of this—and completing her trio are Jan Merlin (known for many despicable characters) and Nick Adams. I am not sure how much the boy really knows about cars after these two arrive in a new Lincoln. He is "gosh-darned" impressed and heard it will do zero to sixty in six seconds. Even Road&Track finds this hard to believe.

Cooper is pretty suspicious of these two after noticing that the Lincoln is actually registered to Woody Wilson, the trio's "booking agent." He is supposed to arrive at a later hour, but Cooper informs English that the newspapers say he has escaped from a mid-western jail. Golly! She is “shocked” and cannot figure that one. Her real shock is suspecting Woody knows Merlin double-crossed him. Cooper soon discovers the trio’s new gig. An armored car robbery to the tune of...well...a lot of money. He is pressured into driving his “faster than a Lincoln” hot rod as the getaway vehicle, apparently with the hope that it will probably all work out in the end. I will say, the stunt driving convinced me of its custom nature. Nothing phony about the speeds or cornering up the dusty mountain roads. The actual car was somewhat of a celebrity, a genuine early Fifties customized model completed some two years prior. I digress. The robbery should move that fast because Woody is in town! While English gazes at the blurred flora and fauna up the mountain she gets something in her eye. After they stop, she tells Cooper, “I think a pebble hit my eye.” The only thing funnier would have been using the word “rock” instead. I think an ophthalmologist is needed. With all the talk and fear of Woody, I looked forward to seeing the actor. But the role was never cast.

Merlin’s character is certainly dangerous. Half the time a wise mastermind, the other half as a man-child prone to temper tantrums. Things do not always pan out like he thinks they should. So frustrated, he takes it out on whoever is nearby with bursts of angry yelling, using a gun for gesturing. After the robbery, a contrived radio broadcast centers on the lighter side of the news. The amused newscaster mentions Cooper’s mother (startled, he blurts out, “Mom!”) who figures her son eloped with that 'swimming pool Delilah.' Everyone in the car has a good laugh at the son's expense.

Merlin demands Cooper to take a particular turn off the main highway. They come to a halt. Merlin yells, “It’s a dead-end!” The “Road Closed until Spring” sign should have been a clue. The entire cast is now at an electric company’s weather reporting station which is about to experience its first big snowfall of the season. No one in or out for six months. Really? Merlin’s brilliance tells him this will be the ideal hiding place. Six months without anyone ever making contact with the station. Probably not much more than three months without any food. Suspended disbelief at its essence. The station is run by a brother and sister team of Peter Miller and Joan Evans. Everyone is uncomfortable about the long winter. For some unknown reason, Evans falls head over heels for Cooper. She knew him for his weekend races, but they had never met. He is on the same page. More tinkering. There is plenty of acting silliness until Miller purposely destroys the communications radio. With communication down, a ranger in a snow tracker heads in their direction.

The final scene is the most rushed segment as if the director had to say, “Cut. That’s a wrap!” at the seventy-minute mark no matter what he had intended to film. With no time left to properly resolve the film, the viewer has to settle on another radio broadcast from the car Cooper, Evans and Miller are traveling. 

Note: Nick Adams brings an early comedic note to the film as a guy with sinus woes due to the higher elevation. Merlin is intolerant of his constant sniffles, yelling, or throwing things at him like a child. With his black shirt, white tie, and white suspenders, Adams looks like he is part of a clichéd comedic gangster skit. He is a funny sight, later, with a “scarf” under his fedora, tied under his chin, to keep warm. But his I.Q. is a bit higher than “Merlin the Yeller” and outwits him by incrementally depositing all the loot in a "snow bank," exchanging stones for the money inside the bag. Neither Merlin nor English could figure out why the money turned hard and lumpy. Must be the altitude.

LADY LUCK (1946)

Directed by the very busy Edwin Marin, this light comedy will probably not elicit a second viewing. Especially at a whopping ninety-seven minutes. The film has an unremarkable music score by Leigh Harline to back up an original story by the nearly unknown, Herbert Clyde Lewis. Released by RKO Radio Pictures, this low-budget movie does have its humorous moments, thanks to those with comedic chops. The individually brief opening segments are fun, suggesting a screwball comedy. These historical flashbacks concern the ancestors of Frank Morgan, each with their own bad gambling decisions from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Barbara Hale represents his granddaughter in all three historical settings. But do not expect an uproarious comedy. Its two main stars, Robert Young and Hale are good here but neither are funny by nature. Their dialogue, at times, only includes potentially funny quips. With all the clichéd anger by misunderstandings between these two, the supporting cast is the film’s saving grace on the comedy front.

It all starts with third-billed Morgan, playing a soft-hearted, gambling-distracted grandfather, a persona not far removed from the great Oz. Further down the cast is James Gleason, again playing a savvy character doling out wisdom or deadpan quips with barely a lip moving. Others help carry the comedic load like rotund Lloyd Corrigan, Don Rice, Harry Davenport and the man with the electric performance, Teddy Hart. Once again, he nearly steals another movie as a two-dollar bettor—and winning—to the slow agony of the room. Hart’s first scene sets up the tedious bulk of the movie and this is how it happened. 

Young is a professional gambler who has done well, here and there. On the other hand, Morgan gambles habitually. The lovable old coot will bet on anything. Hale hates the odds against his “investments.” Her desire is to keep “Gramps” preoccupied before temptation is acted upon. Young places a horse racing bet with Morgan which in turn introduces him to Hale. She gambles on him upon their first encounter. Smitten by one moonlit night, Young vows to stop gambling to Hale’s delight and skepticism. Quickly married after only their second screen appearance together, he awaits her return from shopping. Something he will have to get used to. To pass the time he watches Hart’s timid bets and to speed things along, volunteers to roll the dice multiple times on his behalf. As if he can control how the dice bounce. He loses Hart’s money. Young continues to gamble only to repay Hart’s deficit. Which he does. Then walks away. Hale sees Young at the table and immaturely jumps to a conclusion. Surely, only Hollywood screenwriters think like this. She refuses to hear Young’s explanation and rather than listen to reason, takes the easy way out. Divorce. Thus begins the middle of the film which is a bit too predictable and seems to take a fortnight to get through. By the end of the film, Hale, now a gambling whiz, has a totally new perspective on gambling to Young’s displeasure. But the ending is a positive one thanks to Morgan and the supporting cast. For a final chuckle, Teddy “beside himself” Hart shows up at the end as a wealthy, “patron saint of gambling.” 

Note: Apparently Hollywood thinks everyone gambles. I am always lost in gambling—dice or card—movies. Ironically, both stars did their own personal gambling. Young was nearing his film peak here. He was always well-prepared but never possessed the charisma of some of his film colleagues. His perfect fame came in the form of a very successful career on television, however. The very pretty Hale also gambled on television, which paid off nicely, opposite Raymond Burr.