1940s American Horror Part Fourteen

THE LODGER
(1944)
Dir - John Brahm
Overall: MEH

 

Marie Belloc Lowndes's 1913 novel The Lodger had already been made twice by the time that 20th Century Fox took a crack at it and the Jack the Ripper subject matter in and of itself would be brought to the screen dozens of times over the decades.  The angle for this particularly take is that there is zero mystery as to who the killer and ergo Ripper is, since the lodger of the title clearly fits that bill from the moment that we meet him.  Laird Cregar's aloof performance helps, being a hulking presence with a soft-spoken demeanor and eccentric habits that the audience will catch on to before the other characters do.  Thankfully George Sanders is also along for the ride as the police inspector who is trying to track Cregar down, with his sly, distinguished persona in tow.  Because 1944 when the Production Code was in full swing, there are hardly any grisly bits and few murders in general, leaving things to go the overly-chatty route instead.  Director John Brahm keeps things moving as much as he is able to though and Lucien Ballard's cinematography does the fog-ridden London setting proud, with some imposing camera angles thrown in for good measure.

 

VALLEY OF THE ZOMBIES
(1946)
Dir - Philip Ford
Overall: MEH

 

Republic Pictures sure knew how to churn-out a talky, brisk, and stiff B-movie on the cheap and the wrongly-titled Valley of the Zombies easily falls into their lot.  The second movie from director Philip Ford, it introduces a mysterious and spooky bad guy early on, (played with a level of macabre showmanship by Ian Keith), who is both kind of a zombie and kind of a vampire, though the four people involved with coming up with the story seemed either incapable or disinterested in distinguishing the specifics.  He allegedly died on the operating table and now needs blood transfusions to survive after studying voodoo, so it certainly sounds like its cliches were simply drawn from a hat.  In any event, the script has some quick banter between its acceptable cast, but there sure is a lot of it in place of ghoulish moments.  The tone bounces between sinister and cutesy, but not in a distracting manner and Ford fails to interject any quirky details in the way that say James Whale would have done to make things more interesting.  Too sluggish to recommend even at fifty-five minutes in length, but it is still some harmless almost-fun.

 

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER
(1948)
Dir - Anatole Litvak
Overall: GOOD

 

A cinematic adaptation of Lucille Fletcher's 1943 stage play of the same name by Ukrainian-born director Anatole Litvak, Sorry, Wrong Number fuses film noir motifs with some twisty thriller ones, all with a catchy jumping off point where Barbara Stanwyck hears what sounds like two men planning a murder over a crossed phone line.  This alarming incident kicks off a stream of flashbacks that pile on the convoluted details involving her bored and ambitious husband, her controlling millionaire father, and doctors, lawyers, exes, and other shady individuals who lead everything to a distraught and bleak climax that is worth the strain of keeping all of the pieces straight.  Stanwyck turns in a melodramatic tour de force performances as an obnoxious and spoiled woman with no emotional capabilities to deal with her situation and Burt Lancaster is solid as always, this time as an emasculated man who bites off more than he can chew in his ill-fated plan to get free from his father in law's wide-reaching influence.  Like most expressive noir, the cinematography is a major component and Sol Polito keeps the camera moving accordingly, creating a sense of claustrophobia when tensions peak, as well as pulling back to zone in on tasty details.

1940s American Horror Part Thirteen

GHOST CATCHERS
(1944)
Dir - Edward F. Cline
Overall: WOOF

 

The D-rent comedy duo Olsen and Johnson do an abysmal job of channeling Abbott and Costello's shtick with Ghost Chasers, (High Spirits); a dopey and lighthearted comedy horror romp that is absent of both comedy and horror.  Though it may perk the interest of genre fans for featuring Lon Chaney Jr. in a bear suit, it just comes off as odd that Universal threw him into such a forgettable dud in the first place when his career was not even washed up yet and he was in the prime of his monster movie appearances.  In any event, Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson may not be the most obnoxious vaudevillian nyuck nyuck pair of their era, but they sure are vanilla flavored.  One would be hard-pressed to even known which one was which after watching this since they look the same and have zero differentiating quirks between them.  Also, they never do or say anything that comes within a hundred miles of "funny".  Much of this is owed to Edmond L. Hartman and Elwood Ullman horrendously lazy script though, which is peppered by way too many snore-inducing musical numbers and gags that are so wooden as to be indecipherable.  In other words, be prepared to regularly ask out loud, "Wait, was that supposed to be funny?".

