HOLLYWOOD CLASSICS TWO
“B” Movies, Bad Movies, Good Movies
by John Howard Reid
Smashwords Copyright 2011 by John Howard Reid
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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All rights reserved. Inquiries: johnreid@mail.qango.com
NOTE: At one stage, I was writing reviews for two rival city newspapers, plus the weekly “Union Recorder” and the monthly “Photoplayer” magazine. Needless to say, I used pseudonyms, most frequently George Addison and Charles Freeman.
Other Movie Books by John Howard Reid
Hollywood Classics series:
1. New Light on Movie Bests
2. “B” Movies, Bad Movies, Good Movies
3. Award-Winning Films of the 1930s
4. Movie Westerns: Hollywood Films the Wild, Wild West
5. Memorable Films of the Forties
6. Popular Pictures of the Hollywood 1940s
7. Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program
8. Hollywood’s Miracles of Entertainment
9. Hollywood Gold: Films of the Forties and Fifties
10. Hollywood “B” Movies: A Treasury of Spills, Chills & Thrills
11. Movies Magnificent: 150 Must-See Cinema Classics
12. These Movies Won No Hollywood Awards
13. Movie Mystery & Suspense
14. America’s Best, Britain’s Finest
15. Films Famous, Fanciful, Frolicsome and Fantastic
16. Hollywood Movie Musicals
17. “Hollywood Classics” Index Books 1-16
18. More Movie Musicals
19. Success in the Cinema
20. Best Western Movies
21. Great Cinema Detectives
22. Great Hollywood Westerns
23. Science Fiction and Fantasy Cinema
24. Hollywood’s Classic Comedies
25. Hollywood Classics Index to All Movies Reviewed in Books 1-24
CinemaScope One: Stupendous in ’Scope
CinemaScope Two: 20th Century Fox
CinemaScope 3: Hollywood Takes the Plunge
Mystery, Suspense, Film Noir and Detective Movies on DVD
British Movie Entertainments on VHS and DVD
WESTERNS: A Guide to the Best (and Worst) Western Movies on DVD
Silent Films & Early Talkies on DVD
Table of Contents
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Charlie Chan at Treasure Island
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Bud Abbott (Slim), Lou Costello (Tubby), Boris Karloff (Dr Henry Jekyll), Craig Stevens (Bruce Adams), Helen Westcott (Vicky Edwards), Reginald Denny (inspector), John Dierkes (Batley), Patti McKay, Lucille Lamarr, Betty Tyler (dancers), Herbert Deans (victim), Henry Corden (Javanese actor), Marjorie Bennett (militant woman), Arthur Gould-Porter (bartender), Carmen de Lavallade (Javanese actress), Judith Brian (woman on bike), Clyde Cook, John Rogers (drunks), Gil Perkins (man on bike), Hilda Plowright (nursemaid), Keith Hitchcock (jailer), Harry Cording (fight ringleader), Donald Kerr (chimney sweep), Clive Morgan, Tony Marshe, Michael Hadlow (bobbies), Edwin Parker (Mr Hyde), Jimmy Aubrey (man sleeping in park), Betty Fairfax (suffragette), Susan Randall (girl), Wilson Benge (stage doorman), Ken Terrell, John Daheim (hecklers), Harry Wilson (man asking for match), Duke Johnson (juggler), Isabelle Dwan (Mrs Penprase), Al Ferguson (Watkins), David Sharpe, Ken Terrell, Sailor Vincent, Al Wyatt, John Daheim, Bert LeBaron, Teddy Mangean (stunt pedestrians), Vic Parks (stunt double).
Director: CHARLES LAMONT. Screenplay: Lee Loeb and John Grant. Uncredited script contributor: Howard Dimsdale. Based on screen stories by Sidney Fields and Grant Garrett, suggested by the 1886 novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Photography: George Robinson. Film editor: Russell Schoengarth. Art directors: Bernard Herzbrun and Eric Orbom. Set decorators: Russell A. Gausman and John Austin. Costumes: Rosemary Odell. Make-up: Bud Westmore. Assistant make-up man: Jack Kevan. Special photographic effects: David S. Horsley. Hair styles: Joan St. Oegger. Music director: Joseph Gershenson. Dance director: Kenny Williams. Assistant director: William Holland. Dialogue director: Milt Bronson. Sound recording: Leslie I. Carey and Robert Pritchard. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Howard Christie.
Copyright 26 June 1953 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. A Universal-International picture. No New York opening. U.S. release: August 1953. U.K. release: March 1954. Banned in Australia, the film has never been shown theatrically in that country although, oddly enough, it has frequently been broadcast on TV. 6,884 feet. 76 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Dr Jekyll decides to kill his ward’s lover as he wants to marry her himself.
COMMENT: It’s hard to believe that this wonderfully entertaining spoof received such lukewarm and even negative reviews. The boys are in their element as a couple of earnestly lame-brained bobbies, hilariously blundering their way from one tautly risible situation to the next, finally capping their chucklesome efforts with a delightful climax of doubly mirthful mayhem. Their comic endeavors are appealingly assisted by Reginald Denny—as stupidly choleric a detective inspector as they come—and John Dierkes as a lumbering menace. And there’s a great support cast including Clyde Cook and John Rogers as a couple of argumentative drunks, and Arthur Gould-Porter as a disbelieving bartender. Boris Karloff is deliciously suave as the not-so-good doctor, while Helen Westcott makes a vivaciously pretty heroine. The stunts and special effects are exciting enough for an “A” feature. We love the sets and atmosphere. And as for the direction with its stylish camera angles and tight compositions, we are amazed to report that it’s a long way above Mr Lamont’s usual more humble standards.
OTHER VIEWS: One of the best A&C features, thanks to a very funny script, slick film editing, superbly low-key photography, excellent acting, marvelous make-up and special effects, and startlingly imaginative direction. All the principal players with the exception of Craig Stevens (who is capable, but not outstanding) are to be especially commended. I found the scene in the wax museum so hilarious, my ribs hurt from alternate laughter and fright. The climax is likewise breathtaking.
–C.F.
In this remarkable adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Abbott and Costello do much better by the book than Hammer Films were to do in a similar attempt (The Ugly Duckling—1959) to turn it into a musical comedy. For one thing, Abbott and Costello’s scriptwriters have thoughtfully retained the period as well as the milieu, and many of the dramatic incidents are played perfectly straight while the comic potentialities of the central idea are fully exploited.
—G.A.
Tom Neal (Tom Dekker), Carole Mathews (Teresa Castanho), Carole Donne (Anna Naarden), Joseph Crehan (DeRuyter), Ralph Graves (Anna’s attorney), Don Zelaya (Lobato), Don Dillaway (clerk in DeRuyter’s office), Jack George (judge), Joe Granby (Mariano), Edward Clark (Handel), Cosmo Sardo (ringleader), Paul Fierro (lieutenant), Frank Lackteen (guide), Lester Shape, Z. Yaconelli (clerks), Julian Rivero (Vasco), René Deltgen (Tom Dekker, senior) and Hans Nielsen, Gustav Diessl.
