TRANSATLANTIC. Fox, 1931. Edmund Lowe, Lois Moran, John Halliday, Greta Nissen, Myrna Loy, Jean Hersholt. Oscar, Best Art Direction: Gordon Wiles. Director: William K. Howard.

   Just lately I’ve been catching up to a lot of films I’ve wanted to see — or see again — for quite some time, films lost or just unavailable for a generation or more. First and best of the bunch is Transatlantic, which I’ve been keen to watch ever since I saw a still from it in a book on Hollywood Cameramen thirty years ago.

   Made at the dawn (or early morning anyway) of talking pictures, Transatlantic defies every notion you ever had about early talkies; it’s a fast-paced, highly visual thriller, set on a luxury liner with a clever story (by Guy Standing, whose credits include the book for Anything Goes) centered around Edmond Lowe as a shady character fleeing the law, mingling aboard ship with con men, kept women, and the loyal trophy wife (Myrna Lay, back when she usually played oriental temptresses) of a nearly murdered millionaire — who apparently ran a bit of a con himself.

   Director William K. Howard and photographer James Wong Howe take this snappy mystery and serve it up with splendid sets that give the huge ship the appearance of a Byzantine palace or gothic cathedral, jazzed up with snappy editing and a restless, roving camera that follows the action perfectly. All capped off very effectively by a tour-de-force cat-and-mouse shoot-out in the labyrinthine guts of the ship itself.

   Simply dazzling. Not a well-known film, but one I can recommend highly.

THE UNKNOWN. MGM, 1927. Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford, Nick De Ruiz, John George. Director: Tod Browning.

   One of Lon Chaney’s most famous roles. He plays Alonzo, an armless circus performer, who loves Manon (Joan Crawford), daughter of the circus owner. Alonzo performs prodigious feats with his bare feet and is caressed fondly by Crawford, who cannot bear to be touched by “normal” men.

   Eventually, Crawford is cured of her neurosis and is happily married to the strongman, who has devised an act where his arms are attached to two horses running in place on treadmills with the mechanism controlled by a single lever in the wings.

   Alonzo, insane with jealousy, gains control .of the lever and, as a horrified Crawford watches, speeds up the treadmill, the horses straining at their ropes, so that…

   But you didn’t think I was going to tell you how this one came out, did you?

   There’s a strangulation, murder, a dwarf, a visit to a hospital operating room at midnight (this is, after all, only four years before Frankenstein), and Chaney’s menacing, brooding presence, like a tightly-wound spring that threatens to unwind at any time.

RED DUST. MGM, 1932. Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond, Mary Astor, Donald Crisp. Director: Victor Fleming.

   All things considered, one things a movie fan might ask for is a film that is entertaining all the way through, and well made as well. Here’s one, and isn’t it hard to believe that this picture is almost [80] years old?

   It takes place on a rubber plantation, with Clark Gable in charge of operations. Jean Harlow is a brassy blonde tramp who needs a few weeks away from Saigon, where things have gotten a little too hot for her.

   Gene Raymond is a naive young engineer just hired to do some surveying and irrigation work. Mary Astor is his wife, who has come along with him without realizing how primitive conditions would be.

   Jean Harlow falls in love with Clark Gable, who finds Mary Astor more attractive than he should. Raymond, well, as I said, he’s young and naive. The movie is funny, steamy, and fascinating, all rolled into one.

   I may have mentioned before that I sometimes find Clark Gable’s performances a little too slick for my tastes, but he’s down-to-earth (if not outright earthy) in this film. Jean Harlow was pretty without being beautiful, but she also had a raucous sense of humor that goes well here with her portrayal of a pretty loose woman. A more terrifically matched couple you couldn’t imagine.

NIGHT OF THE QUARTER MOON. MGM, 1959. Also released as Flesh and Flame. Julie London, John Drew Barrymore, Anna Kashfi, Dean Jones, Agnes Moorehead, Nat “King” Cole, James Edwards, Cathy Crosby. Paperback adaption by Franklin Coen (Bantam, 1959). Producer: Albert Zugsmith. Director: Hugo Haas.

