robinakaaly Reviews

Die Buntkarierten (1949)

ABSORBING TALE OF THREE GENERATIONS

[9/10 · 9 June 2022]

I agree with most of the previous review, though I think it did deal with important issues, even if from a "Communist" perspective. Not least Guste's realisation that working in a munitions factory while her husband was at war was contributing to the profits of the munition makers. However, she was lucky that her husband survived the Great War. The German hyper-inflation in the twenties was cursorily dealt with, possibly because of its contribution to the rise of the NSDAP. This was insidiously treat: the realisation that nasty things were happening: speaking out becoming dangerous, the way the Jewish family next door suddenly vanishing, the reaction to Guste's attempts to stop their possessions being sold: "They won't be coming back." The sets and settings were well done, not least the interiors of the rich houses and those of the poor. Notable moments were the troops singing the Horst Wessell Lied, the Head teacher shouting "This is a Prussian school!" when Guste asks if anything can be done to ensure children have breakfast before they come to school, the nice doctor treating Guste's dying husband who turns nasty when she expresses Social Democratic views, and Guste's reaction when told her one of her children and two grandchildren were not burnt to death in an air-raid but drowned in their cellar when a water-main broke. (As an aside, I think the short clip of bombs being dropped from plane did not show an Allied plane.

The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

Fighting Dragons

[10/10 · 2 August 2017]

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed but I was struck by the similarities between the Thief's fight with a dragon, and that of Siegfried's in Fritz Land Ring of the Nibelungs. In both the hero makes a frontal assault on the dragon, then stabs it on its underside. Blood then rushes out, though wisely the Thief makes sure he doesn't touch it. There is then a sequence in both films where the dragon dies. Of course in the German film the dragon is asleep and not bothering anyone, so Siegfried has to wake it up and gratuitously kill it. In the American film, the dragon is barring the Thief's way so he has (slightly) more justification in killing it.

Both films were released early in 1924, so are these scenes pure co-incidence or was one influenced by the other? One commentator mentions that Kevin Brownlow says Fairbanks went to Germany and was influenced by their techniques, so did he get the idea from Lang? I personally think that both dragons deserved to be nominated for a Best Supporting Monster Oscar.

Three of a Kind (1936)

Don't wash your dirty laundry in public.

[7/10 · 29 January 2013]

This was much better than expected, well cast and decently acted, though the father was too much of a buffoon to be really credible as the company president. As usual with these films, their interest lies in their social commentary on the thirties. When the hero who wins the annual works prize is offered the choice between $1,000 or stock worth $1,100, he asks if they are trading at par, the president huffs and puffs, so the guy grabs the dollars. A dubious character checks into a swanky hotel and the management vouch for him on the grounds he is wearing swell suits and carrying posh luggage. I particularly liked the scene at the used car lot when the girl is trying to sell her expensive new car and the dealer is offering a very low price on the grounds that it hasn't done much mileage so the faults won't have begun to show. But best of all I like the backless evening gowns all the broads wear (even when they're travelling with minimal luggage). Those were the days.

Nü er jing (1934)

Incomprehensible if you don't speak Mandarin

[5/10 · 14 December 2012]

I am assuming that this is the film listed on the Internet Archive as "Bible for Girls", which has the same director and release date.

This two and a half hour long film in a language in which only "Hallo" and "Hi" were understandable was somewhat challenging, and I have no real idea of what was going on. A young, smartly dressed couple in an expensive looking art deco apartment with traditional Chinese trimmings welcome a number of guests, mostly attractive young women in expensive outfits. An elderly man, dressed traditionally and sporting a beard, also arrives. Each of the women then tells a story: the wife who steals her husbands money (I wasn't sure whether she might be being paid for services rendered); the wife who gambled away all the family wealth; the wife whose husband contracted TB (presumably, since he coughed blood onto his handkerchief); the wife of the gangster (the car chase through the empty fields surrounding Shanghai was decently done, as was the shoot-out). From time to time the elderly gentleman commented. Having got their problems off their chests, everybody happily goes onto the balcony to watch a parade: from the lights on the buildings, it seemed like Christmas. Although long-winded and wordy, there was some decent acting and some very effective camera-work. This was a lifestyle which was soon going to come to an end.

Valley of Wanted Men (1935)

The hills alive with the sound of gunfire.

[4/10 · 10 December 2012]

A large group of prisoners try to break out from the city's house of corrections, but most are mown down by the warders' machine guns and the bodies pile high. Not a good advert for US penal practice, but common enough in the movies. Three prisoners get away and head off to a forest hotel. One of the prisoners, a bank cashier, was in the pen for a bank robbery he claims he was duped into assisting. Among the guests at the hotel are the bank manager and his fiancée, the former girl friend of the cashier. The ex-cashier believe the manager was behind the robbery and intend to prove it. After the required (a) two fist fights, (b) a gun battle, (c) some songs, (d) a couple of comedy interludes, (e) aerial surveillance (possibly by a Curtis Jennie), (f) several stick-ups, (g) the usual missed chances, (h) the girl being used as a shield (h) the girl's kid sister frequently getting in the way - this list is not exhaustive, the girl realises the manager is guilty, but to prove it pretends to go along with him so he shows her where he's stashed the loot behind a rock in the forest. He is then killed by one of the escapees before all is revealed and the ex-cashier falls into his re-united girlfriends arms. The body count was excessive, even for a B-feature.