Director: S.K. Seeley (pseudonym of STEVE SEKELY). Screenplay: Al Martin. Additional dialogue: Louis Stevens. Original story: Irwin Gielgud. Photography: Guy Roe. 2nd unit director: Eduard von Borsody. 2nd unit photography: Willy Winterstein, Edgar Eichhorn. Film editor: Norman Cerf. Art director: Frank Dexter. Set decorator: Elias H. Reif. Costumes: Don Wakeling. Make-up: Harry Ross. Property master: Don Redfern. Camera operator: Thomas C. Morris. Music director: Alexander Laszlo. Stills cameraman: Fred Grossi. Set continuity: Emily Ehrlich. Technical advisor: Z. Yaconelli. Production manager: Arthur Alexander. Assistant director: Lou Perloff. Sound engineer: Ben Winkler. Associate producer: Iren Agay. Producer: Max Alexander. An Agay Production.
Copyright 2 April 1949 by Film Classics, Inc. U.S. release: 1 March 1949. New York opening at the Rialto: 13 May 1949. U.K. release through International: March 1950. Australian release through 20th Century-Fox: 18 August 1954 (sic). 6,764 feet. 75 minutes. Censored to 6,718 feet in the U.K.
U.K. release title: AMAZON.
Re-issue title: WHITE BRIDE OF THE JUNGLE.
SYNOPSIS: A claimant to a share in rich rubber company treks through the Amazon jungle in search of his father.
COMMENT: Although Film Classics publicity claims that Iren Agay spent seven months in the Amazonian jungle making this particular movie, in point of fact it was reportedly shot in Hollywood in six days. The movie incorporates long inserts of location and other footage from the 1938 German film, Green Hell, directed by Eduard von Borsody. In addition to Hans Nielsen and Gustav Diessl (who can be seen quite plainly), the cast included Vera von Lange, René Deltgen and Roma Bahn. Needless to say, the 1938 footage of colorful Brazilian backgrounds and wild animal thrills is much more exciting and expertly executed than its 1949 Hollywood-shot surround. No wonder director Steve Sekely hid his contribution under a pseudonym!
In order to solve the continuity problem, there’s not much actual dialogue, most of the picture being narrated by Tom Neal. All the same, Amazon Quest possesses a certain curiosity fascination for the connoisseur. Average moviegoers will find it entertaining enough on the lower half of a double bill.
Dennis O’Keefe (Steve Catlett), Mara Lane (Angela Towne), Rossano Brazzi (Nino), Arnoldo Foa (Captain Ambrosi), Galeazzo Benti (Gustavo), Nino Crisman (Bertolati), Enzo Fiermonte (Sergeant Collina), Giovanni Fostini (Tony), Maria Teresa Paliani (beauty shop girl), Francesco Tensi (Doctor Robini), Gorella Gori (nurse), Aldo Pini (doorkeeper), and Yoka Berrety, Luciano Salce.
Directors and screenwriters: DENNIS O’KEEFE, EDUARDO ANTON. Story: Steve Carruthers. Photography: Leonida Barboni. Film editor: Giancarlo Cappelli. Art director: Camillo Del Signore. Music composed and conducted by Mario Nascimbene. Music copyright by Curci—Milano. Miss Lane’s costumes: Schuberth of Rome. Set continuity: Marion Mertes. Production manager: Alessandro Tasca. Sound recording: Vittorio Trentino. Western Electric Sound System. Associate producer: Augusto Fantechi. Producer: Steven Pallos. Filmed at the studios of the Centro Sperimentale, Rome, Italy.
Copyright 1955 by Patria Pictures. U.S. release through 20th Century-Fox: April 1955. New York opening at the Palace: 3 June 1955. U.K. release through Independent/British Lion: 7 November 1955. Australian release through 20th Century-Fox: 21 February 1957. 7,281 feet. 81 minutes. Cut to 73 minutes in Australia.
COMMENT: A neat story, surprisingly competent direction, fine photography by Barboni and a hauntingly atmospheric music score by Nascimbene combine to make an exciting thriller, which, oddly in view of its superb entertainment qualities, seems to have disappeared.
Mara Lane is appropriately seductive as the femme fatale of the title, while both Rossano Brazzi (playing a heavy, would you believe) and Arnoldo Foa make brief but effective appearances.
Looking appropriately dispirited, Dennis O’Keefe holds up the main role with admirable finesse. As co-author (under the pseudonym, “Jonathan Rix”) of the screenplay, he keeps himself in front of the camera for the entire length of the movie—and he narrates the story off-camera too! As co-director [actually, he is credited as sole director on all English-language prints, whilst Anton receives a similar solo credit on the Italian version], he no doubt directed himself and the other English-speaking players (Lane and Brazzi), and supervised the dubbing of the others. Anton, of course, would have handled the Italian cast and maybe the general mise-en-scène. Certainly natural locations are adroitly utilized throughout. Other credits are equally first-rate.
Boris Karloff (Dr Bernard Adrian), Maris Wrixon (Frances Clifford), Dorothy Vaughan (Mrs Clifford), Gene O’Donnell (Danny Foster), Gertrude W. Hoffman (Jane, Dr Adrian’s housekeeper), Henry Hall (Sheriff Jeff Halliday), Selmer Jackson (Dr McNulty), Ray “Crash” Corrigan (the ape), George Cleveland (Howley, a circus hand), I. Stanford Jolley (trainer), Pauline Drake (young girl), Buddy Swan (young boy), Jack Kennedy (Deputy Tomlin), Philo McCullough (Henry Mason), Mary Field (Mrs Mason), Gibson Gowland (posse member), Donald Kerr (citizen carrying mauled trainer), Harry C. Bradley (Quinn, the druggist), Jessie Arnold (Mrs Brill).
Director: WILLIAM NIGH. Screenplay: Curt Siodmak, Richard Carroll. Adaptation: Curt Siodmak. Based on the stage play The Ape by Adam Hull Shirk. Photography: Harry Neumann. Film editor: Russell Schoengarth. Art director: E.R. Hickson. Music director: Edward J. Kay. Production manager: Charles J. Bigelow. Assistant director: Allen K. Wood. Sound recording: Karl Zint. Associate producer: William T. Lackey. Producer: Scott R. Dunlap.
Copyright 24 September 1940 by Monogram. New York opening at the Rialto: 27 November 1940. U.S. release: 30 September 1940. U.K. release: 23 January 1941. Australian release through Associated-B.E.F.: 16 January 1941. 5,620 feet. 62 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A research doctor needs spinal fluid to affect a cure for paralysis. When an ape escapes from a circus, the doctor decides…
NOTES: A re-make of Monogram’s The House of Mystery (1934), starring Ed Lowry and Verna Hillie, and featuring Harry C. Bradley and George Cleveland in different roles than they were assigned in The Ape. Both versions were directed by William Nigh.
COMMENT: The last of Karloff’s six films for Monogram, this one is described, somewhat inaccurately, by the contemporary British trade paper Kinematograph Weekly as a “spectacular thriller.” The Ape is neither. It’s better described as a small-scale study of small town mores. True, some reasonably exciting stock footage of a circus fire has been incorporated into the Poverty Row action and one briefly exciting scene is presented in which Karloff is snarlingly confronted by a furniture-hurtling “Crash” Corrigan (who vigorously smashes his way into Boris’ poorly equipped lab), but the creature is quickly disposed of, and the action resumes its predictably humdrum course.
