From Finland

 

 (imdb)

THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL-1990-In Finland, lonely Iris (Kati Outinen) works a mundane factory job to support herself, her mother and stepfather who she keeps house for. She goes to dances but doesn't attract a partner. She buys a new dress but her parents disapprove. Later she meets a strange guy and they have sex. On a second date, the guy tells her he doesn't want a relationship (he thought she was a prostitute) and she should beat it. Later she finds out she's pregnant. It looks pretty bleak for Iris but then she decides to buy some rat poison….

This unconventional drama directed by Aki Aurismaki, is regarded as one of the greatest films to come out of “the land of a thousand lakes”. It's the third installment of the director's “Proletariat Trilogy”. I have to check them out some day...

Aurismaki is also known for his movies about the Finnish rock band “The Leningrad Cowboys”.

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Deep In The Heart Of Texas

 

 (imdb)

PRELUDE TO HAPPINESS-1975-Nurse Susan (Rose Petra) and her fiancée are changing a flat when she is struck by a speeding car. She survives but her leg is mangle and has to be amputated. Just like that her hubby calls off the wedding and leaves her. She becomes depressed but with encouragement from Doctor Hartman (Gary Lee Davis), she breaks out of it and practices on crutches. Eventually, she comes out of her funk and works as a nurse in the hospital. She freezes when she sees an accident victim with bloodied legs but snaps out of it after a doctor slaps her! Later, Hartman helps her find a new apartment but his fiancée' gets jealous and gives him an ultimatum. Her or Susan. He and Susan admit they are in love but Susan turns down his proposal. Later he attends a swanky engagement party and tragedy follows but everything works out in the end. 

This filmed in Texas obscurity is the kind of movie I hate to review. Its message is sincere but it's done in by bad production values and bad acting. Lead actress Rose Petra was really missing her leg. This is the only film directed by Gidney Talley Jr., a theater owner from San Antonio.

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More Price Magic

 

 (imdb)

THE LONG NIGHT-1947-A mysterious stranger is shot at a rooming house. The police investigate and when they go to the room of Joe Adams (Henry Fonda) he shoots at them through the door. When he won't cooperate, they shoot at him from a building across the street but that doesn't work. A flashback relates what has happened Joe, a factory worker who meets Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes), who works in a flower shop. They fall in love and he wants to marry her. She seems hesitant (of course she's hiding a secret). Joe follows her to a smoky nightclub where magician Maximillan the Great (the one and only Vincent Price) performs. Jo meets with Max for some unknown reason. Max's assistant Charlene (Ann Dvorak) gives Joe the lowdown on her boss. He and Charlene begin a friendship. Max says he's Jo's father despite her being an orphan. He thinks Jo is no good for Joe. Then Jo has a flashback where we find out Max is not her father but a guy who tried to put the moves on her. He wants to break the couple up and says “Do I have to apologize for superior imagination?”. When Max goes to see Joe, he won't shut up and Joe shoots him. Back in the present Jo talks Joe out of the apartment amid a teargas attack. 

A bevy of characters appear: Elisha Cook Jr., Queenie Smith, Charles McGraw, Bobby Barber, Ellen Corby, Byron Foulger, Mary Gordon, Richard Reeves, Ray Teal, Dick Wessel and Will Wright. This kind of crime drama/love story/film noir was directed by Anatole Litvak (THE SNAKE PIT) after spending most of the WW2 years making a short film documentary series “Why We Fight” with Frank Capra. 

The movie succeeds if you are not looking for a huge payoff in the finale, otherwise it's a slight disappointment. It also depends on your point of view with Joe's predicament. He doesn't really evoke that much sympathy. This was lead actress Bel Geddes' movie debut. Among other things, she's remembered as the lead on TV's “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” episode “Lamb To The Slaughter”.

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Hide The Baby!

 

 (imdb)

THE GREEN EYED BLONDE-1957-This kind of female JD story takes place at the "Martha Washington School For Girls" where newcomer Betsy Able (Linda Plowman), a young girl who had a child out of wedlock, is being admitted just when the old crone head of the place Mrs. Nichols (Jean Inness) is welcoming new counselor Miss Maggie Williams (Sally Brophy). Nichols refers to Betsy as a "little criminal" when Betsy says she hates old people. Later Betsy is introduced to her new inmates: Green Eyes (Susan Oliver), Trixie (Tommie Moore), Ouisle (Beverly Long) and Joyce (Carla Merey). There's also another character named Cuckoo (Norma Jean Nilsson) who tries to kill herself at dinner. Miss Williams tries her best to integrate herself with the girls. At night Green Eyes meets with her boyfriend Cliff (Ray Foster) by a chain link fence. 

