THE MATING CALL (1928) is directed by James Cruze, whose films, though not often great, are agreeably peculiar. THE GREAT GABBO would be a terribly good example here.
This one is produced by Howard Hughes and was controversial, not for its Ku Klux Klan storyline, but for its nude scene by René Adorée (why do I say “by,” as if she authored it?). It’s pretty startling — frame grabs of my copy don’t work in terms of showing what the moving images so clearly displays. Let’s just say it wouldn’t have the effect it does if RA were not so clearly brunette.
Hughes was known to use the N-word regularly, and the depiction of the Klan (or “clan” — they’re not 100% identical to the real deal but the deniability is minimal) is as a bunch of vigilantes keeping erring townsfolk — drunks and wifebeaters — on the straight and narrow by terrorizing them. Or, in one particularly recalcitrant case, tying the perp to a cross and bullwhipping him. The race angle is largely absent.
The climax is typical of Hollywood vigilante movies — they get the wrong man, the hero, and tragedy looms. Kubrick, talking about why his humble narrator in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE had to be so very wicked, told Michel Ciment that vigilante movies always got it wrong by focussing on the danger of punishing the wrong man (THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, an excellent film, is the best example). But everybody always assumes they have the right man, and everybody knows the law makes mistakes too, so this argument wouldn’t ever sway a torch-burning mob. The argument should be about the wrongness of ex-judiciary punishment.
The movie, based on a Rex Beach source novel, ends with the vigilantes and cops faking evidence together to ensure a “just” outcome, making this probably the second most repellant Klan-based movie in Hollywood history. Apart from the nude scene. Although the general sexing-up of the issues involved calls to mind Terence Young’s gross THE KLANSMAN.
A quick update on my See Reptilicus and Die mission — a mission almost as old as Hitchcock Year and likely to run and run. I’m trying to view every film illustrated in Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, a prodigiously visual tome that haunted my childhood like a big green flapping bat. So how am I doing?
As you can see here, here, here and here, the titles previously listed as unseen are gradually changing to blood red, indicating that I’ve tracked them down and watched them. Since I haven’t written about every single film I’ve seen, a quick update might be in order, dealing with the more interesting cases.
THE NEANDERTHAL MAN is directed by EA Dupont, which is just bloody tragic. The auteur of VARIETY must have fallen not on hard times, but straight through them and into some monochromatic pit of hell where cineastes shovel shit while lashed by demons, huckster producers, and their consciences. The sabre-tooth tiger that isn’t anything of the kind is quite funny (Dupont boldly cuts from a real tiger in long-shot to a fanged glove puppet/stuffed toy close-up), and it was surprising to discover that this may have been the first movie monster to not only abduct a screaming starlet, but actually do the nasty with her, caveman style (all discretely off-camera). Even Beverly Garland, as cavebait, can’t save this cro-magnon crud.
THE MAGIC SWORD — Gifford has this Bert I Gordon sword and sorcery romp listed as ST GEORGE AND THE SEVEN CURSES which, given the presence of a Sir George and seven curses in the plot, suggests to me that this was the original intended title, although I can’t find any evidence it was released as such. Wikipedia offers ST GEORGE AND THE DRAGON and THE SEVEN CURSES OF LODAC as alternatives. This was pretty enjoyable! It has Estelle Winwood (she of the widely-spaced eyes that allow her to look you in the eye and see the back of your head at the same time) and Basil Rathbone, who isn’t yet having trouble with his lines (see QUEEN OF BLOOD for evidence of what time did to poor old Sherlock) and thus is great fun. Gary 2001 Lockwood makes a spirited, if very American, hero, and Maila Nurmi (Vampira!) pads out the cast as a hag (“Vamp — I mean, Maila, wanna be in a film?” “Hmm, what’s the role?” “Hag!” “I’ll do it!”). Apart from oddly adult stuff like the damsel’s vacuum-packed bosom and the blood pouring from the injured cyclops, this was inventive and crammed with fancy special effects, all of which were decently special, if cheap. No stop-motion creatures, but the dragon puppet breathed real fire, and the humans were endearing.