Karloff does what he can with his clichéd role, but the real acting honors must be shared among the lovely Maris Wrixon (quite convincing as the paralysed heroine), Henry Hall (a no-nonsense sheriff), and Philo McCullough (a wonderfully hard-nosed villain who has all the script’s best lines). I. Stanford Jolley (whose long cinema career was spent almost exclusively along Poverty Row) also impresses in a brief part as the make-him-mad trainer. (Why the circus would employ such a person and why, having enraged the gorilla, he would then relax with a cigarette so temptingly close to the ape’s cage, are just two of the script’s numerous little inconsistencies).
As in House of Mystery (whose plot bears little resemblance to this), Nigh mostly directs in a competent but thoroughly routine manner, only coming to life sporadically,—especially in a bit of circus footage focusing on George Cleveland (of all people!) in an effective tracking shot as he walks through the grounds after the performance.
Stuart Erwin (Dwight Wilson), Warner Oland (Dr Paul Cornelius), Dorothy Wilson (Patricia Merrick), Dudley Digges (Horace Merrick), Gertrude W. Hoffman (Mattie), Oscar Apfel (O’Hara), Frank Reicher (Joe Valerie), Jane Darwell (Miss Marble), Stanley Blystone (policeman), and Edward Hearn, Pat O’Malley.
Director: IRVING PICHEL. Screenplay: Garrett Fort. Uncredited script contributors: Marian Dix, Ralph Block. Based on the short story Death Watch by Edgar Wallace. Photography: Lucien Andriot. Film editor: William Hamilton. Music director: Max Steiner. Art directors: Van Nest Polglase, Carroll Clark. Assistant director: Walter Mayo. Sound recording: Philip J. Faulkner, Jr. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: Shirley Burden. Executive producer: Merian C. Cooper.
Copyright 4 August 1933 by RKO-Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Mayfair: 16 October 1933. U.K. release: 10 February 1934. Australian release: December 1933. 6 reels. 60 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Police engage a clairvoyant to help solve the murder of an old lady in a spooky mansion.
NOTES: It looks like Frank Sully, playing the radio patrolman the first time around, but when the car returns it seems to me that a different actor is hiding beneath the uniform.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Adults.
COMMENT: Wonderfully spooky, old-house melodrama, atmospherically photographed and set, effectively handled by Irving Pichel (making his solo directorial debut). Villainous Warner Oland acquits himself most impressively in the main role, combining menace, charm, naked greed and a mad fixation in generous measure to round out his charismatic portrait of evil on the loose. Though far less experienced, young Dorothy Wilson also contributes a convincingly fascinating study of the clairvoyant in the case. Digges is inclined to be too hammy in his early scenes, whilst Erwin is too mannered a hero for my money, but fortunately he disappears for a nice spell.
Henry Fonda (Marco), Madeleine Carroll (Norma), Leo Carillo (Luis), John Halliday (Andre Gallinet), Vladimir Sokoloff (Basil, the father of Norma), Robert Warwick (General Vallejo), Reginald Denny (Edward Grant), Peter Godfrey (Roderigo, the magician), Katherine De Mille (cabaret girl), William B. Davidson (commandant), Carlos de Valdez (Major Del Rio), Lupita Tovar (palm reader), Rosina Galli (waitress), George Houston (café singer), Fred Kohler Sr (Pietro), Nick Thompson (Beppo), Maria De La (baby), Guy D’Ennery (counsellor), Dolores Duran, Roman Ros (dancers), and Arthur Aylesworth, Demetris Emanuel, George Lloyd, John “Skins” Miller, Belle Mitchell, Evelyn Selbie, Harry Semels, Carl Stockdale, Cecil Weston, Hugh Prosser, Murdock MacQuarrie, Herbert Heywood, Al Ernest Garcia, Mary Foy, Roger Drake, Edward Brady, Paul Bradley, Ricca Allen.
Director: WILLIAM DIETERLE. Screenplay: John Howard Lawson. Additional dialogue: James M. Cain. Story: John Howard Lawson. Photography: Rudolph Maté. Film editor: Dorothy Spencer. Art director: Alexander Toluboff. Music composed by Werner Janssen, directed by Boris Morros. Orchestra conducted by Irvin Talbot. Associate art director: Wade Rubottom. Associate film editor: Otho Lovering. Costumes designed by Ali Hubert. Miss Carroll’s gowns: Irene. Miss Carroll’s hats: John Frederics. Dialogue director: Peter Godfrey. Assistant director: Charles Kerr. Songs by Kurt Weill (music) and Ann Ronell (lyrics). Special effects: Russell Lawson, James Basevi. Stills: Robert Coburn, Donald Biddle Keyes. Assistant film editor: Walter Reynolds. Production manager: Dan Keefe. Assistant director: Charles Kerr. Sound recording: Frank Maher, Paul Neal. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Walter Wanger. Released through United Artists.
Copyright 7 June 1938 by Walter Wanger Productions, Inc. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Radio City Music Hall: 16 June 1938 (ran one week). U.S. release: 17 June 1938. Australian release: 15 September 1938. 9 reels. 84 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: A Loyalist peasant (Fonda), aided by a Fascist spy (Carroll) whom he has converted to the Loyalist cause, raise the blockade of Barcelona.
NOTES: Classified “C” for “Condemned” by the Legion of Decency, Blockade is a famous (or infamous) film that brought little credit on those who supported it (Democrats, Socialists, Communists and assorted left-wingers) and none at all to those who so vehemently opposed it (Catholics, Masons, Episcopalians, McCarthyites, Birchists, Ku Klux Klansmen, Republicans and other right-of-centre and far-right organizations). Lawson was later blacklisted by the witch-hunting HUAC. Oddly enough, producer Walter Wanger somhow managed to survive the post-war “anti-American” hysteria, but director Dieterle found himself on what he called “the gray list”. As a result, his work opportunities were severely limited.
Negative cost: $692,086. Initial world-wide rentals gross: $718,693. As only a 50% share of the gross at most was returned to Wanger, he ended up with a massive loss.
VIEWER’S GUIDE: Okay for all.
COMMENT: Despite the pretensions of its scriptwriter, this romantic drama, set during the Spanish Civil War, is largely comic-book stuff. Clean-cut Henry Fonda, gazing moodily at Miss Carroll whilst quoting romantic poetry,—or stirring up refugees to resist the enemy,—is about as unconvincing a Spanish peasant as you can get. At least Fonda and all the other players—with two notable exceptions—spare us any attempts whatever at Spanish accents.
The first of the exceptions of course is Leo Carrillo. He is obviously along mostly for comic relief, though he does have some “serious” bits, all of which he plays in an obnoxiously broad and hammy manner.
Our second Spanish harmonizer is Vladimir Sokoloff (ingeniously introduced in one of the film’s rare touches of directorial invention by tracking shots of his white-spatted feet) who provides the movie’s one really convincing performance. His reluctant spy easily creams the rest of the cast. Unfortunately, his role is all too small, his death leading to Miss Carroll’s delightfully trite encounter with Fonda: “You killed him. You!”—“I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t know he was your father.”
The absurdity and unintentional ludicrousness of Miss Carroll’s scenes with Fonda, allied with their pretentiously banal dialogue (“Never to see the sun again!”), plus the melodramatic contrivances of the plot twists that inexorably manage to bring these two stars constantly together, rank among the worst ever perpetrated in an independent “B” picture. [It’s a “B” movie in all but budget]. How Madeleine can keep a straight face through her “I never had a country” lines, rates as a miracle of histrionic self-control.
