THE GORILLA SHIP (Frank Strayer, 1932)

 

Sadly, no Gorillas appear in this film, yet we are introduced to some other violent hominids, men who seem lower on the evolutionary scale than their common ancestors! You’ve heard of a shotgun wedding but here, we get a six-shooter divorce! Poverty Row Director Frank Strayer bludgeons the audience with this tawdry and sordid tale of a jealous husband and a misogynist ship’s Captain with uninspired compositions and editing, as this 66-minute film plods along like a drunken sailor.

Philip Wells (Wheeler Oakman) is jealous of his best friend Dave Burton (Reed Howes) whom he believes is having an affair with his wife Helen (Vera Reynolds). Though Dave teaches her to play golf (in high heels, no less!) it’s apparent that the seduction is a fantasy concocted by the impotent husband. Philip harbors his jealousy secretly and the three of them take a vacation on his yacht, where he plans to lay them to an eternal rest in Davy Jones’ Locker...in pieces. But fate intervenes and a cargo ship helmed by the nefarious Capt. Gorilla Larson (Ralph Ince) rescues the triumvirate. Violence ensues.

The first act of the film is a boorish slog of uncomfortable dialogue delivered like speech class (6th grade, mind you). The second act seems like a completely different film as the three main characters are excised and we focus upon the crew of a cargo ship as men are shanghaied, threatened, and pummeled into submission by the beefy neanderthal known as Gorilla. Director Frank Strayer could have designed some interesting cross-cutting to create suspense, but this low budget is definitely low-brow. Things become more interesting when Philip is rescued thinking his plan was successful, then discovers that both Dave and Helen have survived intact as they’re hauled aboard unconscious. But Gorilla wants the girl for himself and eventually attempts to rape her (this isn’t implied) and Dave races to her rescue while Philip incites a mutiny. Dave busts into the captain’s cabin as Gorilla has his stinking paws all over Helen, and fucking Hell, they’re best buddies! Seems Dave saved Gorilla’s hide years ago, so Helen is safe without the need for pugilism. Philip promises divorce but schemes mutiny and he and the crew fight it out while the couple escapes in the only lifeboat. As Philip lays dying from gunshot wounds and Gorilla and his reformed crew fight the cabin fire, Dave hugs Helen and pronounces “There goes a great guy”. Yes, the guy who would have raped Helen under slightly different circumstances. Damn, what does Dave consider a bad guy?

Final Grade: (D)

THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT (Norman Taurog, 1932)

 

Tale of two Presidents or THE WHICH BLAIR PROJECT (I can’t take credit for that one, I read it on IMDB and it’s brilliant). Norman Taurog’s direction plays like a 78-minute vaudeville sketch, as the musical patter is embedded within the narrative with George M. Cohan’s dancing and Jimmy Durante’s verbal gymnastics keeping things lively. This is no pointed political parody or satire involving real issues concerning the 1932 presidential election, it’s a lightweight comedy about a lively doppelganger versus his parallel Presidential prospect (both to his paramour and public) who wins their affections. Its superficial contempt of politics goes no further than its Medicine Show theatrics, and the hopeful conclusion seems more critical of the voters than of its duplicitous candidates!

George Cohan plays twin parts, Presidential hopeful Theodore Blair and the 13-herb medicine salesman, Doc Varney. Blair’s staff recognizes that the only attribute keeping him from winning the oncoming election is his dull personality (he just needs some sex appeal!) and they soon discover an exact duplicate in Varney, a vaudeville performer with lots of character. Their plan is to deceive the public: let Varney do all the speaking and Blair make all the decisions. After the election, they connive to pack Varney to Antarctica to live with the seals to keep their secret, well, secret! Interesting observations: Blair’s staff includes a mature woman who dresses in men’s clothing and a bespectacled effeminate male advisor, both of whom hold equal standing with the older white men in his entourage, and their appearance is never questioned or parodied. The woman keeps lecturing about Blair’s lack of sex appeal! This inclusiveness almost makes up for the blackface performance by Cohan (as Varney) during the Medicine Show routine. Jimmy Durante and his schnozzola dominate every scene, lending physicality to his most unfunny lines!

