PEKING EXPRESS. Paramount Pictures, 1951. Joseph Cotten, Corinne Calvet, Edmund Gwenn, Marvin Miller, Benson Fong, Soo Yong. Director: William Dieterle.

   A remake of Shanghai Express (1932), William Dieterle’s Peking Express (1951) was apparently the first studio film to be set in Communist China. The plot follows humanitarian doctor Michael Bachlin (Joseph Cotton) as he attempts to make his way to Peking on a train to tend to an ill Chinese general. His traveling companions include his ex-lover, nightclub singer Danielle Grenier (Corrine Colvert), a priest (Edmund Gwenn), and Kwon (Marvin Miller), a seemingly mild-manner Westernized man attuned to world politics.

   Little does Bachlin know that Kwon is actually a ruthless bandit who deals in stolen pharmaceuticals in the supposedly non-existent black market.

   The movie has its fair share of action, but it’s extremely preachy as well and takes its good time to get going. It’s at least twenty to thirty minutes into the film before the viewer has some idea of who is important to the main thrust of the story and who isn’t.

   There’s also something very old fashioned about Peking Express that’s difficult to put into words, but easy to feel when watching. It almost feels like a silent film that came to full “talkie” life, if that makes any sense. Still, the train sequences are very well done and those who like movies set on trains will find a lot to appreciate here.

   Overall, a solid adventure film that benefits from a professional cast who took their roles seriously. But it’s nothing you’re going to want to watch a second time. It just doesn’t have enough energy for that.

CALCUTTA. Paramount Pictures, 1946. Alan Ladd, Gail Russell, William Bendix, June Duprez. Directed by John Farrow.

   While definitely not one of the better known films Alan Ladd ever starred in, Calcutta (1946) definitely punches above its weight and is well worth a look. Similar to the other exotic location films Ladd starred in throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Ladd portrays an adventurer who is caught up in a whirlwind of crime and intrigue.

   When Neale Gordon (Ladd), a commercial pilot in post-WW2 India, learns that his colleague and friend Bill Cunningham was strangled in a Calcutta back alley, he becomes determined to solve the case on his own. Along for the ride is fellow pilot Pedro Blake (William Bendix).

   The main problem that Gordon encounters is that everyone he meets could potentially be a suspect, including the lovely Virginia Moore (Gail Russell), Cunningham’s fiancee. And that is what makes Calcutta work. There are layers upon layers of intrigue, suspicious characters with ulterior motives, and men and women with dubious intentions. The film captures the mood of post-WW2 Asia very well. The Japanese have been defeated, but what comes next?

   In some ways, Calcutta reminded me of The Maltese Falcon (1941). No, it’s not nearly as good a film and Ladd isn’t Bogart. But there’s a similarity in the sense that, at some point, the labyrinthian plot doesn’t matter as much as the characters and the atmosphere. That’s definitely true for this John Farrow-directed feature.

BILLY BUDD. Allied Artists, 1962. Robert Ryan, Terrence Stamp, Peter Ustinov, Melvyn Douglas, John Neville, David McCallum, Lee Montague, and Niall MacGinnis. Adapted by Peter Ustinov, DeWitt Bodeen, and Robert Rossen, from the novel by Herman Melville. Produced & directed by Peter Ustinov.

   I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating: “If you only see one movie in your entire life, it should be… Chamber of Horrors” (Warners, 1966).

   But if you think you could possibly stretch it to Two, you could do a lot worse than Billy Budd.

   Actor/writer/producer/director Ustinov shaped Melville’s ponderous novella into a compelling fable of Good vs Evil, played to perfection by Terrence Stamp as Billy, the ingenuous merchant seaman pressed into the Royal Navy, and Robert Ryan as Claggett, the sadistic Master-at-Arms who sets out to destroy him.

   It’s a film that works on many levels, mostly because Ustinov chose to write it that way. The story of Budd and Claggett plays out against a backdrop of colorfully painted characters, all the way from Ustinov’s cautious Captain, down to Melvyn Douglas’ thoughtful sail-mender, with stops along the way for class-conscious officers, scrappy sailors, squealers, and entry-level killers.