As if one clown in the plot were not enough, the script later introduces Reginald Denny as a stage Englishman, whose function is mainly to feed lines to Carrillo. They indulge in a purgatively unfunny conversation about tinned corn beef.
The pseudo-Spanish music score has to be heard to be believed. Heavily underlining every scene, it reaches a climax of filmic bathos in the episode with Fonda leading the peasants to resist behind sandbanks, whilst a stirring off-camera chorus urges, “Fight for the Right!”
Complete with obviously phony backdrops, the sets take pride of place as some of the fakiest ever to come out of Hollywood. Blockade was most certainly lensed entirely on a studio sound-stage.
OTHER VIEWS: The battle over Blockade began even before the film opened. It was scheduled to have a gala preview at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on 19 May 1938. An elaborate souvenir program was printed, but the opening was called off at the last moment. It eventually took place on 3 June 1938 at a more modest location, the Village Theatre in Westwood. The souvenir program contained a message from Walter Wanger in which he paid tribute to director Dieterle and thanked me for a splendid script.
I have no wish to defend my work on Blockade. The script has weaknesses. In many ways, Dieterle’s skill and imagination compensated for my limitations in handling the difficult and challenging material.
But the importance of Blockade lies in its being the only film made in Hollywood during the Spanish Civil War which dealt with the essential issues—the blockade imposed by the allegedly “neutral” powers, the strangling of the legal government of Spain by cutting off its food and supplies, the attack on civilian populations, the danger of world war, and the use of Spain by Hitler and Mussolini as a rehearsal for World War Two,—as in the bombing of Guernica.
—John Howard Lawson.
[John Howard Lawson was already established as a politically committed playwright in New York, before arriving in Hollywood in 1928. A co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild, he was also its first president and one of the key organizers of the Guild’s long struggle for recognition by the motion picture studios. At the same time, he was a leading figure behind the scenes in the Hollywood branch of the Communist Party. One of the “Hollywood Ten”, he became to some extent a spokesman for that group. Blacklisted and eventually jailed by Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon and their dupes, Lawson was forced to quit screenwriting. He authored three of the standard texts on the craft: Theory and Technique of Playwriting and Screenwriting (1949), Film in the Battle of Ideas (1953), and Film: The Creative Process (1964). After Blockade, his screenplays are: Algiers (1938), They Shall Have Music (1939), Earthbound, Four Sons (both 1940), Action in the North Atlantic, Sahara (both 1943), Counter-Attack (1945), and Smash-Up (1947)].
Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Billy Gilbert (themselves), Patricia Ellis (Mrs Gilbert), Minna Gombell (Mrs Hardy), William Royle (commanding officer in trenches), Sam Lufkin (aggressive inmate at soldiers’ home), James Finlayson (impatient man on stairs), Tommy Bond (boy with football), Harry Woods (boy’s father), James C. Morton (James), Jean del Val (French aviator), Harry Strang (apartment house clerk), Henry Hall (soldiers’ home superintendent), Harry Earles (midget), Billy Bletcher (midget’s voice), Patsy Moran (Lulu), George Chandler (spectator on stairs), Jack Hill (soldier in trenches), Max Hoffman, junior (reporter with Gilbert), Ed Brandenberg (pedestrian), Harry Stubbs (bit), Ham Kinsey (stunt double for Stan), Cy Slocum (stunt double for Babe), Ben Heidelman (stunt double for Billy). [Cutting-room floor player: Zeffie Tilbury (dowager near stairs)].
Director: JOHN G. BLYSTONE. Screenplay: Charley Rogers, James Parrott, Harry Langdon, Felix Adler, Arnold Belgard. Photography: Art Lloyd. Film editor: Bert Jordan. Music director: Marvin Hatley. Make-up supervisor: Stan Laurel. Special photographic effects: Roy Seawright. Prop man: Bob Saunders. Production manager: Sidney S. Van Keuran. Assistant to Mr Roach: Victor Collins. Sound supervisor: Elmer Raguse. Sound recording: Hal Bumbaugh. Associate producer: Hal Roach, junior. Producer: Hal Roach. A Hal Roach Production.
Copyright 17 August 1938 by Loew’s Inc. A Hal Roach Feature Comedy released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Rialto: 29 August 1938. U.S. release: 19 August 1938. Australian release: 1 June 1939. 6 reels. 57 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Mislaid for twenty years after the Great War, Stan is finally re-united with Ollie, but wreaks havoc on the Hardy home.
NOTES: It’s hard to believe, but Marvin Hatley’s incessantly inappropriate music score was nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award, losing out—and rightly so!—to Korngold’s The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Stan bitterly disapproved of the film’s ending. He wanted a two-shot of himself and Babe, mounted as trophies over Billy’s fireplace. Ollie turns to his partner and declaims with all his customary exasperation: “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”
COMMENT: Any film with Patricia Ellis is infinitely worth looking at, even when she’s stooging for that delightful threesome, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Billy Gilbert. In fact, it’s nice to find the boys with two leading ladies worthy of their talents. Misses Ellis and Gombell are both expert comediennes. Block-Heads provides all five principal players with many opportunities to shine and is one of the funniest of the L&H features. After a splendid introduction (using spectacular stock footage from The Big Parade), Laurel and Hardy each have a winning solo scene before destructively joining forces in some cleverly engineered, hilarious mayhem. We love Stan jumping into Babe’s arms to be carried, Billy cleverly inverting Frank Buck’s celebrated boast to the reporters (“I don’t bring them back alive. I bring them back dead. I bring myself back alive!”), Babe huffing and puffing endlessly down the stairs (with Stan’s magic window shade), and the king-pin domestic squabble that rages as Stan sits up and down in the “chair”.
Block-Heads rates as a very amusing entry indeed. Proficiently directed and produced, it thoroughly deserves its high popularity with L&H fans.
Alan Ladd (Johnny Morrison), Veronica Lake (Joyce Harwood), William Bendix (Buzz Wanchek), Howard da Silva (Eddie Harwood), Doris Dowling (Helen Morrison), Tom Powers (Captain Hendrickson), Hugh Beaumont (George Copeland), Don Costello (Leo), Howard Freeman (Corelli), Will Wright (Dad Newell), Frank Faylen (the man), Walter Sande (Heath, a gangster), Vera Marshe (blonde), Mae Busch (Jenny, the maid), Gloria Williams (assistant maid), George Barton, Jack Gargan (cab drivers), Harry Hayden (Hughes, the assistant hotel manager), Harry Barris (bellhop), Paul Gustine (doorman), Roberta Jonay (girl hotel clerk), Milton Kibbee (night clerk at hotel), Dick Winslow (piano player at party), Anthony Caruso (Marine corporal), Arthur Loft (the wolf), Matt McHugh (bartender), Ernie Adams (Joe, man in coveralls), Bea Allen (news clerk), Stan Johnson (naval officer), Henry Vroom (master sergeant), Harry Tyler (bus station clerk), Jack Clifford (plainclothesman), George Sorel (Paul, captain of waiters), James Millican, Albert Ruiz (photographers), Charles A. Hughes (Lieutenant Lloyd), Leon Lombardo (Mexican bellhop), Nina Borget (Mexican waitress), Douglas Carter (bus driver), Ed Randolph (cop), Perc Launders (hotel clerk), Jimmy Dundee (gangster’s driver), Tom Dillon (prowl car policeman), Franklin Parker (police stenographer), Dick Elliott (motor court owner), Clark Eggleston (elevator operator), Lawrence Young (clerk), Noel Neill, Mavis Murray (hat check girls), Brooke Evans, Carmen Clifford, Audrey Westphal, Lucy Knoch, Audrey Korn, Beverly Thompson, Jerry James, Charles Mayon, William Meader (guests at cocktail party), and Harold Stone.
