SHACK OUT ON 101, Allied Artists, 1955. Terry Moore, Frank Lovejoy, Keenan Wynn, Lee Marvin, Whit Bissell and Len Lesser. Written by Edward & Mildred Dein. Directed by Edward Dein.
Probably the best movie made that year about commies infiltrating a diner, this is in fact a film of bewitching badness, enchanting ineptitude and the occasional good part that serves accentuate the awful rest of the thing.
Briefly, Keenan Wynn runs the Diner; Terry Moore works there as a waitress but she’s studying to pass the Civil Service exam so she can get a good job and make her boyfriend proud of her. Said boyfriend is Frank Lovejoy as a Nuclear Scientist (!?!?) who is working on some shady deal with Slob (Lee Marvin) the short-order cook. Whit Bissell is a salesman/old army buddy of Wynn’s who hangs around to pad out the running time.
Okay, that’s the dramatis personae. As for the plot, well there isn’t much. We quickly learn that Slob, in addition to being a boorish letch, is also a commie spy, buying secrets from Frank. Is Frank really a traitor? Will Slob attack Terry? What about the two chicken vendors who sneak around at night watching the place through binoculars? Or the nasty-looking fish-peddler appropriately named Perch who keeps passing things to Slob in buckets of fish? And will any of this ever amount to anything?
Actually there’s a rather nice bit toward the end when Slob drops the mask and starts stalking Terry around the dark, deserted diner. But it’s a long time coming, delayed by perfunctory love scenes and stretches where everyone just seems to be killing time. The action (I use the term loosely and with tongue in cheek) stays in and around the same cheap set for the whole movie, and the comedy relief… well the less said the bitter.
At this point you’re probably asking yourself, “So why bother?†and I have to admit that Shack Out on 101 seemed to touch some childhood chord in my memory; I remembered being a kid in the 1950s and wondering when the Bomb would drop. Hearing about the HUAC hearings and trying to figure out who in my neighborhood was a commie spy: How about my 6th grade teacher? Or the old couple with the foreign accents who ran the musty old newsstand? Could they be Foreign Agents passing secrets in innocent-looking out-of-town papers, and stuff like that?
Shack Out taps into this collective paranoia with an engaging innocence, terrible in an enjoyable way, with a few old pros and a talented newcomer ignoring the badness and playing out their parts with straight faces and even some energy. Writer/director Dein (who helmed Curse of the Undead — the first vampire-western — and The Leech Woman, and co-wrote The Leopard Man) gets through it quickly and efficiently, and there is that odd glimmer of passable filmmaking that seems to glitter all the brighter for being mired in a film like this.
And if the character of Perch looks familiar to you, that’s because he’s played by Len Lesser: Uncle Leo on the Seinfeld series.
MARGARET MILLAR – Fire Will Freeze. Random House, hardcover, 1944. Dell #157, mapback edition, 1947. Signet P3101, paperback, February 1967. International Polygonics Library, paperback, 1987.
In a mental letter to the Messrs. Abercrombie & Fitch, Miss Isobel Seton writes: “Because one of your irresponsible clerks did not prevent me from buying a pair of skis, I am sitting here in what these damned Canadians call a Sno-bus, which means a bus that meets a Sno-train and conveys one to a Sno-lodge. I am marooned in the wilds of Quebec in a raging Sno-storm.”
That’s not the worst. When the Sno-bus driver gets out ostensibly to check a tire chain, he abandons the bus and its occupants. Trying to follow him, they discover a house, from which they are shot at and which contains the dotty Miss Rudd. Miss Rudd likes to cut up things, but would she have cut her favorite cat’s throat? And who would have expected, despite the presence of the mostly odd former occupants of the bus, two corpses?
Amid the laughter, you probably will find yourself casting worried glances over your shoulder.
— Reprinted from MYSTERY READERS JOURNAL, Vol. 6, No. 2, Summer 1990, “Vacation for Murder.”
ONCE A THIEF. MGM, 1965. Alain Delon, Ann-Margret, Van Heflin, Jack Palance, John Davis Chandler, Jeff Corey. Screenplay: Zekial Marko, based on his novel Scratch A Thief as by John Trinian (Ace Double F-107, 1961; Stark House, 2016). Director: Ralph Nelson.
