SHADOW OF THE EAGLE. Mascot, 12 episode serial, 1932. John Wayne, Dorothy Gulliver,Kenneth Harlan, Walter Miller, Edward Hearn, Richard Tucker, ‘Little Billy’ (Rhodes), Ivan Linow, James Bradbury Jr. Directors: Ford Beebe & B. Reeves Eason (the latter uncredited).

   Shadow of the Eagle was John Wayne’s first Serial and a highly enjoyable effort, in its own way, for those prepared to spend four-and-a-half hours of their Precious Youth with a low-budget, low-brow movie no one ever heard of.

   According to Tuska’s book on Mascot, the Duke was offered more money at this time to appear in Nothing Parts for major studios, but he wanted to play Hero Parts, and Nat Levine, King of Cheap Thrills in the early Thirties, told him it was a Lindbergh-type part.

   He signed on, and the next day was carted off in the wee small hours of the morning to arrive at some remote location in time to start shooting at Dawn. (Mascot paid their Actors bv the day and in order to economize they started filming with the first Light of day and often didn’t finish till Midnight.)

   It was a career gamble that paid off, but there must have been times when Wayne wondered about it, what with long days, grueling conditions and short pay.

   Whatever the case, Levine managed to churn out three highly entertaining serials over the next year with his new star before the Duke left for the Wide Open Spaces at Monogram.

   Shadow of the Eagle concerns itself with the efforts of the mysterious “Eagle” to blackmail the Directors of an Aircraft Factory and cast the blame on an innocent Circus Owner, who happens to be the Heroine’s father and Duke’s employer.

   John is allegedly a stunt-flier here, but the closest he probably ever got to a plane in this thing was watching the grainy old stock-footage of Mascot’s Bi-Plane and being chased across a field by it in a scene that looks to have inspired North by Northwest.

   Still, it’s an entertaining film, in its way, with Wayne or some other sympathetic character apparently getting killed off at the end of each chapter, only to be miraculously “saved” in the opening of the next installment — often by the most outrageous cheating or unlikely contrivance.

   There’s even some convincing Circus atmosphere, with various carnival denizens coming to the rescue at odd moments, including Ivan Linow as the Strong Man, James Bradbury Jr. as a rubber-limbed ventriloquist and Little Billy as — you guessed it.

   Watching this thing, I find myself consistently amazed by the sheer quantity (if not Quality) of Thrills that Levine managed to pack in his film for peanuts. The Mascot serials may be a long way from Artistry, but they have an un-self-conscious innocence and energy that I find totally captivating.

At 03:53 PM 4/14/2010, you wrote:

Dear Steve,

    I hope I am not asking too much of you guys again but I was wondering if you had a list of “couples on the run” films. Bonnie and Clyde comes to mind but perhaps something from the 40’s or 50’s? Or more recent than the 60’s? I like the urban man-on-the-run movies [see this previous post] and have seen several from the list already. Do any tales of a (possibly mismatched) couple running from bad guys ring bells? Again, I hope this is not too specific but I have great faith in your encyclopedic knowledge of cinema. Thanks again,

       Josh

          — —

   This is, of course, another follow-up to David Vineyard’s four Top Ten lists of “Man on the Run” thrillers posted here a month or so back. Once again I graciously offered to let him see what he could come up with. Here’s his reply:

   First of all, I’ll limit this to films before the seventies. Saves trying to remember all those bad road pictures of recent years, and I don’t have to include Stallone and Brigitte Nielson in Cobra. Since most of the “man on the run” films end up “couple on the run” at some point this could be a long list, so I’ll just list ones that come to mind fairly easily and hope some others contribute too.

   I’ll also include one or two “two men on the run” films, but the “two girls on the run” films don’t really start until Thelma and Louise, which I’ve already set outside this purview.

   These are neither chronologically or qualitatively ranked. And just so this doesn’t go on forever, I’ll skip team comedies like Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, and the “Road” pictures of Hope and Crosby since they often ended up with the boys on the run.

   I’m also avoiding the type film where the heroine hides the hero out, but they aren’t really on the run together at any point. I’ve also tried to avoid most buddy pictures — though many technically fit the bill. I’ve also included a few “groups on the run” films.

The 39 Steps. The classic with Robert Donat and Madeline Carroll handcuffed together. One of the brightest films of this sort and the model for all that came after.

The 39 Steps. Good remake from Betty Box, in color with Kenneth More and Tania Elg. Recently re-done for the fourth time for Masterpiece Theater and currently being filmed as a major theatrical release by Robert Towne for 2011 release.

Young and Innocent. Earlier Hitch based on a Josephine Tey novel and with that famous dance hall scene with the killer drummer in black face with a twitch. The innocent man of the title ends up on the run aided by the young daughter of a Scotland Yard Inspector hunting him. Very much a template for The 39 Steps.

Saboteur. Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane end up on the run together when he is falsely accused of sabotage done by Norman Lloyd. Yet another attempt by Hitch to remake The 39 Steps — it wasn’t until North By Northwest he finally got it the way he wanted.

You Only Live Once. Fritz Lang classic with Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney as the Bonnie and Clyde stand-in’s. Recreates the famous bank robbery sequence from Lang’s Spies.

My Favorite Blonde. Conscious comedic version of The 39 Steps with vaudevillian Bob Hope on the run with British Agent Madeline Carroll.

My Favorite Brunette. Early noir send up with Hope and Dorothy Lamour on the run from the law and the crooks after her inheritance. Alan Ladd’s guest shot is surprisingly the only time he played a private eye.

