Don't Fear the Reefer

This is my first entry in the So Bad It's Good Blogathon hosted by Taking Up Room

Drugs are bad for you.  You don't need me to tell you that.  But some of those 30's movies that supposedly exposed the dangers of illicit narcotics are just plain weird.  And we can blame Dwain Esper for many of them.  Esper directed such "classics" as Sinister Harvest (about opium), Narcotic (about drug addiction) and Marihuana (about you-know-what).

He also had a keen eye for the exploitation of other movies.  He came across a movie called Tell Your Children!, which he didn't direct.  It was directed by a man named Louis Gasnier.  But Esper took it  and edited it and sent it out on what was known as the exploitation circuit.  The movie went by several names, depending on in what region of the country you saw it.  My favorite title is, undoubtedly, the one they used in the Pennsylvania area; "The Burning Question".

The original film had been seriously made and produced by a church group to warn parents of the dangers of marijuana.  But even with out the salacious edits and insertions Esper added to the film for his exploitation round, the movie is pretty ridiculous.  And I say that even if the viewer has never partaken of the evil devil weed in question.  But if you have experienced the sensations from trying it at least once, you will see that the assertation of the film about the effects of smoking border on the insane.

You probably won't recognize any of the people in this movie.  Many of them did go on to make other movies, but I found out if you click on the links available in the wikipedia entry for Reefer Madness, each of the entries that actually has a picture of the actor or actress in question is a still photo of a scene from this movie, which suggests it is the only film of note in which they were ever involved   The exception may be Carleton Young who, according to IMDb, has 258 film and TV credits.  Personally I remember him as delivering the final line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance:  "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend".

Reefer Madness (1936):

From the opening crawl at the beginning of the movie:

The motion picture you are about to witness may startle you. It would not have been possible, otherwise, to sufficiently emphasize the frightful toll of the new drug menace which is destroying the youth of America in alarmingly increasing numbers. Marihuana is that drug - a violent narcotic - an unspeakable scourge - The Real Public Enemy Number One! 

It's worse than that!  As Dr. Carroll (Josef Forte, not even a real doctor, mind you, just an actor) states it's even  more vicious and more deadly than opium, morphine and heroin! (Really!)  Just witness what it does to people in the movie.  One puff (and apparently not even having to inhale it... Bill Clinton, anyone?) turns normal people into raving lunatics.

Dr. Carroll  relates a story that happened right here in "your city".  There is a band of drug dealers, headed by Jack (Carleton Young) and Mae (Thelma White).  Mae harangues Jack.  As opposed to Mae, who prefers to deal only to adults, Jack has an affinity for dealing with teenagers.  (Not sure if these "teenagers" are high school kids, or already out and going to college.  They sure look old to my eyes.)

Helped along in Jack's scheme is Ralph (Dave O'Brien), who is a college dropout.  Apparently Ralph  smoked one too many joints and decided he liked that life better.  He and his own lady friend, Blanche (Lillian Miles) help host weed parties, where dancing and smoking are de riguer.

At these parties, a regular is a character, known as "Hot Fingers" (Ted Wraye), who can tickle the ivories like nobody's business.  But after each set he has take time out for a smoke break, which he does in a closet with a hilarious looking paranoid face.  (Question:  Why is he hiding when everyone else in the place is smoking, too?  Your guess is as good as mine.)

In one scene young Jimmy (Warren McCollum) is playing chauffeur to Jack, who has gone to pick up more joints from his distributor.  Jack leaves Jimmy alone with a reefer (marijuana cigarette) and when he comes back, Jimmy takes off in the car like a rocket sled on rails.  He ends up hitting a pedestrian, but doesn't stop, apparently not noticing it.

Back at Mae and Jack's apartment, Bill (Kenneth Craig), who has come to the party unaware of the illicit aspect of it, begins to talk with Blanche and she convinces him to smoke one of her kind of cigarettes.  You can see the immediate effect and transformation of Bill in his expression.

Bill's transformation from a clean-cut, top student comes to the attention of the authority at the school,  our Dr. Carroll, whom I can't decide whether he is a guidance counselor or a principal, but he addresses the change in Bill.  But Bill denies there is anything influencing him, so the doctor lets it go.  But Mary is distressed and seeks out Bill and ends up at the pot house.  Where Ralph tries to get her high and puts the moves on her.