This better than average crime heist film came along a few years after the height of the noir era, and while truth be told, it doesn’t break any new ground, it’s well-filmed, well-acted and beautifully photographed (in black and white when they knew how to film in black and white).
The thief in question is Alain Delon, who plays Eddie Pedak, a guy who’s done some time but is now married to Ann-Margret and has an honest job down by the San Francisco docks. He’s just made a down payment on his own boat when his nemesis, Inspector Mike Vido (Van Heflin), figures he’s the one who killed a Chinese woman in the process of robbing her small store.
When the woman’s husband can’t identify Eddie as the killer, he’s allowed to go free, but in the meantime he’s lost his job. Ann-Margret gets a job in a local nightspot — this doesn’t go over well — and then along comes his brother Walter (Jack Palance), a hustler and small-time hoodlum with an offer Eddie, desperate for money, can’t refuse.
A heist, in other words, and Walter needs Eddie. (I did mention, didn’t I, that not much in new ground is broken?) Heists never go as planned, but the story’s not really about the robbery. It’s about the characters, and while you can’t believe that Alan Delon and Jack Palance could ever be related, they make their roles ones they seemingly were born to play. Ann-Margret’s histrionics may go over the top a couple of times, but she managed to convince me that any mother whose young daughter is being held by a gang of sadistic thieves would react exactly the same way.
GEORGE SANDERS MYSTERY THEATRE (aka MYSTERY WRITERS THEATRE). NBC; June 22, 1957 to September 14, 1957. Screen Gems / Bischoff-Diamond Productions. Presented by George Sanders.
During the days of radio and early television the anthology series was very popular. There were a seemingly endless number of the genre from ALCOA PREMIERE to WAY OUT or better remembered from ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS to TWILIGHT ZONE. Virtually all had the same format: a famous actor or writer/producer of the show would talk directly to the audience introducing the story to follow. If an actor were the host, he or she would act in an occasional episode.
Most of the episodes of the majority of these anthologies were as forgettable as the series themselves. Yet occasionally an episode would hold a surprise. There are currently two episodes of GEORGE SANDERS MYSTERY THEATRE on YouTube. Each features a different series title and premise for the short-lived anthology.
“And The Birds Still Sing†is a forgotten adaptation of a Craig Rice short story featuring John J. Malone, with Malone forced to adopt the alias of Francis Parnell. This episode also featured the series original name MYSTERY WRITERS THEATRE and its original premise, to adapt the work of the members of Mystery Writers Association of America (“Billboard†December 3, 1955).
The Mystery Writers of America was and is a non-profit organization of writers. The group is best known for the Edgar Awards, but also helped its members’ work get adapted for radio (MYSTERY HALL OF FAME) and TV (THE WEB, CBS).
“And The Birds Still Sing.†(June 29, 1957) Teleplay by Gene Wang, based on a story by Craig Rice as published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Directed by Gerd Oswald. CAST: John Archer, Mae Clark, Tristram Coffin, and John Beradino. *** A femme fatale hires lawyer Francis Parnell for reasons unknown. When Parnell finds her murdered he is quick to find a new client and the killer.
I have not read the source material, a short story published in EQMM (December, 1952), but the Gene Wang adaptation captures Rice’s style well with an odd murder and odder characters and a twist at the end that is pure Malone.
Wang had experience with Malone as he wrote the best adaption of the character, the summer 1951 NBC radio series starring George Petrie as Malone. You can find my earlier review of the radio series here. (Follow the link.)
The episode’s host segment by George Sanders has its moments as he introduced not only the story but also the MWA club.
Sadly, actor John Archer was the weakest part of the episode. He lacked the charm and comedic timing to make Malone the lovable anti-hero Rice created. As to be expected, the production values were low and left it all with a stagey feel.
Something happened during the series production. There were changes in the fourth episode “You Don’t Live Here.†Gone is the title card for the Mystery Writers of America along with any mention of the MWA and its club. In its place is the series title THE GEORGE SANDERS MYSTERY THEATRE, and the host segments shifted focus away from the MWA to George Sanders persona and the episode at hand, even with Sanders wandering around the story’s location rather than the MWA club. Gone also was an adaption of a MWA members’ work and in its place was a TV original story by relative unknown Eugene Francis. The series now – at least for this episode – was just another wanna-be ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS.