They Live By Night . Solid crime classic with Farley Granger and Cathy Downs as a reluctant Bonnie and Clyde on the run, based on the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson and remade under that title.

Bonnie Parker Story. Somehow they did Bonnie and Clyde without mentioning Clyde. Dorothy Provine and Jack Hogan. What I remember about this one is that the car the real couple was killed in toured with the film.

Once Upon a Honeymoon. Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers in offbeat comedy as stripper Rogers marries Nazi agent Walter Slezak and is romanced by radio newsman Grant. They both escape after Poland and end up having to escape from Slezak and other Nazis who try and force Grant to become an American Lord Haw Haw. At one point Cary is imprisoned in a concentration camp and just misses being sterilized. From Leo McCarey who directed Going My Way.

Man At Large. Terrific B which has escaped Nazi POW George Reeves and Marjorie Weaver on the run in the US and contacting the fifth column to escape. Very fast and bright in the 39 Steps vein. Though just from the casting you can guess where this is going.

I Wake Up Screaming. Victor Mature ends up being hidden by Betty Grable, and they have to hide from police so technically they are on the run together. Great early noir film with good performances all around and an outstanding one by cop Laird Cregar. Based on Steve Fisher’s novel.

The Defiant Ones . Important racial film has Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier on the run from a chain-gang. Great film with Curtis surprisingly good.

Colorado Territory. Remake of High Sierra as a western from the same director (Raoul Walsh) and writer (W.R. Burnett from his novel), with Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo in the Bogart and Lupino role, but her role in the chase is somewhat larger in this one.

The Redhead and the Cowboy. Well done western with Confederate agent Rhonda Fleming ending up on the run with cowboy Glenn Ford, who could care less about the Civil War until he comes face to face with choices.

Knight Without Armor. British spy Robert Donat, who has long been undercover in Imperial Russia, ends up on the run with aristocrat Marlene Dietrich in Revolutionary Russia, based on the novel Without Armor by James Hilton. One of the best and classiest pictures no one seems to have seen. Very bright, funny, and wonderfully staged film from the Kordas (Thief of Baghdad, Four Feathers …)

The Adventures of Tartu. Donat again as a Brit spy in Rumania at the beginning of the war to sabotage the Ploesti oil fields with help from Valerie Hobson. Light but enjoyable.

The Burglars. Jean Paul Belmondo and Dyan Cannon evade pursuit by cop Omar Sharif while planning big caper in smart fast film with a classic car chase. Remake of The Burglar with Dan Duryea and Jayne Mansfield and both based on a David Goodis novel.

Belle Starr. The outlaw Gene Tierney and Randolph Scott on the run while pursuing their criminal career. Great cast, but slow as mud.

Ice Cold in Alex. John Mills and Sylvia Syms as an ambulance team and girl trapped in the desert with Nazi soldiers — which side will reach them first?

Blindfolded. Psychiatrist Rock Hudson is hired to help agent who has had a breakdown after torture, but not told where he is taken to treat him, so when everything goes wrong he has to find the locale with sexy Claudia Cardinalle caught up in the chase. Mix of comedy and espionage doesn’t always work, but film has some bright spots.

Escape From Zahrain. Yul Brynner is one of five escaped prisoners along with Madelyn Rhue who’s caught up with them as they escape across the desert from a cruel prison.

Figures in a Landscape. Arty film based on Barry England’s novel with Robert Shaw and Malcolm McDowall on the run after they escape prison. Nice cinematography, but awfully pretentious.

Arabesque. Bright follow up to Stanley Donen’s Charade with scholar Gregory Peck and Arab millionaire Alan Badel’s mistress Sophia Loren on the run as they try to decipher a mysterious message in time to stop the assassination of an Arab prince. It’s no Charade, but gorgeous to look at a much fun with Peck and Loren well matched.

State Secret. Dr. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is secretly brought in to do brain surgery on dictator of Yugoslavian style country behind the Iron Curtain. When dictator dies Secret Police Chief Jack Hawkins wants him dead and he ends up on the run with actress Glynnis Johns. From Sidney Gilliatt.

Highly Dangerous. Margaret Lockwood is a British etymologist sent behind the Iron Curtain to find out what the bad guys are up to with bugs, but when she is tortured she wakes up thinking she is a the heroine of a BBC radio serial and American journalist Dane Clark her partner. Together they find the secret and end up on the run from dangerous police chief Marius Goring. Original screenplay by Eric Ambler.

Uncertain Glory . Arsene Lupin style French crook Errol Flynn has been caught by policeman Paul Lukas in Nazi occupied France, but together they hideout and plan for Flynn to surrender to the Gestapo instead of real saboteur to save hostages about to be executed — but will Flynn go through with it, or is it just a ploy to escape the guillotine? Screenplay by Max Brand.

Torn Curtain. American defector Paul Newman and girl friend Julie Andrews on the run behind the Iron Curtain when his real mission is revealed. Disappointing Hitchcock film, but the murder of the East German agent in the farm house is a classic piece of Hitchcock.

This Gun For Hire. Alan Ladd is assassin Raven on the run with undercover agent and magician Veronica Lake while her cop boyfriend Robert Preston hunts them as Ladd avenges the double-cross planned by traitor Laird Cregar.

Ministry of Fear. Amnesiac Ray Milland on the run while hunting a spy ring in London during the Blitz with Marjorie Reynolds along for the chase. A Fritz Lang classic. Watch for Dan Dureya in a fine role.

Decision Before Dawn. German soldiers Oskar Werner and O.E. Hasse agree to go back behind German lines in desperate mission as the war is coming to an end. Good film, dark and very stark. Richard Basehart and Gary Merrill are the men who train and dispatch them.

