Sleepy Brooklyn Noir

TEENAGE GANG DEBS (1966)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Halfway through the incredibly short running time of 73 minutes, "Teenage Gangs Debs" has one or two endless montages that feature gang members harassing a young woman by literally riding their bikes in circle formation around her. Then we get two eternal dance numbers where young men and women do the jig to some instrumental pop number. I would think that it means we are left with less than an hour devoted to any sort of story.

Somewhere in Brooklyn, a new girl in town from Manhattan named Terry (Diane Conti) is looking to become part of the "Rebels" gang. She enters an exclusive bar where the members hang out and asks for a soda. Why she wants to be a member, I can't say. Johnny (John Batis) is the leader of the pack. If you become Johnny's girl (a "deb"), then he must have his initials carved into your chest. Terry isn't having it and conspires with Nino, Johnny's second man (Joey Naudic), to betray and kill Johnny. It almost seems as if Terry wants control of the gang but then the movie sputters and tanks with excessive padding to make it past the one hour mark.

"Teenage Gang Debs" commits the unfortunate sin of occasional boredom. An exploitation tale like this should have verve and some energy but it operates on sluggishness, with one too many dance numbers and some street violence that seems to have emerged from an unrelated documentary. Terry's demands and her manipulative methods are the best thing about this film - she is aching to get the gang a higher status by getting into rumbles. The nagging question is why does she care and what does she expect to get out of it? It is also nice to see Eileen Dietz (known in the credits as Eileen Scott) in her first major role as a teen girl who wants out - this is long before she got to be known as Pazuzu's Ghost face.

Some have termed this picture "sleaze noir." It is sleepy noir.

Viva the dim Elvis money pit

VIVA LAS VEGAS (1964)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

An Elvis Presley movie has to be approached as entertainment, nothing more. His best films, "King Creole" and "Jailhouse Rock," offered more than simple-minded entertainment - they had meaty stories and well-drawn characters. "Viva Las Vegas" is one of Elvis's most popular movies but, when all is said and done, its mere novelty is that it is nothing more than a picturesque travelogue with Elvis and Ann-Margret chewing up the screen with their songs and dance moves.

Elvis stars as Lucky Jackson, a cocky race car driver with aspirations to race at the Grand Prix in Las Vegas. The trouble is that there is a powerful engine he needs to buy for his precious car. Lucky tries his luck at a Vegas casino and actually wins the money. Unfortunately, the engine is bought by someone else and, through a series of misadventures, namely falling in a pool while making courtly advances to a fellow employee, Rusty Martin (Ann-Margret), Lucky loses his money and finds himself working as a waiter at a hotel.

In the meantime, there are a series of montages involving Lucky and a rival driver, Count Elmo Mancini (played by Cesare Danova), who spend about twenty minutes searching for that pretty redhead Rusty at every single Vegas casino and showplace on the Strip (which only leaves about another one hour of more repetitive montages). There are also the requisite songs sung by Elvis and Ann-Margret - my favorites are the title tune, "The Lady Loves Me," and "Appreciation.

To criticize "Viva Las Vegas" is to ask for trouble. How can you argue against a movie that hardly has a story or credible characters, and is just concerned with being silly and fluffy nonsense? The movie is mostly an advertisement for Las Vegas, offering scenic beauty and plenty of helicopter shots of the horizon in Cinemascope color. And there is Elvis and Ann-Margret, two dazzling, sexy, charismatic stars who unfortunately have little in the way of chemistry. And the final race car competition results in two deaths (though one of them survives relatively unscathed if you check out the final wedding sequence), and apparently starts at midnight though it seems to last through the next day!

There are some electric moments with the dynamic Ann-Margret, a fabulous singer and dancer and an overall better actor than Elvis. Elvis himself has one high comedic point where he splashes champagne all over Cesare, who is trying to woo Ann-Margret. Beyond that, I expect much more than pretty scenery and a few good songs, but why carp? People seem to love this movie, so be it.

Lupino Lane's hair-raising escapades

FOOL'S LUCK (1926)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Fool's Luck" plays like a Buster Keaton short, without Keaton. That is okay because Lupino Lane (Ida Lupino's uncle), the late comedian and acrobat, performs ably, doing some spectacular stunts that are timed with such precision, you'd swear they were filmed accidentally.