Director: GEORGE MARSHALL. Original screenplay: Raymond Chandler. Film editor: Arthur Schmidt. Photography: Lionel Lindon. Art directors: Hans Dreier and Walter Tyler. Set decorator: Sam Comer and Jimmy Walters. Costumes: Edith Head. Make-up: Wally Westmore. Process photography: Farciot Edouart. Property master: Pat Delaney. Music director: Victor Young. Music composed by Victor Young, Robert Emmett Dolan, Bernie Wayne, Harry Simeone. Assistant director: C.C. Coleman, junior. Sound recording: Gene Merritt, Joel Moss. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: John Houseman. A George Marshall Production.
Copyright by 5 February 1946 by Paramount Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Paramount: 8 May 1946. U.S. release: 19 April 1946. U.K. release: 1 June 1946. Australian release: 2 August 1946. Sydney opening at the Prince Edward: 2 August 1946 (ran 4 weeks). 10 reels. 9,013 feet. 100 minutes. [The full-length version was released only in Australia. The movie was cut by at least two minutes and very probably by as much as 4 minutes in the U.S.A.]
SYNOPSIS: A war veteran, Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd), returns home to find that his wife, Helen (Doris Dowling), has been having a good time with a nightclub proprietor named Eddie Harwood (Howard da Silva). Disillusioned, he leaves her. Soon afterward, she is murdered. Johnny is suspected of the crime. Refusing help from Eddie Harwood’s wife, Joyce (Veronica Lake), he turns to his navy buddies, Buzz Wanchek (William Bendix) and George Copeland (Hugh Beaumont).
NOTES: Raymond Chandler wanted Buzz Wanchek to be revealed as the actual killer, blinded and desensitized by the brutalizing effects of the war. The studio met with loud objections from the Navy, who forced Chandler to re-write the film, implicating a civilian instead. Despite this forced mutilation, Chandler was nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award for Best Original Screenplay, losing to The Seventh Veil.
COMMENT: I have seen this film three times. Admittedly, my first reaction was one of intense disappointment. An “A” movie with a “B” script by one of my favorite authors! I felt that Chandler not only blatantly exploited co-incidence but cheated regarding the identity of the murderer. However, on subsequent viewings, I noticed that the suspect was held in very low regard by the police and that he withholds information and attempts blackmail. However, it remains true that the narrative tends to go off the rails on a red herring issue and that the actual unmasking proves most unexciting. Also, Chandler’s script runs very short on action yet extremely long on talk. Fortunately, the talk is sometimes witty, as in the business with Alan Ladd’s initials, when Veronica Lake tries to guess his name. Generally, the dialogue maintains an appealing freshness throughout.
The charge that Chandler blatantly over-uses co-incidence remains more difficult to deny. Strike one occurs when co-star Veronica Lake finally makes her entrance. Strike two, when she re-appears. Chandler himself was obviously aware of this weakness. He tries to cover it up by having Ladd exclaim that he likes her because “You get around and your timing’s good!”
As always, siren Doris Dowling is absolutely marvelous, but the rest of the cast is no less effective. Will Wright, for example, hands in a stand-out performance—the best of his career.
Marshall’s direction proves far more proficient than his norm. Not only is it commendably smooth, but it incorporates some inventive little touches like our first glimpse of Doris Dowling, as she steps out from behind a pillar with Howard da Silva in tow.
For further comments, see The Brasher Doubloon in this book.
OTHER VIEWS: When I was a teenager, literally growing up in cinemas in the 1950s, my fellow film addicts would have been amazed to hear anyone classify Humphrey Bogart as a tough guy. The movie macho-men of my youth were Alan Ladd, followed by Glenn Ford, followed by Burt Lancaster. [Despite their pre-eminence in some circles, neither John Wayne nor Bob Mitchum ever had much of a following amongst the local girls, though Mitchum had a bit of marquee value on the action circuit]. These three were considered ultra-hardboiled, super-anti-hero tough. Bogart, on the other hand, was labeled a faded romantic, still capable of handing out a compelling performance—for example in his searing portrait of the neurotic Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954)—but with a screen persona the very reverse of hard-boiled. A softie, in fact. A world-weary lover who seemed a pushover for any helpless female that might happen along, like Katie Hepburn in The African Queen (1952), or Audrey Hepburn's Sabrina (1954). When he was not helping out assorted damsels-in-distress, the screen Bogie could be found pleading for social reform (Knock On Any Door), acting the silly goat (Beat the Devil and We’re No Angels), or crusading with all the usual indignatory platitudes against organized crime and mafia-type criminals—The Enforcer (1951), Deadline USA (1952). True, he did revert to the totally cold-blooded crim in The Desperate Hours (1955), and had a wonderfully cynical curtain call in The Harder They Fall (1956). But both of these more conformist outings proved far more popular with critics than filmgoers. Their limited showings did nothing to dint Bogie's undying reputation as the world-weary romantic of Casablanca (1942—re-issued in the mid-1950s and again in the mid-1970s) or The Barefoot Contessa (1954).
Baby-faced Alan Ladd, on the other hand, had the hard-boiled game sewn up. Despite his diminutive size (which the studio took great pains to disguise by always teaming him with pint-sized heroines in sets with low doorways and ceilings), Ladd was the acme of ruthless self-absorption and self-centeredness. Although the critics delighted in taking pot-shots—"Mr Ladd’s acting range of two expressions (hat on, hat off) ..." —not a single one of Ladd’s Paramount movies failed to exploit his macho charm. Men admired him because he exemplified the tough, hardboiled, flint-faced, impervious-to-punishment, fighting, bullying, super-attractive dynamo that most young males aspire to be. Women loved his apparent lack of vulnerability, his self-sufficiency, his utter indifference to any emotion save lust. Ladd was a challenge. Every woman saw herself as the one person to pierce his armor, capture his heart.
Aside from three or four guest appearances (most notably as the uncredited, Philip Marlowe-clone, private eye in Bob Hope's My Favorite Brunette), Ladd never played comedy or farce. His "debut" film as the trench-coated, psychotic killer of Graham Greene’s This Gun For Hire (1942) established his reputation as the penultimate man of stone. Ice-cold, emotionless, callous to the nth degree. Building on this highly successful (with both critics and public) debut, Ladd’s studio cast their overnight star in a succession of similarly hard-as-granite roles, including Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key (1942) and Raymond Chandler’s The Blue Dahlia (1946). Perfectly cast as F. Scott Fitzgerald's softly menacing The Great Gatsby (1949)—oddly, not one of his most successful break-the-boxoffice ventures (it was probably thought too literary)—Ladd entered the 1950s with a string of hardboiled hits: Chicago Deadline (he’s a fearless, no-time-for-kisses reporter, lifting the lid on a sordidly tangled tale of blackmail and murder); After Midnight (a much more evocative title than the original Captain Carey, USA) in which Alan singlemindedly tracks down a wartime traitor in a small Italian village with a callously cavalier disregard where the chips might fall; Appointment with Danger where he manages to even the score against one of the most chilling psychos ever presented in films (Jack Webb who makes Anthony Perkins look like a cream-puff); and Shane (1953), surely the most stoic, most red-blooded and fighting-best of all western heroes.