Night of the Hunter. Two children escape psychotic lay preacher Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton’s classic version of Davis Grubb’s novel. Haunting and beautiful with Lilian Gish and Mitchum wonderfully matched as good vs evil. Fine performances by Gish and Mitchum sometimes overshadow how good the kids are in this one.

Heaven Knows Mr. Allison. Charming John Huston film of marine Mitchum and nun Deborah Kerr evading Japanese when they are wrecked on a small Pacific island.

Raw Deal. Escaped convict Dennis O’Keefe on the run with girl friend Claire Trevor and innocent Marsha Hunt finds himself divided between the two while seeking revenge on sadistic and kinky Raymond Burr. One of Anthony Mann’s best films with a terrific ending. This and T-Men are the two Mann must-see film noirs.

The Great Race. Blake Edwards frenetic comedy is more a couple running than a couple on the run film, but Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood are attractive together, and Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk are a delight as the inept villains of the piece.

It Happened One Night. Frank Capra classic with reporter Clark Gable trying to get the scoop on wacky heiress Claudette Colbert while trying to evade the nation wide search for her. Remade as a musical with Jack Lemmon and June Allison, but see the original.

The Runaround. Fine screwball B film that lifts much of the plot of It Happened One Night, but does it so well no one could possibly care. Rod Cameron and Broderick Crawford are maverick private eyes who leave their hated bosses’ agency and vie with him to recover runaway heiress Ella Raines (heiresses on the run were a staple of films in this era) evading their old bosses men and double crossing each other. Cameron is surprisingly good in a largely comic role and perfectly teamed with Crawford.

The Bride Came C.O.D.. Yet another It Happened One Night variation as pilot James Cagney and runaway heiress Bette Davis battle and fall for each other while on the run from press and private eyes.

Arrest Bulldog Drummond. Good entry in the John Howard Drummond series when he is framed and goes on the run with fiance Phyllis (Heather Angel) to hunt down master criminal George Zucco. Fast paced entry in the series. Hugh and Phyllis’s much postponed marriage was a running gag in the film series.

Desire. Car designer Gary Cooper falls for jewel thief Marlene Dietrich in Spain as she and partner John Halliday try to elude police with his unwitting aide — a bright Frank Borzage film produced by Ernst Lubitch (To Be Or Not to Be, Heaven Can Wait …)

City Streets . Carnival worker Gary Cooper and racketeer’s daughter Slyvia Sidney end up hunted by cops and crooks in this rare Rouben Mamoulian film of Dashiell Hammett’s only original screen story (though he did scenarios for at least one of the Thin Man films and contributed to the script of several Lillian Hellman films). Outstanding look thanks to director and cinematographer Lee Garmes, and co-stars Guy Kibbee and Paul Lukas are unusually nasty pair of bad guys. Just barely fits the definition, but I wanted to get it in.

The Getaway. I’ll extend the date a bit to get this Sam Peckinpah film of Jim Thompson’s novel in with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw on the run from cops and crooks as he plans one last caper.

Where Danger Lives. Intern Mitchum ends up on the run with Faith Domergue in slight but involving film noir, with Claude Rains wasted as her husband..

The Big Steal. Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer on the hunt and the run in Mexico in a great little noir film which is better than it has any right to be.

Borderline. Undercover cop Claire Trevor is after smuggler Raymond Burr with help from tough Fred MacMurray in Mexico. Burr is even slimier than usual in this one.

Nightfall. Innocent Aldo Ray teams with Anne Bancroft to prove his innocence of crime sadistic that Brian Keith committed in a well done noir based on a David Goodis novel.

Me and the Colonel. Jewish business man Danny Kaye and Polish aristocrat Curt Jurgens along with Jurgen’s servant Akim Tamiroff and mistress Nicole Maurey try to escape of the Nazi’s based on Franz Werfel’s Jacubowsy and the Colonel. “More and more I dislike this Jacubowsky.”

They Met in Bombay. Jewel thieves Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell on the run from thieves help to defeat Japanese invaders with British army in off beat film.

China. Alan Ladd, Loretta Young, and William Bendix fight the Japanese in China on the cusp of the war. Well done.

Detour. Tom Neal runs afoul of one of noir’s most fatal femmes, Ann Savage, in legendary film noir by Edgar Ulmer.

Strange Cargo. Based on Richard Sale’s allegorical novel Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep about group of men led by Clark Gable and one woman, Joan Crawford, who escape from Devil’s Island and discover salvation or damnation on the voyage. Cast includes Peter Lorre, Albert Dekker, Paul Lukas, and Ian Hunter — who may, or may not, be Christ.

Blood Alley. John Wayne is a drunken sea captain who tries to help Lauren Bacall organize the escape of an entire Chinese village as the Reds close in, based on the novel by A. S. Fleishman. May be the only “city on the run” film.

Beachhead. Tony Curtis and Frank Lovejoy are marines who have to help Mary Murphy and her plantation owner father elude the Japanese occupiers and get message off of Japanese held island.

Assignment in Brittany. Jean Pierre Aumont and Susan Peters elude Nazi’s in WW II thriller from the novel by Helen MacInnes.

Above Suspicion Oxford don Fred MacMurray and bride Joan Crawford help British agent Reginald Owen escape Germany with aide of roguish Conrad Veidt while pursued by Nazi Basil Rathbone. Again based on a novel by Helen MacInnes.