 

THE HOUSE OF FEAR
(1945)
Dir - Roy William Neill
Overall: MEH

 

While none of the films in Universal's stream of Sherlock Holmes adaptations are full-on horror, their tenth installment in the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce series The House of Fear boasts a creepy Scottish castle, wailing winds, mutilated corpses that remain off screen of course, and characters claiming that ghosts are about.  Loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1891 short story "The Five Orange Pips", returning director Roy William Neill makes good use out of the Gothic setting that is full of secret passages and the like, as the bodies pile up and red herrings are thrown about.  Of course it is Rathbone's Holmes that seems to have it all sussed out from the beginning, merely solidifying his suspicious with a couple of clever maneuvers that everyone else on board has to catch up with.  This includes Bruce's trusty sidekick Dr. Watson who stays respectable enough to not come off as just bumbling comic relief, getting a fair amount to do in the process.  The stakes never seem too extreme and it has a sufficient yet uninspired air to it, as if all of the personnel are going through their dialed-in motions.  It is still fun for what it is though and hardly overstays its welcome at a mere sixty-nine minutes.

 

THE AMAZING MR. X
(1948)
Dir - Bernard Vorhaus
Overall: MEH

A plodding melodrama from Eagle-Lion Films, The Amazing Mr. X, (The Spiritualist), fuses supernatural gaslighting with film noir motifs, yet it does so in a forgettable manner.  This was designed as a starring vehicle for Austrian-born Turhan Bey, who plays a smirking and suave psychic medium that manages to charm the pants off of Cathy O'Donnell even after his seance fakery is exposed.  The co-existing plot concerns O'Donnell's older widowed sister Lynn Bari who becomes psychologically duped into believing that her dead husband is haunting her, all while Richard Carlson gets the cuckold treatment and seems to be the only one hip to something fishy going on.  It is all fine and good performance wise and the characterizations are sensationalized if still plausible in such a context, though Donald Curits is too one-note and flimsy to get behind as the story's villain.  Director Bernard Vorhaus and cinematographer John Alton do appropriate work in creating a creepy mood with some nifty camera work, even if everything goes the way of Scooby-Doo style revelations instead of genuine ghostly shenanigans.  Any black and white movie with disembodied hands and heads floating around, plus a house set upon crashing waves and cliffs is at least heading in the right direction, even if the story is absurd and the presentation never manages to light a spark.

1940s American Horror Part Twelve

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX
(1942)
Dir - William Nigh
Overall: MEH

Universal gets some more use out of its resident doctor Lionel Atwill with The Strange Case of Dr. X, though the character actor goes almost unnoticed by taking a backseat to Patrick Knowles and Anne Gwyne's playful newly-wed banter.  We also have Shemp Howard and Mantan Moreland in lighthearted comic relief roles, with the former as a bumbling police boob and the latter as the usual man servant that African American actors were delegated to play at the time.  Allegedly, Clarence Upson Young's script was incomplete when filming began, resulting in most of the dialog being ad-libbed by the performers, which was a rarity amongst tightly-structured studio pictures.  Veteran director William Night is unfortunately as powerless to elevate the lame material as the on-screen talent are, which is all talk and no horror.  While the lighthearted approach is fitting and seems intentional, the murder mystery comes off as an afterthought and the reveal of  Ray "Crash" Corrigan in a monkey suit, (as he was wont to wear), and the masked title character within the last ten minutes seems laughably out of place in a more convoluted and accidental sense.

