Dark Bogart

 

 imdb)

DARK PASSAGE-1947-Escape convict Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) is helped by painter Irene Janson (Lauren Bacall). It's all a mystery to him. She says she thinks he got a raw deal at his trial. Parry plans to have plastic surgery. He discovers that a woman (Anges Moorehead) who testified against him knows Irene and also a guy named Bob (Bruce Bennett). There are a few twists and turns and a nightmare sequence, but the strange part is the Parry character. The first part is shown from a POV shot, then he's seen with bandages. Finally, Bogart is seen and everything is revealed. Wonder how many name stars would have accepted this kind of role? 

Different type of film noir from co-writer- director Delmar Daves who made the equally mysterious THE RED HOUSE with Edward G. Robinson the same year. Co-writer David Goodis wrote the novel the film is based on. Years later when the ABC series “The Fugitive” debuted, Goodis sued the production company saying the TV show was based on his novel “Dark Passage”. The suit dragged on long after Goodis' death in 1967 and was finally settled in 1972. French new wave director Francois Truffaut based his film SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER on the Goodis novel “Down There”.

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Wood Bait

 

 (imdb)

JAILBAIT-1954-Weird guitar & piano music is the only soundtrack. Police arrest Don Gregor (Clancy Malone, a former delivery boy in his one and only movie) for carrying an unlicensed gun. His sister Marilyn (Dolores Fuller) bails him out and defends him against the warnings of Inspector Johns (Lyle Talbot) and Lt. Lawrence (Steve Reeves). "How can a great doctor have such a jerk for a son?". Their father is Dr. Gregor (Herbert Rawlinson), a famous plastic surgeon, who doesn't seem too concerned despite knowing sonny is involved with gangster Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell). He does get upset when he finds Don has taken his gun. Later Don and Brady rob a movie theater for its payroll and Don kills the night watchman (Bud Osbourne) while Brady shoots a female employee (Mona McKinnon). Later the dumb but deadly duo hideout at the home of Loretta (Tedi Thurman), Brady's girlfriend. Don's conscience gets the best of him and he confesses everything to dad and promises to give himself up. After Brady kills Don he sort of forces the doctor to give him a new face which he does. One that ensures he'll be captured by the police. 

Wood regulars Don Nagel and Conrad Brooks have small roles but Timothy Farrell steals the show as the sleazy Brady who says thing like “You're a dumb dame” and “Shut up you”. Herbert Rawlinson was suffering from advanced lung cancer during the production and died just a few days after it's completion. The flamenco guitar and piano soundtrack was taken from MESA OF LOST WOMEN (1953). Some versions feature a black face routine dance number also from another film.

Ed Wood's next film would be BRIDE OF THE MONSTER!

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Cobra Chan

THE SHANGHAI COBRA-1945-Charlie Chan is called in by an old friend to help stop “The Cobra Killer” who uses snake venom. All three victims worked for the same bank. Chan relates a flashback at the bombing of Shanghai when he assisted in the arrest of a murderer named Jan Van Horn who's disfigured during the bombings. Unfortunately Van Horn escaped and has a new face. The president of the bank Fletcher (Ray Gordon) seems a likely subject because of a white streak in his hair (Van Horn had one too). Chan also checks up on a stock of radium the bank has. 

Later he investigates PI Ned Stewart (James Cardwell) who was hired by a mysterious Mr. Rodgers to shadow a woman, Paula Webb (Joan Barclay) who seems to have some connection to a bank guard (Addison Richards). Then a police detective posing as a janitor (Cyril Delavanti) disappears. Morgan (Gene Roth) and Taylor (Joe Devlin) are two suspicious characters hanging around. Tommy (Benson Fong) and Birmingham Brown (Mantan Moreland) get into some trouble in the sewer beneath the bank but do help out a bit. After almost dying in a sewer cave-in Charlie exposes the ringleader. James Flavin and George Chandler have small roles.

Director Phil Karlson made DARK ALIBI the next year and KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL and THE PHENIX CITY STORY, a TV movie ALEXANDER THE GREAT with William Shatner & Adam West, two Matt Helm-Dean Martin entries and WALKING TALL.