   The conflict that plays out against this background is not so much a clash of personalities as it is one of alternative realities. Budd is so genuinely guileless and decent that he quickly becomes beloved by his crewmates and respected by his superiors. Claggett, on the other hand, lives on hate. He breathes it in and out as decent men breathe air. And when he and Billy confront each other — in a brilliantly imagined and deftly played scene — it’s Claggett who wavers. And Billy who pays the price.

   Ustinov also owes a debt of gratitude to Producer Ustinov for getting most of this filmed outdoors on shipboard (or a reasonable facsimile) with a minimum of fakey process shots. The total effect is to demystify the tale and lend the natural power of the Seas to its telling.

GYPSY WILDCAT. Universal Pictures, 1944. Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Peter Coe, Nigel Bruce, Leo Carrillo, Gale Sondergaard, Douglass Dumbrille. Screenplay: James Hogan, Gene Lewis, and James M. Cain. Director: Roy William Neill.

   Filmed in lush Technicolor, Roy William Neill’s Gypsy Wildcat stars Maria Montez and Jon Hall in a fun escapist adventure movie. Montez, as the Gypsy girl Carla, captivates the audience with her beauty and charm. Jon Hall, as Michael, provides the story with a male love interest for our exotic leading lady.

   In terms of plot, Gypsy Wildcat may ultimately not add up to all that much. Falsely accused of murdering Count Orso, Michael (Hall) shacks up with a Gypsy caravan. On his trail is the mischievous Baron Tovar (Douglass Dumbrille) who seeks to not only capture Michael, but to marry Carla and steal her royal birthright. It’s Robin Hood, Errol Flynn type of fare and nothing that requires too much thought.

   What struck me the most was how absolutely saturated in color the movie turned out to be. Whether it is a Gypsy festival at the beginning of the film or a choreographed fight sequence, color schemes play a vital role in bringing this film to life. It makes for a highly enjoyable viewing experience. Which, of course, was the whole point of this production.

   While the ending is both way too abrupt and predictable, most of the storyline is seamless and works quite well. Of note, hardboiled writer James M. Cain is one of three writers credited with the screenplay. But don’t let that fool you. The material here is lighthearted and not even remotely noir.

   A final word. It’s long been my contention that Roy William Neill remains one of the most underappreciated directors of his era. Much like The Black Room, which I reviewed here a decade ago, Gypsy Wildcat punches well above its weight, thanks to a director who took the subject matter seriously.

ROLE PLAY. Amazon MGM Studios via Prime Video; 12 January 2024. Kaley Cuoco (Emma Brackett), David Oyelowo (Dave Brackett), Bill Nighy, Connie Nielsen. Directed by Thomas Vincent, written by Seth Owen.

   The Bracketts, Emma and David, are an ordinary mixed-race couple, with a couple of kids, but with a difference. He’s an ordinary husband, but she (Kelly Cuoco, previously of The Big Bang Theory) has a secret. She travels a lot, but she is not taking ordinary (boring) business trips, which is what she tells her husband. No, how she adds to the family’s mortgage account is by being a hitwoman. An assassin for hire.

   So she has a lot of things on her mind. Not only her job, but making sure her husband has no clue what her job is. It is no surprise that when she comes home from one of her “business” trips, she has committed the ultimate sin. She has forgotten their anniversary. Dave is forgiving, but they decide as a couple that their marriage needs some spicing up.

   The idea they come up with to accomplish this is the following plan. They will travel to New York, register separately under different names, planning to meet “accidentally” in the hotel bar, and spent an “illicit” night together.

   This is what is called role play.  You may have indulged in it yourself.

   Things go awry quickly. David is late in arriving, and while Emma is waiting for him in a bar, an elderly gentleman (Bill Nighy) starts chatting her up. In an ordinary way, but gradually with more and more of an edge. Menacing, even. Emma senses something is up, and before the night is over, the elderly gentleman is dead.

   This is maybe 20 to 30 minutes into the movie, no more than that, and from that moment on, the movie has nowhere in particular to go. Billed as an action comedy, it is in fact neither. The two leads have no particular chemistry together, and try as hard as I could, I could not convince myself that Kelly Cuoco (of The Big Bang Theory) is at all convincing as a hit woman for hire. The end result is amusing at best, but far from essential, even for fans of either of the two leading players.