THE LADY AND THE MONSTER
(1944)
Dir - George Sherman
Overall: MEH

The only horror film from prolific director George Sherman, The Lady and the Monster is also notable as the first cinematic adaptation of Curt Siodmak's 1942 novel Donovan's Brain, which would be brought to the screen in both official and unofficial capacity over the next few decades.  While the production is a cut above the norm for one of Hollywood's lesser studios, (Republic Pictures in this case), and a limping Erich Von Stroheim is ideally cast as the stubborn and cold mad scientist that keeps the disembodied brain of a recently deceased investment banker alive long enough for it to possess his lab partner and turn him into a relentless asshole, the plot has little oomph to it.  It is a chatty affair that ultimately sidesteps a humdrum love triangle in order to devote the second half to Donovan's cranium powers withdrawing money and trying to get an innocent man off of death row; a sidestep that is equally humdrum.  Sherman and cinematographer John Alton do their best to create a sinister mood, but the story lacks suspense, mayhem, and action, merely going through the motions in the process.

THE PHANTOM SPEAKS
(1945)
Dir - John English
Overall: MEH
 

British-born director John English, (hence the name), worked almost exclusively in the Western genre throughout his career before moving into television, making The Phantom Speaks from Republic Pictures an anomaly in his cannon.  John K. Butler's script is as "sure whatever" as any such B-movie, utilizing a scientist, his adult daughter, and a news reporter as the three protagonists which were required by law to be the only protagonists in at least ninety percent of these productions from the era.  In this universe, a doctor not only thinks that people can come back to life simply if they want to enough, but also that they have been doing so throughout human history and that anyone with mental illness is just a normal person who is possessed by a dead person.  So, yeaaahhhh.  While the unassuming Tom Powers is miscast as a heartless criminal with an iron will, the rest of the players go through the motions fine, only without any of them making a memorable impression.  Barely an hour long, it quickly turns into a crime revenge scenario with little to link it to anything supernatural besides what the premise reads like on paper, plus English's direction is pedestrian at best so it is not like he was equipped to do much with the material in the first place.

1940s American Horror Part Eleven

SON OF INGAGI
(1940)
Dir - Richard C. Kahn
Overall: WOOF

A historically important "race film" that was the first in the horror/mad scientist genre, Son of Ingagi is unfortunately also an appallingly dull production.  Though director Richard C. Kahn was Caucasian, everyone on screen is black, inducing screenwriter Spencer Williams who on paper is supposed to be the comic relief police detective.  There are two musical numbers early on and for 1940, it portrays its cast in a more respectable manner than what African American actors were usually allowed to play in mainstream movies, either A or B-budgeted.  Several things undermine the effort though, namely Kahn's unbearably flat direction and an awful sense of pacing.  There is no incidental musical score, (something that was usually a good thing in the early sound era to create a level of intimate intensity), but Williams' story has nothing going for it, so every scene plays out to pin-drop silence with only the most bare bones "point the camera until the scene is over" cinematography.  Many of the actors stumble through their lines and the ape man monster is just a guy grunting in embarrassing face paint and glued-on hair.  It is a shame then that such an opportunity was wasted for black performers to carve out their own successful niche in the horror market.

 

THE UNDYING MONSTER
(1942)
Dir - John Brahm
Overall: MEH

 

An uneven horror cheapie from Twentieth Century-Fox' B-unit, The Undying Monster, (The Hammond Mystery), blows some swell atmosphere on a clumsy story that regularly looses its footing.  Things seem promising enough from the onset as we settle into an allegedly haunted coastal house in southeast England where some screams are heard due to an unidentified creature attacking someone, which brings in two Scotland Yard detectives to investigate.  From there though, things quickly divulge into lackluster comic relief and several characters walking about the mansion's ground in order to dig up clues.  The excellent Gothic set design and Lucien Ballard's moody cinematography fail to elevate a story that cannot decide how spooky it is supposed to be, also there is no star power and the performances that we do get are merely passable.  For large portions of the running time, it bares zero hallmarks to any adequately sinister genre films as people prattle on without any interesting discoveries being made or tension being ratcheted up.  Only with mere minutes left to spare before "The End" pops up on the screen do we finally get a clear shot of the title monster, which is a shame since the make-up is satisfactory, yet it barely makes an impression due to the sluggish toll to get there.