This being a moral tale and an exploitation film, some serious repercussions occur, not the least of which is Mary being accidentally shot and killed.  Jack tries to frame Bill for the shooting and Bill goes on trial.  How it all plays out in the end is typical of these types of moral films, and Dr. Carroll ends with the admonition to his audience that vigilant observation of your children is the only solution because what happened to Bill could happen to "yours, or yours, or yours or YOURS" (while significantly pointing to the screen audience.)

Who knows how effective the film was on audiences of the day, but it is significant that the "menace" of the dangerous drug was never eradicated.  And it's overblown hyperbole has been refuted.  For those of us who turned out all right despite the danger, it becomes a humorous look at history of drug control.  (And, just so you don't get the wrong idea, your humble blogger no longer indulges, but I do stand with those who seek the complete legalization of marijuana).

Well folks, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head home.  Drive safely, folks.  Especially if you have been indulging yourself.

Quiggy

Giving them the Bird

This is my second entry in the It Takes a Thief Blogathon hosted by Moon in Gemini

Way back in 2016, I covered the Humphrey Bogart classic version of The Maltese Falcon.  I mentioned in passing that that version was actually the third time to film the classic Dashiell Hammett story.  At the time I didn't have access to the first two versions.  True story, however.  Just a day or two after I posted that review,  I was browsing through a stack of previously viewed DVDs in a discount bin and found what was labeled as "Disc 2" which had the first two movies on one disc.  (Obviously it was part of a two disc set, and I would have snagged the other one had it been available, since my only access to the original was and still is my local library's copy.)

The original version was made in 1931, before the Production Code era, and thus was not limited to only suggestive implications and covert hints when dealing with the characters.  Thus the scene in which Spade forces Miss Wonderley to strip to prove she is not hiding some stolen money -part of the original Hammett novel- could be put into the movie (although no nudity was allowed),  as well as a titillating scene of Miss Wonderley in a bubble bath scene, and an affair between Spade and Archer's wife,  that could only be hinted at in the 1941 version.

The Maltese Falcon (1931)

The character of Sam Spade in this outing is a far cry from the rough and cynical portrayal you most remember from Humphrey Bogart's portrayal.  For one thing, Ricardo Cortez plays Spade as a womanizer, flitting from one lady client to another, as well as having his partner's wife Iva (Thelma Todd) on the side.  He probably hasn't been entirely pure with his secretary, Effie (Una Merkel), either.  I will inject one thing, he grates on me, as he is nothing like what I expect from Sam Spade, based on both the aforementioned Bogart personification, but also based on how Spade is portrayed in the novel (which is much more like the Bogart version.)

This was the first version of the classic Hammett novel, and was done in the "pre-Code"  era.  The movie opens with Spade kissing yet another client goodbye, and you are left with the impression that more than kissing had been going on behind doors.  (This Spade has genuinely different ideas about the client/detective relationship than your average film noir detective, that's for sure).  He is quietly relaxing in his office when Effie escorts in Miss Wonderley (Bebe Daniels).  (BTW, this part is still true to the novel as that was the initial name used by the femme fatale, but in this movie she is apparently using her real name from the beginning, as opposed to being exposed by another name in the novel and the Bogart movie later.)

The basic plot, in case you are not familiar with either the Hammett novel or the Bogart movie is that Wonderley and an unseen Floyd Thursby are in cahoots to retrieve a valuable statuette from an owner in Instanbul (read: steal it).  There are others interested in it's retreival, too, including the man who hired the pair, the "Fat Man", also known as Caspar Gutman (Dudley Digges) and his associate, Joel Cairo (Otto Matieson).  You might recognize Wilmer, if you are a fan of old Universal horror movies.  That's Dwight Frye, who appeared as the dimwitted helper of Dr. Frankenstein, as well as the insane dupe of Dracula, two Universal horror classics that came out about the same time as this movie.

The twists and turns of the classic story are here.  There is the familiar backbiting and double crossing that is familiar to fans of the remake/novel.  But the quality of the production over all is rather disappointing.  Maybe because I am so familiar with the classic that I have a higher expectation for he others, but then no one can say I wasn't warned.  Everybody who already knew claimed that the 1941 version was superior to the previous two.  I will say I wasn't disappointed that Gutman and Cairo met the fate that the novel tells us happened after they left Spade's apartment.  Both characters were really annoying, and a lot had to do with the way the actors portrayed them.