   Your opinion, of course, may differ.

SLAVOMIR RAWICZ – The Long Walk. Constable, UK, hardcover, 1956. Lyons Press, hardcover, 1997. Reprinted several times.

THE WAY BACK. Exclusive Films, 2010. Dragos Bucur, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Alexandru Potocean, Saoirse Ronan Saoirse, Gustaf Skarsgård, Mark Strong, Jim Sturgess. Written & directed by Peter Weir, from the book by Slavomir Rawicz.

   I think it was back in 1998 when I first encountered The Long Walk in a new edition of a book well worth keeping in print, a straightforward true adventure of seven men who, if ghostwriter Ronald Downing can be believed, walked from Siberia to India, across the Gobi Desert and over the Himalayas, to escape a Soviet Labor Camp in World War II.

   In 1939, Slavomir Rawicz was a Lieutenant in the Polish Cavalry (Yes, there were still mounted Cavalry charges against Tanks and machine guns then.) Following Poland’s defeat and partition by Russia and Germany, he — along with most other Poles in positions of any authority — was arrested for espionage, tortured and shipped off to Siberia. But Rawicz was a young man with no taste for spending 25 years in a forced labor camp, and he proceeds to tells us how he organized an escape that led to over a year’s walk across some of the most forbidding terrain on earth.

   This is quite simply a tale to be treasured. The author describes fatigue, starvation and thirst so vividly you feel them right along with him. And he fills his tale with enough colorful anecdote and terse characterization that by mid-point I felt I really knew these people. Add all this to a story of Homeric struggle and you get something quite special indeed.

   One caveat: Skip the co-author’s introduction until you’ve finished the book. It reveals a plot twist the reader really should happen across on his or her own. And enjoy.

   One other caveat: The Long Walk may be a work of fiction. There has been considerable doubt raised over the years — some by Rawicz himself — about the veracity of this narrative, including a book-length study, Looking for Mr. Smith. What it comes down to is that there is some evidence that such a trek did take place, but the circumstances of Rawicz’s life seem to preclude his having done it.

   All that aside, this is a superior tale of endurance and high adventure, vivid, compelling, and well worth your time.

   The movie is even moreso. Peter Weir’s fast-paced, fluid direction takes full advantage of a lavish production budget, dazzling locations, and makes excellent use of capable actors like Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, and a dozen others unknown to me. He also provided them with a script filled with memorable lines and dramatic incident. Drop whatever you’re doing, and catch this one!

THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS. NBC, made for TV movie, 22 May 1988. Bill Bixby (David Banner), Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), Jack Colvin, Lee Purcell, Charles Napier, Tim Thomerson, Eric Kramer (Thor). Written & directed by Nicholas Corea, based on the character created by Stan Lee (for Marvel Comics).

   A 1988 made-for-television movie that originally aired on NBC, The Incredible Hulk Returns also found a home on VHS. Released two years later by R&G Video and distributed by Starmaker, the final entry into the “Hulk” TV series found a more permanent home on video store shelves. The cover art work suggests perhaps a more dramatic Hulk story than what the feature actually is; namely, an ultimately non-successful backdoor pilot for a “Thor” spinoff.

   Before we get to that, however, here’s the basic plot. It’s been a few years since scientist Bruce Banner (Bill Bixby) was visited by his Hyde-like friend, the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno). He’s now working as a scientist again under an assumed name and has a lady friend in fellow scientist Dr. Margaret Shaw (Lee Purcell). His main project is a transponder that he hopes can reverse his “curse.” But all doesn’t go according to plan. First, Banner finds an uninvited guest in a former student of his who just happens to be supernaturally connected with Thor (Eric Kramer).

   Then there are the Cajun heavies, Jack LeBeau (Tim Thomerson) and Mike Fouche (Charles Napier) who want the transponder for their own purposes. Finally, there’s intrepid reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) who is determined to out Banner as the Hulk.