   If nobody has ever written a full-length analysis of Hugo Haas’s directorial output, then someone should. He’s known, of course, by a small cult of followers and true believers for such films (lurid dramas) as Pickup (1951), The Girl on the Bridge (1951), Strange Fascination (1952), One Girl’s Confession (1952) and Bait (1954), all variations on a theme.

   That theme being that of middle-aged men or older (often played by Haas himself) being lured into relationships (sexual, of course) with blonde tramps (well-built, of course, and usually played by Cleo Moore), with deadly results.

   This, you may be sure, is the stuff that cults are made of, but even with limited budgets, the films (in my humble opinion) were made with some thought behind them, down to earth, and generally better than better critics than I have considered them to be.

   What could Haas have done with a major studio (MGM) and major money behind him? Well, first of all (deep breath here) Night of the Quarter Moon is not a major disaster, and while it has its faults – quite a few, in fact – there’s enough story line here to provide more than one PhD candidate with a considerable amount of material for more than one dissertation.

   When John Drew Barrymore (a former Korean Conflict prisoner-of war) meets Julie London in Mexico, he doesn’t care that she’s one quarter black (Portuguese-Angolan), but his rich mother (the imperious Agnes Moorehead) back in San Francisco does, when she finds out.

   And equally so do his neighbors, who fear their property values are going to plummet, and who don’t fail to let the newly married couple know about it after they move in.

   Mama, in fact, takes the case to court to get the marriage annulled, while keeping her son under sedation and incommunicado, her contention being that he wasn’t told of his bride’s unfortunate background before the wedding.

   Which leads inexorably to the most overblown (and provocative) portion of the film, an ending that by sheer audacity surely made audiences gasp at the time, and is still very effective now: Julie London’s character must strip in court to show her tan lines, or lack of them.

   Well, OK, but in the context of the movie, it makes sense.

   Julie London, who resembles nothing more than a less full-blown Jane Russell, but not much less, does very well as lady in the case, determined not to let her husband get away from her, and for the right reasons; and John Drew Barrymore, confused by his arrest and subsequent sedation, more than holds his own.

   They make a good couple, mixed-race or not, and if nothing else, the movie might be remembered as a solid romance movie, even without strictly exploitative and over-the-top theatrics Hugo Haas uses to describe the situation they find themselves in, to put it mildly.

DRAMATIC SCHOOL. MGM, 1938. Luise Rainer, Paulette Goddard, Alan Marshal, Lana Turner, Genevieve Tobin, John Hubbard, Henry Stephenson, Gale Sondergaard, Erik Rhodes, Virginia Grey, Ann Rutherford, Hans Conried. Director: Robert B. Sinclair.

   A lengthy as the credits list is above, the cast is in fact much larger than this. If this makes sense, and I hope it does, Dramatic School is an A-production with B-picture sensibilities, with lots of young players in the cast whose names were not yet known at the time. A big budget movie, relatively speaking, in other words, without a lot of pretense or hype.

   And I thoroughly enjoyed it. One reason is the presence of Luise Rainer in this film, even though it was shown on TCM last week during all-day salute to the second-in-command, Paulette Goddard. Luise Rainer had a short but sweet career in Hollywood, but with two Oscar wins in only two tries, there can’t be many other actors or actresses who can beat that.

   The two Oscar winners? The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). After making Dramatic School, Luise Rainer appeared in one movie in 1943, then nothing till 1949 and the TV era. Why? Run-ins with studio bosses, marrying, and not much caring about life and a career in Hollywood.

   She’s a joy to watch in Dramatic School, however, as she plays an aspiring star of the French theatre in truly romantic fashion: her eyes to the sky and not always watching where her feet are leading her.

