Film Reviews by Steve

Deliciously wicked gothic melodrama with two of Boris Karloff’s very best screen performances. He plays the good/bad twins, in dispute over a family curse which ordains that the younger Baron will kill the older and so end the wealth and privilege of the dynasty.

And as the tyrannical aristocrat ultimately impersonates his enlightened brother, Karloff completely dominates in his dual role. This is a short, low budget programmer, so there is a minor support cast, though Marian Marsh is appealing as the beautiful heiress coveted by the evil twin.

Yet, the production appears lavish. Roy William Neill extracts maximum value out of the old dark castle in middle Europe, with the downtrodden citizens primed to turn into an angry mob. The black room is the secret dungeon where bad-Karloff hides the bodies.

Quite endearingly the hero turns out to be good-Karloff’s faithful mastiff! Old Hollywood made many of these creepy historical melodramas. Not really horror but with a touch of the macabre and the transgressive, usually with an ostentatious star. And Karloff makes this one of the more successful. 

Bittersweet musical romance which is so memorable because it is all sung, like an opera, and for the ultra-vivid set design of stripes and floral patterns in primary colours, like a sweetshop in a fairytale. Catherine Deneuve is the ultimate gamine in a role which made her a star outside of France.

She plays a 16 year old who falls for a young mechanic (Nino Castelnuovo). When he is sent to the war in Algeria, they drift apart and reluctantly make new lives which will never replace the rapture of first love. While the story is captivating and the performances are charming, it’s the staging which makes this so different.

It’s like a lovely enchantment. The speak-sung dialogue occasionally coalesces into a romantic ballad; I Will Wait for You was nominated for an Oscar and is now a standard. Michel Legrand scores the film with cool jazz and sweet, yearning, ameliorating strings…

…While the happiness of the teenage lovers slips out of reach, forever. As the dream is lost, we feel the weight of our own memories. There really is nothing else like this- well apart from Jacques Demy’s own imitation, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), also with Deneuve. But this is far better!

As Pier Paolo Pasolini was a Marxist, who better to tell the life story of history’s most prominent anti-capitalist? The writer/director was also an atheist so he emphasises the political role of Jesus of Nazareth. There is an impression of how subversive is Matthew's gospel and its philosophy.

But we still see the miracles. This isn’t an attempt to explain the New Testament in purely naturalistic terms. The Vatican has this listed among the best ever religious films. It’s presented as neorealism, and the dialogue is all taken from the text, as are the events. There is a non professional cast, led by a university professor (Enrique Irazoqui) as Jesus.

It’s a challenge to watch in several ways. Irazoqui rigidly declaims the famous lines without nuance or feeling. The constant use of metaphor and allegory grows laborious…The b&w photography is deliberately stark like newsreel footage, which gets wearisome. There is no craft. The budget is ostentatiously minuscule.

Though, of course, that’s the point. This is an attempt to present the life of Jesus plausibly, simply and without awe. And imply how like Marxism the revolutionary lessons of the gospels are. And on those terms this is exceptional. And yes, the greatest version of this story ever told on the big screen.  

Spooky voodoo shocker inspired by popular US news articles of the 1930s which claimed to expose sinister witchcraft on the Caribbean islands. Dorothy Burgess plays a Spanish woman brought up among these superstitions. She marries a New York businessman (Jack Holt), but continually feels the pull of her origins.

Only she now has a family. Fay Wray comes back to the old plantation with them, mainly because she is a horror star. She doesn’t even get to scream. Roy William Neill directs with his usual feel for atmosphere, with the colour tints, the shadows and the sound of the drums…

Some of this will now set off alarms for its portrayal of race. On the other hand, the white colonials are defined as brutal oppressors and the voodoo a justifiable means of resistance. Though not the murders. Its release was squeezed in just before the enforcement of the Production Code in 1934…

And there is a fair amount of precode exotica. So we see Burgess’ hot voodoo dance in a sexy tribal two-piece. She haunts the whole film from her supporting role. This is for those of us who prefer their ’30s horror without monsters, but with a little psychological deviance.  