   In a way, it’s all fun and nostalgic. Apparently it was a success for NBC. And it’s hard not to see why. Fans got a chance to reunite with their favorite characters and you can tell there’s some real love and dedication in the film. Bixby could have phoned it in, but he obviously did not. Thomerson — who I loved in Trancers (1984) – and Napier make great villains.

   What makes The Incredible Hulk Returns ultimately a lesser superhero television production was the writers and producers’ decision to use this reunion as a way of introducing Thor to viewers. Kramer is surely a physical presence to behold, but his Thor was way too – how should I put this? – goofy for anything sustainable. Not only does he talk like a simpleton; he also has a craving for beer that is funny one time, but grating the next. And the scenes with him dancing with girls at a motorcycle bar were amusing, but they don’t do much to establish a character that viewers will want to return to week after week. Simply put, Thor is no Hulk.

PS. Of course, when The Hulk and Thor first meet, they misunderstand each others’ intentions and fight. See it here!

   This is a Vinegar Syndrome trailer for the Mexican Eurospy movie, Santo vs. Doctor Death (1973). Directed and partially written by Rafael Romero Marchent, this entry into the long-running Santo series has high production values and, as you will see, lots of stunts and fun action sequences.

DANGEROUS TO KNOW.  Paramount Pictures, 1938. Akim Tamiroff, Anna May Wong, Gail Patrick, Lloyd Nolan, Anthony Quinn, Roscoe Karns, Harvey Stephens, Hedda Hopper, Porter Hall. Screenplay: Harold Lipman & Horace McCoy, based on the novel and play On the Spot by Edgar Wallace. Song “Thanks for the Memory.” Directed by Robert Florey.

KING OF CHINATOWN.  Paramount Pictures, 1939. Akim Tamiroff, Anna May Wong, J. Carroll Naish, Philip Ahn, Anthony Quinn, Sydney Toler, Roscoe Karns. Screenplay: Irving Reis & Leland Hayward. Directed by Nick Grinde.

   Two films teaming Akim Tamiroff as a gangster with Anna Mae Wong, both giving strong performances in above average B-films, both co-starring a young Anthony Quinn. Of the two Dangerous to Know is the better film, though Wong has a bigger role, though not as showy, in King of Chinatown.

   In the former,Tamiroff is Stephen Recka, who runs the town, but would rather be accepted by society and appreciate his music with his “hostess” Lan Ling (Wong) who loves him despite his neglect. As the film opens, Recka has been double-crossed by an associate and arranges with his right handed man (Quinn) to cause an “accident.”

   But Recka has met beautiful society woman Margaret Van Case (Gail Patrick) and decides he wants her. She’s in love with young Philip Easton (Harvey Stephens) though, and Recka has to get rid of him first, which he does by getting Easton a job with a bank and then setting him up for the theft of bonds and kidnapping him.

   Meanwhile things quickly complicate when Tamiroff discovers the two thugs he hired to set Easton up have taken off with the bonds and been picked up by the police putting his old rival Inspector Brandon (Lloyd Nolan, making the most of a fairly small role in one of several films he did with Tamiroff) on his trail.

   Margaret comes to Recka to get help for Easton who has been arrested on a tip from Recka who left him drunk in a hotel room. Brandon further messes up Recka’s plans by not charging Easton, but Margaret agrees to marry Recka if he saves Easton.

   Coincidence runs rampant toward the end, but Wong gets to shine in a scene when she says her goodbye to Recka, which, while high melodrama is effective, and the thing gets wrapped up neatly in just under an hour, replete with the debut of Bob Hope’s theme song “Thanks for the Memory.”

   No one can say you didn’t get your quarter’s worth with a B and a feature plus newsreels, shorts, and cartoons.

   With an Edgar Wallace novel and play (Wong played the lead on Broadway with Glenda Farrell), a screenplay by Lipman and McCoy and always interesting direction by Florey, it is all much more than you have the right to expect from a B-movie.

   Wong has a much bigger role in King of Chinatown, where she is a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Ling, whose father, also Dr. Ling (Sydney Toler, in a debut of his Charlie Chan persona after he was cast, but before his first film was released) is resisting efforts of nightclub owner and self styled king of Chinatown, Baturin (Tamiroff).

