VIRTUE. Columbia Pictures, 1932. Carole Lombard, Pat O’Brien, Mayo Methot, Jack La Rue, Shirley Grey, Ward Bond. Director: Edward Buzzell.
A Columbia pre-Code production, Virtueis a well constructed romantic melodrama/crime film that doesn’t remotely feel dated. Directed by Edward Buzzell, who lent his tradecraft to both Marx Brothers films and musicals, the film stars Pat O’Brien and Carolyn Lombard as a working class New York City couple who run into their fare share of trouble after they get married at town hall.
O’Brien portrays ambitious cab driver Jimmy Doyle who hopes to own his own gas station one day. Lombard portrays Mae, a prostitute who stays in the city despite a court order for her to leave town. Although Mae hopes to turn a new leaf and leave her old one behind, it’s only a matter of time before her past catches up with her.
Doyle, for his part, is never quite able to reconcile with his wife’s past in the oldest profession. Mae, on the other hand, still isn’t able to shake off her former work associates and ends up being conned out of her money by Gert (Shirley Grey), another ex-prostitute. When Mae attempts to get money back from Gert, she ends up getting framed for murder by lowlife Toots (Jack La Rue).
Just a fair warning: the crime aspect of the film really comes at the end of the movie, so it takes some patience to get there. But it’s worth the wait.
The film also benefits from the presence of Ward Bond who portrays Doyle’s close friend. When I think of Bond, I tend to associate him with westerns (and for good reason), but here he portrays a fellow NYC cab driver. He doesn’t have a huge role, but his character is pivotal to how the crime/murder aspect of the plot is resolved.
Overall assessment: an above average movie with great chemistry among the two leads.
STARTLING MYSTERY STORIES, Summer 1968. Editor: Robert A. W. Lowndes. Cover art by Virgil Finlay. Overall rating: *½.
COL. S. P. MEEK “The Black Mass.” Originally published in Strange Tales, November 1931. The monastery of St. Sebastian is attacked by Asmodeus, the master of a c oven celebrating the Black Mass. Is not made believable. (1)
EARL PEIRCE, JR. “The Last Archer.” Novelet. First published in Weird Tales, March 1937. A hated Crusader Knight, put under a curse by a dying Saracen, is condemned to die only at the hands of the world’s greatest archer. An electronics expert is brought to his deserted island castle to help him killing himself as his mirror image. Effectively weird, in spite of diary format. (3)
JAY TYLER “The Sight of Roses.” Lester Morrow thinks he has contacted the Devil in his efforts to have his unfaithful wife done away with, but his perfect plan works too well. Uneven writing, some good, most terrible. (1)
FERDINAND BERTHOUD “Webbed Hands.” Originally published in Strange Tales, November 1931. A South African uses a monstrously deformed assistant to kill female relatives for insurance money. The author uses clumsy inverted sentence structure as he generally displays ignorance of the English language. (0)
PAUL ERNST “Hollywood Horror.” Dr. Satan #3. Novelet. Originally published in Weird Tales, October 1935. Dr Satan invents a ray that makes flesh invisible and uses it to threaten the motion picture industry, Not very scientific to be sure, but fun reading. (2)
FREDERICK FORSYTH – No Comebacks. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1982 Viking, US, hardcover, 1982. Bantam, US, paperback, 1983. Reprinted many times since.
The ten stories gathered here carry out the same theme as Forsyth’s novels, detailing the work of competent professional men who are single-mindedly committed to achieving their goals. Forsyth details their preparations for their missions with loving thoroughness, and follows their plans through to their logical conclusions.
Some of his heroes succeed; some don’t. But if they don’t, it is because of some strange quirk that the hero could not have foreseen. More often than not, human frailty is what produces the splendid final twists in a number of the stories.
“No Comebacks” is the cleverest example of this: The _signs of what is to happen to city of London “golden-boy tycoon” Mark Sanderson are obvious all along, yet the ironic climax is still surprising and leaves us with a satisfied smile. In “There Are No Snakes in Ireland” (which won the MW A Edgar for Best Short Story of 1983), it is the bigotry of certain Irish (in this case against an Indian student named Harkishan Ram Lal) that proves to be the true villain. As in this award-winning story, Forsyth also used his experiences while living in Ireland in “Sharp Practice,” a tale of a highly unusual poker game on a train. And in “A Careful Man,” an individual whose meticulousness affected his family in life does so even from the grave.
These stories arc more human than Forsyth’s novels, the characters more memorable as people, rather than technicians, and the tension runs just as high as in the author’s longer works.
BACK FROM THE DEAD. Twentieth Century Fox, 1957. Peggie Castle, Arthur Franz, Marsha Hunt, Don Haggerty. Director: Charles Marquis Warren.
Don’t let the title of this Gothic misfire fool you. Back from the Dead is, despite its title, an altogether lifeless affair that plods along without much in the way of visceral horror or even suspense. Set in Carmel on the California coast (although filmed in Laguna) with a coterie of presumably Old Money types, the movie features Peggie Castle as a woman who becomes possessed with the spirit of her husband’s ex-wife, Felicia.
The husband, Dick Anthony (Arthur Franz), doesn’t know what’s going on, so he enlists the help of his sister-in-law Kate (Marsha Hunt) to investigate. This leads them to Felicia’s parents who are, or were, part of some black magic cult. And apparently it was Felicia who got them into it. You see: there is a Satanic mystic guru living in the area who is able to get young women under his spell, and she at one point fell under his control.
It was probably all very intriguing on paper. The problem is that the movie has such a lack of style that what could have worked, doesn’t. The movie isn’t scary or salacious; it’s overall rather dull, despite the cast taking the material seriously.
There is one scene though – and it’s in the beginning of the movie – which is truly captivating. The viewer sees two people, a man and a woman in cloaks, throwing a body into the water. It’s chilling and reminded me of the Val Lewton horror films of the 1940s.
Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there. Overall, a disappointment. But there’s enough in the source material that it could work as a remake someday.