I'd Give My Life (1936)

More gallows humour

[5/10 · 10 December 2012]

Genre: get me to the gallows on time. A new clean-up governor is told by the local crime boss that he'll regret being a new broom. A young protégé of the boss is in love with the beautiful singer (Frances Drake, who should have gone on to better things) in the night club which fronts the rackets. One of which is a wire service for a gambling joint: the clock runs slow so the joint knows the results whilst the punters are still betting (genre: the gee-gees are running late tonite).The boy refuses to throw a jockey out of his aeroplane for failing to lose a race, and plans to quit. The boss explains that in fact he is the boy's father by the governor's wife. He stole the boy when the relationship broke up and put him through reform school to train him for a life of crime. In a fight the boy shoots his father. At his trial he is sentenced to hang, not least because he offers no defence (he wants to protect his mother who believes her baby had died). At the appointed hour, the audience assembles to watch the hanging and the boy is led in. Meanwhile, outside the correctional, correction, terminal facility, the girl waits. Later she goes to see the governor to ask for the corpse to give is a decent burial. The governor agrees and rings the warden to arrange matters. However, the warder explains the hanging was deferred on receipt of a call from the governor's office. The boy has been saved, and everybody gathers in the office to find out what happened (it was the governor's soft-hearted but indomitable mother who made the call). At that moment a member of the crime boss's gang rings up to tell the governor the dead boss had the last, laugh, as it was his wife's son they've just topped. It is now clear why such a play was made of the wire scenes. Based on the play, The Noose, it all worked very smoothly and tautly, so one could forgive any number of implausibilities and bureaucratic nonsenses.

The Night My Number Came Up (1955)

Alas, Kai Tak is no more

[8/10 · 1 October 2012]

All the reviewers recognise this as great story telling with lots of snippets all over the place to add interest: the framing of the story between Michael Hordern's first arrival at air traffic control, and his chilling final remarks to the controller; Denholm Elliott's background as the Battle of Britain ace who cracked, Alexander Knox's unpleasant internment in Hong Kong during the war, the jokes about officers and civilians between the squaddies, Alfie Bass and Bill Kerr (Hancock's famous sidekick).

But a practical reason to keep coming back to this film is the early shot of making the approach to Kai Tak (once the world's greatest real-life white knuckle ride) in the days before the surrounding hills were covered with high rise apartments which you looked up to as you banked to starboard on finals.

Murder Is News (1937)

Well, I hadn't a clue what was going on.

[2/10 · 18 September 2012]

Oh for the days when the newshounds got to the murder scene first, got their grubby prints over all the evidence, phoned their editors, and only then the affable Irish police inspector. Running for only 55 minutes, this film had to go fast to get everything in, but then it was too fast to be comprehensible. It featured a crooked night club owner whose chance of a fortune will be lost if his victim's demise gets out before a big deal is fixed a wealthy victim and father about to divorce his wife, the scion of the wealthy family who preferred to be a big band trumpeter and who worries about his parents up-coming divorce, a less than distressed widow, a dubious (aren't they all) lawyer, an attractive secretary who is attracted to the announcer of the radio equivalent of Closer magazine, a reporter who fails to convince his editor, the aforesaid Irish policeman, and a rather nice little hatcheck girl. The film was set in New York but made in Vancouver. I hope the cast thought their journey there worth it.

It Happened All Night (1960)

Lots of location footage around Paris

[11 February 2012]

I wanted this one as part of my Brigitte Bardot collection, though she only has a very short, uncredited, scene irrelevant to the plot. Along the Right Bank, man A buys a bird in a cage for his wife. He then meets up with a school friend, B, he hasn't seen for years, who has a beautiful wife, C (the young Pascale Petit). After a drink in a café, A drives B and C to a manif militaire in the Champs Élysées which B wants to attend. A then offers to drive C to her home in St Cloud, even though he lives at Nation, but she asks to be taken to another location. A thinks she might be meeting a lover, hangs around, and when she comes out, picks her up and they go off to spend the day together. A tells his wife he is at meetings, C says B never gets home until late after his manifs. After shopping, wining and dining, avoiding a cheap hotel, finding her home a bit fraught, they head off into the country for an al fresco encounter. Since she never takes her tights off, one assumes nothing actually happened (though in those days films left a lot to the imagination). After breakfast by the Gare St Lazare, A returns C home pretending he has been looking after her after an attempted assault. B is shaving himself with a cutthroat, which worries A, but it becomes apparent that this is not the first time C has come home in a compromising position. A drives B to Gare de Lyon where the latter takes the train to Marseilles to get away from C, leaving B in an awkward position vis à vis both his wife, the bird in the cage and the bird at St Cloud. All very French and dubious, but the location settings around Paris were as I remembered them.