IT'S LOVE AGAIN.

Classy screwball musical from Gaumont which is bathed in the lustre of Jessie Matthews' stellar performance. She (yet again) plays a singer/dancer struggling to break into showbiz. Co-star Robert Young is a gossip columnist who fills space with made-up stories about a madcap socialite called Mrs Smythe-Smythe.

Jessie steps into the role of the fake celebrity and becomes famous for being famous. She performs a few excellent song and dance numbers in cute '30s fashions. The costume and set design is by veterans of German cinema and some of the crew would later get Oscar recognition. This brims with quality.

The actors squeeze all the laughs out of a witty screwball script. Jessie is superb at the comedy and matched by a decent leading man. There's the obvious influence of Hollywood musicals. It was released in the US, but these scanty costumes must have challenged the censorship.

Matthews' elocution lessons left her with an old fashioned faux-posh speaking voice and her high vocal range was already dated in the age of jazz. But she has charisma to burn; and one of cinema's most adorable overbites! It's the pick of '30s British musicals, and compares with the best of Hollywood too.

WALTZES FROM VIENNA.

This is a real oddity, a musical from the Master of Suspense. Alfred Hitchcock described it as the lowest point in his career, and yet it was released earlier the same year his long gestation as director finally matured with The Man Who Knew too Much. At the time it was more of a vehicle for British musical star, Jessie Matthews.

Only Hitch cut her songs- save one- and she has no dance routines. They hated each other, which is a shame because she would have been ideal in his '30s screwball-thrillers. What this is, most of all, is one of many classical biopics made in Britain in the early ‘30s.

There's a fictional account of Johann Strauss jr’s composition of the Blue Danube in 19th century Vienna, and a comic love triangle with Matthews as a precocious baker’s daughter and Fay Compton as an aristocrat looking to sponsor male talent… Edmond Knight lacks charm as the king of the waltz. Edmond Gwenn barely registers as Strauss sr.

Only Jessie catches the eye with her gift for comedy, and she looks lovely in the romantic gowns. There are a couple of visual flourishes from Hitch. The sets and costumes are lavish and this is decent compared with other period musicals made in Britain in the ‘30s. But it is the best work of no one involved. Maybe an ok time-killer for fans of the music.

****/*

YOU'RE TELLING ME!

This is the picture which allowed WC Fields creative control of his sound comedies for the first time, and established the formula which would make him a cinema legend. He is the browbeaten husband of an exasperated wife (Louis Carter), who medicates his disappointment with whisky and daydreams.

His other solace is a grown up daughter (Joan Marsh) who loves him, otherwise the set up would be too sad for comedy. Here he is a part-time deviser of crackpot gadgets whose child is overlooked for marriage by the rich family of a preppy hunk (Buster Crabbe) because Fields lacks social position.

Only a sad Russian princess (Adrienne Ames) encounters the hapless inventor on a train and kindly visits his home town to boost his status in the community. But the plot is the least successful part of the film. The appeal comes from the diminished status of the great comedian within his home.

And this is really, very funny with one or two moments of precious hilarity. But there is genuine pathos too. A few of the star’s routines from the silents are recycled, which was standard. The screen legacy of WC Fields effectively starts here with his first truly essential sound film.

MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE.

WC Fields retains Kathleen Howard from It's a Gift as his shrewish wife, but this time has a more loving daughter (Mary Brian) to sweeten the dish. It's a Gift is hilarious, but awfully cold. Again there's a collection of sketches arranged around a loose narrative. Ambrose Wolfinger just wants to go to the wrestling...  

The best episode is the opener when the great man is forced into the cellar by his wife to confront two burglars who are getting mellowly drunk on his applejack. Fields, the intruders and a cop end up harmonising sentimental Irish ballads. For all of them, this is brief moment of respite, seized from the hell of domesticity.

 It's such a funny film because Fields' comic persona is so identifiable. His interminable suffering is revealed so succinctly, with a sudden nervous reflex or a mumbled aside. He has grown to accept his malign fate. And there's nothing he can do about it.  