Matieson, as Cairo, in particular was a bust, in my opinion.  It didn't surprise me that he got his start in silents, and I think that's probably where he should have stayed.  Of course, he didn't really get to have a career in "talkies" since he was killed in an automobile accident shortly after this movie was completed.  Digges had a more prolific career, but the only thing on his resume that I have seen is an appearance as a police chief in The Invisible Man.

Still, all in all, it isn't really a bad movie, per se.  It certainly is better than the first remake, Satan Met A Lady, which I review below.

Satan Met a Lady (1936)

What could be worse than a poorly acted version of a great detective story?  How about turning it into a comedy?  And one that only had the bare pieces of the story to hold it together at that.  This one was a true comedy, as opposed to the first one which was just funny in unintentional ways.  And it was a sub-par comedy at that.  Bette Davis did just about everything she could to get out of being involved with the movie, but since she was still a contract player at the time, she was forced to give in to the studio's demands.

As stated above, there is only a slim connection with the actual story in the original novel.  For one thing, Warren William (who plays "Ted Shane") is not established as a going concern in the detective business, but arrives on a train after being run out of town from his previous residence.  Shane is somebody who is a cad and a bounder and an entirely disreputable business man who finagles his way into his friend's detective agency when he arrives to his new digs.  Milton Ames (Porter Hall) is reluctant to take Shane on.  But since Ames' business is struggling, and within a few minutes in the office, Shane manages to bring in two new clients, Ames really has no choice.

One of the new clients is Valerie Purvis (Bette Davis) who hires the detective agency to shadow a man  (and here is one of the most consistent parallels with the novel).  Ames takes the job and is, of course killed, just like in the novel.  There is a punk kid named Kenneth (Maynard Holmes), who, if this wasn't intended to be a comedy, would be absolutely the least threatening gunsel ever portrayed on film (and that includes any character from the kid cast gangster spoof,  Bugsy Malone).

Sidney Greenstreet's marvelous fat man here is portrayed by a woman, Madame Barrabas (Alison Skipworth).  She too doesn't really inspire much to make the movie a winner (or even a not last-place loser, for that matter).  Arthur Treacher shines somewhat in the role that is supposed to parallel the Joel Cairo character, although if you've seen some of Treacher's other roles, I imagine you won't find him too impressive here.

The only real highlight is a squeaky, flighty secretary to the Ames-Shane agency, Miss Murgatroyd (Marie Wilson).  She almost literally carries this movie on her back.  You may find yourself wishing she would come back on screen and improve it one hundred fold.  I enjoyed every scene she was in, and it is she that keeps this "comedy" from being a true clunker in my vocabulary.

There is no "MacGuffin" called a Maltese Falcon in the movie, even though the picture claims the novel as the basis for it.  Instead there is a horn of Roland, filled with fabulous jewels.  Of course, as with the other two versions of the movie, the characters are doomed to disappointment when the "horn" actually shows up.  (At least they got that part right.)  The movie was critically panned by many of the critics of the day, including Bosley Crowther, who called it a "cynical farce of elaborate and sustained cheapness".

Unless you are a completist and just want to see all three versions of the film (or want to watch every movie that Davis or one of the other actors made), I highly suggest you avoid this one.  It's hardly worth the time, even for a comedy.

Quiggy

Children of the Night

This is my entry in the Universal Pictures Blogathon, hosted by Silver Scenes.

Dracula!

It is probably not hyperbole that more movies have been made with Dracula or his progeny as the subject than any other monster.  What with the original Universal flick of 1931 (which wasn't technically the first, since Nosferatu predated it by some 9 years), the sequels put out by Universal over the years, the Hammer films from England, and numerous remakes of the Dracula original, the vampire theme has permeated the cinema for decades.  This doesn't even include those non-Dracula vampire films that have popped up over the years, including the recent romantically  themed Twilight.

Universal was the first to really make Dracula a franchise, though.  And did it ever.

Dracula's Daughter (1936)

The fact that the Universal moguls waited 5 years before putting out a sequel to it's original is a mystery to me.  In these days, a sequel is already in pre-production before the newest one is even in the theaters is the norm, but it is a different era.