On visiting day Betsy's hateful mother (who has custody of Betsy's baby) questions Betsy about the father's identity. Since mom and her ineffectual boyfriend Ed leave the baby in their car unattended, Cuckoo steals it and brings it back to the dormitory. The girls decide to take care of the baby even though Betsy wants nothing to do with it. They use a book to get info and steal sheets for diapers. They call him Buddy. They sing very loudly to hide the baby's crying. Eventually Betsy comes to care for her son. Unfortunately Miss Williams discovers their secret. The girls implore her to wait until after Christmas and she agrees. More unfortunately the baby is discovered and taken away. The girls revolt and wreck the place. Many of them try to escape but the police intervene and Cuckoo dies. After Trixie is picked up by her father, Green Eyes runs away with Cliff ("See ya in the cemetery"). On Christmas they open presents for Buddy and learn Green Eyes & Cliff are killed in a robbery. The End.

 Juanita Moore and Stafford Repp have small roles. Passed over today GREEN EYES (aka THE GREEN EYED BLONDE) was written and co-produced by Sally Stubblefield, a pseudonym (front) for the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo. Director Bernard Girard worked mostly in TV around this time with an occasional feature film. Years later he directed THE MAD ROOM.

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Hugo Haas Far To Go

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HIT AND RUN-1957-Rich gas station magnate Gus Hilmer (do it all director Hugo Haas) takes a liking to showgirl Julia (Cleo Moore) but Gus's mechanic/watchdog Frankie (Vince Edwards) doesn't like it. While trying to find Julia a car he mentions he was married once and will never marry again. Whammo! The next scene he and Julia are married. They seem relatively happy at first but Frankie doesn't like her, believing Julia married Gus for his money and gives his notice to Gus. Later, while Gus is at a party, Frankie puts the moves on Julia but she resists. Later Frankie confesses his love for Julia but she's not all that fired up to leave her husband and go away with a grease monkey . Eventually Julia gives in to his persistence. To show his love Frankie refurbishes an old car and takes Julia for a ride where he runs down Gus! After the funeral Julia says she sees Gus hanging around the house at night. 

Surprise! At the reading of Gus' will, his twin brother Dave (also Haas) shows up fresh from a stretch in San Quentin. This really gets on Julia 's nerves especially since he got half of his bro's estate and now lives in the same house. One night he tells Julia he knows about her and Frankie. He also knows Gus was killed but doesn't care. He hated his bro but it's obvious he has an ulterior motive. 

This triple threat little morality take from director/writer/producer Haas isn't the greatest but it kind of keeps you guessing till the conclusion. This was the seventh and last film the largely ignored Cleo Moore made with director Haas and also the last movie of her career. Despite looks and decent acting skills real fame seemed to eluded her so she quit show biz. In 1961 she married a millionaire land developer. She “died in her sleep” in 1973. She was 43. 

Czechoslovakian born Hugo Haas bummed around pictures beginning in 1925, even directing a few movies in his native land. In 1951 he caught the director's bug and began making his own movies. Most of his films are low budget moralistic dramas usually involving an older man with a younger woman and a story featuring a big plot twist. Almost completely forgotten today, his movies should be re-examined. HIT AND RUN also features Moore's sister Maria Lea and John Zaremba.

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Beaudine

 

GALLANT LADY-1942-Dr. Rosemary Walsh (Rose Hobart) in jail convicted of a mercy killing, is reluctantly involved in a jail break (she was handcuffed to one of the escapees). She decides to give herself up but is side tracked when she sets an old guy's broken leg. She meets Dr. Steve Carey (Sidney Blackmer) who knows she's an escaped con. He takes her under his wing but trouble brews when rumors about their relationship spread through town. After his sister Linda (Lynn Star) gets the lowdown, Steve admits he's in love and proposes marriage. Their plans don't work out so well as Steve punches the hick deputy. After Rosemary runs away, Steve is arrested. 