So why has the movie reputation of tough-as-nails Ladd fallen by the wayside and Bogie usurped his macho crown?
Two reasons. The first is Fashion. Whether we realize it or not, we are all of us the slaves of Fashion. And Fashion is, to a large part, dictated to us by TV. In fact, the two re-enforce each other. And nowhere is this relationship better exemplified than in the canonization of Humphrey Bogart. It started with Casablanca's American re-issue and subsequent elevation to cult status. This led to a re-discovery and re-examination of Bogie’s career, both before and after. And co-existent with this, we observed not only a gradual re-emergence of interest in the work of Hammett and Chandler, but the overnight re-birth of Howard Hawks (director of The Big Sleep) as a master of Hollywood cinema.
The upshot of all these concurrent activities is that our definition of the hardboiled movie hero (or anti-hero) has changed. Alan Ladd and the equally laconic, frozen-faced Glenn Ford are out. The far more mobile and vocally expressive Bogie is in.
Compared to Ladd and Ford, Bogart is a positive chatterbox. He never stops throwing witty bon mots around. He can’t even enter a conversation without shooting off a string of aggressively cynical one-liners. When he’s not energetically downgrading himself, he goes out of his way to bait his listeners with equally blistering home-truths. He just can’t help alienating everyone but the heroine (and the audience) by acting the incessant smartypants.
Bogie’s impersonation of a Chandler hero in The Big Sleep is a far cry from Ladd’s in The Blue Dahlia. Indeed, Chandler provides little in the way of smart dialogue for the smoldering, boorish, fighting-mad Johnny Morrison. It’s the other characters who have all the come-on lines. Ladd is the straight guy, as in this typical exchange with Veronica Lake:
Late at night, Johnny is trying to thumb a ride in the rain.
LAKE (driving a little coupe): "I’m headed for Malibu, if that’s any use to you."
LADD (straight-faced, not really giving a hang): "Why Malibu?"
LAKE (brightly): "I tossed a coin. Heads, Malibu. Tails, Laguna."
LADD (not trying to be smart or difficult, just making the mildest of efforts to keep the conversation going): "What if the coin rolled under the seat?"
LAKE (snappily): "Then I go to Long Beach!"
If you think this is sub-standard Chandler, you should listen to the ho-hum stuff that Hammett provided for the Lake-Ladd combo in The Glass Key (1942).
Of course, Bogie is extraordinarily lucky in that he too not only got to play both Hammett and Chandler, but that The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep are such vastly superior works to The Glass Key and The Blue Dahlia. Furthermore, as already stated, audiences now accept (and expect) a smart lip as an integral feature of the movie tough guy’s make-up.
If we eliminate Falcon and Sleep from Bogie’s career, I wonder if today’s viewers would still regard him as Movie Tough Guy Number One? Perhaps not, even though there’s still The Petrified Forest (1936). I love Bogie’s introductory line as he bursts into a roadside café: "This is Duke Mantee, folks. He’s the world-famous killer, and he’s hungry".
For five or six years after his sensational "debut" in Petrified Forest [like Ladd, Bogart appeared in a score of minor roles before his official career launch—including a fully personified, sleazy kidnapper in the 1932 entry, Three on a Match], Humph was repeatedly cast as a cold, implacable, ruthless racketeer in films like Bullets or Ballots, The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse, Kid Galahad, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Roaring Twenties, and Dead End. Rotten to the core as Bogie was in the above films, he did try an occasional change of pace, for example as a hard-hitting district attorney in Marked Woman (1937) or as a stooge gangster in the hilarious It All Came True (1940).
All the same, without Falcon and Sleep, Bogie’s reputation as Mr Ultra-Tough rests entirely on Raoul Walsh's High Sierra (1941). "Mad Dog" Earle is an inveterate loser, an embittered hood with an odd streak of compassion and sensitivity that finally destroys him. Bogart’s performance emerges as more clearly shaded than in his previous roles and the final scenes of the film in which he defiantly meets his death—and freedom—on top of the mountain, have an impact that cannot be equaled. If Bogart had continued in this fatalistic vein, he may well have laid a claim to a unique, immovably tough screen image. Instead he made The Big Shot (1942) in which he plays another has-been bandit, but this time dies nobly to save a mixed-up kid!
And then, of course, came the exotic Casablanca. Romance with a capital "R".
However, putting both fluff and failures aside, the reality is that Bogart is still the only actor to play both Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. These characters can afford to be tough because they’re both outsiders. Each inhabits the same private, disillusioned world, where nothing really matters except an oddly medieval quest for Truth. They are knights, tilting at evil, wherever they find it. But unlike their medieval counterparts, they have no friends, no companions, no-one in whom they can trust. Even their lady-loves are suspect.
And, as stated earlier, both seem to have a death wish or at the very least a compulsion towards failure. They love to antagonize everyone, no matter who they are. Spade and Marlowe simply can’t resist pandering their own sense of superiority and self-importance. At all costs, they must be smart. A typical exchange in Big Sleep finds Marlowe rebuffing the olive-branch-offering, big-time gambling operator, Eddie Mars, as they both puzzle over a blood stain in a house owned by Geiger, a blackmailer:
MARS: "Got any ideas, soldier?"
MARLOWE: "A couple. Somebody gunned Geiger, or somebody got gunned by Geiger who ran away, or Geiger had meat for dinner and likes to do his butchering on the parlor floor."
Nonetheless, despite all its hip cynicism, a softening process was started in Big Sleep on Bogart’s screen persona. A softening that makes it difficult to credit that filmgoers have so quickly forgotten the dames-are-poison-so-slap-’em-around, tough nuts of the 1950s like Ladd, Ford, Lancaster and Mitchum. It’s in The Big Sleep that Bogie meets his verbal match in Lauren Bacall:
BOGIE: "You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how you'd do over a stretch of ground."
BACALL: "A lot depends on who's in the saddle."
Although often cast in the same sort of role, Alan Ladd, on the other hand, never met his match. Neither instigating nor encouraging any risqué romantic by-play, he rarely indulged in either sentiment or self-pity. He was always in control. Some critics opine that Ladd’s unwillingness to change with the times proved partly responsible for his screen downfall. His hero-against-the-world was seen as passé, outmoded. After his great triumph as Shane (1953), he gradually lost his following. True, many of his vehicles were indifferent. But some like Proud Rebel (1958) and One Foot in Hell (1960) had all the makings of greatness. But the public had tired of iron men. Hard-boiled, super-tough-all-the-way-through protagonists were out.