“You Don’t Live Here.†(July 13, 1957) Written by Eugene Francis. Produced and directed by Fletcher Markle. CAST: Marion Ross, Alex Gerry and Peter Thompson. *** Returning from a visit with her sick Mother a newlywed discovers her world gone – others now live in her home, her husband has vanished as if he never existed, and her landlord and neighbor claim they have never met her.
The problem with these GASLIGHT-like plots they are always too unnecessarily complex to be believable. The episode tries to keep us guessing who is telling the truth but with the thirty-minute time limit we never get to know the characters well enough to care.
The George Sanders bits are embarrassingly bad as he hams it up even beyond his usual excesses.
The series has an interesting backstory. According to “Billboard†(July 14, 1956), NBC had bought MYSTERY WRITERS THEATRE from Screen Gems with plans to air the series later. “Broadcasting†(August 13, 1956) noted NBC did not plan to air the series in the fall of 1956-57 season but instead hold the series called GEORGE SANDERS SHOW for the 1957-58 season.
From “Broadcasting†(September 17, 1956), NBC buys Screen Gems series GEORGE SANDERS MYSTERY THEATRE, but only after Screen Gems agreed to share the profit from the series with the network. NBC would get 25% of the profits from the airing of the series in the U.S. and Canada as well as a rerun share.
This was a time when the networks sold time slots to advertising agencies and sponsors. “Broadcasting†(May 13, 1957) reported Pabst (beer) bought thirteen weeks of GEORGE SANDERS THEATRE to run during the summer on Saturday at 9pm- 9:30pm.
But this could only last for thirteen weeks as NBC had sold the time slot (Saturday at 9pm) for the fall to ad agency Liggett & Myers for sponsors Chesterfield (cigarettes) and Max Factor of Hollywood for the TV series PANIC.
So what happened to the MWA during this series? The episode indexes available for this series show the series was a mix of adaptations and originals.
“Broadcasting†(April 30, 1956) mentioned an episode of MYSTERY WRITERS THEATRE was shown to four hundred MWA members and their guests during the Edgar Allan Poe Awards on April 19, 1956. This means at least one episode was done before the anthology series was bought by NBC in July 1956 and not aired until June 1957. Could the MWA episodes been shot in summer of 1956 and the original stories episodes shot later when it was known NBC wanted it only as a replacement series?
Why was Malone’s name changed for “And The Birds Still Sing� ABC had the TV rights for Malone for the 1951-52 TV series but apparently did not keep them after cancelling THE AMAZING MR. MALONE. The series last episode aired March 10, 1952.
BONUS RESEARCH – CRAIG RICE THEATRE:
“Billboard†(June 26, 1952) reported CRAIG RICE THEATRE planned to go into production in August 1952 for Eagle-Lion Studio in Hollywood. Tony London would produce the half-hour series based on the work of Craig Rice. Sam Neuman would adapt the stories and direct. July 14, 1952 “Broadcasting†magazine added Tony London (FRANK MERRIWELL) had acquired the TV-Film rights to 352 story properties by Craig Rice. “Billboard†(September 6, 1952) listed CRAIG RICE THEATRE available for syndication but no pilot had yet been filmed.
Skip ahead to 1954, “Billboard†(September 27, 1954) CRAIG RICE was still a possible project with Tony London still the producer and Sam Neuman adapting Rice’s work as well as directing. Now McCadden Production (George Burns and Gracie Allen company) was behind the proposed series. The December 18, 1954 “Billboard†quoted producer Tony London’s complaints about the difficulty with finding a willing female star to host CRAIG RICE THEATRE.
“Billboard†(April 9, 1955) reported ABC-TV president Robert Kintner had discussions with producer Tony London and writer Sam Neuman about the CRAIG RICE series.