Fields is always doing what he is asked, however absurd. Then is admonished when the outcome proves to be unsatisfactory. He acts without complaint or hope, and then gets nailed for it. And who doesn't know how that feels?! This is my pick as his best film. 

This is a coming together of two superstars of post-WWII French cinema. It’s a thriller directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, the other master of suspense. And there’s a change of direction for screen icon Brigitte Bardot who does juvenile tragedy in a realistic, seedy b&w Paris.

And she’s a revelation as a wild, provincial teenager who escapes her suffocating parents to live among the Bohemians of the student quarter. And who is charged with the murder of her ex-lover (Sami Frey). BB is deglamorised, but obviously still looks amazing despite the rags and the grime.

It’s a courtroom drama, with Clouzot regulars Charles Varnel (for the defence) and Paul Meurisse (the prosecution). Plus the flashbacks to the cold water bedsits and shabby coffee bars. But actually it’s about the generations; the friction between the conservative old men of the court, and the young, permissive undergraduates.

There is plenty of relishable atmosphere of sleazy, boho Paris. The film is overextended to give us much more of the star. And we don’t get the big final twist standard with this director. But it’s still fascinating, both as Clouzot thriller and an offbeat vehicle for Bardot. 

One of the best historical romantic melodramas ever made. It’s adapted from an 18th century play (by Monzaemon Chikamatsu) set in feudal Japan about a careless, dishonourable merchant in calendars (Eitarô Shindô) who falsely charges his principal designer (Kazoo Hasegawa) of an affair with his wife (Kyôko Kagawa).

And this is a time when adultery is punished by death. Against a background of self-seeking courtly intrigue, the two accused innocents flee Kyoto into the mountains to rely on the kindness of strangers. While the arrogant husband schemes to save face by bringing her back alone.

But ironically, the fugitives fall deeply in love, with a bravery and decency which gives their life (brief) meaning and joy. A passion for the ages, which will never be forgotten. If the feckless husband hadn’t been bereft of wisdom… the lovers would never have found each other. And willingly died together.

Hasegawa and Kagawa are heartbreaking in the title roles. This is Kenji Mizoguchi’s masterpiece, and as always, it is visually exquisite. It’s a haunting, poetic romance which fulfils the thematic diktats of the post-WWII US occupation- particularly regarding the traditional status of women- yet feels entirely authentic. 

Haunting, downbeat and largely plotless arthouse expressionism, which is more engaging than that sounds! Though it’s set among the left behind rural poor, this isn’t political neorealism, but a reflection on the interior emptiness of an aimless drifter as he adapts to a new reality of being alone.

This is the greyest film ever made! The dense, polluted fog of the Po Valley weighs heavily on the disillusioned wanderer… and the audience! It’s a philosophical mood piece which establishes Michelangelo Antonioni's signature themes of isolation and alienation.

It feels odd that Hollywood film noir heavy Steve Coogan plays this hollow man who can find no solace or meaning. On the road he encounters women who are also distressed by the existential fog. Dorian Gray (maybe cast for her surname!) as a sexually frustrated petrol station attendant is particularly memorable.

And Lyn Shaw as a heartbreaking sex worker. They are all lost souls adrift of politics and commerce. Nothing much happens except the protagonist is slowly submerged in his grey despair. The melancholy piano scores his fading sense of purpose until the inevitable conclusion. This is gloomy stuff; even for Antonioni. 

Impeccably liberal parable about race from Stanley Kramer which doesn’t quite capitalise on its interesting- if obvious- premise. Sidney Poitier plays a persecuted, resentful African-American convict, and Tony Curtis… a shack-raised southern bigot. Naturally, during a prison transfer they escape, except chained together.

And they have to learn to co-operate for their common purpose. Which is one of the most famous set-ups in pictures. And it really works for 30 minutes while they get the measure of each other… The stars are fine and the quarrelling of the chasing posse inputs some knockabout comedy.