Lane is the Dude, who lives in an expansive apartment. He also has his own nervous valet (George Davis) and a maid, and lives the high life thanks to his uncle (the Dude even has a rising bed that tilts in such a way that he doesn't have to literally get up). The Dude is a lazy, rich bum who is suddenly cut off from his finances and is evicted the same day, thanks to a telegram. The problem is that his fiancee and her father are going to have dinner at his apartment!

A simple plot is delivered with some hair-raisingly funny gags. The funniest and most hair-raising involves a dangling piano that is hanging from the roof of a building that will have you on the edge of your seat. To give you an idea of how nailbiting it is, Lane walks on top of the dangling piano! If this is camera trickery, I couldn't spot it.

As a comic short, "Fool's Luck" is a breeze to watch and a welcome respite from even some of the early comic talkies. Lane is a riot to see in his body language, whether he is sitting on a truck with no one at the wheel or hiding underwater in his luxurious bathtub while smoking and trying to play solitaire. And George Davis has his nervous tic of lightly touching his fingertips that will leave you quite amused.

As directed by Fatty Arbuckle (using the alias William Goodrich), I wouldn't call it as good as anything by Harold Lloyd, Chaplin or Buster Keaton (and we have seen these visual gag stunts before but, hey, they are always impressive), but it is great fun to watch.

Stealing scenes with devilish bitchiness

A STOLEN LIFE (1946)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Bette Davis has always been the reigning queen bitch of the cinema, judging from roles in "All About Eve" (her definitive, bitchiest role), "Mr. Skeffington," and "Jezebel," among others. "A Stolen Life," a soapy, highly melodramatic drama, places Davis in dual roles for the first time in her career, playing both a flirtatious bitch and an innocent, lovey-dovey woman. The results are remarkable to say the least.

Kate Bosworth (Bette Davis) is the artistically inclined woman who misses her boat to New England. She is set to see her sister and her uncle. Kate persuades a lighthouse engineer, Bill (Glenn Ford), to take her home in his boat since his Martha Vineyard's lighthouse is on the way. Kate is instantly smitten with Bill, and decides to see him again at his precious, foggy lighthouse. They fall in love momentarily. That is until Pat (also played by Davis) decides to be smitten with Bill and whisk him away from Kate. A lunch date with Kate turns into a lunch date with Pat thanks to Pat's intervention. Later there is a dance followed by a wedding, leaving Kate fuming with nary the partner in her life. Kate is unable and unwilling to express her feelings to Pat. What is a virginal artist to do? Well, she gets caught up in her work and has a gallery showing where a Jackson Pollock-type named Karnock (Dane Clark) tells her that the work is mediocre and impersonal. He shows her his work and she is suddenly challenged, knowing her repression has taken a toll on her. Kate lets Karnock teach her the personal side of expressing oneself. Meanwhile, Pat and Bill are about to have a divorce with Bill leaving for Chile, which allows Kate wants to spend time with Pat. A tragedy ensues where a doppelganger motif takes shape.

"A Stolen Life" could have been highly sentimental glop but director Curtis Bernhardt and cinematographers Ernest Haller and Sol Polito inject a layer of noirish atmosphere with stark shadows and foggy landscapes that recall the look of the Universal horror films. In fact, the scenes where we see Karnock's sullied, dank apartment could be a scene straight out of "Dracula's Daughter." This works because the story involves doubles and mirror reflections of self-identity and often such stories involve self-doubt. Self-doubt or hazy notions of oneself come through in the scenes of fog, particularly the lighthouse sequences and scenes showing the exterior of Kate's house. The mirror reflections and the fact that Kate and Pat are twin sisters, not to mention there are two different men of repressed and animalistic sexuality, brings an unsettling sense of disturbance to the proceedings. It is hard to pin down but director Bernhardt has practically made a repressed horror movie without the horror, leaving only the elements of duality and doppelganger-isms and the atmosphere to prevail.

Bette Davis is the star of the show, showcasing her talents and fusing them to create three distinctive characters. The innocence of Kate, the bitchiness and flirtatious of Pat, and Kate feigning Pat in order to win Bill. It may be hokey and highly theatrical but it is never less than compelling. "A Stolen Life" is a true movie-buff's delight.