THE CATMAN OF PARIS
(1946)
Dir - Lesley Selander
Overall: MEH

Trying and failing to capture the low-budget atmospherics of RKO's Val Lewton productions, The Catman of Paris comes from Poverty Row studio Republic Pictures who do a routine job with the material.  Every aspect from Lesley Selander's direction, to the screenplay from Sherman L. Lowe, to Reggie Lanning's cinematography, Dale Butts', (huh, huh, "Butts"), music, to all of the performances are bland and forgettable.  Austrian-born Carl Esmond has a convincing accent, but he is as uninteresting of a protagonist as the film itself is, playing an aristocratic writer who nonchalantly dumps his fiance for another woman and becomes convinced that the city's recent string of murders it due to his turning into a feline monster.  There is a twist at the end that does nothing to elevate the proceedings and the few shots that we do get of the Mr. Hyde-esque, bestial title character are not up to par with any of the Jack Pierce make-up designs from Universal.  The movie merely goes through the motions; all of the ingredients are there to make a moody, Gothic, and low-key B-feature, but nobody on board seems to possess any understanding as to the necessary specifics of how to make that happen.  A sixty-four minute running time is at least a saving grace.

1940s American Horror Part Ten

DR. RENAULT'S SECRET
(1942)
Dir - Harry Lachman
Overall: MEH

The last film to be directed by Harry Lachman whose career went back to the silent era and included little if anything in the realm of conventional horror, Dr. Renault's Secret is a brisk yet unimpressive one for 20th Century Fox.  Part bog-standard murder mystery and part kind-of monster movie, its production values are unassuming yet acceptable, with cinematographer Virgil E. Miller actually moving the camera around and getting some expressive shots.  Genre regulars George Zucco and J. Carrol Nash play a mad scientist and his dim-witted assistant respectively, and they are the only two characters with unique personalities, particularly Nash who has a soft-spoken and eccentric charm as one of Zucco's unnerving and now love-smitten, walking experiments.  A tragic character, Nash pulls off an occasionally intense yet mostly sympathetic performances as a less interesting stand-in for Universal's Frankenstein monster or Larry Talbot.  He also does not have any gnarly make-up to wear, which is unfortunate for genre fans yet also what probably allows for actors Shepperd Strudwick and Lynne Roberts to treat him benevolently.

THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST

(1945)

Dir - Lesley Selander

Overall: MEH

Stylistically akin to the Val Lewton productions from RKO, The Vampire's Ghost stems from Republic Pictures and has a couple of tricks up its sleeve to elevate it above what could have been just a forgettable Poverty Row B-movie.  For one, this marks the screenwriting debut of Leigh "The Queen of Space Opera" Brackett, who along with John K. Butler, churned out something that fuses singular vampire motifs with voodoo island films, all in a contemporary setting no less.  Large-eyed, proper Englishman John Abbott's undead nightclub owner is never shown spouting fangs or partaking of human blood, (at least on screen), he can roam freely around in the day time, and he can heal his wounds by laying in the moonlight.  At the same time though, he promises Peggy Stewart's heroine eternal life, can hypnotize people with ease, and has an aversion to crosses, mirrors, and silver.  The plot line is hardly exciting and routinely drags even though the whole thing clocks in at under an hour, plus Brackett and Butler fail to meld much of any tribal mysticism into the proceedings besides some beating drums.  Still, director Lesley Selander manages to stage one or two atmospheric moments and the whole thing is historically important for being one of the earlier Hollywood products to strip the Gothic romanticism out of cinematic vampires.