Next up: DARK ALIBI:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4609335177952045780/7392331601685477603?hl=en

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Ma Barker

MA BARKER'S KILLER BROOD-1960-Lurene Tuttle (Mrs. Chambers in PSYCHO the same year) is the infamous lady gangster who raises her kids to be killer/bank robbers after training them to steal from their church's collection plate. She's very mean and calls her oldest son Herman (Don Grady; later in TV's MY THREE SONS) a sissy because he plays the violin (which she smashes). She seems to be so mean and violent because she had to wear homemade “bloomers” when she was young! When her husband protests and lectures her she just laughs at me and throws him out. She plots several heists with her “young-uns” but the sheriff runs them out of town. 

By 1933 she has trained her 4 sons to rob an armored car. Grown up Herman (Donald Spruance) is suppose to kill the guard but loses his nerve and Mom has to run the guard over (twice!) but takes time to slap Herman a few times. Her other “boys” are Doc (Ron Foster), Lloyd (Rex Holman) and Fred (Eric Morris). She sets up a kidnapping for Machine Gun Kelly (Vic Lunden; later The Lobster Man in an episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA). Myrna Dell plays his girlfriend. Ma throws a party where Baby Face Nelson (Robert Kendall) and John Dillinger (Eric Sinclair) show up and son Lloyd and his date (Ginny Barry) sing “Little Joe Carew”. Paul Dubov plays Alvin Karpis, a killer who joins the gang. Tristram Coffin is Ma's second husband a drunk who they force to play Russian roulette (he loses) after he squeals. When the gang kidnaps a banker their trouble starts. Stupidly, Ma hires a sadistic alcoholic doctor (the great character actor Byron Foulger) to change one son's fingerprints and face. When it doesn't work they set him on fire! She's eventually machine gunned by federal agents in Florida where one of the agents compares her to the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. 

The story ends with scenes from another movie and a narrator quoting The Bible. MA BARKER was directed Bill Karns who one year later made 5 MINUTES TO LIVE with Johnny Cash as a psycho hit man. His other output seemed to be devoted to the 1954 TV version of GANGBUSTERS and it's subsequent movie. 

MB isn't bad as a low budget crime drama but it is nasty and violent for the time. The acting and hateful dialogue Ma spouts is very good. The story is choppy though: the fates of two sons are kind of forgotten about until the narration at the end and two bank robbery scenes are suddenly narrated by Ma as if perhaps originally she was suppose to tell the story. I was also shocked at one point in the final shoot out when it sounds like Ma says “I kill ya, ya fuckers”! But re-listening she actually says “ya butchers”... 

“None left his mark. Each left his stain”, so says the sexist narrator...

Myron Healy has an unbilled role as a bank robber. Music composer Gene Kauer's score was also used later in THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS. 

Like many crime dramas of time (and even now) based on real characters this is fictitious. In fact the real Ma Barker is considered to have only been a willing accomplice to her sons' crimes not the criminal mastermind she has been made out to be. Much of her notorious reputation was probably the work of J. Edgar Hoover to minimize the FBI's actions of shooting an old lady.

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3 Quickies. It's a Busy Weekend!

CINDERELLA-2006-This is not based on the famous fairy tale that features evil step sisters. This is a Korean made sort of horror film about a girl named Hyunsu who’s mother is a plastic surgeon. She does cosmetic surgery on some of her friends who eventually wind up dead. It has some good effects but overall the plot is con,-fusing and the ending is a disappointment.



A DIRTY CARNIVAL-2006-This is an very well made Scorese’ influenced South Korean gangster film. Byung-doo is a low level mobster who seems more like a doormat than a thug but after murdering a lawyer for a his boss he slowly and viciously gains more power and becomes more ruthless. His childhood friend who is now a filmmaker uses Byung’s knowledge to make his own gangster film and this causes problems. There’s several violent fights but it was a little too long for me.