Rosemary takes refuge with Nick (Richard Clarke) & Nellie (Claire Rochelle) and henchman Baldy (Vince Barnett) the ones who broke her out in the first place. Bad move. They involve her in a bank robbery where a guard is killed and Nick is hit. Rosemary and Nellie rob a doctor at gunpoint for supplies so Rose can operate on Nick. Meanwhile Steve is taken a beating in his trial. Rosemary decides to go back and help but her bus crashes. When tending to the injured she's arrested. Steve is found not guilty and Rosemary is given a pardon. 

This run of the mill morality drama was directed by the super prolific William Beaudine and produced by the ultra cheap PRC. It also features one of the most horrible racist stereotypes of the only two black characters in the cast....

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The Secret Word Is Holdout...

THE HOLDOUT-1962-This is an interesting find! I've read about it but never saw it till recently. It's a half an hour drama, part of The General Electric Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan.

 It's about two college students (Dennis Hooper and Brooke Hayward; married in real life at the time) who want to get married immediately and not wait for  graduation. Her mom (Dorothy Green) is all for it but dad (Groucho Marx in his only really non-comedy role) is opposed to it. Not the marriage but the timing. He believes they should wait, graduate and land jobs so they can live independently of their parents. His father (Fred Clark) disagrees which puts a strain on his friendship with Groucho, who plays it straight but delivers some funny "Groucho" type lines in a non "Groucho" way. 

Director Charles Haas was a busy TV director at the time. It was written by novelist Max Erlich.

Silent Dickens Classic

OLIVER TWIST-1922-After starring with the legendary Charlie Chaplin in THE KID one year before little Jackie Coogan co-stars with the equally legendary Lon Chaney (although he wasn't a star yet) in this early adaptation of the Dickens classic. The future Uncle Fester is the title character born and raised in a workhouse overseen by the tyrannical Mr. Bumble (James A. Marcus) where at the age of 9 he asks for more. He becomes an undertaker's apprentice but runs away to London and meets the Artful Dodger (Edward Trebaol) who in turn introduces him to the evil Fagin (Chaney) who oversees a gang of pickpockets. He and meanie Bill Sykes (George Siegmann) want Oliver for another scam though but before that happens Oliver is arrested and later taken in by a kindly bookseller Mr. Brownlow (Lionel Belmore). Fagin (who answers to a mysterious guy named Monks) kidnaps the boy when he finds out that Oliver is heir to a large inheritance. Still he and Bill need Oliver's diminutive size to pull off a robbery. When Oliver rebels Bill shoots him! He's only wounded and nursed back to health by a rich dowager and her niece who reunite him with Brownlow. After Bill's wife Nancy (Gladys Brockwell) spills the beans to the bookseller, Bill finds out about her betrayal and kills her. In the end everyone is arrested except for Bill who accidentally hangs himself. Oliver gets his birthright and inheritance.

Director Frank Lloyd was no stranger to adapting Dickens to the screen as a few years earlier he'd made a version of A TALE OF TWO CITIES. He packs a lot of story into the short running time (about 75 minutes) and keeps the tale interesting and exciting. Child star Coogan was at the apex of his career and is very good (and funny) in the lead. Naturally Lon Chaney steals every scene he's in.

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Not A Disney Film!

 

 

 

IT'S A SMALL WORLD-1950-Harry (Paul Dale) is a little person (called the now politically incorrect “midget” in this) who doesn't have a very nice childhood. His father (Will Geer) likes him but takes him out of school and keeps him out of sight in their house. His selfish sister (Shirley Mills, the star of CHILD BRIDE) wants him sent away. He does leave home to join a circus but the owner (Thomas Henry) is a jerk and Harry runs away from him. In the city he meets Sam (Todd Karns; George Bailey's brother in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE)), a shoeshine guy who gives Harry a job. Everything is ok until he meets a floozy named Buttons (Lorraine Miller) who gets a black eye from her boyfriend Charlie (Steve Brodie). She seems to like Harry and they hang out but she two times him and lies to him and gets him involved with the giant sized Rose (Nina Koshetz)) who turns him into a pickpocket.

 

Unfortunately Harry gets sweet on Buttons but she only has eyes for Charlie and laughs at him. When he wants to quit fatso Rose threatens him. He turns them all in and (reluctantly) joins the Cole Brothers circus winter headquarters in Florida where he meets the cheery Dolly (Ann Sholter in her only film role), a woman his size who he sings a song to! They get married and live happily ever after....