August 1, 1955 “Broadcasting†Ziv-TV plan to produce CRAIG RICE THEATRE but have yet to assign any writers. “Billboard†January 14, 1956 the CRAIG RICE THEATRE is on Ziv-TV production schedule to begin filming in late February or March and currently casting for the female host/lead. “Billboard†(April 7, 1956) Ziv-TV is still trying to sell CRAIG RICE THEATRE for the fall, but still have not found the female/host lead (“Billboard†January 14, 1956). April 7, 1956 “Billboard†has the last mention of CRAIG RICE THEATRE. Ziv-TV hopes to have it ready for the fall but there is no pilot or host/star attached. Tony London remains the project’s producer.
It is unlikely CRAIG RICE THEATRE ever got beyond planning, unable to ever find the right female star willing to host the series. But the TV rights to her writing seems to have been tied up in the Tony London project from 1952 through at least the fall of 1956 and that could have forced Malone to use his Parnell alias in “And The Birds Still Sing.â€
JACK LYNCH – Seattle. Pete Bragg #7. Warner, paperback original, October 1985. Reprinted under the author’s original title Yesterday is Dead, Brash Books, softcover, May 2015.
Jack Lynch, who died in 2008, was a long time newspaper reporter who began his career in Seattle before moving to San Francisco and the Chronicle, then quitting to write eight PI Pete Bragg novels, all but the last paperback originals in the 1980s. Of these one won a Edgar and two received Shamus nominations.
The books came out during a time in my life when I was buying paperbacks like crazy but reading almost none of them. This is the first of the Bragg books that I’ve read, and I have to knock myself on the side of head and wonder why.
The information that the original title for this, the seventh in the series and the last until 17 years later, came from the Thrilling Detective website, and as is often the case in situations like this, the original title, Yesterday Is Dead, is better. In this book Bragg, who is based in San Francisco, makes a return trip to his home town of Seattle to help a friend who’s in trouble, and along the way he finds that going home is almost never as easy as it sounds.
The friend is Benny Bartlett, a mild-mannered photographer and freelance writer whose life has been threatened. If he doesn’t get out of town, he’s been warned, he’s going to be killed. Bragg drops everything at once and heads northward to Seattle, where he hasn’t been in five years.
In the course of helping Benny with his problem, Bragg’s path crosses those of several distinctive women, one of them his ex-wife Lorna. Sparks fly with at least two of them, including Lorna. It also shouldn’t come as any surprise that several seemingly unconnected threads of the story are connected, in a fairly prosaic fashion.
But it is Bragg as a character, who tells his own story, that’s the fascination here. Over the years he’s changed a lot, Lorna says, he’s tougher now, and in the course of his stay in Seattle, he takes an graphically described beating with perhaps an even more painful recovery. He learns even more about himself in Seattle, and for me it’s a bit of a shame that this last novel turns out to me to be the first one I read. Worse, though, I’m sure, for fans of the series at the time, as it took longer and longer for a next book to occur, it left them wondering if there would ever be another.
The PI Peter Bragg series —
Bragg’s Hunch. Gold Medal, 1981.
The Missing and the Dead. Gold Medal, 1982.
Pieces of Death. Gold Medal, 1982.
Sausalito. Warner, 1984.
San Quentin. Warner, 1984.
Monterey. Warner, 1985.
Seattle. Warner, 1985.
Wolf House. iUniverse, 2002.
DEVIL AND THE DEEP. Paramount, 1932. Charles Laughton, Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper and Cary Grant. Written by Harry Hervey and Benn W. Levy. Directed by Marion Gering.
I’ve wanted to see this since I was fourteen and read it mentioned in an article by William K. Everson, and I should say if it doesn’t live up to 50 years of wishful thinking, it ain’t bad at all.
Charles Laughton had a brilliant career on stage and screen, but he was at his nastiest in those early days at Paramount, in films like this, White Woman and Island of Lost Souls: three chilling and quite different essays in grand guignol screen villainy. This was his second film in the U.S. and his first at Paramount; they gave him special billing, and he deserves every inch of it.
I should probably add that the writing and direction are nothing much, the special effects downright laughable and the ending drawn out and anticlimactic. But Devil and the Deep is suffused with that elegant Paramount atmosphere that lent distinctive style to films as disparate as Scarlet Empress and Duck Soup — which are not all that dissimilar, come to think of it. There’s just no mistaking a Paramount film from this era, and they are generally a pleasure to look at, if not always to watch.