   Ling and her boyfriend reporter Bob Lee (Philip Ahn in a rare leading man role) are witnesses when Baturin is wounded in a plot by his ex-murderer business manager the Professor (J. Carroll Naish) and an ambitious hood (Anthony Quinn) and thinking her father shot him try to keep him from talking.

   Ling operates on Baturin and keeps him isolated. and later takes a job caring for him in his home, where Baturin starts to fall for her. In the meantime, the police are starting to move in on the Professor and Quinn as the Professor decides to silence Baturin before he can come back and see what they have done in Chinatown.

   In the end with the money from Baturin, Wong and Ahn fly off to China with money to help with medical aid for the on going war with Japan.

   There is no big scene for Wong in this, though she is on screen much more of the time, and despite her strong presence, both films are much more showcases for Tamiroff, who starred in a number of strong B films in the period. The notable thing about both films is they are far better and more ambitious than they had to be and have fairly notable screen credits (Lipman, McCoy, Hayward, Reis).

   It’s also notable how many familiar faces wander in and out of these, with actors like Porter Hall and Roscoe Karns on hand for little more than walk-ons.

THE PINK JUNGLE. Universal, 1968. James Garner, Eva Renzi, George Kennedy, and Nigel Greene. Screenplay by Charles Williams, based on the novel Snake Water by Alan Williams. Directed by Delbert Mann.

   James Garner plays a two-fisted fashion photographer who can flatten a man with one punch and hit two tossed cans in mid-air, shooting from the hip.

   Let me repeat that: James Garner plays a two-fisted fashion photographer who can flatten a man with one punch and hit two tossed cans in mid-air, shooting from the hip.

   I really should end the review right there, but since this was Charles Williams’ only filmed screenplay, and they do explain (sort of) our hero’s prowess at the end, it really deserves a bit more attention. So here it is.

   For purposes of plot, Garner starts out the movie stuck in a backward South-or-Central American nation doing a photoshoot with super-model Eva Renzi. A convenient helicopter is just as conveniently stolen by lovable bad-guy George Kennedy (fresh from his Supporting Actor Oscar in Cool Hand Luke) who soon gets the couple involved in a search for a lost diamond mine.

   En route to the treasure, the actors and camera crew leave the Universal backlot jungle for the arid vistas of Nevada, but they can’t shake off the hackneyed plot. They encounter another colorful rogue (Nigel Greene) and end up in a rather tame gun battle with a mousey little guy from earlier in the movie who wants all the diamonds for himself. (SPOILER ALERT!) He doesn’t get them. (END OF SPOILER ALERT!) A couple double-crosses later, it all comes to a merciful end.

   Universal ground out a number of B-movies like this in the late 1960s, all seemingly put together with the same formula: A leading man past his prime, a dependable character actor, and an eye-catching actress to play carnal cat-and-mouse with the fading male lead. Stir in a modicum of action, a dollop of whatever passes for romance, and a hint of humor, let it stew among the familiar Universal studio sets and “exteriors” and….

   And it worked quite well in PJ and Coogan’s Bluff. Less so — much less so — in things like The Hell with Heroes, A Lovely Way to Die, Jigsaw, and others too lame to name, by which standard, Pink Jungle is a Wheelchair Case.

   To his credit, Charles Williams does what he can with it, throwing a knowing wink into the dialogue when the clichés pile up, but even he can’t get this one up on its feet. Hell, it’d take divine intervention to pull this cinematic Lazarus from its celluloid tomb, and while I can’t say for sure that angels feared to tread the Universal backlot, they never seemed to show up there in significant numbers.

   I shall add that James Garner manages to grin and look light-hearted through all this, Nigel Greene projects his accustomed authority in too little screen time, and Eva Renzi, memorable in The Quiller Memorandum (or was it Funeral in Berlin? I forget which.) fills her forgettable part more than adequately.

   But it’s all for naught under Daniel Mann’s leaden direction. How they kept his obvious disinterest from spreading to the rest of the cast I can’t figure — perhaps they quarantined him — but The Pink Jungle just isn’t worth that much deep thought.