Henry Corden has an un-credited role as a truck driver. By my count Thomas Henry was in 10 features in 1950.

While not a great movie IT'S A SMALL WORLD was an unusual feature for the time. It tries hard to show Harry's plight in a sympathetic way but sometimes seems a little too obvious. Lead actor Paul Dale was one of the Lollipop Guild in THE WIZARD OF OZ and at the time of this writing he was still alive (another member of the Guild Jerry Maren is also alive). He's good in the role and does a fairly amazing job of playing his Harry character from child to adult despite being 23 at the time!

William Castle (who appears as a cop) directed it but without the flair he'd use in his later “gimmick horror films” (The first of them MACABRE would come 8 year later).

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Raven Mad?

 

 

THE LOVES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE-1942-Eddie Poe (John Sheppard; later known as Sheppard Strudwick) is taken in by The Allens after his mother dies. Mrs. Allen (Mary Howard) is a nice caring woman who loves him but Mr. Allan (Frank Conroy) is a jerk who thinks Edgar is wasting his time writing poems. At school he gambles, gets into debt and drinks a lot. He gets some encouragement from Thomas Jefferson (Gilbert Emery) but Mr. Allen hits the roof when he sees all of Eddie's debts. He also loses his love Elmira (Virginia Gilmore) to another man (but later it is reveal to be a deception devised by his old man). He joins the cavalry and later West Point (and gets thrown out) and goes to live with his aunt (Jane Darwell) in Baltimore where he meets his cousin Virginia (top billed Linda Darnell). He becomes a writer and wins a short story contest. He and Virginia get married and he lands a job as a magazine editor in Richmond but complications arrive when he meets Elmira at a party. He goes on a bender and gets fired for being drunk. The trio go to Philadelphia where he becomes a success and meets Charles Dickens. He works toward a getting a copyright law for writers, gets into an argument with his boss (Morris Ankrum), gets drunk and goes to NYC. Virginia gets sick. He tries hard to sell his new poem “The Raven” to the public and even gives a great reading of it to some printers but fails to sell it. Virginia dies and he goes back to Baltimore to die in poverty. A narrator explains that although it was not recognized in his own life time now “The gods laugh and Poe laughs with them”. Harry Morgan plays his friend Ebenezer.

This is a straight forward fairly accurate portrait of the now legendary poet/writer which provides a lot of sympathy for the main character. Director Harry Lachman had an interesting career although he quit making movies in 1942 the year LOVES was released (he also made DR. RENAULT'S SECRET the same year which featured Sheppard). He made many in the Charlie Chan series and OUR RELATIONS with Laurel & Hardy. It was written and produced by Bryan Foy (THE UNDYING MONSTER, PT 109).

 

 

 

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Another Silent

THE DRAGON PAINTER-1919-Tatsu (Sessue Hayakawa) is an eccentric painter who lives alone waiting for the gods to return his princess who they took away from him and turned into a dragon. His work is shown to a famous artist who realizes Tatsu is a genius. One problem. He won t leave his mountain home. The artist s daughter Ume Ko (Tsuru Aoki, Hayakawa's real life wife) dresses up as the princess to lure him out. Then the trouble begins. The two fall in love and Tatsu seems to lose his passion for painting. A nicely made silent film with beautiful photography and a heartfelt story. 

Japanese born Sessue Hayakawa was the first Asian film star(his other famous film is THE CHEAT) and by 1919 was as popular a star as Douglas Fairbanks Sr. The director William Worthington was also an actor.  

Once again thanks to TCM for showing this and thanks for reading!

Lost Film Found (well half anyway...)

THE WHITE SHADOW-1924-Although Graham Cutts is the credited director, the assistant director, editor, set designer and scenarist are all credited to one man: Alfred Hitchcock, a year before he directed his first film.

This film was long thought to be lost but an incomplete print (only 3 of it's 6 reels were located) was found in New Zealand. A lot happens and this new version uses title cards to explain what's missing (most importantly the ending!). It's a tale of two sisters, one bad and one good both played by American actress Betty Compson. Murder, a case of mistaken identity (deliberately caused by the twins) and a gambling hall called "The Cat That Laughs" figure in the plot. Clive Brook (who played Sherlock Holmes in 3 early sound films) and Henry Victor (WHITE ZOMBIE) are also in it.

