Black Dragons (1942)

Black Dragons, released in 1942, was the third of Bela Lugosi’s Monogram pictures produced by Sam Katzman and it’s a slightly unusual spy thriller with (of course) some sinister overtones. And it gives Lugosi the chance to play dual roles.

The story deals with a ring of Japanese Fifth Columnists in the US just after the outbreak of war. They’re not actually Japanese - they’re American traitors working for Japan. In 1942 this was just the sort of thing audiences would have gone for, Fifth Columnists being a popular subject in low-budget potboilers at the time.

Lugosi plays Dr Colomb, a mysterious figure who seems to be taking an interest in this subversive organisation, although it’s not a sympathetic interest. The members of the espionage ring start getting bumped off one by one with a Japanese dagger left at the scene of each murder.

Dr Colomb has moved himself into the home of a Dr Saunders. The doctor’s niece Alice (Joan Barclay)  isn’t quite sure what to make of him. She’s a bit frightened of him but not as frightened as you might expect.

All the murder victims were guests at a dinner party held at Dr Saunders’ home, the purpose dinner party being to advance the plans of the Fifth Columnists to wreck the US war effort. Many of their plans focus on fomenting strikes to disrupt war production although out-and-sabotage is also on the agenda.

Dick Martin (Clayton Moore) is a handsome young US counter-espionage agent assigned to investigate the case, his method being to romance Alice Saunders in order to find out exactly what is happening at the home of Dr Saunders.

Lugosi had made a big impact in White Zombie in 1932 with extreme close-ups of his eyes being used to emphasise his hypnotic powers. A similar (although slightly less effective) technique is used here. Sinister hypnotic powers were something that Lugosi was supremely good at suggesting. He also manages to convey a somewhat ambiguous tone. We assume that (being Lugosi) he’s the villain but he appears to be extreme hostility to the other villains. He’s in fine form, which is just as well since he has to carry the movie pretty much single-handedly.

The other cast members range from adequate to embarrassingly wooden although Joan Barclay isn’t too bad.

Director William Nigh was an incredibly prolific B-movie director, uninspired but competent enough and he at least keeps the pacing pleasingly taut. Writer Harvey Gates had a career that followed much the same pattern - prolific but without notable distinction. His screenplay does at least have quite a few interesting touches.

The plot takes a definite turn towards the outrageous in the latter part of the film as the unexpected truth is revealed about the spy ring, and about Dr Colomb.

The movie tries hard to convey an atmosphere of breathless excitement and succeeds reasonably well, within its B-movie limitations.

This movie is in the public domain. The Elstree Hill DVD offers a transfer that is unimpressive but watchable (and marginally better than Alpha Video standards). The sound is the big problem - it’s uneven and muffled. Alpha Video have also released this one. Black Dragons might not be a great film but it’s interesting enough to deserve better treatment on DVD.

Black Dragons is an enjoyable espionage-themed potboiler with a few definite touches of horror. If you’re a fan of sinister hypnotist movies or a Lugosi fan, or even just a fan of slightly offbeat 1940s spy B-movies, it’s worth a look. Highly recommended. 

Happy Christmas everyone

Just wishing everyone a Happy Christmas.

And here's Joan Collins, getting into the spirit of Christmas.

The House of Fear (1944)

The House of Fear (also known as Sherlock Holmes: The House of Fear) was released in 1944 and was the eighth of the Universal movies starring Basil Rathbone as the Great Detective and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. 

It was based (albeit very loosely indeed) on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story The Five Orange Pips. 

It has a good deal of very effectively contrived gothic atmosphere and benefits from some very stylish (by B-movie standards) directing.

It is not by any means the best of the Universal Sherlock Holmes movies but it is an above-average entry in the cycle and it provides wonderful entertainment. 

You can read my full review at Classic Movie Ramblings.