The story? Completely forgettable but oddly compelling. Laughton is a naval commander at “A British Submarine Base in Northern Africa†(and don’t that sound Hollywood-exotic!) who has a fetish for imagining his wife (Tallulah Bankhead) is unfaithful to him and tormenting her about it. As the film opens, it’s common gossip about the local British enclave that she’s carrying on with Cary Grant she’s not, but she might as well be because everyone treats her like Miss Sadie Thompson anyway.
Breaking under the pressure of public opinion and Charlie’s lascivious threats, the poor girl runs off into the night, or rather the Paramount back lot, gets caught up in a rowdy native ceremony and quickly rescued by Gary Cooper. And then…..
Well, and then things get a bit predictable but enjoyably overblown. (At Paramount, even the inside of a submarine has a spacious look to it.) Cary drops out of the story like a pebble down a canyon, Gary and Tallulah strike sparks, and Laughton gets enough big dramatic scenes to satiate his fans and himself.
Great filmmaking? Hardly. But a treat for fans of this sort of thing and I’m glad I finally caught it.
THE INVISIBLE MENACE. Warner Brothers, 1938. Boris Karloff, Marie Wilson, Eddie Craven, Regis Toomey, Henry Kolker, Cy Kendall, Charles Trowbridge, Eddie Acuff, Frank Faylen. Director: John Farrow.
I’ll admit it: I thought I knew who the murderer was, but I was wrong. Which just goes to show you that The Invisible Menace, although a somewhat clumsily filmed programmer, is worth watching until the very end. Combining humor with genuine pathos, this Warner Brothers murder mystery benefits from solid performances by star Boris Karloff and supporting actor Regis Toomey. Plus there are some occasional moments of levity and snappy dialogue to keep you engaged for the duration.
When an ordinance expert on a military installation is found tortured and murdered, it’s up to an ornery colonel to figure out just what happened and why. Because the military base in question is set on an island, there’s a natural limitation as to whom the murderer might be. Is it one of the officers, the doctor, or perhaps Boris Karloff’s character, a man with a shady past and a secret from his time living and working for the U.S. Army in Haiti?
At times extraordinarily stagy, The Invisible Menace has the feeling of a movie produced in 1931, rather than 1938. A lavish production this is not. But it’s a decent enough little crime film, one that doesn’t much linger in your thoughts afterward, but a clever enough adaptation of a play directed by an Australian living in the United States who would go on to much bigger and better things.
JOHN GOLDFARB, PLEASE COME HOME. 20th Century Fox, 1965. Shirley MacLaine, Peter Ustinov, Richard Crenna, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Jim Backus, Fred Clark, Scott Brady, Harry Morgan, Jerome Cowan, Telly Savalas, Jackie Coogan, Charles Lane, Leonid Askin, Richard Deacon, Jerry Orbach. Screenplay: William Peter Blatty. Director: J. Lee Thompson.
YOU KNOW WHAT SAILORS ARE! General Films, UK, 1954; United Artists, US, 1954. Akim Tamiroff, Donald Sinden, Sarah Lawton, Naunton Wayne, Bill Kerr, Dora Bryan, Martin Miller, Michael Shepley, Ferdy Mayne, Shirley Eaton (unbilled). Screenplay by Peter Rogers, based on the novel Sylvester by Edward Hyams. Director: Ken Annakin.
These two films, done a little over a decade apart, are both cold war satires and sex farces set against a never never land of exotic Middle Eastern Arab states (more Grand Duchy of Fenwick than Graustark) and broadly drawn caricatures of both Western and Mid-Eastern types. One is a pleasant, even charming comedy with real laughs and sex appeal, the other is John Goldfarb, Please Come Home.
Starting with the brassy and annoying title song sung by Shirley MacLaine, John Goldfarb, Please Come Home sets the tone for the entire film, loud, obvious, and painful to endure. Fawzia is a fictional Arab state run by eccentric King Fawz (Peter Ustinov at his absolute worst doing incredibly unfunny and offensive slapstick) who is upset his darling son has been kicked off the football team at Notre Dame and wants revenge.