Miss London Ltd. (1943)

Lots of pretty girls to keep the troops happy

[2 February 2012]

The main interest in this was its portrayal of London life in the fourth year of the war. An American woman (Evelyn Dall, the dead spit of Barbara Windsor) inherits half the partnership in Miss London Ltd, an escort agency; Big Hearted Arthur Askey is the other partner. (there are obvious parallels with Peter Sellers and Constance Cummings in The Battle of the Sexes, 1959). Dall arrives off the boat train at Waterloo Station, via the Azores and Lisbon, during the opening song by Anne Shelton, the station announcer, who later in the film shows more cleavage that would otherwise have been acceptable at the time, except for the exigencies of the war. This song is sung from the "control room", and I was reminded of Schlesinger's Terminus (1961 - a day in the life of Waterloo). The words are set round the stations served from Waterloo, many of them now long-defunct, such as Chard and those on the Meon Valley Line). The studio set of the Waterloo concourse, complete with the old cameo cinema, was remarkably accurate. Further scenes on the platforms were either filmed sur place or were of exceptionally high quality for a studio (not least in the Southern Railway carriage detail). The song and dance routine (with the girl SR Porters in uniforms looking surprisingly like those introduced with the sixties design changes) moved off the platform to the concourse and past the original platform indicator board by the low numbered platforms. (A version of this type of mechanical indicator is in the National Railway Museum in York). The board shows more old stations, but the panels at the top cleverly flash out the last line of the song. Actually, there was a big goof in all this: the boat train is shown at platform one, but in reality they all came and went from around platforms 11 to 13. Dall leaves the station by the Victory Arch and hails a taxi (though in fact one picked up taxis from the carriage road under the canopy. At this point she meets Peter Graves' army captain. I thought he sounded like David Niven, and later someone actually says he sounds like Niven! The rest of the film trundles along merrily. When Dall gets to the escort agency the pictures of the girls are all 19th century pinups. More modern girls are acquired, who are all out to earn extra money (etc) on top of their war-work day jobs. However one girl says she was sacked from being an aircraft observer as the aircraft came in too low to observe her. (It was actually very interesting how the film cleverly skirted round the seamier side of escort agencies, making the whole this appear quite wholesome, apart from one reference to the girls being on duty till midnight, after when, what they did was their own affair!) In another scene a posh dinner à deux is arranged in the captain's hotel room. The waiter lists the menu, essentially a dozen variants on Woolton Pie! It was very difficult to catch all the wartime references, but one I did was, "He's as difficult to understand as those messages after the 9 o'clock news": these were the coded messages sent from London to the Resistance. Two of the best bits in the film were the brilliant take-off of the Marx Brothers, and Richard Hearne (later Mr Pastry on children's TV in the forties and fifties) as the dancing commodore.

Überfall (1928)

Worth watching for the art deco teapot

[5/10 · 31 January 2012]

A slight morality tale becomes an avant-garde short. A man picks up a coin in the street, is run over by a car and carted off to hospital. The coin ends up in the gutter. Another man picks it up and tries to buy cigars with it, but it's counterfeit. He goes into a café and joins a dice game where he wins money. He leaves but is pursued by a thug after his winnings. To escape the thug, the man goes off with a prostitute who has a rather nice chrome plated art deco teapot. Her pimp tries to murder him, but is interrupted by a neighbour, so he get thrown into the street where the waiting thug beats him up, the coin rolling back into the gutter. A montage of images follows indicative of someone coming round after an assault. The man is now in hospital and the police say his assailants have been captured and will be prosecuted if he can identify them. He decides it would be better not to.

The Passing of the Third Floor Back (1935)

Conrad Veidt as a good German, even in 1935

[6/10 · 29 January 2012]

In a shabbily genteel boarding house in London, the inmates fester, and are generally abusive to the young serving girl. A mysterious stranger arrives and over three days attempts to make people see things as they really are. Whether his effect will last is beyond the scope of the film, which is based on a story by Jerome K Jerome. The manageress of the house tries to maintain standards; the bankrupt colonel and his wife hope their beautiful daughter will marry the Rackman character, much to the annoyance of the aspiring architect she loves; and so on. It played out very well, though the ethereal music at the end was a bit unnecessary. Of particular interest was the central day, a bank holiday, when the stranger treats everybody to trip to Margate on the PS Royal Eagle, then a new (1932) and very popular ship on Londoners' favourite run. There were some good shots of the ship, though most of the action in it was filmed in the studio, with lots of young women in bathing costumes parading about on the imitation deck. At one point the serving girl falls overboard, and one of the female residents of the house dives overboard to rescue her. This scene was actually filmed on the ship at sea and looked surprisingly dangerous, even if it was done from aft of the paddle wheels. When the women are hoisted back on board they are given jerseys with clean white stencilled letters on them, GSNCo - General Steam Navigation Co, the ship's owners. Early product placement! The Royal Eagle did sterling service at Dunkirk, and was employed on anti-aircraft work during the rest of the war. She resumed service in 1946 for a few years and was broken up at Grays in Essex in 1954, where many other famous ships were scrapped.

