Tell Tale

 

 (imdb)

THE AVENGING CONSCIOUS or THOU SHALT NOT KILL-1914-A man (Henry B. Walthall) is raised by his uncle. When he's an adult (and Edgar Allan Poe fan), he works for the old man (Spottiswoode Aitken). All goes well until he meets a young woman Anabel (Blanche Sweet). He spends more time with her than uncle would like. When the uncle insults her, nephew quits. At a party, they meet “the stranger” (Ralph Lewis). When the nephew realizes that as long as his uncle is around, he and the girl can never be happy, he plots to kill uncle. 

Unfortunately, for him “the Italian” (George Siegman) sees him murdering unk and blackmails him. Nephew walls up the corpse in the fireplace. His guilt gets the best of him and he sees his uncle's ghost and has a breakdown. He goes to a sanitarium and seems to be cured but he suspects the stranger to be a detective (he's right) and hires the Italian to keep an eye out. Later, while being questioned by the detective, he has a fiery vision of demons in hell. He goes insane at the sight of his uncle's ghost and reenacts the murder in front of the detective. He flees but is pursued by a posse and hangs himself. The girl commits suicide but…. 

This DW Griffith directed adaptation based on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell Tale Heart” is sometimes called the first great American horror movie. The ending might be a letdown to some. It also features the ill-fated Wallace Reid as a doctor.

Thanks for reading!

No Mania

 

 (imdb)

BLOOD MANIA-1970-A doctor (Peter Carpenter, also one of the screenwriters) is blackmailed for doing abortions when he was a med student. He has an affair with Victoria (Maria De Aragon), who's bed- ridden father is his patient. After the blackmailer rapes the doc's wife, Victoria uses a drug to kill dad. She admits to the doctor that she killed her dad but she promises to give him money from her inheritance to pay off the blackmailer. Her sister Gail (Vicki Peters) comes for the reading of the will. Surprise! Dad leaves everything to Gail. Victoria has a break-down but it doesn't bother the doc. He just romances Gail. 

This drawn out psychological bs has bad acting, a boring story, hardly any blood and plodding direction from Robert Vincent O'Neil who later directed ANGEL (1984) and its sequel AVENGING ANGEL (1984). Star Carpenter was a mystery man for years. It had been thought he passed away in the early '70's but in fact left movie making for real estate and died of AIDS in 1996. He also starred in POINT OF TERROR in 1971 with Dyanne Thorne. 

Co-star Maria De Aragon was later in Harry Essex's terrible THE CREMATORS (1972) and was unbilled as the alien Greedo in the first STAR WARS movie in 1977.

Thanks for reading!

Early Alfred

 

 (imdb)

BLACKMAIL-1929-It takes a little while to get started but a woman Alice (Anny Ondra) has a fight with her policeman boyfriend Frank (John Longden) then goes with an artist (Cyril Ritchard) to his studio. Unbeknownst to her Frank sees them. After some flirtation he tries to rape her but she stabs him to death. The police investigate and Frank finds Alice's glove and sees that the dead man is the one she was with. When a man shows up at Alice's father's tobacco shop attempting to blackmail Alice, Frank devises a plan to pin the murder on the blackmailer. A chase through a museum highlights the story. Guilt ridden Alice wants to confess. 

This was Alfred Hitchcock's tenth movie and though originally done as a silent film it was decided midway way through the production that a sound film would also be made. This silent version is very well done with Hitchcock showing many of the traits he would use in subsequent film classics. It also features the longest of his many cameo appearances. The new score is a bit overwhelming.

Thanks for reading!

Into The Unknown

 (imdb)

THE UNKNOWN-THE FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN-1964-Two women (Vera Miles & Barbara Rush) kill a blackmailing gigolo (Scott Marlowe). After they wreck their car during a storm, the two seek refuge at a remote mansion where Tone Hobart (David McCallum) and his blind butler Kolos (Sir Cedric Hardwick in his last acting role) live. Hobart is experimenting with a "time tilt" machine which he says can bring back the dead.