Red Planet Mars (1952)

Red Planet Mars, released in 1952, is one of the more notorious American science fiction films of the 50s. Almost all American movies of that era that took what could be interpreted as an anti-communist line have over the past few decades been subjected to ridicule and dismissed as crude propaganda. Red Planet Mars has suffered in this respect more than most and it’s really quite unfair. 

If such a movie were also to deal with religious themes and to treat those themes seriously then as you can imagine that movie would be the subject of even greater derision. Such a movie is Red Planet Mars.

Red Planet Mars is an ambitious and interesting film that deals with big ideas. There’s nothing wrong with science fiction that simply offers entertainment but the genre has always been at its best when it tackles big ideas. And this movie tackles very big ideas.

This is a first contact movie. A young American scientist, Dr Chris Cronyn (Peter Graves), has received radio signals from Mars. He has been broadcasting messages to Mars and now he is receiving replies. The replies are simply his own messages repeated back to him. This could of course be explained as some kind of natural phenomenon. The signals might simply be bounced back to him. There is however an objection to that theory. The signals take just over the minutes to reach Mars. If they were being bounced back he should be receiving them just over six minutes after transmitting them. But there is an unexplained time delay. Someone or something is actively transmitting the replies.

This is all very interesting from a scientific point of view but things are about to get a good deal more interesting. Suddenly the replies are more than just repeats of Dr Cronyn’s own messages. He really has made contact with an alien civilisation.

What he doesn’t know is that he’s not the only one working in this area. He has a rival. Dr Franz Calder (Herbert Berghof) is a brilliant German scientist who was imprisoned after the war for war crimes. After being released he found employment behind the Iron Curtain. Dr Calder was in fact the man who invented the hydrogen valve which made it possible to send messages to Mars. The US government took his invention after the war and Dr Cronyn used it to build his own transmitter. Calder feels, reasonably enough from his point of view, that his invention was stolen from him. For this he hates the Americans. He hates the Soviets as well, having found that they are not exactly ideal employers. Calder has built a transmitter as well. He could use it to try to contact Mars himself, but he has a better idea, an idea that will have fateful consequences.

Dr Cronyn’s wife Linda (Andrea King) is a Christian and she’s not at all convinced that contacting Mars is a good idea. She’s not sure why the idea worries her, it’s basically a case of, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Chris Cronyn is certain that first contact with an alien civilisation can only be a good thing. If the Martians are more scientifically advanced than we are we could learn so much from them that it would usher in a golden age of progress. It turns out that things are not so simple. Sudden exposure to advanced technology causes economic chaos. The western world faces ruin. This pleases Dr Calder’s communist paymasters. It causes panic in Washington. The Pentagon’s predictable reaction to crisis is to want a start a nuclear war. It’s intriguing that in a supposedly anti-communist movie it’s the Americans who are the ones contemplating the destruction of all life on Earth.

The next messages from Mars are very different. They are religious in content and their effects are dramatic. They spark a worldwide religious revival. But this movie still has several dramatic plot twists up its sleeve which lead to a somewhat unexpected shock ending.

To see this movie as anti-communist propaganda is to misunderstand it completely. It’s as much an indictment of the materialism and hedonism and spiritual nihilism of capitalist society as it is an indictment of the brutality and inhumanity of communism. If it’s propaganda it’s religious rather than political propaganda and it’s more complex than one expects propaganda to be.

There’s some fun technobabble and some amusing gadgetry but this is the science fiction of ideas rather than the science fiction of rayguns and starships. There’s very little in the way of special effects since the story doesn’t require such things.

The script was co-written by John L. Balderston and Anthony Veiller from a play by Balderston and John Hoare. Balderston is best known for his stage adaptation of Dracula, which formed the basis for the classic 1931 Dracula movie. He wrote a number of outstanding screenplays, mostly but by no means exclusively in the horror genre. This seems to have been his only foray into science fiction, which might explain why it’s so  untypical of 50s sci-fi movies.