Background to Danger. American agent George Raft and Red agent Brenda Marshall evade the police and Nazi’s in Istanbul with help from Peter Lorre and villainy from Sydney Greenstreet in Raoul Walsh film based on Eric Ambler novel. Screenplay by Frank Gruber and W. R. Burnett.

Pied Piper. Monte Wooley finds himself reluctantly teamed with young Roddy McDowall in France as the Nazis move in, and ends up with a small army of refugee children, based in Nevil Shute’s novel, remade for television with Peter O’Toole. Otto Preminger excellent as a Nazi officer with a secret.

Interrupted Journey. Richard Todd runs off with Valerie Hobson in fine thriller that goes head over heels into the toilet thanks to finale, after a fine effort along the way.

Desperate Moment. Dirk Bogarde is a displaced person framed for homicide and aided by Mai Zetterling in post war Berlin well done film from Martha Albrand’s novel.

Night Has 1000 Eyes. Gail Russell is helped by John Lund in this dark John Farrow film based on Cornell Woolrich’s novel (as George Hopley) when psychic Edward G. Robinson predicts her father Jerome Cowan will die — and he’s never wrong. They are on the run from fate, not the law or bad guys, but the tension is even greater and the sense of being pursued by something inevitable potent.

The Man Between. When Black marketeer James Mason helps Claire Bloom in post war Berlin, he finds himself on the run from both sides.

The October Man. John Mills is aided by Joan Greenwood when he is accused of murder and even he doesn’t know if he did it or not. A fine film, with one of Eric Ambler’s best screenplays.

Brighton Rock. Richard Attenborough is the slimy thug Pinkie hunted by the police for the razor slashing of a journalist and aided by Carol Marsh who loves him despite what he is. Dark film with literate screenplay by Terence Rattigan and Graham Greene based on Greene’s novel replete with the novel’s cruel and devastating ending.

Tiger Bay. Pre-teen Haley Mills has a crush on fugitive Horst Bucholtz pursued by her cop dad John Mills in a fine film.

The Moonspinners. English tourists Haley Mills and Peter McEnery on the run from smugglers in modern Greece. A Disney film based on Mary Stewart’s novel.

The Angry Hills. Robert Mitchum and Elizabeth Mueller are on the run from Nazis in occupied Greece, based on the novel by Leon Uris.

Kidnapped. Multiple versions, but I prefer the Disney with James MacArthur and Peter Finch as David Balfour and Alan Breck on the run in Scotland. Also made with Warner Baxter and Freddie Bartholomew; Dan O’Herlihy and Roddy McDowall; and Michael Caine and Armand Assante. Look for Peter O’Toole in the Disney version.

The Clouded Yellow. Ex-spy Trevor Howard takes a job assisting a butterfly collector and ends up on the run with possibly mad possible killer Jean Simmons in this delightful Brit film on classic lines. A great little thriller.

Lisa. Stephen Boyd is a Dutch policeman who helps a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust (Dolores Hart) evade detention and get to Palestine without papers in this film based on Jan de Hartog’s novel The Inspector.

House of Cards. Ex-boxer turned bodyguard George Peppard helps a French aristocrat boy and his American mother (Inger Stevens) evade the father’s Machivellian military family who plan a right wing coup in wake of the loss of colonial Algeria in a thriller based on the novel by Stanley Ellin. With Keith Michell and Orson Welles.

The Last Run. George C. Scott is an aging gangland driver who helps Trish van de Vere and Tony Musante in one last run. Sven Nykvist photography looks great. John Huston started it, but it was finished by Richard Fleisher.

The Narrow Margin. Cop Charles McGraw must protect witness Marie Windsor on a train on the way to testify in mob case. Great little noir suspense film with a neat twist and a well staged finale. Forget the remake with Gene Hackman.

Espionage Agent. When his marriage to Brenda Marshall ruins his diplomatic career, Joel McCrea poses as traitor, and he and Marshall end up on the run in Nazi Germany.

Berlin Correspondent Foreign Correspondent Dana Andrews helps Virginia Gilmore and her father escape Nazi Germany.

Bomber’s Moon. French farm girl helps American bomber pilot George Montgomery escape when he is shot down over Occupied France.

Cloak and Dagger. Scientist Gary Cooper goes undercover in Europe during WWII to find nuclear secrets with aide of Lili Palmer and OSS agent Robert Alda when the Axis closes in. Tense spy film from Fritz Lang, based on a missions by a former New York Yankees owner Michael Mann and the baseball player turned OSS agent, Moe Berg.

Golden Earrings. When British colonel Ray Milland is trapped behind enemy lines he is hidden by and escapes with gypsy Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich is wonderful and usual heavy Murvyn Vye sings the title song. And how often do you get to see the leading man get his ears pierced? Silly sounding film is actually high quality Hollywood romantic hokum and expertly done all around. Also one of my father’s favorite films.

The High Wall. Excellent minor noir as psychiatrist Audrey Totter helps war hero pilot Robert Taylor escape a mental institution when she becomes convinced he was framed for the crime he thinks he committed. Fine little film with good performance by Taylor, Totter, and Herbert Marshall.

Island Rescue. A hard to categorize film as Glynnis Johns aides commando David Niven in rescuing a prize cow from occupied Guernsey islands during the war — and it’s based on a true story.

Never Let Me Go. Clark Gable and Richard Hadyn try to rescue their Russian wives Gene Tierney and Belita out of Soviet Russia in the post war freeze with help from Kenneth More. Based on the novel Two if By Sea by Andrew Garve.

Break in the Circle. Forest Tucker and Eva Bartok help Polish scientist escape in minor film based on a much better novel by Philip Loraine.