Although often teamed with feisty but diminutive Veronica Lake in such films as This Gun For Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942) and Saigon (1948) [as well as The Blue Dahlia, of course], Ladd’s ideal screen partner was self-effacing, super-vulnerable Gail Russell, with whom he co-starred in Salty O’Rourke (1945), and most notably Calcutta (1947). Russell’s extremely fey, fragile femininity made Ladd’s granite-shelled screen masculinity seem that much more macho.
Strange, isn’t it? Alan Ladd, once voted the most popular movie star in the world (although he hovered around in the lists longer, Bogart never achieved more than fifth position in box-office popularity in his lifetime) is now remembered almost solely for Shane. Bogie, on the other hand, gained number one cult status more than thirty years ago and just about all his movies of the 1940s and 1950s are still riding high.
Buck Jones (Jim Houston), Lupita Tovar (Tonita), James Mason (Shag Smith), Don Chapman (Bob Houston), Frank Rice (Thunder Rogers), Louis Hickus (Dan), Jack Rockwell (ranger messenger), Lafe McKee (express manager), Glenn Strange, Jack Kirk (barflies), John Wallace (Pegleg Barnes), Merrill McCormick, Blackjack Ward, Slim Whittaker, Bud Osborne, Ben Corbett (henchmen), Robert Burns (Pete), Fred Burns, Art Mix, and “Silver”.
Director: LOUIS KING. Original story and screenplay: Stuart Anthony. Photography: L.W. O’Connell. Film editor: Otto Meyer. Music: Sam Perry, Irving Bibo. Producer: Irving Briskin. Executive producer: Harry Cohn.
Copyright 18 August 1931 by Columbia Pictures Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: 15 September 1931. 6 reels. 62 minutes
SYNOPSIS: Assuming the identity of a notorious outlaw called the Pecos Kid, a Texas Ranger crosses the border into Mexico to infiltrate a gang of marauders who shot down his younger brother.
NOTES: Re-made by Ken Maynard as Whistlin’ Dan (1932), and again by Jones as The Fighting Ranger (1934).
COMMENT: Pacily directed by Louis King [brother of Henry King], this is a most appealing outing which pits our muscularly sardonic hero Buck Jones (doing his own fighting and stunting here, even if the effect is a little undermined by obvious camera under-cranking) against two of the best heavies of the year. James Mason [no relation to the English super-star, but I bet some idiot computer freaks have already got their credits inextricably mixed] was usually cast in small roles as a treacherous worker or friend. Here he essays the chief villain most ably, brilliantly assisted by Louis Hickus, whose wonderfully thuggish face and brutal manner contrast superbly well not only with Mason’s blandly perfidious deviltry but with the handsomely clean-cut Jones.
Mind you, Buck is not your conventional Gene Autry-Roy Rogers splendiferous hero. True, he rides a nice white horse (which fact proves important in the climax), but he doesn’t dress up as a lily-handed dude and he doesn’t mind knocking off a glass or two of hard liquor. He also has more than an eye for the ladies. And here again, he breaks western tradition, for though Lupita Tovar is a spirited lass—intelligent too—she’s somewhat short of Hollywood’s usual ideals of feminine beauty. In other words, the whole atmosphere, scenery and characters in Border Law are grounded firmly in realism.
The movie’s only tip of the sombrero to “B” western conventions, lies in the hero’s choice of a sidekick. A grizzled veteran soon became an essential for these roles, but in 1931 the tradition was not set in concrete. What’s more, Rice is handed some neat lines and plays the part most effectively.
By “B” standards, the budget is expansive. Sets and locations are forcefully utilized. In fact, technical credits are so smooth, especially in the use of music and sound effects, it’s hard to believe the movie was made as early as 1931. And as for the marvelous editing with its brilliant cross-cutting at the action-plus climax,—full marks indeed!
Jimmy Wakely (himself), Dub “Cannonball” Taylor (himself), Gail Davis (Anne Lamont), Tom London (Marshal Blackjack Flint), Marshall Reed (Cal Derringer), William H. Ruhl (Tom Slade), William Norton Bailey (Frank Martin), Boyd Stockman (Jed Mailor), Joe Galbreath (Nick), Dee Cooper (Bert), Frank McCarroll (Larry), Holly Bane (Butch Keeler), Myron Healey (Jeffers), Bill Potter (Mac), Bob Woodward (stage driver), Bob Curtis (Steve), Ray Jones, Denver Dixon (townsmen), Ben Corbett (stage guard), Frank McCarroll (Cannonball’s stunt double), and Ray Whitley, Don Weston.
Director: OLIVER DRAKE. Screenplay: Basil Dickey. Film editor: Carl Pierson. Photography: Harry Neumann. Settings: Vin Taylor. Music director: Edward J. Kay. Songs: “Cool Water” by Bob Nolan; “I Don’t Care” by Jimmy Wakely and Betti O’Dell. Set continuity: Helen McCaffrey. Stunts: Bob Woodward. Assistant director: Eddie Davis. Sound recording: John Kean. Producer: Louis Gray.
Copyright 10 July 1949 by Monogram Pictures Corp. U.S. release: 10 July 1949. No New York opening. No U.K. or Australian theatrical release. 56 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Wakely and sidekick, “Cannonball”, come to the aid of a sheriff who is being blackmailed by a gang of outlaws.
COMMENT: Puerile western, directed with a total lack of distinction, and poorly photographed to boot. So far as the fans are concerned, there is very little action—and what scant material the script offers is very limply staged with Wakely and company shooting off cap pistols and flurrying briefly in some weak-as-water fist fights. Fortunately, Wakely presents a couple of pleasant songs which save the picture from a zero rating. Oddly, however, the incidental score is a remarkably hasty-untasty affair from a musician of Edward Kay’s usually competent caliber.
George Montgomery (Philip Marlowe), Nancy Guild (Merle Davis), Conrad Janis (Leslie Murdock), Roy Roberts (Lieutenant Breeze), Fritz Kortner (Vannier), Florence Bates (Mrs Murdock), Marvin Miller (Blair), Houseley Stevenson (Morningside), Bob Adler (Sergeant Spangler), Reed Hadley (Dr Moss), Paul Maxey (coroner), Ray Spiker (Figaro), Joe Palmer (attendant), Jack Overman (manager), Jack Stoney (Mike), Ben Erway (Shaw), Edward Gargan (truck driver), Alfred Linder (Eddie Prue), Jack Conrad (George Anson), Al Eben (baggage room attendant), and Gisella Werbisek, Ethel Griffies.
Director: JOHN BRAHM. Screenplay: Dorothy Bennett. Based on the 1942 novel The High Window by Raymond Chandler. Adaptation: Leonard Praskins. Photography: Lloyd Ahern. Film editor: Harry Reynolds. Art directors: James Basevi, Richard Irvine. Set decorators: Thomas Little and Frank E. Hughes. Costumes: Eleanor Behm. Make-up: Ben Nye. Music composed by David Buttolph, orchestrated by Maurice De Packh, directed by Alfred Newman. Special photographic effects: Fred Sersen. Assistant director: Hal Herman. Sound recording: Eugene Grossman, Harry M. Leonard. Producer: Robert Bassler.
Copyright by 22 February 1947 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 21 May 1947. U.S. release: 6 February 1947. U.K. release: 28 April 1947. Australian release: 14 August 1947. 6,472 feet. 72 minutes.
U.K. release title: The High Window.