Peter Graves is a serviceable hero and Andrea King is reasonably good in a tricky role - LInda Cronyn could easily have become an irritatingly pious character but she mostly avoids that pitfall. Herbert Berghof gets the plum role as the evil Nazi mad scientist and he (quite rightly) goes deliciously over-the-top with it. 

Cheezy Flicks have established a reputation for releasing interesting hard-to-find movies in pretty terrible transfers. In this case the transfer is not too bad. 

Red Planet Mars is one of the few science fiction movies to attempt to explore in depth the economic, social, political and religious consequences of first contact with an alien civilisation. The conclusions it draws may be deeply unfashionable today but that makes them all the more interesting and provocative. No-one today would dare to make a movie such as this. This is not cheesy low-budget drive-in fodder. It’s an ambitious movie made on a limited budget that succeeds in its aims surprisingly well (even if some modern viewers will not approve of those aims). While you’re likely to either love it or loathe it it’s worth a look. Highly recommended simply for being It’s intriguingly different.

Secret of the Blue Room (1933)

Secret of the Blue Room is a low-budget Universal feature from 1933, and basically it’s a mystery tale with some hints of horror. It’s another variation on the Old Dark House theme that was insanely popular at the time.

It begins with a small party thrown by Robert von Helldorf (Lionel Atwill) to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of his daughter Irene (Gloria Stuart). Also present are Captain Walter Brink (Paul Lukacs), reporter Frank Faber (Onslow Stevens) and young Thomas Brandt (William Janney). These three are all rivals for Irene’s affections. The conversation eventually turns to ghosts and Robert is reluctantly persuaded to tell the story of the haunted Blue Room in Castle Helldorf. Twenty years earlier Robert’s sister met her death in this room in mysterious circumstances. Two more unexplained deaths followed shortly afterwards. In all three cases the victim died at precisely one o’clock in the morning. Not surprisingly the room is no longer used and is kept locked. 

Thomas suggests a challenge. He, Frank and Walter will each spend a night in the Blue Room as a test of courage. His motive in proposing this idea is obviously to impress Irene. He further proposes that he should be the first to sleep in the Blue Room.

You will not be surprised to hear that this challenge has unfortunate consequences, indeed  fatal consequences for some.

Fearing a scandal, Robert von Helldorf is anxious to avoid involving the police but eventually he has no choice. Commissioner Forster (Edward Arnold) arrives to conduct the investigation in person.

The servants provide some potentially useful information but as they appear to be not entirely truthful their evidence may be less helpful than Commissioner Forster might have hoped. It does however seem likely that the maid’s story of a mysterious stranger may well be true. There is also the curious matter of Robert von Helldorf’s car which was seen leaving the castle around the time of one of the deaths although both von Helldorf and his chauffeur are adamant that the car never left the garage.

It becomes obvious that a solution can only be found if someone else will volunteer to spend the night in the Blue Room and this plan certainly brings results.

William Hurlbut’s script provides a plot that is serviceable enough with several red herrings and an exciting climax in the bowels of the castle. Kurt Neumann was a solid journeyman director and is able to extract the right amount of suspense from the story.

The setting is rather puzzling. Castle Helldorf looks like the sort of castle that suggests a central European locale and the fact that it belongs to a family with a name like von Helldorf strengthens that suspicion. The trouble is that the supporting players are much too obviously American and having a newspaper reporter a a major character suggests an American setting. In fact one gets the impression that no-one involved in the making of the film was quite sure whether Castle Helldorf should be a genuine central European castle or whether it should be a sham castle somewhere in the US.

Lionel Atwill gives what is by his standards a restrained but nonetheless effective performance without any trace of hamminess. Paul Lukacs does a fine job as Captain Brink although his performance suggests that he at least was quite certain that he was playing a central European military officer. Gloria Stuart, who appeared in a number of classic Universal horror and science fiction movies, is an effective and engaging heroine. Edward Arnold is very good also. All in all it’s a pretty strong cast. 

