Category Archives: Pre-Code Reviews

The Vampire Bat
Directed by Frank R. Strayer
Written by Edward T. Lowe Jr.
1933/US
Majestic Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Karl Brettschneider: I don’t mind admitting that I’m up a tree. Stumped!

Despite it’s humble origins this B horror film works pretty well, if you are not looking for actual scares.

Several people have turned up dead – with puncture wounds in their throats and drained of their blood – in a Bavarian village. This has coincided with an infestation of bats and the villagers are convinced the murders ar the work of a vampire. The local detective (Melvyn Douglas) is not so sure. With Dwight Frye channeling Renfield as the village idiot; Fay Wray as the detective’s girl and Lionel Atwill as the local doctor who enjoys experimenting in his lab on the side.

Although this is a cheapo Majestic Pictures production, it has good production values due to its fine cast and the fact that the company rented the Frankenstein (1931) village set and The Old Dark House (1932) interior from Universal. Strangely enough Fay Wray does not scream once! Unfortunately, that is left to Maude Eburn, the comic relief hypochondriac aunt. I thought it was a pretty good way of spending an hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoLIt1y2SJA

Street Scene
Directed by King Vidor
Written by Elmer Rice from his play
1931/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb Page
First viewing/YouTube

Mrs. Anna Maurrant: I often think it’s a shame that people don’t seem able to live together in peace and quiet without making each other miserable.

Excellent adaptation of the stage play.

The action takes place on the stoop of a tenement in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City on a very hot summer day. The multi-ethnic occupants spend most of their time indulging in spiteful gossip when their neighbo/victim is not around. Beulah Bondi plays the nastiest of these women.

The story proper centers on the troubles of the Maurrant family. Father Maurrant (David Landau) is a mean and controlling bully. His wife Anna (Estelle Taylor) is having an affair with the milkman. Daughter Rose (Sylvia Sidney) is just about to fall in love with her Jewish neighbor.

This movie is absolutely stage-bound and it makes no difference. Vidor does an amazing job maintaining visual interest. The acting is first-rate and I always love Sylvia Sidney. Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxlqqIDgsfM

Picture Snatcher
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Allen Rivkin, P.J. Wolfson, and Ben Markson from a story by Daniel Ahern
US/1933
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Patricia Nolan: What do you think you are, a reporter? Why you’re the lowest thing on the newspaper. A picture snatcher!

Spending an evening with Jimmy Cagney is never a bad thing.

When mob boss Danny Kean (Cagney) is released from prison, he decides to go straight and gets a job as a photographer for a sleazy tabloid, working for City Editor McLean (Ralph Bellamy). He goes after all the hard targets, specializing in photos the subjects don’t want taken. He finds that his gangster skills serve him well as he connives to get to his victims.

He is called to take a high school group on a tour of the newspaper offices.  It is there he meets and chats up teenage Patricia Nolan (Patricia Ellis).  Her father is the policeman who arrested him and he is none too happy about this development.  When McLean vouches for Danny, the father softens only to get demoted for allowing the photographer to sneak into an execution.  Danny’s other romantic complication is the advances of McLean’s girlfriend (Alice White).  Further plot developments will allow Danny to save the day.

I enjoyed this movie, though it certainly isn’t the best of the many pre-Code newspaper movies or anything.

Lady for a Day
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Robert Riskin from a story by Daymon Runyon
1933/US
Columbia Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Judge Henry G. Blake: Never in all my questionable career have I gazed upon such divine loveliness.

Frank Capra’s build up to his Oscar for It Happened One Night (1934) is an excellent urban fairy tale.

Apple Annie (May Robson) lives a meager existence on the streets of New York City selling apples.  Her best customer is Dave the Dude (Warren William), a gambler that believes her apples are lucky.  Annie has a daughter she has not seen for years who was sent to Europe for school.  Annie has maintained the persona of a wealthy woman by her access to the stationary of a luxury hotel and an accomplice who mails her letters.  Then there are two pieces of bad news.  One, her contact is fired.  Two, her daughter Louise (Jean Parker)  has fallen in love with the son of a Spanish count and announces she will arrive soon with her fiance and his father in tow so the families can meet.  Annie slides into a deep funk and stops selling apples.

Dave’s response is to organize a team of his low life cronies and try to teach them high society manners.  His girlfriend nightclub owner Missouri Martin (Glenda Farrell) cleans up Annie very nicely and helps with the crash course in decorum.  A pool shark judge (Guy Kibee) with a glib tongue is enlisted to pose as Annie’s husband.  There are many suspenseful moments leading up to a truly fairy tale ending.

Despite a little schmaltz, this is one of my favorite Capra movies. Robson is just wonderful. It was nominated for Oscars in the categories of Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Writing, Adaptation. I had never heard Glenda Farrell sing before and she delivers a truly boffo rendition of “I Wanna Man”.  For his last feature film, Capra would remake this story as A Pocketful of Miracles (1961), starring Bette Davis and Glenn Ford..