COMMENT: Success was both the making and the ruin of Raymond Chandler. His first novel The Big Sleep (1939) achieved the sort of popular acclaim and critical hat-tossing that all writers dream about. Before that he’d written twenty novelettes for "Black Mask" and other pulp magazines with nothing but small change in his pocket to show for all that effort. After Big Sleep, he could write his own ticket. He followed quickly with Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), and The Lady in the Lake (1943). Then a hiatus until The Little Sister (1949), The Long Goodbye (1953), and Playback (1958).
I was recently invited to participate in a Mystery Lovers’ symposium, entitled “An Evening with the Great Detectives”. Previous speakers had detailed the deductive powers of Hercule Poirot, the unfailing courtesies of Charlie Chan, the courtroom tactics of Perry Mason, and the antisocial vices of Sherlock Holmes. Between Poirot and Holmes, they’d managed to steal all my thunder. By the time the chairman turned to me, eliciting my thoughts on Philip Marlowe, I had little left to say. Desperately, I addressed the audience, inviting them to compile a list of Raymond Chandler’s novels and movies and choose their favorites.
Surprise! Surprise! The Big Sleep easily topped both novel and movie lists, with Lady in the Lake, a distant second as favorite novel. Inadvertently, I caused considerable confusion by citing Double Indemnity as a Chandler movie. Which it is. Chandler was actually nominated (along with co-writer Billy Wilder) for a prestigious Hollywood award for Best Screenplay. But few people in the audience of sixty or seventy fans knew anything at all about Chandler’s separate movie career, even though most of them could reel off the titles of at least four Marlowe novels. None recognized The Blue Dahlia (1946) as a Chandler movie either, even though this one was an original, and, once again, Chandler had been nominated for a prestigious Hollywood award.
I came away realizing that it’s very difficult to change the perceptions that even really intelligent people have tucked away in their minds. The overall convictions they held were two: (1) that Chandler was the creator of Philip Marlowe [Correct!] and (2) that Marlowe was featured in four or five novels [Actually seven or eight]. Full stop. Beyond The Big Sleep (1939), Lady in the Lake (1943), Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), and The Little Sister (1949) lay a complete blank. In fact, only a few of the really rabid fans knew The Little Sister. There was no recall at all of The Long Goodbye (1953) or Playback (1958), let alone the unfinished Poodle Springs completed by Robert B. Parker in 1989.
To just about everyone present, a Chandler movie was purely and simply a film version of a Chandler novel. Most were surprised by my insistence that (with one exception only) Chandler had nothing to do with their screenplays, even though I admitted that Chandler was actually working in Hollywood at the time. (He was under contract to Paramount. Oddly, only two of the main studios held no screen rights to any Chandler novels. You guessed it! Paramount figured as one of the two).
I couldn’t summon up courage to tell them that, using their definition of a Chandler movie, my favorite was The Brasher Doubloon. Instead we lapsed into a re-hash of how fascinating a movie The Big Sleep is and what wonderful dialogue had been handed to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in that legendary scene where the two stars slyly relate their preferences for slow horses and fast jockeys.
I blame a combination of bad television and good publicity for the perpetuation of these half-truths which it’s well-nigh impossible to shake. Tempting as it is to join the throng, here for the record is a quick overview of Chandler—all of Chandler—on the screen.
To date, there are sixteen big-screen movies, either based on a Chandler novel or screenplayed by Chandler.
First off is The Falcon Takes Over (1942), which hardly marks an auspicious beginning for Chandler or Marlowe on the screen. RKO purchased the screen rights to Farewell, My Lovely for a song and had no qualms in making it over for Michael Arlen’s character, The Falcon, who figured in a series of sixteen “B” movies, starring George Sanders (the first four), John Calvert (the last three), and Sanders’ real-life brother, Tom Conway (the ones in between). By the humble standards of the series “B”, however, The Falcon Takes Over is reasonably entertaining. Chandler’s tense plot is preserved more or less intact. Only the characters have been changed. Sanders makes The Falcon suitably suave, whilst Lynn Bari provides a spirited heroine.
The second Chandler movie, A Time to Kill, augmented the odd trend of the first. This time, The High Window was the novel, Michael Shayne the series character usurping Marlowe, Lloyd Nolan the star, 20th Century-Fox the studio. Unfortunately, the Shayne series was running out of both puff and money at this stage. Not only was it lensed quickly and on the cheap, but the script bowdlerized the novel, retaining just the bare bones of the plot whilst eliminating all its wit, sophistication, atmosphere and tension.
Reversing the trend, on the third occasion Chandler’s name hit the screen, the movie, Double Indemnity (1944), was based on a James M. Cain novel. Chandler collaborated with director Billy Wilder on the script of a film that has since become a cult classic, thanks to the strength of its stars—Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray (of all people) as the heavies, Edward G. Robinson as the hero—as well as its bizarre murder plot and steamy situations.
Chandler then worked on a most unlikely vehicle, a Rachel Field weepie, And Now Tomorrow (1944), in which a dedicated but impoverished young doctor (played with an air of complete bewilderment by super-tough-guy Alan Ladd, here numbingly miscast) falls in love with a rich but deaf socialite (Loretta Young).
Finally, late in 1944, when Chandler’s popularity and critical esteem were at their height, RKO seized the opportunity to dust off the song-bought Farewell, My Lovely and film it straight. They couldn’t resist changing the title to Murder, My Sweet, but otherwise this is pretty well as authentic as Chandler ever got on the screen. Marlowe was sensationally played by Dick Powell who, sick to death of his namby-pamby screen image as a lightweight crooner, talked the studio into re-inventing him as the tough, resilient, cynical private eye—a role that he was to play with minor variations and only one or two exceptions for the rest of his acting career. Powerfully directed by Edward Dmytryk, the movie not only won the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year, but took millions at the box-office. Twelve years later, Chandler declared that Powell deserved recognition as the nearest cinematic equivalent of Marlowe and that Murder, My Sweet was the best screen adaptation of any of his novels.
In the meantime, however, Chandler still hadn’t found his “write” niche at his home studio, Paramount. True, his next assignment, The Unseen (1945), seemed ideal—at least on paper. Based on a book by Ethel Lina White (who wrote the original novels for both Hitchcock’s Lady Vanishes and Siodmak’s Spiral Staircase), the movie somehow ended up as more of a lightweight ghost story than mystery-suspense. Spooks were not Chandler's forte, but he was brought into the picture to give the supernatural proceedings a bit of rationality. He did his best, but complained to all who’d listen that it was time the studio used his talents in the right direction.
Finally, the contractee’s voice was heard by studio management. Given the go-ahead for an original suspense thriller, Chandler set to work on The Blue Dahlia (1946). In many ways vintage Chandler, with lots of atmospheric touches, cynical dialogue, a fabulous femme fatale (Doris Dowling) and an embittered hero (played with an appropriate lack of emotion by Alan Ladd), the completed script hit an unexpected snag. The Navy Department complained to the studio that portraying neurotic veterans as potential killers violated the senior service’s no-no code. A compromise was reached, forcing Chandler to re-work the ending of the movie. That he did so under protest is evident by the slip-shod, utterly unconvincing way he “remedied” the situation. In fact, when he revised his last word on Blue Dahlia, he tore up his contract, vowing never to work in Hollywood again.