But the story gets lost in a couple of subplots- including Curtis bunking up with a lonely farm widow (Oscar nominated Cara Williams)- which are poorly developed and scripted. The realism is subordinate to the liberal message, and soon it all begins to feel contrived.

 It’s implausible that the violent, intractable criminals should so readily open up… Until it becomes probably that Kramer is suggesting they are linked not just by economic and social oppression, but their sexuality… It’s impossible to be critical of the director’s intentions, but this civil rights classic now feels too simplistic.

MILLION DOLLAR LEGS

This anarchic comedy was scripted (mainly by Joe Mankiewicz) for the Marx Brothers, who turned it down. And every scene is obviously intended for them, which already makes this an eccentric film. And also exposes just how crucial gag writers are to the public’s favourite comic acts.

Paramount instead cast an assortment of ex-silent comedians (like crosseyed Ben Turpin), led by Broadway star Jack Oakie. Though, of these, only WC Fields is a farceur on the level of the Marx Brothers, and shares their gift for the surreal. There always was some crossover between he and Groucho. Consider their lists of character names.

This is Fields’ first sound film at the studio and he plays the President of the middle European state of Klopstokia who wants to squeeze more money out of the peasants. A visiting US salesperson (Okie) convinces him instead to enter the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932, because their citizens all have an exaggerated sporting talent.

The President is their strongman. There are some crazy laughs in the early scenes, though the screen is burdened with too much Okie (and low-watt glamour from Susan Fleming, Harpo’s wife…) and not enough Fields. Eventually, it gets tiresome but may be of interest to fans of the absurdist comedy which survives in the margins of studio era Hollywood.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE

Crazy, precode Paramount revue which is an irreverent run out for the studio’s vaudeville talent, linked by a loose plot about them travelling to China to invest in… television! Most film fans will watch this for the early sound appearance by WC Fields, who is the best on show.

 And there is some delightful comedy from George Burns and Gracie Allen. Rudy Vallee croons a romantic ballad. Of course, some of the acts are forgotten now. Most baffling is Baby Rose Marie, a pre-teen moppet with a Louise Brooks haircut who belts it out while standing on a piano.

Top billed is Peggy Hopkins Joyce, who was a celebrity for marrying millionaires and a model for Lorelei Lee in Anita Loos’ novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She is disappointingly frumpy, but in a platinum blonde wig. Certainly no Marilyn Monroe. Some topical gags are lost in the winds of time.

There’s fun to be had with the precode innuendo, and the sexy showgirl glamour of a Busby Berkeley pastiche. We may pinch ourselves as Cab Callaway sings Reefer Man! And look… there’s Bela Lugosi. It’s just a showcase for Paramount contract curiosities, but better than usual for this sort of thing.

THE MAN FROM TORONTO

Naturally... the best thing about this British social comedy is Jessie Matthews. The presentation is static, even for the period, and the journeyman director (Sinclair Hill) doesn’t show much aptitude for opening up the source stage play for the screen. The cast is just lined up in front of the camera. Though the actors gives it their best shot.

And not only the star… Matthews captivates as the headstrong, materialistic it-girl promised a tidy inheritance if she weds the title character. But Ian Hunter is serviceable as her romantic foil. Margaret Yarde is fine as the stately frump he thinks he has to marry. And Frederick Kerr excels as the irascible solicitor trying to push through the will.

Still, it’s Jessie who keeps it buoyant when the standard screwball situations stall. She impersonates a maid to get to know her potential husband, and learns a little about how the other classes live. There are no musical numbers; this is straight comedy. Instead… there is some surprising, censor-rattling glamour!

The satire about the enthusiasm of the rich for the poor to preserve the ancient rural traditions that oppressed them for centuries, still engages. Of course, it’s dated, but the privileges of class are scrutinised more than usual for the period. Even so, it’s difficult to imagine anyone will come to this now for any reason other than the cult of its star.

HEAD OVER HEELS.

Frothy musical romcom which stars Jessie Matthews still at her absolute zenith, though there are signs that Gaumont Studios are in decline. Compared with her previous few films, there is a lesser director, as husband Sonnie Hale takes charge for the first of three screen collaborations..