The music is rather mundane and forgettable though interestingly photographed: in the opening scene, presidential portraits come to life and sing about the upcoming election, as the camera begins at a high angle then moves towards a medium shot of the four portraits. Cool. I haven’t seen much of DP David Abel’s work, but he brings a few flourishes to an otherwise static narrative that captures singing and dancing in mostly long take and medium shot. Compositions are tight and the split-screen effect is wonderfully realized, as timing of dialogue and framing is nearly perfect. Claudette Colbert is adorable as the daughter of an ex-president and love interest, who can’t be easily fooled and catches on rather quickly. I like this fact because it would have been easy to write a “dumb woman” part and play the confusion for laughs…at her expense. Overall, a silly affair that trades political caustics for chortles.

Final Grade: (C) 

MURDER AT THE VANITIES (Mitchell Leisen, 1934)

 

Ann Ware must beware the march of Id (but whose?) as her beau Eric Lander tries to land on his feet and not the chair, as in electric, all the while not missing a note in their stage performance. Mitchell Leisen’s hyper direction allows Jack Oakie’s strident performance to push the story forward while scores of beautiful scantily clad extras swirl and twirl in the murderous tempest. DP Leo Tover uses Dutch angles and movement within the frame to create interesting compositions which keep this claustrophobic musical comedy mystery from feeling static and stage bound. The musical numbers are wonderfully photographed and, when watched in high definition on a large screen, surprisingly erotic even for a Pre-Code extravaganza! 

We get Producer Jack Ellery (Jack Oakie) who is trying to delay a murder investigation because his show must go on, as Detective Murdock (Victor McLaglen) tries to pick up more women than murderers on this opening night! The stars of the show, Eric Lander (Carl Brisson) and Ann Ware (Kitty Carlisle) who just announced their wedding engagement, are both the targets and suspects of blackmail and homicide while Eric’s toxic ex-lover Rita Ross (Gertrude Michael) threatens to reveal Eric’s family secret. When Rita becomes the second corpse, Eric’s protective and motherly costume designer/seamstress Mrs. Smith (Jesse Ralph) also finds herself an unusual suspect. 

I will reveal my bias at this point: I am not a fan of big band/stage music, from this or any era. I am a fan of how it’s photographed and presented on the screen, and here Leo Tover’s compositions are exceptional. Tover’s anti-Busby Berkeley compositions are designed within the framework of the film’s stage and often shot from an audience or performer perspective. We get a huge spinning stage, Duke Ellington and a bevy of desegregated black dancers, a faux (?) Tommy Gun massacre, a song and dance about wacky weed, and scores of women whose costumes barely cover their naughty bits! Oh, and two murders, one by hatpin and the other gunshot. We also get the always gorgeous Toby Wing and her beguiling giggle: I suppose if Ellery wasn’t so patronizing we wouldn’t have had a mystery! 

Final Grade: (B) 

THE MALTESE FALCON (Roy Del Ruth, 1931)

 

Private Dick Sam Spade would sell his own mother for a few bucks so it’s no surprise he trades his soul for a “golden goose”, which goes over like a lead falcon. Roy Del Ruth’s competent and enjoyable Pre-Code adaptation of Hammett's novel is forever overshadowed by John Huston’s legendary version, and Ricardo Cortez’s portrayal of the amoral Detective tarnished by Bogart’s classic depiction against which all others are now measured. 

I won’t suffer the tumultuous plot mechanics of “who murdered who” and why, I’ll just point out some rather enjoyable Pre-Code details that make this worth your time. To begin with, the film opens with a panorama of San Francisco and cuts to a silhouette of a kissing couple and a pair of female legs, skirt hiked up, adjusting her stockings as a woman leaves Spade’s office. We get a cute-as-a-button Una Merkel as Spade’s secretary Effie who, for some reason, is smitten with her womanizing and amoral employer. Spade is sleeping with his partner’s wife and, when Archer is gunned down in a filthy alley, is happy to have Archer’s name removed from their office door as quickly as possible! Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade is much different than later representations and quite possibly more akin to Hammett’s vision. Cortez plays him as a grinning Grifter, a man who loves money more than mercy, a two-timing cheater whose only concern is himself. And he’s proud of it. His ethical toxicity isn’t shrouded in a world-weary cynicism or latent trauma, he’s just a smirking asshole that manipulates people for profit. Cortez plays him so well that even though you don’t trust or respect him, you still find the character interesting. Thelma Todd as Iva Archer his recently widowed squeeze and Bebe Daniels as his mysterious client Ruth Wonderly are both wonderful in their parts, both selfish and scheming which fits the story’s moral pattern quite well. The only innocent is Effie, yet in this Pre-Code affair it’s insinuated that she’s sleeping with the Boss (out of Wedlock, mind you). We get Ms. Wonderly naked in Spade’s bathtub and later she is forced to strip in his kitchen! So much for integrity. This version depicts the homosexual relationship between Casper Gutman (Dudley Digges) and Wilmer Cook (Dwight Frye) as a little more than subtext, as Gutman is emotionally burdened about turning his cohort in as a Fall Guy. I just wish Dwight Frye had a larger part, he’s one of my favorite supporting actors of the era! Interesting to note that all four murders are elided, and we are only privilege to the cunning consequences. Which leads to the film’s major weakness: the dialogue is slowly paced and enunciated which alters the tempo of the entire film. Sound recording and design in 1931 was still in its infancy (or Terrible Twos, I suppose) and here it becomes nearly insufferable. Each sentence is articulated then seconds pass before a response as if to make sure the microphone recorded the dialogue. This could have been minimized with a subtle score that dramatized these breaks, or with physical acting that could fill these voids. Alas, this is a typical early sound film, and the actors are stuck with rigid blocking. 