There's a lot of talk and weird camera angles and it kind of reminded me of a Harold Pinter play! This was originally devised by THE OUTER LIMITS writer Joseph Stefano and director Gerd Oswald as the pilot for a new series to be called THE UNKNOWN. ABC rejected the idea and it became (with a different ending and credits) the finale episode of THE OUTER LIMITS' first season.

McCallum was in another episode the same season, the memorable THE SIXTH FINGER.

Thanks for reading!

Reality??

 

 (themoviedatabase)

DIE FIGHTING-2014-A group of martial artists, The Z Team, go to Hollywood. Their kind of leader is Fabien (director/writer Fabien Gorchon/Garcia). His girlfriend Meilu (Adelyne Liu) is kidnapped by some nut who blackmails the group into making a "reality" martial arts film. He sets them against various deadly scenarios. Robbing an armored car, fighting a SWAT team, battling a dojo of black belts, a gang of killers, LA street gang and finally each other. 

The fights are very well done, some resemble the old classic ones from the Shaw Brothers. It draws some inspiration from the SAW movies. Ludicrous plot with not great acting but great fights. Twist ending goes on way too long.

Thanks for reading!

Blacklisted Crew

 

 (imdb)

FINGER OF GUILT-1956-Expatriate American film editor Reggie Wilson (Richard Basehart; in MOBY DICK the same year), now a producer in England after a scandal in the US, receives threatening blackmail letters from a woman he says he doesn't know. Since the US scandal involved an affair with his boss's wife he's looked on a little doubtfully when he says it's not true. Eventually he meets his accuser Evelyn Stewart (Mary Murphy; THE WILD ONE)) who seems to know all about Reggie and is genuine in her convictions. He tells the star of his new production (and former lover) Kay (Constance Cummings) that he thinks he is losing his mind. Things spiral out of control after he makes a few blunders. 

Interesting little English drama from Joseph Losey (who has a cameo as a director), also an expatriate American blacklisted out of Hollywood. He's credited as Alec C. Snowden and screenwriter Howard Koch is credited as Peter Howard (he was blacklisted too).

Thanks for reading!

No One Demanded It...But I'm Back!

 (IMDB)

I DEMAND PAYMENT-1938-A guy named Toby Lock (Matty Kemp) owes loan shark Mr. Travis (Bryant Washburn) 5 thou. He also knows one of Travis's henchmen Smiles (Jack LaRue) killed a man. The gang (including Guinn Williams as a dumb henchman Happy) forces Lock to marry his girlfriend Judith (top billed Betty Burgess) so she can't testify against him. No sooner are they wed when Lock, a real jerk, says he doesn't love Judith and never wanted to get married. "We're washed up". She drives away and plows into a train. Judith survives the crash but is now depressed and wheelchair bound in a nursing home under the care of Dr. Mitchell (Lloyd Hughes). To help in her rehabilitation Mitchell gives Judith a job as his secretary. Later of course he falls in love with her. 

Meanwhile Lock decides to double cross his boss. While he and Louie (Anthony Orlando) collect a 10 thou loan, Lock kills Louie and takes the money in broad daylight. There are witnesses and the cops give chase. He escapes to Mexico and convinces Judith to go with him (she's still his wife). Later Smiles and Happy track the unhappy couple down. Mitchell also arrives. A few shootings end everything and make Judith a happy widow. 

This plodding melodrama was one of only four films directed by Clifford Sandforth who a few years earlier directed Lugosi in MURDER BY TELEVISION.

Thanks for reading!

 

He Still Knows....

BEHIND THE MASK-1946-A conniving newspaper columnist Jeff Mann (James Cardwell) is killed by The Shadow in his office on the eve of the wedding of Lamont Cranston (Kane Richmond) and Margo Lane (Barbara Read). Of course someone is actually pretending to be the crime fighter. Mann was blackmailing a mobster (Robert Shayne) and a female bookie May Bishop (Marjorie Hoshelle). There's way too much comedy in this with Shevvie, the chauffeur now played by familiar character actor George Chandler. 