   By night, a worker in a assembly plant making gas meters (I believe), by day a young student in a Parisian dramatic school, where the fanciful tales she tells about herself are the subject of doubt and at times near-derision by the other students.

   Even one of her teachers (Gale Sondergaard) has taken a dislike to her, in spite of her talent. An obvious case of jealousy — one of several cases of cliché-like moments in Dramatic School, but like this one, they’re always skirted but never quite fallen into. (Well, most of them.)

   Sometimes dreams do come true, and once in a while they (miraculously) do come true for Mme. Louise Mauban. And (as twists in the plot begin to unfold) when they don’t, when she takes a tumble, well, watch and see. Unless you’re deeply cynical about stories like this one – and to tell you the truth, I can see why – you will be as enchanted as I.

SECONDS. Paramount, 1969. Rock Hudson, Salome Jens, John Randolph, Will Geer, Jeff Corey, Richard Anderson, Frances Reid, Murray Hamilton. Based on the novel by David Ely. Cinematography: James Wong Howe. Director: John Frankenheimer.

   James Wong Howe, who was last mentioned here for his work on Out of the Fog, also handled the camera on Seconds, a film which has been described as “John Frankenheimer’s cinematic Xanadu,” and to be sure, director Frankenheimer and photographer Wong Howe fill this thing with all sorts of artsy movie tricks, including slow motion, fish-eye lens, odd angles and eye-blink editing, all to produce a sense of disorientation and alienation in the creepy tale of a man (John Randolph) who buys a chance to be young and sexy again (Rock Hudson) only to find himself drowning in the shallowness of his new life.

   The antic artistry of the thing works, even if it gets pretentious after a while, as a growing sense of claustrophobic paranoia suffuses the film, but all the cinematic slight-of-hand seems less effective than the sinister acting by seasoned pros like Will Geer, whose expression can pass from fatherly to frightening without changing a wrinkle; Jeff Corey, who makes Evil seem distracted and self-absorbed; Wesley Addy as an overly-unctuous manservant; and even the once-blacklisted Nedrick Young as a party guest whose annoyance gets chillingly ominous.

   If Seconds succeeds at all — and I think it does — it’s less because of the camera and more due to the folks in front of it.

DANGEROUS EXILE. J. Arthur Rank, UK, 1957. Louis Jourdan, Belinda Lee, Keith Michell, Richard O’Sullivan, Martita Hunt, Finlay Currie, Anne Heywood, Brian Rawlinson. Based on the novel A King Reluctant by Vaughan Wilkins. Director: Brian Desmond Hurst.

   History, once in a while, rises to the occasion and outpaces and outdates historical fiction, sometimes in flashy fashion and sometimes not. Either way, does the truth always out? We hope so.

   Dangerous Exile is a film that takes place at the time of the French Revolution, centering as it does upon ten year old Louis XVII, son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and the heir to the throne when his parents are beheaded.

   In this film he makes his way to a mansion on the coast of Wales in a hot air balloon, a very neat conceit at the time the movie was made. As is known now, this could not have happened. The Dauphin died in a Parisian prison cell, still only a little boy, as verified by DNA tests made not so many years ago.

   But let’s go with the fiction. Even if Mars is uninhabitable, the story’s the the thing, as fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs know full well. In Wales the young lad taken in by some British gentry, and to tell you the truth, I like this version of the story better, truth or not.

   Louis Jourdan plays a French aristocrat who smuggles the lad out of his home land, leaving his own son behind to play the part in the would-be king’s place, while Belinda Lee, an American visiting her British aunt, is the woman in whose charge the boy is placed.

   His life, of course, is much happier there, having witnessed at least the death of his mother, and he soon no longer wishes to be king. Richard O’Sullivan, who plays the young boy to perfection – even the smile-producing scene in which he proposes marriage to the beautifully buxom Miss Lee is done well – later became a fixture on British TV, but to all intents and purposes is totally unknown in this country.

