Category Archives: Movie Reviews

House of Frankenstein
Directed by Erle C. Kenton
Written by Edward T. Lowe Jr. from a story by Curt Siodmak
1944/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] [last lines] Dr. Gustav Niemann: Quicksand![/box]

This all-Monster sequel to The Wolf Man Meets Frankenstein was only further proof that Universal had jumped the shark in its horror franchise.

The film more or less takes up with the situation at the Frankenstein castle as at the end of its predecessor.  Criminially insane Dr. Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff) escapes with his assistant the hunchback Daniel (J. Carroll Naish) following a prison fire.  The doctor, who had been jailed for attempting to put a dog’s brain in the body of a man, is bent on revenge on the village authorities who locked him up.  On the road, the two run into a carny who is exhibiting the skeleton of Dracula.  Knowing that he need only remove the stake to revive the vampire, Niemann has Daniel murder the carny, revives the Count (John Carradine), and takes the show into town.

Niemann is determined to continue his experiments, this time with the brains of the village leaders.  He thinks he will receive instruction from Dr. Frankenstein’s records and goes to the castle to search for them.  There he finds Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) and Frankenstein’s Monster (Glenn Strange) encased in ice.  He revives Talbot, who shows him to the documents in exchange for his promise to free him of the Wolf Man curse.  In the meantime, we get a love triangle between the hunchback, Talbot, and a gypsy girl (shades of The Hunchback of Notre Dame).  Mayhem ensues.  With Lionel Atwill and Sig Rumann in their old roles as village fathers.

I can just imagine the story conference at Universal.  Somebody said “why not throw in all our monsters?” We can promise the public five times the thrills!  But it just doesn’t work that way.  Instead we get a incoherent, confusing story with snippets of horror action.  Karloff is always effective but it was a mistake to put the Frankenstein monster in the same movie with his originator.  This just highlights the pathetic lameness of Glenn Strange’s creature.  Fortunately, he is only in the film for a very few minutes at the end.  Still an improvement over Lugosi in the same role in The Wolfman meets Frankenstein.

Trailer

The Keys of the Kingdom
Directed by John M. Stahl
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Nunnally Johnson from the novel by A.J. Cronin
1944/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Films Corporation
First viewing/Netflix Instant

Father Francis Chisholm: Dear Lord, let me have patience and forbearance where now I have anger. Give me humility, Lord; after all, it was only thy merciful goodness and thy divine providence that saved the boy… but they *are* ungrateful and You know it!

I’ve been putting this off for awhile. It wasn’t my cup of tea exactly but I needn’t have worried.

Father Francis Chisholm (Gregory Peck) is now an old man trying to enjoy some last peaceful years at the parish of his childhood home in Scotland.  The Bishop, an old childhood friend named Angus Mealey (Vincent Price), has had complaints about the priest due to his unorthodox views and wants him to retire.  He sends an emissary (Sir Cedrick Hardwicke) to assess the situation.  While staying the night, the monsignor chances on Father Chisholm’s diary.  We segue into flashback.

We follow Francis from his youth in a household of a Catholic father and Protestant mother.  The prejudiced townsfolk beat the father mercilessly and both father and mother drown in an accident as she is trying to get him home.  Francis is raised by a Catholic friend of the family.  His adoptive mother’s dearest wish is that Francis become a priest but he is more interested in marrying Nora.  But Nora, despairing that he will really come home to her from university, “goes bad”, becomes an unwed mother and dies before he can return to her.  Francis, who had lately been leaning toward the priesthood any way, is now easily convinced to enter the seminary by his mentor at school Father Hamish MacNabb (Edmund Gwynne).

After his ordination, Father Francis tries his hand as a parish priest but is a “failure”.  His doctrine of universal brotherhood and love is something too unorthodox for local Catholics.  McNabb tells him to never change and sends him to do missionary work in China.

After his arrival at a rural village, Father Francis begins to despair of ever winning converts.  He refuses to supply people with rice in exchange for their conversion. Finally, a Christian Chinese named Joseph (Benson Fong) comes along to help.  The priest’s big break comes when he gets a shipment of medical supplies from his atheist friend Willie Tulloch (Thomas Mitchell) at home.  He cures a local mandarin’s son and, while he refuses to allow the man to convert as a form of thanks, he does accept land and a church building from him.

We follow Father Chisholm’s 40 year stay in China as he builds a congregation and tries to defend it during the Civil War.  A subplot involves the aristocratic and dismissive Mother Superior who heads a group of nuns sent to help in the work.  With James Gleason and Anne Revere as Protestant missionaries.

I have to admit that I am not a big fan of Gregory Peck, unfortunately.  He is less pedantic sounding than usual at this stage of his career, however.  The movie is long but fairly solid. I think viewers will react based on their feelings about the subject matter.  All the Chinese are played by Chinese-American actors instead of in yellow face, thank goodness.

Gregory Peck was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this, only his second screen appearance.  The Keys of the Kingdom was also nominated for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Alfred Newman).

Trailer

Torment (Hets)
Directed by Alf Sjöberg
Written by Ingmar Bergman
1944/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
First viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Caligula: Cheating, my good sir, cheating![/box]

Torment is a reminder that Ingmar Bergman was as great a screenwriter as he was a director.  This is his very first time out and it’s impressive.  Certainly not something to watch while depressed though!