VOODOO MAN is a very silly Monogram horror with Lugosi, Zucco and Carradine. The triple-headed threat ought to make the film impressively busy and bursting with fun, but instead it rather illuminates just how very affordable those actors had become. However, the thing is daft as a brush and basically played for laughs, although I’m not sure anyone told Bela. By this point in his life, Bela seems permanently typecast as widowers, perhaps to explain his hangdog appearance. George Zucco runs a garage where he steers women to their dooms, and Carradine plays a simple-minded, simple-bodied (he looks like a stick drawing) henchman. The hero is a screenwriter who tries to pass his adventure off as a movie script in the last scene. Good luck with that, fella.
Boris models the new-look string beard.
THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES is one of Boris Karloff’s many many mad scientist parts, which seem to have been made from a kind of knitting pattern in the early forties — Boris invents something wonderfully beneficial to mankind, mankind (personified by some well-meaning dopes) screws things up and somebody gets killed, Boris gets embittered and crazy and uses his powers for evil. Nick Grinde directed at least three of these with exactly the same plot, and I watched them all. Now this one and THE MAN THE COULD NOT HANG and BEFORE I HANG have all merged into one super-mad scientist movie, which might be called THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES THEY COULD NOT HANG BEFORE. All three are engaging, sympathetic, nicely photographed, and boast committed, only slightly campy performances from the tireless star.
DR RENAULT’S SECRET is far better than I’d expected, with a lovely monster played by J Carroll Naish, product of Dr Moreau-like experiments in accelerated evolution (THE NEANDERTHAL MAN uses the same plot device in reveree, winding back the genetic clock on domestic cats and domestic help). And it’s based on the same Gaston Leroux tale as BALAOO THE DEMON BABOON, another Gifford special which I may have to go to Canada to see…
THE MYSTERY OF THE MARIE CELESTE is a British nautical suspenser from the early thirties, when Lugosi was full of vim and good prospects, even when his characters are not. It makes a change to feel sorry for the character rather than the actor. The movie was moderately interesting, partly because the British version of 30s racism is more bluntly-spoken than the Hollywood equivalent — there’s some very nasty language from some purportedly sympathetic characters.
DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE, starring future director James GREAT GABBO Cruze, can be seen RIGHT HERE ~
It’s not a great work of art — mainly it’s quite funny, with Hyde looking like an unsavory Dudley Moore — but the filmmakers do a reasonable job of straightening out the story, condensing the action, and inserting a romantic lead, all of which actions would be repeated by subsequent adaptors. Stevenson’s story is an all-male affair, apart from the maid heard crying after Jekyll’s demise, prompting me to wonder if a version where Hyde’s secret life of vice took more of a Dorian Gray path might provide a new wrinkle on the story — something that’s sorely needed after a hundred or so different versions.
The 1912 version, extracted. I like the simplicity, probably a necessity since the whole film is only 11 minutes long. Also, Jekyll is old, which is rarely the case in subsequent versions. The changeover is a straightforward jump-cut, a la Melies. Something to build on in future versions. Hyde seems to be somehow more working class, and also afflicted with partial paralysis and missing his front teeth. But I’m not knocking him.
Jekyll’s played by James Cruze, later a director of seriously deranged mainstream Hollywood flicks like THE GREAT GABBO and the Edward Everett Horton star vehicle (!) BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK. Cruze seems to have had a volatile mixture of talent and anti-talent: his bad choices are often more interesting than his good ones.
Although Cruze is credited for both roles, apparently in some scenes Hyde is actually played by Harry Benham — I have no idea why. The idea of separate actors makes complete sense to me, and if we stopped treating the part as a tour de force for a single actor and just cast different guys, the thing would work much more naturally. But separate actors for just SOME SCENES — that’s wonderfully mad. They should have called it THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF MR. HYDE.
shadowplay 