The opening shot behind the credits was of the Thames and showed a rare picture of the new Waterloo Bridge in course of construction.

Za oblakami - nebo (1973)

Soviet pilots have trouble with their women and their aircraft

[5/10 · 22 December 2011]

An everyday story of Soviet air force pilots in the early jet age. Various pilots fall for various women amidst much peasant merrymaking. Various pilots crash which upsets both the women and the authorities, and anyone who's anybody wears a ton of medals. It might have been quite good if I could have understood it. However, the main interest was in the aeroplanes, starting with what looked like an early MiG-15 with a low rather than high tailplane: the opening shots of the plane landing were spectacular; later some real MiG-15s are seen. An Il-12 or 14 chases one of the cast round the grass airfield(!), and a Lisunov Li-2 (a licence-built DC-3) ditching in water. Towards the end there were shots of a Tu-104. The scenes inside the factory where aircraft were being built explained the pilots' long faces.

Borrowed Wives (1930)

Not quite a French bedroom farce.

[5/10 · 24 November 2011]

A young man has to be married by midnight otherwise his inheritance goes to his uncle who lives in a haunted house. His fiancée is flying in from Kansas but her plane is delayed. The man is in debt to his boss who arranges for him to go to the uncle with his moll disguised as his wife, who is engaged to a speed cop. Everybody arrives in the house during a storm, so they have to spend the night there, creating opportunities for a Feydeau farce. It soon becomes apparent that the uncle wants the inheritance himself, and is doing his best to keep everyone else out of the picture, not least by scaring them with a tame panther. Of course it all works out happily. The first part of the film was more interesting with shots of early concreted roads, some unmade mountain roads which I suspect have appeared in more films than any actors, the usual speed cops hiding behind walls to trap motorists, and a Ford Trimotor. Acting awards to some splendid old cars. It was all family fare, but one felt in French hands it would have been more risqué, and the director wished it had been.

Burning Hearts (1945)

One of the most remarkable films ever made

[21 September 2011]

This was one of the most remarkable films ever made, and surprisingly stands the test of time extremely well. In many ways it is a much better film than Münchausen. Its problem is that it is irrevocably tied to the period it was made, and the reasons for making it. On the one hand it is a timeless tale of the need for ordinary people to stand up and resist tyranny and aggression; on the other it encourages Germans to support their Great Tyranny at the height of the Final Solution. On the practical level, one is continually astound by the cast of thousands, both civil and military assembled for the grand set pieces, and the fact that they were all correctly clothed for the time. Goebbels' ability to divert vast amounts of scarce resources into the making of the film, was truly amazing. One is also surprised by the quality of the acting, which apart from Gneisenau, was generally restrained and authentic. Some of the set pieces in which the citizens discuss whether to surrender to the French, and thus protect their livelihoods, or resist the invader and at least maintain their honour, if nothing else, were well argued and believably presented. A particular plus point in the film, is that the Germans speak German, and the French French. (The version we saw came from Arté so had French sub-titles.) The story itself may well distort history. In 1813 the citizens of Breslau demand the right to form a citizens' militia to fight the French. The King of Prussia refuses: war is for soldiers, not civilians. Gneisenau points out that (a) there are a lot of civilians outside, and (b) if it hadn't been for civilians, Kolberg would have fallen to the French in 1807. (Kolberg is a town in Pomerania, now part of Poland, which shows how the future mocks the past). The time then switches to 1807 and a grand scene in which the Emperor of Austria renounces the title of Holy Roman Emperor, showing himself to be morally degenerate. In Potsdam, the King of Prussia, fearful of the French, flees to Konigsberg. In Kolberg we see much peasant merrymaking until the military commander objects to the Mayor's interference in military matters, and says he has orders to surrender the town to the French, who now lay siege. The film's heroine, torn in love between two officers, is smuggled out and sent to Konigsberg to press the King to send a new commander. After a moving scene with the Queen, Gneisenau is sent and takes charge of the defences. About the only light moment, is when he orders trenches to be dug across roads, and the Mayor orders them to be filled in. Gneisenau insists they be dug out again. However, the Mayor explains they will hamper movement in town. The message is clear, the military give orders, but they must be sensible, and advice must be sought and considered. To protect the south of the town, a canal is dug and the low lying ground flooded in one of the film's great spectaculars. A huge battle ensues as the French try to raze the town, and we are treated to a spectacle of what it must have been like in Lubeck and Rostock when the RAF bombed these old Hanseatic towns. In the end the resistance of the town and political developments elsewhere, lead to the French halting the bombardment. The people have won, but they paid a heavy price. Back in 1813, the King agrees to the formation of a citizen militia.