I found it ironic that I watched this after posting ESCORT GIRL which Compson (at the time of SHADOW a box office star) starred in many years later!

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Italy

L'AMORE-1948-This landmark film (actually two short films) by Italian neo-realist Robert Rossellini was banned in many parts of the US until a Supreme Court decision citing "artistic expression" was protected by "freedom of speech". The film is also a tribute/tour de force for it's star Anna Magnani. 

The first story is "The Human Voice" written by Jean Cocteau (based on his play). It's about a woman speaking on the phone to her lover who no longer loves her. It takes place entirely in the woman's bedroom. The second story called "The Miracle"  (co-wrtten by Rosellini & Fredrico Fellini) is the one that caused the controversy. It concerns Nammi (Magnani again), a simple very religious peasant who meets a stranger (Fellini) she believes is St. Joseph.  He gives her too much wine and she passes out. When she awakens (and the stranger is gone) she goes on her way only to discover a few weeks later she is pregnent. She thinks it's immaculate conception but the town shuns her and later publicly humiliates her. She goes off alone and has her baby. The end.

Despite all the controversy the reason it was rarely seen for years had to do with a copyright on the Cocteau play.

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More Japan

OSAKA ELEGY-1936-Ayako (Isuzu Yamada; later in films by Kurosawa), a young woman who works as a phone operator for big pharmaceutical company lives with her younger sister and deadbeat father who'd been caught embezzling money from the company he used to work for. To raise the money to pay back the company, she leaves home and reluctantly becomes her boss's mistress. After the boss's wife catches them together a couple of times they break up. An ex-office co-worker Susumu wants to marry her but instead she becomes the mistress to another married man and sends money to her self-serving brother but her father steals it for himself. So she and Susumu can get married she tricks another married man into giving her money but he calls the cops and has her arrested. Dumped by her intended and ostracized by her stupid family Ayako goes off by herself (to prostitution? homelessness? a better life?). 

Interesting, well acted and directed early film (and first hit) from Japan's Kenji Mizoguchi (UGETSU, SANSHO THE BAILIFF). Takashi Shimura, the character actor later in GODZILLA and many films by Kurosawa has a small role.

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80 Steps To Newton

80 STEPS TO JONAH-1969-Chubby Wayne Newton plays Mark Winters, an itinerant worker involved in a car chase with police that ends in a crash. He's ok but the guy with him (Sal Mineo) dies. He's arrested but on his way to the hospital he jumps out of the ambulance and escapes into the Utah desert with his guitar in tow. After sleeping in a haystack he stumbles upon a special summer camp for blind children (including future TV kid stars Erin Moran and Brandon Cruz). The school is run by Tracey (Diana Ewing ) and Nonna (Jo Van Fleet, EAST OF EDEN). Using the name Jonah he becomes the resident handyman. R.G. Armstrong and Slim Pickens are the local police looking for him. Keenan Wynn is Barney Glover a gambling plainclothes detective. Nonna is just about the only person at the place who can see so she knows Jonah's secret. Butch Patrick (THE MUNSTERS) is a kid neighbor who can see.

Wayne and the kids sing "Tender Loving Care" while planting a garden. Meanwhile Tracey does a sculpture of Jonah and falls in love with him. She gets so excited she kisses the clay head! Newton croons several other songs (a couple which he co-wrote). Jonah does a lot of chores and the kids really like him but when he's shooting at a marauding mountain lion Kim (Moran) is accidentally shot in the leg. He fixes her and croons a song on the guitar. (Kim mentions something about strange noises right after this) From the weird bust Tracey made Glover deduces that Jonah is Mark and arrests him. A flashback which features Mickey Rooney as a drunk shows how Mark/Jonah/Newt was held up by knife toting Jerry (Mineo) and caused the car crash. Fortunately Mickey shows up in the present to exonerate Jonah so he can return to Tracey and the kids and build a merry go round.

This tearjerker, feel good movie was directed by busy TV director Gerd Oswald between making episodes of GENTLE BEN and IT TAKES A THIEF after working on THE OUTER LIMITS and movies like A KISS BEFORE DYING and AGENT FOR H.A.R.M.

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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 he gets rid of her because he's expecting another 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.

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