Action of the Tiger. Van Johnson is a tough American skipper helping Martine Carol rescue refugees from Albania, with Herbert Lom great as a colorful and less than trustworthy bandit. Based on John Welland’s novel and directed by James Bond director Terence Young, which makes the presence of Sean Connery as Van’s drunken buddy doubly amusing.

Mister Moses. This one sort of fits. Robert Mitchum and Carroll Baker try to lead African villagers out of valley that is to be flooded by new dam.

The Secret Ways. Richard Widmark helps Sonia Ziemann and her father escape from behind the Iron Curtain based on the novel by Alistair MacLean.

Tarzan the Magnificent. And he pretty much is in one of the best films in the series. Gordon Scott as Tarzan lead Betta St. John, Lionel Jeffries, Alexandra Stewart, and Earl Cameron out of the jungle while escorting brutal criminal Jock Mahoney to trial while being pursued by Mahoney’s insane family, led by psychotic John Carradine. The final battle between Scott and Mahoney is beautifully staged. Rare grown-up Tarzan film. Mahoney replaced Scott later on in the role of the Ape Man.

It’s a Wonderful World. One of the best screwball comedies ever made, from W. S. Van Dyke. Private eye James Stewart and poet Claudette Colbert are reluctantly teamed together when Stewart escapes a train to prison in desperate attempt to save his playboy client (Ernest Truex of all people) from the chair, while pursued by Nat Pendleton and Edgar Kennedy. Guy Kibee is Stewart’s exasperated but loyal boss. This film is not only a good mystery, but it rises to heights of zaniness seldom seen with Stewart and Colbert arcing off each other like bare electrical wires. One of the great gems of screwball comedy. Look for the scene where Stewart poses as a nearsighted Eagle Scout. I swear by my eyes. Screenplay by Ben Hecht from his story with Herman J. Mankiewicz.

   This ought to get anyone started — it’s a pretty wide variety on the subject. As usual, any additions are welcome.

BEAT THE DEVIL. United Artists, 1954. Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Edward Underdown, Ivor Barnard. Screenplay by Truman Capote and John Huston, based on the novel by James Helvick. Director: John Huston.

   A legendary mess. Scripted by Truman Capote, directed by John Huston, with a great cast that includes Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, Gina Lollobrigida and Robert Morley, and it’s still a dreadful muck-up time has not redeemed; something about a bunch of con men stuck in Italy trying to buy land in Africa, I think, but the plot doesn’t matter because it never really goes anywhere.

   There are some witty lines, but Huston always seems to be looking the other way when someone says them. Likewise the acting: some good turns by Morley, Lorre and Ivor Barnard as “the Galloping Major” but the characters are never defined well enough for us to be sure what the acting’s all about.

   Worst of all is Humphrey Bogart. It’s hard for a life-long Bogie-man like me to say it, but he’s dreadful here. Already cancer-stricken at 54, in ill-fitting wigs and gaudy clothes, he looks like an aging queen tarted up for one last night out with the boys.

   Bogie expressed some doubts about the project at the time, and it shows in his performance; at the heart of Devil we need the relaxed, self-assured leading man of Casablanca and The Big Sleep, but what we get is a nervous icon walking through the movie like an old man trying to cross a busy street.

   By the way, I’m always fond of reading the source books that notable movies were made from, so I looked up James Helvick’s novel Beat the Devil on the internet. The cheapest copy I found was $200, and if anyone wants to send me a copy, feel free.

THE MOONRAKER. Associated British Picture Corporation, 1958. George Baker, Sylvia Syms, Marius Goring, Peter Arne, Clive Morton, Gary Raymond, Paul Whitsun-Jones, John Le Mesurier (Oliver Cromwell). Based on a play by Arthur Watkyn. Director: David MacDonald.

   A “moonraker” is a smuggler who drops his contraband goods into coastal waters then rakes them up again in the moonlight.

   I hope I have that right. If not, those of you who live in England, please do correct me on this — or anything else in this review I might happen to get wrong in the rest of what follows. British history is not necessarily my strongest suit.

   The movie begins with the Moonraker (Anthony Earl of Dawlish, played quite handsomely by actor George Baker) riding by horseback in a purple tunic though open meadow land, green wooded areas, down the cobbled streets of a small town at night, then into open land again till we see in the near distance the outline of the circle of standing stones that make up the national monument called Stonehenge.

   The next scene purports to take place within those same stones, but I’m not so sure. I suppose the film crew may have been allowed to do so? In any case, it is there that Dawlish meets Charles Stuart, whose father Charles I had recently been overthrown (and executed) by Oliver Cromwell.

   It is the Moonraker’s task to ensure the safe passage of the would-be king to France, an event which of course actually happened, though the Moonraker’s role is, as I understand it, quite fictitious.

   However, this dates the time that this movie takes place exactly: 03 September 1651. Robin Hood, another British folk hero that even those here in the US have heard of, came along much earlier, the 12th century A. D. and the time of Richard the Lionheart. Just to put events in perspective.

   Here in the US as kids (probably not so much any more) we played a lot of Cowboys and Indians, and Good Guys and Bad Guys. Did boys in the UK play Robin Hood and His Merry Men very often? I’m guessing, but probably more than they did Cavaliers (Royalists) and Roundheads (Cromwell’s men).

   In any case, it is the strife between the latter that this movie is about. Being based on a play, much of it takes place not in the open (other than the aforementioned opening credits) but in the confines of a small inn along the coast, where Charles Stuart is to begin his voyage by sea to France and his temporary exile.