In retrospect it is bizarrely amusing that at the time Kolberg was filmed, France was our glorious (more or less) ally and Germany the seriously bad guy. However, at the time it was set, France in the form of Napoleon was the Big Bogeyman (and children were scared to sleep by the threat of his coming, and Prussia was on our side (and helped us at the Battle of Waterloo, even if they did arrive late). Russia too was an ally of Prussia against the French.

Japanese Relocation (1942)

American racist propaganda at its worst

[11 September 2011]

The British are often castigated for the 18th century relocation of the former French Acadians who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown. However, the relocation by the US Government of American citizens of Japanese descent to concentration camps in remote areas east of the Rockies is a now unremarked scandal. Germans on the East Coast were not so treated. This US Government film tries to justify the forcible uprooting of Americans without any proof of disloyalty (other than grounds of race), in a manner which today appears nauseating and indefensible. The pictures of Americans being forced out of their homes and businesses (which usually had to be sold at a loss) and herded into trains and buses to camps looking just like those in eastern Europe at the time, whilst being justified as humane treatment, recalls Goebbels at his worst. The film bears comparison with "Theresienstadt" (1944) about how well the Jews were being treated in German concentration camps, as an example of how pernicious propaganda can be in teaching people to lie.

They Were Not Divided (1950)

Despite the stiff upper lips, a decent portrayal of the war in Europe

[8 September 2011]

A middle class married Brit and an American working in London join the Welsh Guards armoured regiment at Caterham in 1940. We follow them through basic training, after which they are both commissioned. For the next few years nothing happens, except their tanks keep having to be repainted depending on where they are not going. Eventually they are landed in Normandy after D-Day, and then fight their way through to the Ardennes, where they are both killed. Along the way we meet a variety of characters, officers and men, to show the British Army at its best. Along the way also, the Brit gets leave to see his wife, and the American meets a nurse skinny dipping in a lake behind his friend's house. Just after Arnhem the two hitch a lift back to Northolt for 48 hours leave, during which time the American marries and impregnates the Englishwoman. What came over well in the film was the waiting of war, all the non-fighting activities which went on (including the liberation of German stores and supplies, such as champagne), the long drives through Europe, punctuated by hordes of delirious liberated French and Belgians, occasional sharp and terrifying battle moments, and the loss of friends though enemy action and careless accident. There was a great deal of actual wartime footage, interspersed with staged sequences using real wartime equipment (the tank rolling over was quite spectacular). Biggest goof was when the two officers come out of Northolt and hitch a lift to London in the wrong direction.

One Wet Night (1924)

Weren't the roads empty in those days!

[25 August 2011]

It is pouring with rain. The wife is at home winding yarn round her lapdog. A caption says she has enough hair to cover Tea Pot Dome (a scandal at the time involving the illegal sale of naval oil reserves at Te Pot Dome); the butler is watering the garden(!); hubby is at the office. He comes home by car, has numerous skids, gets soaked and has a puncture. At one point he drives past a poster for The Eternal City (US 1923), now believed lost. In the evening guests come round; the man fires a shotgun into the ceiling and the house is flooded. As usual, what is most interesting is the background and asides. Thankfully, humour moved on.

Lost in the Stratosphere (1934)

Flyboys get the mail through while chasing broads on land and in the air

[25 August 2011]

The film starts with USAAF pilots running the air mail service after it had been nationalised. Back at base, the two male leads head off into town to a German-style beer hall to chase skirt. The rivalry between the two pilots for the girl got confusing. The air mail service having been privatised, they are assigned to high altitude balloons. At this point the film has some very interesting footage of the preparation and launch of such balloons, including the laying out of the balloon's panels and stitching it together. Following take-off there was aerial footage of the balloon rapidly ascending. In the air there is trouble with the gas valve and a dangerous situation develops. One of the pilot's knocks the other out and tips him out of the gondola to parachute back to earth, where he is immediately picked up and taken back to base. The other pilot drifts, lost in the stratosphere, and eventually to come down in Quebec, injuring himself in the process. The first pilot immediately grabs a small biplane and the girl and flies her up to Quebec to be beside the boy she really loves. There was no indication of who paid for the fuel. The acting from the male leads was to say the least, cringe-making; the girl wasn't bad, and the Colonel passable. This was a film where the story was built round recent events, so had to be done quickly, and it showed, but there were a few light moments.

Convicted (1931)

Don't forget your bow tie if you go on a cruise.