Director Phil Karlson made the Charlie Chan mystery DARK ALIBI the same year.

Thanks for reading!

Chan On The Air

THE SCARLET CLUE-1945-This time Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is on the trail of spies who want to steal radar plans. While he and a local police Capt. Flynn (Robert Homans) find a spy they were tailing dead, it seems the murderer drove off in a stolen car belonging to radio actress Diana Hall (Helen Deveareaux) and her friend Gloria (Janet Shaw). A footprint leads Charlie to believe that the killer works at the radio station. He’s right! The manager Bret (I. Stanford Jolley) is the killer but he takes his orders from someone who communicates by a telegram machine. When Gloria tries to blackmail Bret she dies from poisoning. When Chan connects Bret to the murder the manager falls to his death from a trapdoor in an elevator! There's also a scientific contraption that simulates different types of weather. On an “experimental” TV program Jack Norton does a drunk routine but is poisoned before he can give Charlie any info. This story features a lot of science tech and talk about TV. 

THE SCARLET CLUE also features no. 3 son Tommy (Benson Fong) who messes up several times and Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) who does 2 routines with his real life vaudeville partner Ben Carter. (They also do this in DARK ALIBI). Phil Rosen was once again in the director's chair. Followed by THE SHANGHAI COBRA.

Thanks for reading!

Child Bride

CHILD BRIDE-1938-A school teacher Miss Carol (Diana Durrell) tries to stop child marriages among “mountain people” in her old rural hillbilly burg. But the main focus is on Jennie (Shirley Mills ) a 12 year old girl who's father (George Humpreys) is a moonshiner but likes the teacher. One night a bunch of inbred idiots kidnap Carol with the intent of tar and feathering her because she preaches again them “marrying young uns”. Fortunately Jennie's dad and his moonshining buddies Angelo (Angelo Rossitto) and Happy (Al Bannon) save her. He seems ok but later he gets drunk and thinks his wife is fooling around with his sleazy partner Jake so he beats her. Pa winds up dead so Jake (Warner Richmond) blackmails Jennie's ma into letting him marry Jennie! 

Carol also has a district attorney boyfriend who tries to get pass a law prohibiting the marriages. When he talks to the governor he addresses him as “your excellency”. Though promoted as “educational” (and thus avoiding most censors) this exploitation film is kind of bizarre and depraved especially the marriage ceremony. And then the happy couple get ready for their wedding night! Whew! Fortunately a well placed bullet put into Jake stops that before it even starts and the Jennie and Freddie go home together.

One character uses a very racist line that I won't repeat here. The most notorious scene is when Jennie takes off her clothes (and is topless for a minute) and swims nude in a lake! 

This was the last film directed by Harry Revier who had made LASH OF THE PENTENTIES and several silent Tarzan movies. A 1945 reissue was “presented” by Kroger Babb. With the exception of Mills (who was later in THE GRAPES OF WRATH), Richmond and Rossitto most of the rest of the cast never made another movie!

Thanks for reading!

Stanley Before The Bowery

DESTINATION MURDER-1950-Stanley Clements (6 years before replacing Leo Gorcey in The Bowery Boys series) is Jackie Wales, a telegram delivery boy who kills a man for club owner Mr. Armitage (Albert Dekker) who likes to talk in the third person. The dead man's daughter Laura (Joyce MacKenzie) suspects Jackie and begins dating him. Later she gets a job as a cigarette girl in the club where manager Stretch Norton (Hurd Hatfield) puts the moves on her. Armitage's mistress (Myrna Dell) gets Jackie involved in blackmail and eventually his own murder. It turns out Norton is actually the brains of the operation. 