Dracula's Daughter begins, more or less, at the end of Dracula.  Two policeman (E.E. Clive and Billy Bevan), investigating the area come across a dead body, which they determine has been murdered.  Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) tells them the body was murdered by the person in the other room whom he, Van Helsing, had just driven a stake though the heart.  Van Helsing is arrested for murder.

The policemen, who are essentially the comedy relief of the picture (think Laurel and Hardy) are guarding the bodies waiting for the authorities from Scotland Yard.  The sergeant goes to meet the authorities on the train, leaving his subordinate to guard the bodies.  A mysterious woman (Gloria Holden) shows up, hypnotizes the poor souls and spirits away Dracula's body.

The mysterious woman, it turns out, is the daughter of Dracula, posing as Contessa Marya Zeleska.  She wanted the body to perform a ritual sacrifice which, she hopes, will rid her of the curse of Dracula.  Of course, it doesn't, or we would have an awfully short movie.  The rest of the movie deals with the daughter trying to find another way to cure herself.  Why not psychiatry?  Don't bother with the fact that most psychiatrists would have the girl committed for thinking she was a vampire...  The psychiatrist (Otto Kruger) tries to help her, but she is very cryptic about what she really wants.

There is an interesting scene in the middle of this movie where the Contessa wants to see if the bloodlust has been removed.  She has her faithful manservant Sandor (Irving Pichel) find a woman to bring her in, ostensibly for a painting session.  There is some erotic tension there, which was obviously subdued by the censors of the time, but it seems to me that the daughter liked women, if you get my drift.

In the end, the Contessa accepts her fate, but decides she wants the psychiatrist to join her in eternity, and contrives a way to get him to join her.  But fate intervenes in the person of her jealous manservant who apparently wanted to be the beau in her life.  What a shame!  We always seem to miss the real love right next to us, while out seeking perfection in the world.

Son of Dracula (1943)

Once again, another 7 years went by before the second sequel was released.  Universal had its money maker, but apparently didn't realize it.  This time they got Lon Chaney, Jr to assume the role of Dracula.  (Despite the title, there are ample indications throughout the movie that this is the real thing, not the "son")

Chaney was on his way to becoming a fixture in the Universal horror oeuvre.    He had recently portrayed the Wolf Man, the role for which he would be forever associated.  He also later played the Mummy and on one occasion the Frankenstein monster, making him the versatile horror icon he was and the only one to play four different Universal monsters.

The movie begins with the imminent arrival of a train bringing Count Alucard (Chaney) to a New Orleans plantation.  The Count, of course, does not get off the train, it still being daylight.  But his baggage is on the train, imprinted with his crest.  It is here that the first indication comes that ALUCARD  is DRACULA spelled backwards.  (Good, that saves the suspense of wondering who he really is...)

The movie then transitions to the plantation where there is a gala event awaiting the arrival of the Count.  But he is delayed still.  Meanwhile, Katherine (Louise Allbritton) has gone to visit an old Hungarian gypsy living on the plantation who warns her of imminent danger, but is killed prematurely by a bat.  (any guesses?)

The Count arrives secretly and kills the old colonel who owns the plantation, which was needed to initiate the reading of his will.

You will notice from the picture that the count become mist.  Which brings up a question...When he enters the old colonel's bedroom, why does he need to open the door?  Just wondering...

Anyway, Katherine("Kay") and her sister Claire (Evelyn Ankers) find out from the will that Claire gets all the cash and goodies while Kay gets the plantation.  Soon the reason for this is discovered as Kay secretly weds the Count.  He makes her a vampire just as he is.

Kay's former beau Frank (Robert Paige) confronts the count, and tries to shoot him, but the bullets pass through him and apparently kills Kay.  Thinking he has committed murder, he ends up going to jail where the now undead Kay reveals her true plan.  She married the Count in order to become undead, and now she wants Frank to kill the Count and then become her undead husband in his place.

Son of Dracula is a treat, if nothing else, for the appearance of Lon Chaney Jr.  The rest of the cast, as was usual in the Universal horror movies, were secondary to the villain.  Anybody could have filled the role, and most of them you couldn't pick out of a lineup.  But in this case, I really liked Allbritton in the primary female role.

Well that's it from the backseat of the old Plymouth Fury, kiddies.  Be sure to buckle up and drive safe on your way home.

Quiggy