[23 August 2011]

This was an interesting documentary about life on an ocean liner in passage from New York to Los Angeles. There was footage of the scary looking passenger gangplanks, freight being loaded, and the side of the ship as she left harbour, with passengers on the ship and crowds on the quayside waving at each other. We see the funnel belching out smoke as if there were no Clean Air Acts (there weren't then, of course). Once at sea we are introduced to the Captain on the flying bridge and the First Officer as they exchange observations about the weather for the voyage. The Captain then gives the navigating officer orders for the course to be followed, both gyro and magnetic. We then move to bridge where we see the helmsman being given his orders for the course to steer. From time to time we return to the bridge to see how the helmsman is getting on. A one point the Captain asks for the ship's position, and the Navigating Officer takes a star sight with his sextant. Down below, amongst the First Class passengers (we don't get to see any lower class ones), we see how the stewards handle baggage, and invite the more attractive passengers to dine at the Captain's table. We also see how the Purser handles requests from passengers to change their cabins (usually at extra cost), and how the shift system in the radio room works. The equipment for sending and receiving wireless messages seemed very complicated, though it worked very quickly. The cabins seemed quite large and surprisingly high ceilinged, though the passageways and corridor ceiling seemed more as one would expect. Life on the ship seemed to revolve around walks on the open and covered decks, and dances in the evenings, when dress suits for the men and silky backless numbers were de rigueur. When several passengers are murdered we get to see how the Ship's Doctor carries out his preliminary investigations to establish cause of death, and how the Captain exercises his quasi-police and judicial functions. Finally we see the ship approaching harbour at the end of the voyage, and passing other, outbound vessels. We also get to meet several fictional passengers from the world of entertainment, and a criminal journalist. These characters, their lives, loves, criminal activities and gambling tended to get in the way of the examination of shipboard life.

The Racing Strain (1932)

Dirt track racing has the same appeal as public executions

[22 August 2011]

One of the better examples of the thirties racing car dramas. It's storyline worked, the acting was competent, and the mix of story, racing and flying sequences well balanced. A race driver has a fatal accident on the track in front of his four year old son, Billy. The dying man's last wish is that his sidekick look after Billy and make him the best racer in the world. Ten year's later the two are driving across the desert on an unmade track(!?) in a beat up Flivver when the come across a large stranded limousine whose passengers are a beautiful young woman and her aunt. They tow the car to the nearest gas station, on the way picking up Togo, the Japanese chauffeur, sent ahead to get gas, but frightened up a tree by a passing bull (actually only a cow). The girl recognises the man as a former racer, King Kelly, disqualified for drunkenness. Having fallen for him, she gets her father, a wealthy gas and oil man, to get him back into racing, to the annoyance of her boyfriend, another racer. Meanwhile Billy is scared of racing, and everybody brands him as yellow. However, he likes flying and is very good at it, despite not having a licence (or insurance). A friendly barnstormer loans him his plane (possibly a Stearman, though I can't find one with the right combination of undercarriage and tailfin), as Billy is a natural, finding stunt flying safer than racing. At the Legion Ascot Raceway (now defunct as it killed too many people, but near Lincoln Hills, LA), the boyfriend makes rude remarks about Billy and a fight ensues. Togo saves Billy using ju-jitsu, and then teaches him some basic manoeuvres, and also how to shout Banzai!, which he says means Whoopee. (I think it meant more than that in 1941.) Kelly invites the girl out for the day to an (unidentified but identifiable) amusement park: pause to watch lots of rides. Meanwhile, Billy takes Togo for a spin (cost $2, which he borrows). The next day is the big race, but the now-ex-boyfriend's backers are worried he might lose, and secretly plan to sabotage Kelly. Next day at the race track, Kelly receives a letter apparently from Billy's mother saying she wants him back, and will Kelly meet her at the American Bar in Tijuana. Kelly reckons he will just have time to get there and back before the race (though today it's a two hour drive by Freeway according to Google). He borrows a car and gets to the bar where the woman persuades him to have a drink, which is a Mickey Finn: its all been a set up. Meanwhile, back at the race track everyone is looking for Kelly. The girl finds the letter and realises what has happened. There isn't enough time to drive, so she and Billy go to the airfield, and borrow the plane again. They land at the Mexican border: empty desert in the middle of nowhere, and not a Homeland Security Guard for miles - how times have changed looking at it today. However, there is a handy taxi to take them the three miles into Tijuana, where they find the comatose Kelly in the bar. A bad guy tries to stop them taking him. But Billy floors him with ju-jitsu, and they fly back to LA, leaving the borrowed car behind. Kelly is too ill to drive, so Billy bites the bullet of his fears, races and wins. General rejoicing without a bottle of bubbly. Kelly get the girl, and Togo (Otto Yamaoka) spends the war in the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp, Cody, Wyoming.

