Turner's Picture Palace: August 2024

 

For seemingly forever and a day, we’ve lived in a sequel-saturated, this-that-and-the other cinematic universe/IP world, so it’s fun to read some anonymous reporter in a 1936 edition of the Altoona (Pa.) Tribune bitching about there being too many goddammed vampire movies since Dracula strolled into Hollywoodland: “When Universal made Dracula a few years ago, there was no way of knowing that the wraiths of every vampire that ever scared an old maid would come out once more from the dark corners of the earth. However, they swooped in great numbers on the wings of night, to cast their shivery shadows almost endlessly on the theatre screens of the world.” Written in response to Dracula’s Daughter appearing in old Altoona, the article ends hopefully that this silly sequel business might finally be done: “Perhaps Dracula’s Daughter will set the wings of superstition at rest and take the claws out of the vampire.”

But of course, I watched Dracula’s Daughter on Universal’s Dracula: Complete Legacy Edition Blu-Ray collection, which over six films, captures Drac’s doings in the Golden Age-time period before and after this Altoona (character) assassination. And I loved it, lured in by Gloria Holden’s nightmare eyes and broken soul, the moody and sensuous black and white cinematography of monster movie master George Robinson, and the delightful abundance of snooty British humor. Maguerite Churchill is stunning and often hilarious as psychiatrist Jeffrey Garth’s fiancée and secretary, Janet, who often seems like she has just escaped from a screwball comedy set.

Meanwhile, the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald dismissed the movie as nonsense, but seemed to have a much firmer handle on sequels and Hollywood: “Students of Bram Stoker will know that this should be final; and that there’s no fear of the future appearance of Dracula’s granddaughter. But students of Hollywood will not be quite so sure.”

Yes, I watch too many movies, but I also own way, way too many, including an always-growing pile of box sets. In addition to the Dracula box set, last month I focused on digging into box sets from Arrow, Severin, Vinegar Syndrome, Criterion, and others. Some of my favorites included my first “Bruce Li” movie (the charismatic and highly appealing Bruce Liang), Bruce and the Iron Finger (1979, not to mention a scene-stealing, ride-em-cowgirl performance by Nami Misaki as a kinky villain), Melvin Van Pebbles’ life-affirming Don’t Play Us Cheap (1972), the mind-blowing Voodoo Heartbeat, aka, The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake (1970), and If Footmen Tire, What Will Horses Do? (1971, more below on that).

Killer: As I watched Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind (2022), loving every second of the Ethan Cohen documentary and it’s all Jerry, all the time approach, I wondered if the notoriously God-fearing but hell-raising Lewis had seen If Footmen Tire, What Will Horses Do? as it made its way around Southern churches and community centers. Surely, he would identify with its we’re-all-going-to-hell-because-of-our-heathen-ways message and its deliriously unhinged, bloody way of telling it. But then I consulted my copy of Nick Tosches’ Hellfire : The Jerry Lee Lewis Story and was reminded that in 1971, Jerry Lee lost his mother; his divorce with Myra Gale Lewis was finalized; she married the private dick who had investigated him and his lyin, cheatin’ ways; he was sued for allegedly attacking a woman at a Memphis supper club; and, finally later in the year, he got remarried –  and separated two weeks later. So, a busy man, a beat (but not out) man. Not much time to think about communist invasions and infiltration. Tosches captures this sad, sordid tale in a chapter with the fantastic title “The Secret Parts of the Night.”

The King of Cult’s Little Brother: I came to The Cat Burglar (1961) through Roger Corman’s The Intruder (1962), a movie I rewatched in August with my movie club, again struck by the performance of Leo Gordon, who is such a strong part of an incredibly fierce, tough movie. Gordon served as a screenwriter for several Corman movies, including The Wasp Woman, The Terror, and Tower of London and had numerous other writing gigs and an extensive acting career. He also worked with Gene Corman on The Cat Burglar (at one point was to be called The Case of the Black Book) – a ripping crime tale, filmed on location in L.A., depicting the downfall of a minor criminal with a code who tangles with spies and thugs over a briefcase containing some sort of dastardly Cold War-formula. Goes down easy over 65 entertaining minutes. Said The Anniston Star: “Producer Gene Corman’s conviction that realistic stories call for complete set realism, resulted in the film’s feel of urgency and suspense which Leo Gordon’s taught script demanded.” Gordon and G. Corman teamed up again in 1967’s pro-flamethrower Tobruk, a movie R. Corman would borrow from frequently, starring Rock Hudson and George Peppard, and 1970’s You Can’t Win Them All with Tony Curtis and Charles Bronson.