When U2 pilot, John “Wrongway†Goldfarb (Richard Crenna “He said, funny, you don’t look Jewish.â€) manages to ditch over Fawzia on a mission over the U.S.S.R. (they don’t call him Wrongway for nothing), and King Fawz learns from his chief minister Gus (Wilfrid Hyde-White) that Goldfarb was a football star and coach, — well you can see where this is going — and nowhere fast.
Meanwhile obnoxious harridan reporter Jenny Ericson (Shirley MacLaine), who gave Goldfarb his hated nickname, has gone undercover in King Fawz harem only to find the old boy is more active than she was told and she is anxious to maintain her amateur standing blackmailing Goldfarb into protecting her.
All this leading to one of those hate turns to romance things so beloved by script writers and here wholly unlikely as the only proper reaction to MacLaine’s character would be homicide and not chivalry. This film really doesn’t like women. It doesn’t like anyone much, but it really dislikes women, the harem consisting of gold diggers with no self esteem whatsoever. Women exist only as sex objects, and the only vaguely intelligent one is a screaming shrieking harpy with a shrill laugh and all the charm of a scorpion.
I like MacLaine, in fact I like everyone involved in making this film including the screenwriter and director, but what any of them were thinking escapes me. This film is an almost physical assault from start to finish, the cinematic equivalent of being slapped in the face with a wet dead fish repeatedly.
Back in Washington the boys (Secretary of State Harry Morgan, CIA chief Fred Clark, diplomat Jim Backus, Sec. of Defense Richard Deacon et al) think Goldfarb is dead, and are concerned about getting an airfield in Fawzia, but having recently presented the king with a set of pigskin luggage (yes, that’s the level of humor here) things are looking bad — unless they can persuade Notre Dame to play a game against Fawzia’s new team with their mystery coach, and Notre Dame loses …
Loud, often racist, rude, crude, painfully unfunny, sexist, silly, strident, and just awful are just a few of the adjectives that come to mind about this painful satire that makes Mad look subtle. There is something here to offend everyone including the total waste of talent. To give you the level of humor here, Fred Clark is the CIA director named Overreach and Jim Backus a diplomat named Whitepaper.
These are the jokes, folks …
I will give Scott Brady this, though. In a film with so many funny men and women being not funny he has a nice turn as the thoroughly flustered Notre Dame coach. It’s not much, but it’s something.
You Know What Sailors Are! starts with Lt. Sylvester Green (Donald Sinden) and friends, Royal Naval officers on a binge, who as a joke build a Rube Goldberg contraption from a pram and three gold balls from a pawn shop on the prow of an Arab destroyer in port and paint it gray. Come the next morning the Royal Navy spies the thing and before an hour has passed they have identified it as Project 998, a super-secret new radar, and want to know how the Arab’s got it first.
In short order Lt.Green is ordered to accompany the Arab ship back home to Agraria and find out from a brilliant scientist living in retirement there, Professor Hyman Pfumbaum (Mark Miller), how the Agrarians got the new radar, and he can hardly tell his superiors it’s a drunken joke.
Traveling with Sinden is the malaprop-dropping President of the Arab state, Akim Tamiroff, who believes 998 is a secret weapon, just what he needs against one of his militaristic neighbors, Smorgisgov, who have his country ringed by missiles, and who decides he must keep Lt. Green a prisoner, so he locks him ups in his harem of beautiful daughters watched over by his eccentric English wife (Dora Bryan) and an army of scantily clad beautiful girls as guards.
“He must be marrying one of my daughters, then everyone will be happy, myself excluded.â€
Things get more complicated as Tamiroff and his friend Hyman try to convince their neighbors that 998 actually works by blowing up Smorgsnigov’s missiles deceiving their foreign scientist Stanislaus Voritz (Ferdy Mayne) who has a thing for missiles, and Sylvester’s girl Betty(Sarah Lawton), secretary of his boss (Naunton Wayne) and best friend Lt. Smart (Bill Kerr) parachute into Argaria to break into the harem and rescue him before the Royal Navy gets too suspicious why he doesn’t come home.