THE FACE OF MARBLE

(1946)

Dir - William Beaudine

Overall: WOOF

 

One of many genre offerings from Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures, The Face of Marble scores John Carradine in the mad scientist lead as well as everyone's favorite scardey cat black guy Willie Best to provide some embarrassing political incorrectness, except minus the comic relief part this time.  In fact there is nothing funny to the proceedings here either unintentionally or otherwise, which is ultimately the film's downfall.  Yet another lazy tweak on the Frankenstein concept of revitalizing dead tissue, somehow it all ends up with a house servant conducting voodoo rituals and then a dog and another woman being able to walk through walls while getting mind controlled into murdering people.  The film is only seventy-two minutes yet feels twice as long since again as always, it is padded with emotionless banter between stock characters who lack any distinguishing personality traits.  Even Carradine, (who was occasionally hired to ham things up), just comes off as dull as everything else going on.  There is a continuous dramatic score that plays arbitrary over dialog scenes, flat direction from the prolific yet never remarkable William Beaudine, and a plot that is so boring that one can hardly remember it once it all wraps up.

1940s American Horror Part Nine

THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL

(1941)

Dir - Stuart Heisler

Overall: MEH

 

Though it is presented in a straight-faced and even stark manner, Paramount's The Monster and the Girl is still a bizarre B-level production on paper.  Featuring some long-forgotten lead and character actors, (Paul Lukas, George Zucco, and Edward Van Sloan being the most recognizable), its lack of genre star power is forgivable since the major attraction is a guy in a gorilla suit.  Primate B pictures were usually good for a knowingly goofy chuckle at most, but the story here ups the weird as it concerns a wrongly convicted man whose brain is used by scientists after his execution, a brain which is then put into an ape that inadvertently allows said condemned fellow to intact his revenge in a much hairier and stronger body.  Director Stuart Heisler stages the handful of kill scenes with no incidental music, something that actually makes them suspenseful, plus the brisk sixty-four minute running time means that most of the fat is trimmed.  The first half is more sluggish by comparison as we are given two flashbacks in a lengthy courtroom scene, but once the movie showcases what it advertises on the poster and does so in a horror-by-way-of-mad-scientist/film noir manner, it becomes a more interesting affair that it probably deserves to be.

 

INVISIBLE AGENT

(1942)

Dir - Edwin L. Marin

Overall: MEH

After the low-rent Invisible Woman went full comedy, Universal's following Invisible Agent switched genres yet again to being a war time spy film while still retaining elements of purposeful goofiness.  This particular franchise was miles away from horror at this point as well as H.G. Wells' source material, (a throwaway line states that Jon Hall's title character is the grandson of Griffin from the first film and novel), but it is also less silly than its predecessor.  That said, there are tonal shifts aplenty while Nazi officers and scientists try to get Griffin's invisibility formula and wacky high-jinks ensure, particularly during a long intelligence operation where J. Edward Bromberg's bumbling SS officer keeps falling for Griffin's unseen pranks on him.  Most of the performances could have been equally handled by anyone, including Hall in the lead who possesses only the most bare-bones level of charisma to carry things through.  That said, Peter Lorre is always a highlight even in his underused form here and Sir Cedric Hardwicke makes for a calculated Nazi Gestapo with a sophisticated English accent.  The main attraction of course are the special effects though, which thankfully are frequently showcased.