This looks low budget, but Hale actually directs pretty well. And there are excellent songs by a duo of Oscar winning Hollywood composers. The script is witty, with funny Music Hall style gags. The support cast is capable, featuring real-life American aristo Whitney Bourne, who brings some icy blonde glamour.

Of course, this is primarily a vehicle for Jessie, and she sparkles, particularly at the screwball comedy. Her dated singing style is still fine, and she's a quality dancer, even if the the choreography is scaled down. The plot is basic. A Parisian nightclub performer must choose between two men...

Louis Borel and Robert Flemyng contrast nicely as the lovers and there are some cute insights into the nature of romantic love for women in the '30s. Matthews plays quite a headstrong woman... But this isn't Ibsen! While it might not compare with contemporary Hollywood on resources, Jessie's star quality still makes it special.

Classic German expressionism based on Maurice Renard’s famous French horror serial about a concert pianist who loses his hands in a train crash… which are replaced by grafts from an executed knife murderer. So the musician begins to feel controlled by violent, homicidal impulses.

Only it’s so much weirder than that… and grotesque. The screen is dominated by Conrad Veidt as Orlac, driven to obsessive insanity by his psychological rejection of the transplant. Of course, this is an expressionist performance typical of silent horror and sometimes it feels like watching interpretive dance!

Still, Veidt is phenomenal and the main attraction. Admittedly, anyone not fascinated by his portrayal may find this slow, as the narrative dwells on his hallucinatory anguish. Fritz Kortner is convincingly repellent as the blackmailer who persuades the ex-maestro that his new hands are responsible for another killing.

The expressionist set design isn’t as extreme as director Robert Wiene’s earlier The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), but still deeply evocative. And the film is darkly transgressive. It feels a happy miracle that this landmark gothic tale was adapted at such an auspicious time in cinema history. 

Creaky, exotic curiosity from the brief horror boom which lasted from the release of Dracula in 1931 to the enforcement of the Production Code in 1934. There are moments that have to be seen to be believed. Especially the jaw dropping opening scene. And the death of the hunter’s wife…

You have been warned! However, there is far too much comic relief padding out the transgressive grotesquery, courtesy of Charles Ruggles as the alcoholic press agent of a US zoo… which has taken a shipment of wild animals from the mysterious east captured by an insane trapper (Lionel Atwill)...

...Whose beasts kill anyone who stands against him! Or flirts with his attractive wife (Kathleen Burke). There’s an agreeably deviant shocker squeezed in among the buffoonery. Atwill stands out in the horror role, and Randolph Scott and Gail Patrick are fine as the attractive toxicologists searching for an antidote for snake venom…

But there’s an excess of Ruggles, even in such a slender running time. And there is rather more of the animals than seems reasonable, now that everyone has seen plenty of tigers and alligators. It’s a lesser precode horror which is obviously dated, but fun, and quite stylishly directed by Edward Sutherland. 

By 1932 Jessie Matthews was a star of the London stage, but not yet on the big screen. This dated musical-comedy is her first hit. She isn’t quite the vivacious screwball talent she would soon become, but almost everything that is worthwhile about this early talkie is down to her magnetism. 

There’s a standard romcom scenario, borrowed from a 1931 German picture. Jessie is due to be married (to Basil Radford!) as a makeweight in her father’s business shenanigans. So she skips off to Paris where she hides out with a respectable bachelor (Owen Nares) and they and everyone else behaves according to the crazy rules of farce.

Mainly because it is so catastrophic for a gentleman to have a young woman in his apartment… Director Albert de Courville is competent, but hardly has the Lubitsch touch. Owen Nares is inert as the male romantic lead. Roland Culver is fine as the drunken toff, in what used to be called the ‘silly arse’ role.

Only Matthews makes this much more than social history. She’s not quite there as a comedy actor- too much big eyes! Her voice is impaired by the compulsory elocution of the period. She doesn’t get to dance… She isn’t even well styled. But her charisma miraculously gives the thing life. She’s just got it.