   Complicating matters, for the sake of a story, a girl (Sylvia Syms) who is betrothed to one of Cromwell’s high ranking officers is forced to confront both Dawlish and her own beliefs face-to-face. Romance wins out, but will there be the time and the place for it to bloom further?

   There is, of course, much swordplay and other acts of derring-do that also take place, all very well done, in beautiful Technicolor. But while the movie is entertaining from beginning to end, the story itself just isn’t solid or meaty enough to stay in one’s memory for very long. Perhaps it’s more significant and means more in England than it does here?

   This will be very subjective, and off the top of my head. Arguments and additions are welcome. I’ve found these Top Ten lists often end up a Top 100 pretty easily, as every film leads to another.

   Unlike my previous Top Twenty list, I am not limiting myself to one film to a director, but I will make do with only two Hitchcock films. I debated whether or not to include I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang and decided to stick to thriller and adventure films.

   I’ve also arbitrarily stuck to the “innocent” man on the run theme. And if anyone is wondering I’ve also left out books and films like Day of the Jackal or He Walked by Night because they are more man hunt films than man on the run. Again, I’ve avoided those that are strictly urban based and stuck to the rough country designation, so no Odd Man Out or The Big Clock.

        Top Ten Man on the Run Movies:

1. North by Northwest

2. The 39 Steps/The Most Dangerous Game (between the two of them almost every trope of the genre is developed)
3. Man Hunt
4. The Clouded Yellow
5. The Fugitive (Harrison Ford, not the disappointing John Ford film of Graham Greene’s Power and the Glory)
6. The Naked Prey
7. Lonely Are the Brave
8. State Secret/Highly Dangerous (I’m tied on these two British film, the first by Gilliat and Launder with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and the latter a Roy Boulting film with screenplay by Eric Ambler)
9. Death Hunt
10. The Bourne Identity

        Top Ten Man on the Run in Wartime Films:

1. The 49th Parallel (aka The Invaders in the US)

2. The Great Escape
3. The Mackenzie Break
4. Man at Large (fine little B film with George Reeves about a Nazi POW escaped and on the run in the US, very much in the 39 Steps vein)
5. Desperate Journey (RAF pilots Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, and Arthur Kennedy play at Dumas Musketeers behind the lines while evading Nazi Raymond Massey)
6. The Pied Piper (Englishman Monty Woolley has to get a band of children out of France as it falls to the Nazi’s)
7. Eye of the Needle
8. Northern Pursuit
9. Ill Met By Moonlight
10. The Seventh Cross

        Top Ten Comedic Man on the Run Films:

1. My Favorite Blonde

2. Once Upon a Honeymoon
3. To Be Or Not to Be
4. Arise My Love (pilot Ray Milland and reporter Claudette Colbert romance and try to escape from Europe as WW II breaks out)
5. Silver Streak
6. The President’s Analyst
7. The General
8. The In-Laws (the original, not the remake)
9. It’s a Wonderful World (screwball comedy with fugitive private eye James Stewart and poet Claudette Colbert trying to clear Ernest Truex of murder before his execution)
10. Tight Little Island (aka Whisky Galore!, though admittedly it’s a more booze on the run than man on the run film)

   And in for a penny in for a pound:

        Top Ten Man on the Run Western Movies:

1. Pursued

2. The Capture
3. Drums Along the Mohawk (turns into a literal man on the run film)
4. Red Mountain
5. The Redhead and the Cowboy
6. The Last of the Mohicans (Randolph Scott or Michael Mann version)
7. Hildalgo (okay, it’s a race, give me one)
8. Waterhole #3 (okay, we’ll relax the ‘innocent’ part)
9. Apache
10. The Last Wagon

    Note: I know I’ll get more grief about this, but I don’t think First Blood the movie or the book makes the top ten or twenty of the books or films. I can easily think of twenty better books and films, but that’s subjective, which I grant this is.

   Frankly I don’t think anyone would remember the book without the film or either one without Rambo, and while I like the book I think there are better examples. I agree with Leonard Maltin who gives the film only one and a half stars.

            David

EAST OF SUMATRA. Universal, 1954. Jeff Chandler, Marilyn Maxwell, Anthony Quinn, Suzan Ball, John Sutton, J.C. Flippen, Peter Graves, Scat Man Crothers, James Craven. Screenplay: Frank Gill Jr., based on a story co-authored by Louis L’Amour. Director: Budd Boetticher.

   Here’s a well done pulp-style jungle adventure from action director Budd Boetticher and based on a story by western writer king Louis L’Amour.

   Jeff Chandler is a two-fisted mining engineer whose team is sent to the Maylayan jungle to find tin and runs afoul of local royal Quinn who is jealous of his half caste fiance’s (Ball) interest in Jeff. An added complication is Chandler’s officious boss John Sutton, who is engaged to marry Marilyn Maxwell, Jeff’s ex girl.

   Things go wrong, and soon Chandler and team are held virtual prisoner by Quinn and his men,and their only means of escape is by hand-to-hand combat to the death in a native temple between Chandler and Quinn.

   Attractively filmed by Boetticher, East of Sumatra is a mix of adventure pulp and Men’s Sweat Mag brought to life (“I Fought a Sumatran King for His Woman and a Fortune in Tin”).

   The characters are familiar stereotypes — Chandler the two-fisted boss; Flippen the older veteran straw boss; Graves a Texan engineer in ten gallon hat; Crothers the singing camp cook; Quinn the proud jealous native king; Sutton the boss that doesn’t understand the real world of the field men; Maxwell the bad girl trying to forget her past and rough tough Chandler; Suzan Ball a sultry half white princess torn between jungle king Quinn and handsome westerner Chandler…

   Technicolor, well done jungle sets, some nice matte paintings, a good if predictable script, and a competent cast of veterans show how well this sort of thing could be done in the right hands.