After Jackie's killed (it's not shown; his character seems to have just been written out) it turns into a revenge love story focusing on Laura and her relationship with Norton. 

 Star Joyce MacKenzie played Jane to Lex Barker's Tarzan in TARZAN AND THE SHE DEVIL. James Flavin is a police lieutenant and John Dehner is another suspect. Future star of THE WEREWOLF Steve Ritch has a bit role. 

A great vocal band Steve Gibson's Red Caps plays in the club. You can read about them here: http://home.earthlink.net/~jaymar41/redcaps.html

There's actually a lot of strange twists in this little murder mystery directed by Edward L. Cahn a few years before he made some of the greatest low budget horror and Sci-Fi movies of all time.

Thanks for reading!

Intimacy

INTIMACY-1966-In this unusual drama, businessman Walter Nicholson (Barry Sullivan) is desperate to get a government contract. He secretly films Washington contractor Jim Hawley (Jack Ging) in a hotel room so he can get something on Hawley to use as blackmail. He sends a prostitute (singer Jackie DeShannon) to woo him but that fails. Later Hawley's alcoholic wife (Nancy Malone; a TV actress who later became a TV director)) shows up but Nicholson gets rid of her because Hawley is expecting a woman he's having an affair with. Much of it is Nicholson watching the film in his office and he gets a big surprise when the woman Hawley's having an affair with is his own wife (Joan Blackman who had co-starred with Elvis in BLUE HAWAII)!  

This is an unusual rarely recognized unique little feature that holds your interest for a while but goes on a little too long. It would have been a great 1 hour TV episode..

Sullivan had been in Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES the year before. This is probably the only starring role for TV character Jack Ging (and one of his few feature films). Director Victor Stoloff also made a TV movie THE 300 YEAR WEEKEND (1971) which was told in real time. Co-writer Harvey Flaxman later wrote and produced GRIZZLEY.

Thanks for reading! 

Blonde Dynamite

BLONDE DYNAMITE-1950-Typical Bowery Boys comedy. When an escort agency rejects Slip (33 year old Leo Gorcey) and Sach (31 year old Huntz Hall) as escorts they decide to start their own agency. They trick Louie (Bernard Gorcey) into going on vacation and turn his sweet shop into their own escort service. Meanwhile their friend Gabe (Gabriel Dell) who works at the local bank gets blackmailed by gangsters thanks to his girlfriend (Adele Jurgens). With two of the other regular "boys" while Buddy Gorman steps in (taking Bennie Bartlett's place) as the new Butch. John Harmon is one of the gangsters. 

Director William "One Shot" Beaudine's film career started in 1915! Screenplay by Charles Marion. 

Thanks for reading!

  

May Is Bowery Boys Month!

 Please excuse this interruption but by popular demand (not really) I'm devoting May to review some Bowery Boys movies. Here's the first one:

HOLD THAT BABY!-1949-Fairly amusing Leo Gorcey and The Bowery Boys installment finds the gang in hot water when they accidentally become guardians of a baby left in their Laundromat. It turns out the baby is actually the heir to a huge fortune. Two sisters (Anabel Shaw and Ida Moore) plot to steal the inheritance by claiming the mother (Francis Auer ) is insane! The Boys are kind of blackmailed by two gangsters (John Kellogg and Frankie Darro) into keeping quiet about having the baby but eventually Gorcey disguises himself as a German doctor and gets the mother out of an insane asylum just in time before the reading of the will! Of course Sach (second billed Huntz Hall ) provides most of the laughs. Gabe Dell is Gabe Moreno, their straight laced friend who tries to help them.

The other "boys" are Billy Benedict as Whitey, Benny Bartlett as Butch and David Gorcey as Chuck. Leo's dad Bernard is also on hand as sweet shop owner Louie. Director Reginald Le Borg was in the middle of helming a series of Joe Polooka comedies when he made this. It's the 14th of 48 Bowery Boys movies, the first half produced by Monogram Studios.

Thanks for reading!