You Know What Sailors Are! is genuinely funny, it’s barbs sharp but delivered with wit and not malice, and aimed at pretty much everyone with equal wit and warmth. Tamiroff’s fractured English is a delight — “Bang Crash Ruddy Wallop!†is how he describes his countries plight, and when he and his friend scientist Hyman meet to talk announcing “Let us both talk in broken English so we can misunderstand each other.†— and the girls are genuinely attractive.
There is a funny, but still sexy, musical number with Lawton posing as a dancer trying to capture Green’s attention that compares more than favorably to the jolting and unattractive numbers that dot John Goldfarb with little or no point other than MacLaine and skimpily clad models gyrating unattractively to bad music. You know a Hollywood movie is in trouble when it can’t even organize a sexy Arabian nights style faux belly dancing number.
You Know What Sailors Are! is a pleasant minor satirical diversion, sexist yes, but not jarringly so and not without intelligent and capable female characters, beautifully shot in soft pastel colors with a cast of attractive and talented people poking gentle barbs at themselves and others, probably offensive if you really want to get offended, but all done with such good humor and affection it would be hard to take real offense.
It comes across as a sort of Middle Eastern The Mouse That Roared. John Goldfarb, Please Come Home is a garish assault on the senses, eyes and ears, painfully arch, blatantly offensive, utterly without a redeeming feature, screechingly played at the top of everyone’s voice, and with all the charm and subtly of a herd of sexually frustrated camels stampeding through your china closet.
ISLE OF MISSING MEN. Monogram Pictures, 1942. John Howard, Helen Gilbert, Gilbert Roland, Alan Mowbray, Bradley Page, George Chandler, Ernie Adams. Director: Richard Oswald.
A strangely unclassifiable story in may ways. The title may make it sound like a crime film, but except for the fact that the film takes place on a penal island in the South Pacific, there is no crime committed during its short 67 minute running time.
That it takes place in the South Pacific during wartime, and a Japanese warplane takes an early unsuccessful bombing run at the island, just on general principles only, might classify as a war film. On the other hand, that is the end of any reference to the war, and to honest, this movie could have taken place well before the hostilities began. It has, in fact, an overall 1930s feel to it, as if Monogram had made the film back then and only got around to releasing it in 1942.
What Isle of Missing Men really is, is a romantic drama, centered around a blonde temptress (Helen Gilbert) who finagles her way to the island where John Howard is the governor, Alan Mowbray is the prison doctor, Bradley Page is the very suspicious second in command, and Gilbert Roland a prisoner who claims to be innocent, but then again don’t thy all? But maybe this time, just maybe.
It is at least a four-way love triangle, and Miss Gilbert easily has her way with all her quickly gained suitors and admirers. The lady — the actress — apparently was far better known for her several marriages than she was ever was for her movie career. Isle of Missing Men may have been the peak of her success.
A statement which I make in all seriousness. This may not have been a crime film, per se, but it has elements of a truly noir film. The low budget acts against it, of course, and so does the execrable quality of the Alpha Video DVD. And yet, and yet. The story is oddly ingratiating, if not wholly admirable. I liked this one maybe more than I should have.
KAREN A. ROMANKO – Television’s Female Spies and Crimefighters: 600 Characters and Shows, 1950s to the Present. McFarland, softcover, February 2016.
The full title of this book is self-explanatory, I’m sure. I’ve only browsed through it myself, so this is not a review, but in my opinion this is a book that every reader of this blog ought be know about, if you don’t already.
To open the book, author Karen Romanko provides a long and knowledgeable introduction to the overall history of female crimefighters on television, followed in the main portion of the book by a comprehensive alphabetical listing of all relevant TV series and their significant characters, cross-referenced between the two. For example, the TV series Elementary and the character Joan Watson each have their own entries, each mentioning the other in bold face.
The first entry is Acapulco H.E.A.T., followed by Lydia Adams (Southland); the last two are Roberta Young (Snoops) and The Zoo Gang, a British production that aired in this country on NBC in 1975.
This is a book that’s easy to get caught up in, following one familiar show to its star and then to others not so familiar, and vice versa for (in my estimation) hours on end.