   Nothing great, but a showcase of old fashioned studio competence done neatly and with a bit of flare, and the battle between Chandler and Quinn is well matched and handled in a circle of torchlight.

   These kinds of films used to be a staple in theaters. Minor A films churned out by competent directors and featuring attractive casts who hit their marks and generally were better than the material.

   It’s the sort of thing Hollywood relegated to television eventually but is seldom done as well today, and if it isn’t art, it is at least entertainment and done with some style.

Editorial Comments:   That’s Suzan Ball in the dancing girl costume in the photo just above. She was a second cousin of Lucille Ball who had the sad misfortune of dying young, at the age of 21, a victim of cancer. Married to actor Richard Long when she died, she appeared in only eight films and one episode of Lux Video Theater before her death.

   On another matter, both David and I have been trying to learn whether the story this movie was based ever appeared in printed form, with no definitive answer so far. We presume the answer is no, but does anyone know for sure?

YANKEE PASHA. Universal International, 1954) Jeff Chandler, Rhonda Fleming, Mamie Van Doren, Lee J. Cobb, Bart Roberts (Rex Reason), Hal March, Tudor Owen, Benny Rubin, Harry Lauter. Based on the novel by Edison Marshall. Directed by Joseph Pevney.

   Arabian Nights nonsense of a fairly high order based on Edison Marshall’s bestselling swashbuckling historical novel of the Barbary Coast and the adventures of an American frontiersman there.

   Jeff Chandler, everybody’s favorite Jewish Apache, stars as Jason Starbuck, a frontiersman and trapper who wants to see the world and gets the chance when he falls for beautiful city girl Rhonda Fleming who is kidnapped by Barbary Pirates and sold into slavery as the property of the cruel head of the Sultan of Morocco’s Janissaries, Aga Omar (Bart Roberts).

   Starbuck infiltrates the Sultan’s (Lee J. Cobb) army teaching his infantry frontier style shooting and quickly runs afoul of the cruel Aga who the Sultan fears and distrusts. He wins Fleming in a bet but is captured trying to escape with her, only to be rescued by Hassan (Hal March), the leader of the Sultan’s infantry who befriended him.

   Chandler is stalwart, Fleming striking (and in at least one of the most revealing outfits of her long film career — body stocking or no), and Mamie Van Doren (below) supplies the comic relief as the slave girl presented to Starbuck and complicating his life and the plot.

   That said, this is the kind of movie where a gaggle of Miss Universe contestants appear as slave girls offered by a drooling slave dealer.

   All in all, a pale shadow of Marshall’s full blooded novel, but good fun and diverting with Chandler buckling a swash and Roberts meeting his well deserved end on the razor sharp hooks meant for those who violate the harem.

   Cobb seems to have a little fun as the Sultan and you may even manage to forget March as the glad-handing playboy and huckster from television if you are old enough to remember him in the first place.

   Marshall was better served by films like Son of Fury, Treasure of the Condor (both based on Benjamin Blake), and The Vikings, but Pevney is an old hand and skillful if yeoman direction gorgeous color, and bright costumes on beautiful women all add to the fun.

   Yankee Pasha is an entertaining entry in a once familiar genre from an era when names like Baghdad, Morocco, and Arabia only brought thoughts of exotic adventure and wild vistas, and the only Marines involved were storming the shores of Tripoli to protect American ships from paying tribute to pirate kings — come to think of it, not all that different from today after all, only the spirit of fun and romance has been replaced with politics, oil, and all too real terrors and atrocities.

Editorial Comment:   Yankee Pasha does not appear to be available on commerical DVD, but there are many collector-to-collector copies to be found on eBay, ioffer.com and the other usual sources. It was shown on AMC at some time in the past; a short clip of a terrific tussle between Mamie Van Doren and Rhonda Fleming can be found here on YouTube.

SHE. Hammer Films, UK, 1965. MGM, US, 1965. Ursula Andress, Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, John Richardson, Rosenda Monteros. Screenplay: David T. Chantler, based on the novel by H. Rider Haggard. Director: Robert Day.

   I missed seeing this movie when it first came out — I don’t remember why, or what I was doing at the time that was more important. I had seen Dr. No, and, well, I imagine that if I said that I’d have liked to have seen more, I think you’d know what I mean.

   One of my more immediate acquisitions from Amazon-UK arrived last week, a huge box set of Hammer Films, and She was among them. It ws, in fact, the one at the top of a stack of some 20 odd DVDs, and it was the first to be plunked into my new multi-region player.

   I probably should have seen the movie in 1965, or whenever it played in the US. I might have enjoyed it more back then, in the heyday of my youth.

   My opinion now? Disappointing, in a word. I found it to be not Very Good, alas, and while definitely not Bad, far from what I had for so long anticipated.

   I have been told that Hammer spent more on the budget for this film than any other at that point in time. That may be, but the story is dismal and the spectacle is, for the most part, hardly any better, and in only a couple of instances (one being the grand entrance into the Lost City) does it come even close to overwhelming.

   I’ve never read Haggard’s novel (and I don’t want to embarrass myself by saying that I’ve never read anything by Haggard, so I won’t), so I can’t compare book with film, but for me, if you were to tell me that they made up the script as they went along, I’d believe you.