Fighting Caravans
Directed by Otto Brower and David Burton
Written by Edward E Paramore Jr et al from a novel by Zane Grey
1931/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Clint Belmet: I’m asking you a question and the answer can’t be maybe. I’m asking you straight out – will you marry? Yes or no?
Felice: Oui, Monsieur!
Clint Belmet: Huh?

Not much of a Western, but its leads were never more gorgeous.

During the Amercian Civil War use of the railroad was restricted to supplying the troops. Caravans of wagons carried freight to California along with some settlers. As the story begins young Indian Scout Clint Belment (Gary Cooper) is locked up in the pokey just as one such caravan is getting ready to leave.  Felice (Lili Dalmity), a single French woman, is intent on joining the caravan.

Belment’s drunken comic relief pals get the idea to spring their boy by telling the authorities Clint has married Felice.  They tell Felice that the wagon train will not allow an unmarried woman to travel with them.  Both agree to the ruse.  But the plan backfires and the two drunks spend the rest of the movie trying to keep their charge from falling in love with his “wife”.

The film could have been more exciting with more action and less romance and comic relief. It’s a pretty routine Western but I was interested to see Dalmita who looks like she is out of a much later decade than the ’30’s. And of course Cooper is young and gorgeous.

Behind Office Doors
Directed by Melville W. Brown
Written by Carey Wilson from “Private Secretary” by Alan Schultz
1931/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Mary Linden: Well, what a sap I’ve been!

A lackluster film with a heaping helping of sexism to boot.

Executive secretary Mary Linden (Mary Astor) is the brains behind a successful pulp and paper company. She is secretly sweet on junior executive James Duneen (Robert Ames). When her elderly employer retires she suggests James for the job. He gets it and she continues sharing her very good ideas and judgement to help him succeed.  He also demonstrates that he is a complete cad with women, taking Mary for granted.  This just makes Mary want him more, despite the fact that the infinitely more appealing married millionaire Ronnie Wales (Ricardo Cortez) is after her as well.

Executive secretary and bimbo employed to work with her show off their legs. Is this the most sexist pre-Code movie ever?

Let’s just say that this was one of those movies that I watched while yelling at my TV. And not in a good way. I did not enjoy watching Mary Astor suffer nor did I understand why she should. Nor is it a very good movie in any way. I watched on Amazon Prime for free. The print is terrible but the price was right.  There are also several full-length versions currently on YouTube.

Mary Astor tribute

Doctor X
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Robert Tasker and Earl Baldwin from a play by Howard Warren Comstock and Allen C. Miller
1932/US
First National Pictures (Warner Bros.)
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research: If you ask me, I think Dr. Xavier is using very unethical methods.
Dr. Rowitz: Necessity has no ethics, sir.

It’s not easy to make a comedy that is also a horror film and I wish the filmmakers had not attempted it here.

A series of “Moonlight Murders” leave bodies with weird surgical mutilations that tie them to a research laboratory headed by Dr. Xavier (Lionel Atwill). An enterprising reporter (Lee Tracy) interferes with the good doctor’s efforts to keep his investigation of the crimes private. With Fay Wray as the doctor’s daughter.

This film was billed as a horror/romance/comedy and therein lies its problem. The comedy is just not funny enough and is so prominent as to weaken the horror. The last 10 minutes are fairly scary, however. Second of two films at Warner Bros. to be shot in “improved” two-strip Technicolor. The studio then abandoned the process due to its expense and lackluster box office.

Restoration Demo

Dark Hazard
Directed by Alfred E. Green
Written by Ralph Block and Brown Holmes from a novel by W.R. Burnett
1934/US
First National Pictures (Warner Bros.)
IMDb page
First viewing/Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 8

Valerie ‘Val’ Wilson: Oh, boy, oh, boy, what times we used to have. Say, Buck, remember that afternoon in Louisville when my nightgown caught on fire?
Joe: Yeah and I almost didn’t get it off ya in time. Remember that?

Fine cast cannot save lackluster gambling flick.

Jim ‘Buck’ Turner (Edward G. Robinson) is a professional gambler with a mixed track record. During a low point he marries Marge (Genevieve Tobin) and attempts to go straight. No such luck and soon Robinson has fallen in love with a greyhound named ‘Dark Hazard’, is playing footsie with old flame Val Wilson (Glenda Farrell), and is betting on dog races. He makes his fortune on the dogs and tries to return to Marge. But a fool and his money are soon parted as the old saying goes.

I’m counting this as a pre-Code movie since it is included in Forbidden Hollywood.  It’s not too risque.  It’s not too anything, really.  Quite missable in my book despite the presence of Eddie Robinson who never gave a  bad performance.

Tribute to Eddie G. – some great clips here