Other crime favorites from the month included Dead End (1937), Hayseed (2023), Blonde Ice (1948), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Mystery Street (1950), all first-time watches. There’s a fascinating story about Frances Glessner Lee, a female forensics pioneer who was involved in the real life story behind Mystery Street in a recent Boston Globe magazine article – unfortunately, behind a paywall.

At the Movies, Mostly Blah: I had much less success in theaters in August than I had in July, but I didn’t make it to a couple I wanted to see (I’m looking at you, Strange Darling and Sing Sing). What I did see largely left me cold, slightly entertained sometimes, or annoyed: I’m trying to not look at you, Borderlands (2024), Blink Twice (2024), and Mother, Couch (2023). I did enjoy watching Coup! (2023) 1 ½ times – thanks to the summer storm that knocked out power to the theater during my first viewing. It’s a pandemic movie set during that other pandemic, the Spanish Plague, with characters and motivations that could have been ripped out of current news stories and social media posts. In the lead role, Peter Sarsgaard absolutely carries the movie, but Sarah Gadon is also memorable as the sensible wife of a pompous fake played by Billy Magnussen (stay out of his pool, peasant, or there will be consequences). 

I had better luck streaming new and newish movies, especially Al Warren’s Dogleg (2023) on Mubi. You’ve seen the set-up before: various seemingly unrelated segments coming together at the end (Slacker, Short Cuts, etc.) Warren’s film has plenty of its own pleasures, especially Warren as Alan, a “balding film director,” who loses his girlfriend’s dog at a gender reveal party. We see the indie movie within an indie movie he’s making and the diverse characters he meets as he attempts to locate “Roo.”

Black and White – and, yep, Deadly: I also managed to watch a handful of black-and-white horrors (dare I go all black and white for my annual all-horror October –yes, I will!) and two that stayed with me the most were Alex Nicol’s The Screaming Skull (1958) and Jean Yarborough’s King of the Zombies (1941). Neither movie was especially what you might call good, but both are highly watchable in their own ways (and besides, when the hell has “not good” stopped me?).

The Screaming Skull’s low-budget thrills contain zero ounces of fright, but they look pretty damn cool. I also guess I hate-watched it too, hoping for the condescending, mansplaining Eric Whitlock (portrayed convincingly assholish by John Hudson) to get his. Spoiler: he gets his. A column by Dick Williams in the June 28, 1958 Los Angeles Mirror reported that American International Pictures “Prexy” James Nicholson had recently screened The Screaming Skull and Bert I. Gordon’s Attack of the Puppet Master at his home for his teenage daughters and their friends. Mr. B.I.G., and his then wife Flora were even in attendance. Reported Dick: “The twin bill fared well. But Nicholson says they don’t hesitate to give the horse-laugh to anything they don’t like or consider phony.”

The pleasure of the cheap, cheap looking King of the Zombies almost exclusively comes from watching Mantan Moreland perform. He is consistently funny and truly captivates in every scene he’s in, which is, fortunately, most of ‘em!  The movie is unquestionably racially insensitive, and it offers interesting insight to read coverage of the movie in Kansas City, Missouri’s African-American newspaper, The Call, from when King of the Zombies appeared there in August 1941. In its review, The Call notes Moreland’s popularity, writing that he is “second only to Rochester in fan mail.” Legendary actor and comedian Eddie “Rochester” Anderson’ was a regular on Jack Benny’s radio program at the time. Other news in The Call that day was decidedly darker. Lewis Gordon, a 40-year-old prisoner in Trenton, Georgia, died after being crammed in a  7-by-7 ½ cell with 22 other prisoners who had been protesting because of conditions at the prison camp: “It developed in the testimony that guards were asked repeatedly for an hour and a half before they were released, to take Gordon out because he was dying, but they laughed.” 

In June 1973, Moreland was interviewed by The Independent in Richmond, California. He talked about how fellow Monogram Pictures actor Frankie Darrow, who would later work as a 5-foot-3 stuntman, a “kid actor” at the time, would get beat up and bruised frequently for defending Moreland every time someone called him a “Black something or other.” But Moreland said he still would have done it the same way: “Sure, I used to roll my eyes, and today they’ll tell you that’s bad. But people came out the theaters laughing, not mad at anyone.” He died just a few months later on Sept. 28, 1973.