Even the coda reveals what a narcissistic sociopath Sam Spade is and will always be. Interestingly, Roy Del Ruth shoots him in medium shot gripping the prison bars like he’s the one incarcerated which could be a visual clue that Spade is as trapped in his psychosis as Ruth Wonderly is by her unanimous verdict. Despite the flaws, this is an enjoyable film that is best considered on its own and not in comparison to later versions. 

Final Grade: (C+)

ROAR OF THE DRAGON (Wesley Ruggles, 1932)

 

Edward Everett Horton goes from Civil Engineer to meek and mild-mannered clerk then to full-on fucking Action Hero! Though an inebriated Chauncey Carson (Richard Dix) is the prime protagonist, the film becomes much more interesting with a great supporting cast including the mysterious Gwili Andre, Zasu Pitts, Arline Judge, Toshia Mori, C. Henry Gordon and the above-mentioned Mr. Horton! The direction is quick and well-paced yet allows a few moments of intimacy with the supporting cast, so when the final act explodes, we feel saddened by the loss and sacrifice of the peripheral cast. 

Set in Manchuria (yet filmed in Hollywood, of course), the evil rogue Voronosky (C. Henry Gordon) rapes and pillages the countryside and finally attacks the city of Yolung, where a group of Americans have fortified themselves in a riverside hotel awaiting the chance to escape: will their riverboat be repaired in time? Capt. Carson falls for the fatale femme Natascha (Gwili Andre, looking very Myrna Loy-ish), sex slave to the bandit leader. Various others bicker and argue but must eventually join together to hold off the bandits until the boat is repaired. Most of the film develops the comradery between characters while cross-cutting with the action outside the hotel walls. Fortunately, Capt. Carson has an ace up his sleeve or, more precisely, a .50 caliber machine gun in the tower! 

So, Capt. Carson falls in love with Natascha, Busby (Edward Everett Horton) falls for the ingenue Hortense O’Dare (Arline Judge), while the whiny unnamed character (ZaSu Pitts) adds humor amid the pathos. The film is ripe with contemporary stereotypes and racism, as most of the Asian characters are depicted as savage and inhuman, though we do get a significant supporting role from Toshia Mori who is intelligent and decisive. White entitlement abounds. The final act depicts scores of bandits being machine gunned to death, some writhing in agony amid their death throes! And who is behind the Browning? None other than our pal Edward Everett Horton! Wow! After his girl is shot by a sniper while wrangling up a stray child, he becomes an angel of death raining lead upon the invaders. But it’s Chauncy Carson who gets the final act of heroism, carrying Busby’s broken body through a gauntlet of gunfire and makes the great escape at the very last moment. Voronosky dead and his girl safe in Carson’s arms, the ship departs leaving the dead to bury the dead.

Final Grade: (B-)

TERROR ABOARD (Paul Sloane, 1933, USA)

 

The City of Hope brings salvation to the Dulcina, which has become a floating morgue on the high seas, a ghost ship haunted by bad intentions. Director Paul Sloane and DP Harry Fischbeck deliver a utilitarian and rather mundane film about a mass murderer, eschewing thrills and mystery for tepid vaudeville humor, though it is a rather brutal and sordid affair. It’s melodrama with a high body count! 