THE TALL T-1957-Randolph Scott is a loner cowboy who runs up against outlaw Richard Boone and his two goons (Skip Homeier & Henry Silva) when hitching a stage coach ride with some newlyweds (Maureen O’Sullivan & John Hubbard). This is the second of seven “adult” westerns Scott made with director Budd Boetticher from 1956-1960. It’s psychological, violent and very cool! Arthur Hunnicutt is a doomed stage driver. Burt Kennedy wrote the script based on a story by Elmore Leonard.

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Rock is Reborn!

SECONDS-1966-Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph), a successful bank executive feels his life has lost it’s meaning. He is persuaded by an old friend (Murray Hamilton) he long thought dead to seek out an agency known only as “The Company” and become “reborn”. Through plastic surgery and other unexplained medical procedures they will provide him with a new body, face and identity for a fee. When he at first balks at the idea he is kind of blackmailed into signing. He becomes a well known painter Tony Wilson (now portrayed by Rock Hudson). He has a house in Malibu and a helpful manservant (Wesley Addy). He meets Nora (Salome Jens from TERROR IN THE YEAR 5000 AD!) and she takes him to a wild hippie party where he’s stripped naked and has wine or something poured over him. He seems fine with Nora and his new career and life until he gets drunk at a party and begins to blab about his former life. It turns out all his neighbors are “reborns” and even Nora is working for The Company. Wilson decides his new persona isn’t for him and asks The Company to make him “reborn again”. This leads to complications as Wilson realizes it’s not what he expects it to be.

Will Geer plays the old man who seems to be behind it all and Richard Anderson is the doctor who does the operation. Jeff Corey, Khigh Dhiegh, Karl Swenson, Edger Stehli and Frank Campanella all have small but key roles. Although there’s a lot of talk and soul searching it’s handled very well.

SECONDS was directed by John Frankenhiemer after his blockbusters BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, SEVEN DAYS IN MAY and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. It did poorly but has become something of a cult film and a reexamination of the film has brought about some (deservedly) good reviews. It’s excellent black and white photography is by veteran James Wong Howe. It’s based on a novel by David Ely.

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Seems Like Hammer But It Isn't...

CORRUPTION-1968-Sleazy familiar horror tale features Peter Cushing as a famous surgeon engaged to a equally famous model (Sue Lloyd). Kate O’Mara plays her sister. At a weird swinging party Cushing has a fight with his wife’s photographer and a spotlight falls on her, scarring her face. Cushing becomes obsessed with finding a cure and eventually he does when he transplants a gland from a deceased patient into her. It works for a while but when it finally fails the good doc surmises that he needs a gland from a living person. You know the rest of the story. He has to kill to get the gland but it still doesn’t last so he has to kill some more.

Eventually Cushing really loses it and cuts off a women’s head and puts in the freezer and then brutally kills a female house-guest (she was going to be a new victim anyway…). In a strange twist the dead houseguest’s husband and his “gang” show up and terrorize the couple for a few scenes. The whacked out ending features a laser going crazy and everyone dies but when the smoke clears Cushing is still alive and the movie starts all over again!!

I guess the ending was a dream since Cushing’s character mentions to his wife that he slept longer than he wanted to. Either that or he’s in hell reliving his life over…???

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Great Eyes!

EYES WITHOUT A FACE-1960-It’s cool to see this intriguing French art film with horror trappings restored to it’s original version with English sub-titles, after only seeing it cut and dubbed on late night TV in the early ‘70’s.

A plastic surgeon tries to repair his daughter’s disfigured face (described by one character as “an open wound”). Unfortunately he must kill unsuspecting women to achieve this. The daughter (Edith Scob) usually wears a white faceless mask and doesn’t want her father to continue his “cure”. She only seems happy with the dogs her father keeps locked in the basement for experimental use. Alda Valdi (from THE THIRD MAN) plays the doctor’s assistant.

The director Georges Franju made other feature length films after this but at the time was known for a controversial short. He was known in France for co-founding the film archive Cinematheque Française.

EYES was released in the US (and on TV) under the more exploitable title THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS which probably disappointed a lot of horror fans who saw it.

"Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all."-George Washington

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