Won in the Clouds (1928)

Diamonds are forever, they say

[20 August 2011]

Nearly 7,000 Curtiss Jennies were built and they had a long and distinguished career in the movies. In this load of garbage, a Swahili village (somewhere in the sierras behind Hollywood) is affected by disease. The nearby diamond mine is using this as an excuse not to ship diamonds back to HQ in South Africa. The mine president has sent a doctor, his beautiful daughter and her duenna to find out what is going on and to cure the natives. They are travelling on foot. To speed things up the president sends his ace flyer up. However, the president' right hand man is a traitor and warns the miners. He is then caught, but not before he has sent minions off to stop the ace flyer. This latter has ordered his mechanic to bring his plane to meet him, but the bad guys are chasing his car. The mechanic swoops low over his boss who climbs from the roof of the car into the plane. Meanwhile, the mine aviator has intercepted the foot party, sent the doctor to the village and taken the women to the encampment. In the village, the doctor cures everybody, including the piccaninnies and the chiefs overweight dancing girls, much to the annoyance of the local witch doctor. At some point the bad guys persuade the chief that their native tracker (an unconvincingly blacked up actor) needs to be but to death. He led out into the bush, but as the natives prepared to do a Sebastiane on him, a Jennie swoops down out of the clouds and rescues him by means of a rope ladder attached to the wing. Our ace flyer now heads up to the mine where he is captured, but escapes. However, he is again captured at the village where the bad guys explain he encompassed the escape of the white doctor. For this, he is tied to a stake and left for the lions. However the native tracker comes to his rescue and releases him so he can flee to safety. Foiled of white meat, the lions turn their attention to the faithful tracker. (This film was for those who require their entertainment to be politically correct.) The flyer returns to the encampment where he captures some of the remaining baddies, and the diamonds. However, the leader of the baddies has got the girl and flies off with her. Our hero and his mechanic give chase, flying under the wing of the fugitives. Our hero grabs the skid under the wing and hauls himself up. The pilot also climbs onto the wing, where a furious struggle ensues, ending with the bad guy falling off. The ace flyer makes his way to the fuselage and kisses the girl, before climbing into the cockpit and flying the plane back to the encampment where he and the girl fall into each others arms, while the mechanic and the duenna make up the foursome. Acting awards to the stock shots of the lions, though the Jennies did well.

Monk Dawson (1998)

A sort of What Happened After "If"

[18 August 2011]

This film is based on the book by the well known Catholic writer, Piers Paul Read. It starts when an old friend visits a monk in his cell on Holy Island (nice shot of a Range Rover driving across the causeway as the tide comes in). We then go back to the mid-sixties when the two arrive at Ampleforth and experience life in one of our great schools. The film does not give such schools a good press. One of the boys becomes a journalist, the other a priest. The latter, anxious to do good in the world, especially among the underprivileged, becomes a teacher at Ampleforth, but not being willing to conform to the mould, is sent to a church in Chelsea, where he meets the local set, which disagrees with him. Not surprisingly, the top people he meets are all revolting. His journalist friend gets him to write articles for The Times, which get him sent to Holy Island to reflect. He leaves the priesthood, returns to London and gets a job with the gutter press. He also discovers sex with one of his more attractive former parishioners. However, she goes off with his friend, so he takes up with the attractive daughter of another of his parishioners. On election night 1979 he is sacked from his paper when he objects to the editing of his articles. He has a one night stand with his former parishioner, then finds that the daughter of the other one, whom he has now married, has died of an overdose. He returns to Holy Island taking a vow of silence. He does not know that his former parishioner is carrying his child, and that it subsequently goes to Ampleforth then on to Oxford to read theology. It was all very well done, with lots of additional detail (and a nice touch of including Mrs Thatcher's victory speech about bringing faith). The problem though was that all the priests from Archbishops down were portrayed as cold, insensitive and lacking in understanding, and that the hero himself was weak and incapable of seeing beyond the end of his nose. Nice steam trains on the NYMR.

Tangled Trails (I) (1921)

The Mountie gets his man but misses out on the girl

[18 August 2011]