The opening scenes are quick and exciting as ghostly lights materialize in the thick fog, as a seemingly abandoned ship careens out of control and almost crashes into the excited crew. Soon, a member of the boarding party is mysteriously clubbed to death, a woman’s lifeless frozen body is discovered on the deck (in 102-degree heat!), another man is found hanged in his cabin, and smoke and fire billow from the boiler room. We get a narratively ambiguous shot of a strange man jumping into the sea (obviously not someone from the boarding crew) and then a partially burnt teletype is found. The story then match-cuts (and jump-cuts) from the teletype, present tense to the past, and we see a well-dressed man reading the now intact message: a man who is obviously the intended recipient of the arrest warrant! The first act builds a modicum of suspense a’ la Mary Celeste, then gives us the explanations for each gruesome discovery before expiring. Turns out, the man reading the note is Maximilian Krieg (John Halliday), owner of the yacht, who is wanted for fraud and facing a lengthy prison sentence. Pushed to wits end, he begins to methodically murder the crew so he and his fiancé Lili (Shirley Grey) can hide away on an isolated atoll. But Lili isn’t so keen on Max anyway, so when her pilot paramour Jim (Neil Hamilton) and his kitten show up, sparks literally fly. In the best Pre-Code WTF? fashion, Jim crashes his plane in the middle of the ocean just to be picked up by Max’s ship! We get emotional violence on multiple levels as a married man is cuckolded by the piano player (Jack La Rue) which leads to the mistress's frozen demise, his neck stretching big sleep, and thus begins a gaggle of gruesomeness. The radioman is shot through the heart (his uniform thick with gushing blood!), the chef is poisoned, the maid tossed overboard and finally the entire crew introduced to Davey Jones’ Locker in one fell swoop. Wow, this may have the second highest body count after James Whale’s THE INVISIBLE MAN! 

The film’s short run time is a benefit since Sloane fails to build suspense, and Fischbeck’s photography really adds nothing to the drama. This could have been an unforgettable thriller, revealing Krieg as a remorseless killer feigning innocence as passengers disappear one by one, but the script gets mired with insubstantial humor from Charlie Ruggles which breaks the tension. Is this meant to be a farce or ferocity, humor or humours? This balancing act is deftly handled in another Pre-Code classic MURDERS IN THE ZOO but here it all falls flat. The premise is so much better than the result. At least Max gets his comeuppance and the mysterious figure jumping into the brine is finally explained, and he becomes chum for Chondrichthyes. 

Final Grade: (C) 

BY CANDLELIGHT (James Whale, 1933)

 

Josef plays at being both a Casanova and a Prince but, in this comedy of errors, learns that love is a dish best served by candlelight. Director James Whale goes full Lubitsch in this lighthearted farce with excellent pacing and camerawork from his DP John Mescall, who tracks the camera and frames the film to make this talky stage-bound drama visually interesting. W. Franke Harling’s score dominates the film throughout its runtime, often seeming like Carl Stalling’s cartoon music complete with sound effects! 

The plot is fairly simple: the Butler Josef (Paul Lukas) meets the beautiful Marie (Elissa Landi) and, believing her to be an Aristocrat, pretends to be his employer Prince Alfred von Romer (Nils Asther) in order to court her. Of course, this all leads to mistaken identities, role playing antics, lots of alcohol consumption, flirting by candlelight (hence the film’s title), all without much accountability except possibly needing a new resume. Josef is finally given away by a solid gold cigarette case before learning of his paramour’s own duplicity! It’s all fluff and circumstance. What I enjoyed most was the relationship between Josef and his boss was shown to be rather intimate and friendly, as the Prince was not condescending or cruel to Josef even when the ruse was discovered: the Prince even spontaneously played the part of Butler to help Josef get the girl! And the call-back comes in the third act with the “blown fuse” (how’s that for subtext) when the Prince, pretending to be a manservant, carries the candelabra into the study as Josef makes his moves on Marie in the dark. Which Josef did in the first act for the Prince, a seeming nightly duty to include fluffing a second pillow for the bed! How’s that for Pre-Code. 

The film’s weak point is in the sometimes-annoying performance from Paul Lukas, as he becomes a bit too whiny and whimperish. Elissa Landi as his inamorata is sometimes too strident in her caterwauling (ala I LOVE LUCY) though she plays coy with subtle flair. Nils Asther is fine in the Noble supporting role, playing his character with class and dignity. However, by today’s standards Josef and the Prince probably commit at least a dozen misdemeanor sex crimes against their dates! An enjoyable romantic comedy that doesn’t quite reach screwball status.

Final Grade: (C+)