   Knowing more about the intrigue that was going on in France at the time will boost your enjoyment of the story as it goes along, and truth be known, this is a failure I find in myself. Even so, if good old-fashioned swordplay is what you are looking for in movies like this, the action toward the end of the film picks up noticeably, and it’s worth waiting for. (And unlike the photos to the left and above, the film is in color.)

   Dangerous Exile is a minor film, I admit, but when I happened to watch it, it was exactly what I wanted to see at the time.

THE DEVIL’S BAIT. Balbao-General Film, 1917. Ruth Roland, William Conklin, Henry King, Ed Brady, Myrtle Reeves, Lucy Blake, Gordon Sackville. Scenario by Will M. Ritchey. Director: Harry Harvey. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   Another of those sentimental morality plays that I have an almost inordinate fondness for, which could be a lingering effect of my upbringing in a Southern Baptist church.

   I was initially drawn to this film by the presence of Ruth Roland, a major chapter play star in the 1920s whom my mother still remembered with pleasure when I was a child. Here she was not required to exhibit any athletic prowess, but showed some skill at portraying an attractive young woman, brought up by a strict but loving father, whose checkered past almost helps bring about the downfall of his virtuous daughter, lured by an unscrupulous letch with jewels that captivate the eye and destroy the soul.

   This agent of the devil is, of course, foiled and punished, but there’s some splendid melodrama along the way, with intermittent appearances by an actor clothed in a tight-fitting devil’s suit who should have spent more time working out before he took on the role.

THE HOME MAKER. Universal, 1925. Alice Joyce, Clive Brook, Billy Kent Schaefer, Martha Mattox, Virginia True Boardman, Jacqueline Wells (later known as Julie Bishop). Scenario by Mary O’Hara, from the novel by Dorothy Canfield. Director: King Baggot. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   The subject of this film — a reversal of roles in which the husband stays home and takes care of the children — was probably an unusual one in 1925, one that was apparently reflected (according to reviews quoted in the program notes) in the hostility in at least some of the reviews to the husband’s role.

   He’s portrayed as almost terminally bored by his office job and when he’s passed over for a promotion and then, as in everything else, fails at a suicide attempt that leaves him a cripple, he welcomes the opportunity to stay at home while his wife, taking a low-level job in the womens’ wear factory run by his former company, quickly shows herself to be a gifted manager, soon promoted to a position and salary her husband could only have dreamed of.

   This domestic drama might initially seem to have been lifted from the pages of one of the slick womens’ magazines of the period, but it sheds that formulaic corset, impressing by its crisp direction, fine acting and unsentimental treatment of a then controversial subject.

   It should be noted that two distinguished women writers were credited for the source and scenario for the film. Dorothy Canfield (Fisher) is probably best known for her children’s classic Understood Betsy, while Mary O’Hara was the author of the bestselling My Friend Flicka, turned into a successful film by MGM starring Roddy MacDowell (and, of course, a horse).

THE BLOOD SHIP. Columbia, 1927. Hobart Bosworth, Jacqueline Logan, Richard Arlen, Walter James, Fred Kohler. Scenario by Fred Myton, based on a novel of Norman Springer. Producer: Harry Cohn; director: George B. Seitz. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   This plays like a stripped-down version of The Sea Wolf, with a sadistic sea captain, but with none of the philosophical underpinnings of the Jack London novel.

   Bosworth is a discredited Captain who signs on to the ship, which we learn is helmed by Walter James, the man who robbed him of his own ship, and, more importantly, of his wife and daughter. The crew largely consists of hijacked seamen, along with Bosworth and Richard Arlen, a young sailor who catches sight of the daughter James claims as his own and impulsively signs on for the voyage.

   James’ first mate is played by Fred Kohler, who specialized in playing bad guys, and the two run a ship in which brutality and fear reign. With a little quiet time, you can figure out that the girl is the pivotal player, who unites the past crimes and present perilous situation in a way that precipitates the final conflict and resolution.

   Predictable but entertaining.