   John Richardson, the handsome and rather hunky primary star (but among the least well-known of the ones I listed above, I’m sure, and the chap on the right, below) plays Leo Vincey, recently demobbed in the Middle East after the Great War (WWI), who in appearance is the re-incarnation of the man She (who must be obeyed) Kallikrates, whom she killed ages before in a fit of jealous rage.

   Now that’s she’s immortal (and by the way, you’re right, Ursula Andress does indeed play She, a role she was born to play), she wants him back, and after several trials and tests that he passes, will not accept No as an answer. Things turn out badly from here.

   Ursula Andress (whose dialogue was dubbed for her) is beautiful, majestic, and exotic, but now as I’ve grown older, I realize that she was never meant for anyone as plebeian as I. Truth be told, I have much more in common with the slave girl Ustane (Rosenda Monteros) who in turn is completely smitten by Leo. Ninety percent of her dialogue consists of her fervently saying, “My Leo.” If only she knew me back then. Leo would have been long forgotten.

   Ah, the stuff dreams are made of!

DARKEST AFRICA. Republic, 1936. [15-episode serial] Clyde Beatty, Manuel King, Elaine Shepard, Lucien Prival, Ray Corrigan (the latter uncredited). Directors: B. Reeves Eason & Joseph Kane.

    Darkest Africa is the first serial to come from that redoubtable studio and a harbinger of thrills to come, with splendidly tacky sets, narrow escapes, fights, chases, wild animals, flying batmen… this has it all, except maybe a coherent plot.

    The story, such as it is, spins loosely around Baru the Jungle Boy (played by chubby little Manuel King, “The World’s Youngest Animal Trainer”) seeking to rescue his sister — inexplicably named Valerie — from some lost city in the jungle. Baru is aided in his quest by Clyde Beatty, the hero of the piece, playing a fictionalized version of himself, fairly capably, and by Bonga, the killer ape who follows Baru with Slave-like devotion, according to the writers.

    So you can pretty much see from the outset this is going to be a busy time for all concerned, and it’s highly entertaining as well — in a distinctly campy way.

    The Lost City of Joba and its flying bat-men provide a haunting visual motif, and the high-calibre stunt-work just keeps coming.

    If I may offer one gripe, though, in the lion/tiger fighting scenes, Clyde Beatty seems to spend a lot of his time with his back to the camera. I’m not trying to besmirch the reputation of “The World’s Greatest Animal Trainer” by suggesting he used a stuntman or anything — I’m just saying he spends a lot of time with his back to the camera.

    Incidentally, the part of Bonga, the Killer-Ape-with-a-Heart-of-Gold, is played by Ray “Crash” Corrigan, an actor with a strange double-barreled career; under his own name, Corrigan starred in B-Westerns at Republic and Monogram, always playing the easy-going man of action, quick with gun and fists, indispensable to movies like these.

    It didn’t hurt that he also owned the ranch and mock-western town where most of these things were filmed.

    That was only half of the story, though; “Crash” owned a rather nice Gorilla suit, and while he was acting the Western Hero, he supplemented his income by playing the Hairy Menace in numerous jungle flicks, serials, horror films etc.

    The hirsutely-suited thespian can be seen in things as diverse as Killer Ape, Tarzan, Pride and Prejudice, White Gorilla (where he also plays the White Hunter and literally chases himself) and he capped off his career as the rubber monster in It — The Terror from Beyond Space (the film that inspired Alien) where he can be seen moving his mask into place as he chases the cast around the space-ship.

    Getting back to Darkest Africa, Corrigan’s performance is probably the best acting in it, and he is rewarded with two or three death scenes (the writers apparently lost track of things — or maybe they just like Ape Death Scenes), all of which he acquits admirably.

FLAME OF CALCUTTA. Columbia, 1953. Denise Darcel, Patric Knowles, Paul Cavanagh, George Keymas, Joseph Mell, Ted Thorpe, Gregory Gaye, Leonard Penn. Director: Seymour Friedman. Shown at Cinecon 45, Hollywood CA, September 2009.

   This technicolor feature, recently restored, was chosen to represent the screen career of Denise Darcel, the first of the weekend’s guest stars, and had not been viewed by any of the committee prior to the evening’s showing.

   The “Flame” (Darcel) is the leader of a group of rebels fighting to restore the legitimate monarch to the throne usurped by a villainous Prince (George Keymas). Patric Knowles is a British captain who is sympathetic to the Flame’s cause (and is also her lover) but, because of his country’s neutrality, can’t openly support the rebels’ cause.

   Anyone who thinks that sound “legitimized” film as an art medium would probably want to reconsider that position after a viewing of this film. At its conclusion, someone sitting behind me muttered “What a stinker!”, an opinion that many in the audience probably shared.

   I couldn’t find any record of appearances by Darcel in French films. She appears to have been performing in Paris shortly after the end of the second world war as a cabaret singer when she was brought to Hollywood, where her first film was Battleground.

   Over the next decade she appeared in a relatively small number of films, ranging from Tarzan and the Slave Girl to such major studio productions as Westward the Women, Dangerous When Wet, and Vera Cruz.

   Her last film was Seven Women from Hell (1961), and the remainder of her career consisted of numerous TV appearances (most often on variety and comedy shows appearing as herself), and a stage production of Sondheim’s Follies.

   It’s unfortunate that her Hollywood career was represented by this clinker. I was later able, thanks to Netflix, to watch Vera Cruz and Dangerous When Wet, either one of which would have been a more suitable choice to honor her. She was, however, enormously pleased to be invited, and was a gracious, if often incomprehensible interviewee.