While the content of the movie places it in the mystery rather than the horror genre it is a Universal movie and it has much of the atmosphere of the classic Universal horror films, especially the scenes towards the end in the passageways beneath the castle.

This was a very low-budget movie even by Universal’s standards but one thing you have to say for Universal - they could make a cheap movie of this type look pretty impressive. 

One huge plus is the almost complete absence of the comic relief that is such an irritating feature of so many Hollywood genre movies of this period.

The made-on-demand DVD from the Universal Vault series is barebones but the transfer is a good one.

Unexplained deaths, a haunted room, a mysterious stranger, links to evil events in the past, secret passageways, dark secrets - all the ingredients are there to make a fine Old Dark House movie and in this case those ingredients are blended together with skill and assurance. The result is a very entertaining movie. Plus it has Lionel Atwill! Highly recommended.

Don't Lose Your Head (1966)

Don't Lose Your Head, released in 1966, was the thirteenth of the Carry On films and the first to be distributed by Rank, Anglo-Amalgamated having dropped the series because its new managing director disliked them. Rank initially planned to drop the Carry On prefix from the titles but soon changed their minds when they discovered that the Carry On name was a major drawcard. Don't Lose Your Head was later retitled Carry On...Don’t Lose Your Head and released in the US as Carry On Pimpernel.

The film is obviously a spoof of The Scarlet Pimpernel but since he did not have the rights to Baroness Orczy’s books producer Peter Rodgers somehow managed to convince her estate that the movie had nothing whatever to do with the Scarlet Pimpernel!

The movie is set during the Terror in Paris, with French aristocrats being slaughtered en masse. The man in charge of the executions is the implacable Citizen Camembert (Kenneth Williams), assisted by the bumbling Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth). Two bored foppish English noblemen, Sir Rodney Ffing (Sid James) and Lord Darcy Pue (Jim Dale), decide to do something about this. Soon the Black Fingernail is rescuing French aristocrats from under the very nose of Citizen Camembert.

While rescuing the Duc de Pommfrit (Charles Hawtrey) from the guillotine Sir Rodney meets and falls in love with the beautiful Jacqueline (Dany Robin). Citizen Camembert intends to use Jacqueline as bait in a trap to capture the Black Fingernail, but first they must learn his identity. Camembert and Bidet set off for England in order to discover this essential fact, along with Camembert’s mistress Désirée Dubarry (Joan Sims). Camembert travels in disguise as a French aristocrat. While Camembert tries to trap the Black Fingernail the Black Fingernail is trying to trap him.

Having an actual plot helps things along. And being a spoof of swashbuckling adventures this movie has more action than previous Carry On films. The action scenes combine actual action with (naturally) lots of visual humour and the combination works very well. The movie ends with a long and remarkably ambitious action set-piece which is not only funny but a pretty decent swashbuckling adventure fight scene into the bargain.

The script is of course packed to overflowing with double entendres. Talbot Rothwell had by this time become the regular writer for the series and this is typical of the fine scripts he provided during this period.

The best of the Carry On movies were, in my opinion, those with historical settings. They tended to look rather more opulent than those with contemporary settings and somehow the distinctive Carry On humour seems to work best in period costume. Of course the historical Carry Ons also tended to have stronger plot lines which gave them a bit more discipline and this in turn seemed to make the outrageous acting performances even funnier.

Don't Lose Your Head is actually quite lavish visually with some attractive location shooting and (by low-budget movie standards) some truly sumptuous costumes and sets. And Alan Hume’s cinematography is impressive, especially given the very tight shooting schedule.

The genius of producer Peter Rogers was his ability to achieve fairly high production valuers while keeping budgets very low. Rogers’ financial tight-fistedness caused some tensions with cast members who felt they should have been paid more but the low budgets were essential to the success of the series since they more or less guaranteed that the films would always turn a profit.

This entry in the cycle features most of the regulars and they’re all in splendid form. It would be quite unfair to pick out any one performance as a standout - by this time the regular Carry On repertory company was functioning like a well-oiled machine and it’s the teamwork that provides the magic.