All the boys in 4th year Latin hate and fear their sadistic teacher, whom they call “Caligula” behind his back.  Caligula (Stig Järrel) delights in roaming through the class waving his stick around and pouncing on each victim unawares.  He conducts the student’s recitation like a prosecutor cross-examining the defendant in a capital murder trial.  His favorite target seems to be Jan-Erik Widgren, an artistic, sensitive boy who seems remarkably well-prepared with his studies for this treatment.  When he spots some penciled notes in the boy’s text he gives him a demerit for cheating and calls his father.  Unfortunately, Jan’s father seems to share some of Caligula’s characteristics himself.  Jan’s mother dotes on him but is utterly ineffective in dealing with the father.

In the meantime, Jan happens upon a girl he has seen behind the counter at a tobacconist’s shop.  Bertha (Mai Zetterling) is staggering drunk through the streets.  Jan takes her home.  Bertha begs him to stay.  She is scared to death of a man who will not leave her alone, although she has tried to end the relationship.  Despite the idealistic Jan’s previous vow to hold out for love, he does so.  And although Bertha is a “bad girl”, love comes anyway.  But Bertha’s tormenter is still in the picture and Jan’s jealousy gets the better of him.  Then things get much, much worse for everybody concerned.

This movie had me more on edge than any horror film.  I kept waiting for something terrible to happen and then it did.  On the other hand, the acting is superb.  Järrel, in particular, was phenomenal in a role in which he had to be despicable and pathetic all at the same time.  And of course Bergman was a genius at getting at the psychological truths of the human heart.  At least this movie has a somewhat redemptive ending.  It’s a bit more melodramatic than Bergman’s later work but still well worth seeing if you are in the mood for some well-made torment.

Clip – A hard lesson

The Lodger
Directed by John Brahm
Written by Barré Lyndon from the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes
1944/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Kitty Langley: You can’t love and hate at the same time.

Slade: You can! And it’s a problem then…[/box]

There’s no doubt about the culprit in this remake of the source material for Hitchcock’s silent The Lodger (1927).  Laird Cregar is creepy yet oddly sympathetic as Jack the Ripper and the film drips with Gothic shadows and fog.

Mr. Slade (Cregar) is a mild-mannered eccentric who seeks lodging in a respectable London household.  The landlady Mrs. Bonting (Sara Allgood) doesn’t bother to ask for references since Slade is so obviously a gentleman who has paid in advance.  He takes two rooms, a bedroom to live in and an attic room for his “experiments”.  The Bonting’s niece Kitty (Merle Oberon), who sings and dances in a music hall review in Whitehall, is staying with them for the time being.  The big topic of conversation at the Bontings’, as everywhere else in London, are the horrible series of actresses being stabbed and mutilated in Whitehall by the Ripper.

One of the ladies murdered was a has-been music hall performer who once used Kitty’s dressing room.  She visited Kitty immediately prior to the crime and got money from her. This leads Inspector John Warwick (George Sanders) to Kitty’s door.  It is 1944 (or 1902) and they must immediately fall in love.  But Kitty is kind to Slade and he begins to love her too … or is that a homicidal obsession?

Some might say Cregar goes well over the top but it is the kind of overdone performance that is so compelling as to be almost hypnotic.  There is always a very human sadness behind the histrionics.  Lucien Ballard, Oberon’s husband at the time, makes her look beautiful and the streets of London look superbly eerie.   The score by Hugo Friedhofer is another of the film’s delights.  The story is nothing new but is well worth watching nonetheless.

Trailer (?)

The Curse of the Cat People
Directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise
Written by DeWitt Bodeen
1944/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

“He was everything I needed because his entire character had been molded by my deepest wants and desires. He was my rock when I cried, my playmate when I laughed, and my hero when I needed to imagine that one existed for me.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher

The bigwigs at RKO decided The Curse of the Cat People would be a dandy title for the sequel to 1942’s hit Cat People. Once again, auteur-producer Val Lewton subverts all expectations by giving us a fantasy about a lonely little girl’s imaginary friend. Not a cat person in sight.

Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) married his secretary Alice (Jane Randolph) after his wife Irena’s suicide in Cat People.  They gave birth to a daughter named Amy (Ann Carter), who is six years old as our story begins. They live in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Amy is a dreamy child, who as a result has a hard time making friends with other children. Her father thinks she takes after his first wife instead of her actual mother.  Oliver is trying his best to browbeat Amy into living in the real world.  One day, Amy innocently goes to an infamously “haunted” house and makes the acquaintance of batty old actress Julia Farran.  Julia lives with the obviously disturbed Barbara whom Julia believes is impersonating her dead daughter.

Julia delights in acting out “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in the creepiest of ways for the little girl.  She also gives her a ring.  The Reed’s Trinidadian butler Edward (Sir Lancelot) tells Amy it might be a magic ring and how she can make a wish on it.

Amy’s dearest wish is for a friend.  It is granted in the form of Irena (Simon Simone) dressed as a beautiful princess.  Irena plays with her and treats her tenderly, warning Amy to reveal her presence to no one.  But naturally the child spills the beans, worrying her parents even more.  Things build to a climax when Irena says goodbye and Amy runs out into the night to catch her.

There are a couple of thrills and a foreboding atmosphere, largely thanks to the beautiful low key cinematography by noir great Nicholas Musuraca, but precious little horror.  The film rests on the shoulders of child actress Ann Carter and fortunately she plays it exactly right.  There is a touching sadness to her Amy.  Simone Simon is appropriately magical. There is some period-type corn on the margins but mostly this is an enchanting film.  Recommended.

This was Robert Wise’s directorial debut.  He took over when director Gunter von Fritsch got seriously behind schedule.

I have not mentioned this before but the films on the DVDs in the Val Lewton Horror Collection all have excellent commentaries.  This one is by film historian and horror guru Greg Mank with brief input from Simone Simon.  Mank considers this film one of Lewton’s most autobiographic works and relates various incidents to the producer’s life.

Clip – Christmas scene