The storyline was showing its age, but the film still had much of interest. It is winter, and out in north west Canada a recluse lives in a remote cabin with his youngish daughter. He rides to the trading post, leaving the girl behind to do the chores, much to her disgruntlement. Meanwhile, and nearby, crooked mine owner prepares to leave the adit in charge of the foreman/sole miner while he goes to New York to raise more funds from his investors. The foreman wants to be paid first, and they fight. The owner tips the foreman into the adit and rides off. A corporal in the Mounties happens by, sees what is going on, and gives chase. Unfortunately his horse stumbles and he is hurt. The girl sees him, and helps him to her cabin where she tends him. They look into each others eyes in that deeply meaningful way they did in silents. She is scared her father will be angry, but when he returns he is sweetness and light. During the night wolves howl, and the following morning the Mountie sneaks out early and returns to the police station to report events. He goes back to the adit, and finds the foreman only injured. He explains the mine owner's scam, and limps off home. The corporal rides back to the trading post, leaves his horse in the stables, changes into civvies and takes the next train (due in twenty minutes) to New York. In the Big Apple, the crooked mine owner develops his plans, while his secretary looks on horrified. At the close of business, he starts to chase her round the office. The corporal, having arrived in New York, wearing a ten gallon Stetson, and taken a taxi across town (some quite decent shots of the city streets), goes up to the office, hears the secretary's screams, and bursts in. A really savage and brutal fight ensure with at one point the secretary apparently helping her assailant, in another the corporal and the blackguard leaning out of a window high above the streets, Harold Lloyd style. The mine owner escapes, and being 6pm the secretary goes home. Next day the corporal returns to try and find out where the mine owner lives, but nobody seems to know. However, a call takes his to the home of the secretary and her mother. It appears that several years previously her husband suspected her of infidelity and left for a remote cabin in north west Canada taking their younger daughter with him. That apart, the secretary explains that the mine owner will be meeting his accomplices at a bar in the Bowery. The corporal heads there with a NYPD detective. At the entrance to the bar, they espy the bad guys and plan a stratagem. The corporal sneaks round behind the bad guys hoping not to be noticed, despite his headgear. However, a customer warns the bar keeper of the presence of the detective, and a brawl ensues. The mine owner escapes in a taxi, closely followed by the corporal, standing on the running board of another. The shots of the chase through the (a?) city were impressively done. The first taxi just manages to cross a railway in front of a long freight train, and then arrives at a railway station just as a trans-continental train is about to leave. The corporal and the detective arrive just too late. However, our corporal takes the next train home, arriving at the trading post shortly after the mine owner has left for the adit. In the corporal's absence, the girl has been looked after by the factor and his wife, and introduced to nice clothes, rather than the shift which was her only wardrobe. She is delighted to see the corporal back, as he is delighted to see her (though he is twice her age). He changes back into uniform and heads out after the mine owner. They meet in the middle of a snowy field, and while they battle it out, their horses munch hay together. It is not clear where the hay came from in this winter wilderness. The mine owner is captured and prosecuted. The corporal then realises that the secretary and the girl are sisters, so after a discussion with his horse(!), he sends his savings to New York, and the secretary and her mother arrive on the train to be used to take the mine owner away to prison, presumably somewhat further west. He has apparently been convicted of killing the foreman, though when last seen the foreman was very much alive. The corporal takes the new arrivals to the cabin where there is a joyful reunion between husband and wife. The two sisters also take to each other, and the elder one promises the younger to share her fancy New York modes. At this point the corporal heads back to duty: the two sisters watch him go, the younger breaking down in tears to see the love of her life ride away. From a distance he turns round, then continues away. What is not made clear is how the ladies from all mod cons New York are going to cope with the rough and ready life of a cabin in the wilds where water has to be collected from a distant stream! Some of the scenes were well done and well acted; the bar room was risible and the scene appallingly done. The corporal was OK at a distance but as wooden as the trees in close-up; the girl was very attractive and made the most of her part - it is a pity she only made a few films. Nice steam trains though.

The Stoker (1932)

The Halls of Montezuma this was not!

[7 August 2011]

Today, this story would have come from a 1,000 page novel and been spread over many hours. Here, telling the tale in 70 minutes did not allow for any reflection on credibility, acting or production, but the result was nevertheless very watchable. Dick is CEO of the family business. The directors do not agree with his plans, so he asks his wife to help him buy them out using her money. At first she agrees, but then reneges, telling Dick she is leaving him for her accountant. (I think this was meant to be funny). Dick resigns from the company and ends up in a dockside bar, where he is taken on as a stoker in a ship bound for Nicaragua. The scenes in the stokehold were very well done. Passengers on the ship include a wealthy Nicaraguan coffee planter and his beautiful daughter, Margarita (erotically played by Dorothy Burgess). She flutters her eyes at a deck officer who agrees to show her the stokehold, where she drools over the stokers, stripped to the waist and sweating profusely. The ship pitches and she is thrown towards a firebox, but Dick saves her, though he falls against it and his back is badly burned. Margarita shows interest in him while he convalesces, but he is once bitten twice shy as far as women are concerned. In Managua he gets into a fight and is thrown is gaol along with a Negro fellow stoker. After a week in gaol and a riot outside, they are bailed to the coffee planter. Dick is taken into the house, the Negro sent off to the packing sheds (I think this was meant to be significant). Dick becomes accountant to the business, but still resists Margarita. However, he weakens when he rescues her when her horse bolts. Meanwhile, bandits are trying to steal the coffee, but the US Marines in Managua won't help Dick as he is outside their secure perimeter. Dick now kisses Margarita and they immediately get married. On her wedding night, Margarita tells her father that now she is an American, the Marines will have to help them. Dick overhears and feels betrayed, so stays out of the marital bedroom. Next morning he leaves on horseback for Managua. However, the bandits attack the plantation and give chase to him. Margarita drives up in her car, rescues him and they both return to the compound, now under siege. The Negro is now sent to Managua to call up the Marines who arrive in three trucks and slaughter the bandits. (From a military perspective, I suspect with their tactics the bandits would have wiped them out). Dick now realises that Margarita really loves him for himself, and agrees to stay, commenting, "Now the actions all over". To which, and remember this is pre-Code, Maragrita replies, "You're wrong, the action's only just beginning" as she drags him towards the double bed!