The ITV Studios Home Entertainment Carry On Complete Collection DVD boxed set includes all the Carry On movies plus the short-lived Carry On Laughing TV series. The anamorphic transfer for Don't Lose Your Head is impressive and extras include a commentary track with star Jim Dale.

Don't Lose Your Head has always been one of my favourite Carry On movies. It looks great, it’s delightfully funny and as a bonus it has some fun action scenes. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable swashbuckling romp with the characteristic cheerfully but innocently risque Carry On verbal humour. Highly recommended.

Buccaneer’s Girl (1950)

Buccaneer’s Girl offers us Yvonne de Carlo as a lady pirate, which should have been an excellent idea. And fortunately that’s exactly what it proves to be.

OK, she’s not quite a lady pirate. Not exactly, but sort of. She’s Deborah McCoy, a stowaway on a ship that gets captured by the infamous pirate Frederic Baptiste (Philip Friend). Baptiste orders her put into the ship’s boats with the rest of the crew of the captured ship. It should be explained that as pirates go Baptiste is rather humane - when he takes a ship he ensures that the crews are given plenty of provisions to allow them to reach land in safety. Deborah however contrives to stay aboard Baptiste’s ship. She’s not an easy girl to get rid of.

Deborah does eventually reach New Orleans where she is taken in by Madame Brizar (Elsa Lanchester), who undertakes to train her to be a high-class entertainer. She is already an entertainer, but a decidedly low-class one. It’s probably reasonable to assume that Madame Brizar’s girls are courtesans rather than entertainers but this being essentially a family movie the point is left suitably vague.  

Deborah has visions of snaring the fabulously wealthy ship owner Narbonne. She seems fated however to keep running into Baptiste, who is not the person she thought he was. Of course Deborah and the dashing pirate are going to fall in love but there are many complications to be disposed of first.

There is a complicated connection between Narbonne and Baptiste, based on a desire by the pirate to settle old scores and right old injustices. Baptiste might be a pirate but he’s not a villain. 

Much of the film is is concerned with a romantic triangle and with Deborah’s adventures in New Orleans. There are some action scenes to come though and they’re quite well done. Unfortunately there really needed to be a bit more action.

Director Frederick de Cordova’s small output of modestly budgeted features included several swashbucklers. By the mid-50s he had switched (very successfully) to television. He handles Buccaneer’s Girl perfectly competently.

Philip Friend is an adequate swashbuckling hero. He’s certainly no Errol Flynn but then this movie is considerably less ambitious than Flynn’s adventure movies. Elsa Lanchester is delightful as the dotty but rather kind Madame Brizar. The supporting cast is competent.

The movie however definitely belongs to Yvonne de Carlo. It was intended as a starring vehicle for her, she’s the one who has to carry the film, and she does so with style and enthusiasm. Deborah might not be a modern-style kickass action heroine but she’s fiery and feisty, she’s resourceful, and she’s capable of looking after herself pretty well by relying on brains rather than muscle. In general she’s just the type of gal to make a perfect companion for a pirate. She also gets involved in a memorable cat-fight with Baptiste’s old girlfriend.

This was not a big budget movie but the studio backlot stands in pretty well for New Orleans and production values are reasonably high. It was shot in Technicolor and it looks good.

Deborah gets to do some singing and dancing although her numbers suggest that Madame Brizar might need to give her a bit more tutelage in that area.

The movie fizzles out a bit towards the end - in a pirate movie we feel entitled to expect a more exciting action finale. 

Buccaneer’s Girl is part of Universal’s four-movie Pirates of the Golden Age DVD boxed set (with the four movies on two discs). There are no extras but the transfer is top-notch.

This is a light-hearted romantic adventure romp with a bit of humour. Don’t expect anything in the same league as Captain Blood but this film delivers very satisfactory B-movie entertainment with Yvonne de Carlo in sparkling form. Highly recommended.