 

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE

(1946)

Dir - Robert Siodmak

Overall: MEH

A gripping finale and superb cinematography are the major advantage points to director Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase; an adaptation of Ethel Lina White's novel Some Must Watch that is otherwise bogged down by an uninteresting plot.  David O. Selznick originally owned the rights to the source material before selling them to RKO, with first time screenwriter Mel Dninelli changing the setting from Merry Ole to New England with an almost exclusively American cast.  A proto-slasher film in some respects that utilizes POV shots and a story with a mysterious serial killer, the end reveal is satisfying in its melodramatic intensity.  The performances are commendable, with Dorthy McGuire as a mute, live-in companion and Ethel Barrymore as an invalid head of household making the best impressions.  Director of photography Nicholas Musuraca is the star of the show though, using heavy shadow juxtaposition and flowing camera work to create a Gothic mood that gives the entire thing the look and feel of a proper horror movie without technically being one.  Yet the mostly single location as well as hefty amount of characters and their uninteresting squabbles unfortunately get in the way of the "murder on the loose" aspects and eerie atmosphere, making this just shy from being a top-notch production.

1940s Inner Sanctum Series Part Two

THE FROZEN GHOST

(1945)

Dir - Harold Young

Overall: MEH

Given the misleading title of The Frozen Ghost, Universal's forth Inner Sanctum mystery is mediocre from front to back.  Again a hypnotism angle is utilized, this time with Lon Chaney Jr. playing a professional in the field who comes to believe that his sensory powers are causing people around him to drop like flies.  Also, the bad guy is caught once more with the police just outside the door listening in, so the go-to plot points were getting a hefty workout.  It all amounts to knowingly cornball stuff, even if the presentation is dry and without much of any campy flourishes.  This was the second and last of the Inner Sanctum movies to pair Chaney with his usual costar Evelyn Ankers, yet their chemistry is lacking.  Speaking of Chaney, he goes through the motions here for the first time in the series, but this is mostly due to his bland character who does not have much to do besides brood and disappear for several portions of the running time.  Martin Kosleck is better utilized as a shady doctor turned wax sculptor, with his naturally sinister demeanor letting the audience in on the fact that he is up to no good even before such things are officially confirmed. 

STRANGE CONFESSION

(1945)

Dir - John Hoffman

Overall: MEH

 

The first in the Inner Sanctum series from Universal to entirely forgo any horror and/or mystery elements, Strange Confession, (The Missing Head), at least gets points for changing up the formula.  It also deserves some props for shining a light on unethical pharmaceutical drug production, be it a simplified, melodramatic light.  Still, there were not many films of either the A or B variety from the era to delve into such controversial issues that ring even more ugly and true eight decades later.  Lon Chaney Jr is a sought-after chemist who goes back to work for his shady former employer played by J. Carrol Naish who bypasses as many avenues as possible to increase his profits.  Things play out in a predictable fashion where we know the bad guy is up to no good every step of the way and that it is only a matter of time before Chaney discovers the level of betrayal that he has suffered, but the finale still packs a gruesome punch.  M. Coates Webster's script cannot justify its mere sixty-three minute length as it still comes off as stretched-out with no action until the very end, but is is a harmlessly efficient watch.  Plus Lloyd Bridges is in it so that is something.

PILLOW OF DEATH

(1945)

Dir - Wallace Fox

Overall: MEH

Universal wraps up their Inner Sanctum mystery series with the first and only one not to open with David Hoffman's disembodied head in a crystal ball.  The goofy title Pillow of Death actually proves appropriate in the movie's final moments where the killer's method of offing their victims is revealed and the road to get there is colored by a couple of seances and red herrings.  Lon Chaney Jr. is an attorney this time who is suspected along with several other would-be culprits of not only killing his wife, but two other people as things keep moving, with a sly, psychic medium, crotchety heiress and her dinner-craving husband, wackadoo maid, eavesdropping neighbor, and attractive secretary all thrown into the mix.  As is typical of the now six-movie-deep franchise, both the melodrama and the camp are dished out gingerly as to not become too unintentionally silly, yet this is also at the cost of making the final product as memorable as it could be.  The film has some macabre atmosphere of only the most mild variety and while director Wallace Fox keeps the talky plot moving forward as much as can be expected, it still results in a mediocre at best whodunit.