Amoral Natural Born Killer

BORN TO KILL (1947)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

For extreme depravity and soullessness in equal doses, you won't find a more amoral noir picture from out of the past than "Born to Kill," one of the meanest and cruelest in the genre. Not exactly a good film but certainly an energetic and frightening one, thanks to the evil charms of the notorious Lawrence Tierney.

Claire Trevor is Helen Trent, a glamour girl in Reno who is settling a divorce so she can marry a rich San Francisco boyfriend of hers. She rooms at the house of a certain Mrs. Craft (boisterously played by Esther Howard), who appears to be a madame or a former madame. Another roommate is Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell), who boasts about her dynamite boyfriend she's eager to see at the casino. Helen also gambles and is awestruck by Sam Wilde (Lawrence Tierney), who spots Laury with her new beau. Sam is mad as hell as he tracks them down and kills them both. Helen spots the bodies and leaves with an air of detachment on a train to San Francisco, not knowing Sam was responsible. And wouldn't you know that Mr. Smooth Operator Sam is also on board the same train and trying to make some advances towards Helen. Once Sam is in San Francisco and looks up Helen, he decides to pursue her foster sister, Georgia (Audrey Long), a newspaper heiress. Eventually, Sam marries her but Helen knows what kind of man he is, or maybe she is deeply attracted to him.

On the surface, "Born to Kill" sounds more like a soap opera with some rather operatic twists. One involves Sam with a keen interest in running Georgia's newspaper. Huh? Why would a brute force like Sam have an interest in newspaper publishing? And then there is Helen who is so drawn to Sam that the idea of murder doesn't frighten her, it is an unsettlingly erotic idea to her.

There are hindrances in the screenplay, mainly the introduction of a curious detective that simply drags things a bit into conventionality. Also recapitulating some of the earlier characters like Mrs. Craft simply underwhelms the narrative and focus on Sam Wilde. A nice addition and worth a mention is reliable Elisha Cook, Jr. as Sam's partner who tries to protect Sam (they knew each other from their prison days). Cook has a great line that sums up the movie: "You can't just go 'round killing people whenever the notion strikes you, it ain't feasible."

Robert Wise (who helmed 1949's "The Set-Up," one of the best noir pics ever) directed this grim, relentlessly bleaker than thou noir picture but the screenplay gets too needlessly complicated with peripheral characters possibly implemented to reduce the rampant amorality. Still, for Tierney and Elisha Cook, Jr. alone, "Born to Kill" is occasionally a blazingly intense and powerful film.

Wild, crazy Lloyd at his best

MOVIE CRAZY (1932)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Movie Crazy" may not be the best Harold Lloyd film ever made, but it comes darn close. Despite being a monumental flop at the box-office (as well as two early talkies he made prior to this one), one wonders why because it is so flat out funny and charming. Those weaned on romantic comedies of the 2000 decade will find there was far more wit, imagination and playfulness in this genre almost a century earlier.

Lloyd is Harold Hall, an ambitious actor whose glasses may get in the way of real movie stardom, which he so desires. His family doesn't think much of his desires yet Hall pursues stardom by going west. He lands in Hollywood under false pretenses - let's just say it has to do with the wrong photograph being sent with his name on it. The photograph has a Rudolph Valentinoesque kind of actor, far removed from the goofy Hall. Hall's first audition goes awry to say the least, not to mention his brief stint as an extra where he overacts! Hall meets the blonde, sassy Mary Sears (Constance Cummings), an actress under contract to a studio. Little does Hall realize that a seeming Latina starlet whom he pines for on another movie set is the same Mary Sears. Of course, Mary has too much fun teasing Hall (whom she nicknames "Trouble") to tell him the truth, including telling him that he can't see any other women, such as the seductive Latina.

Don't expect any of the tomfoolery and death-defying stunts of Lloyd's earlier silent films in "Movie Crazy." The movie delights in simple sight gags and occasional slapstick (including the breaking of glass doors that will leave you howling with laughter), but it also delights in the charm of its leading star. It is no accident that Lloyd's "Glasses" character inspired the character of Clark Kent except Lloyd is the bumbling, clumsy Clark Kent with or without the glasses. And yet, despite his awkward stages such as prancing around puddles with only one shoe or wearing a "magic" coat (you have to see it to believe it), we root for Hall to make it big and make his sweet, rickety relationship with Mary Sears come true. We also hope he can steer her away from her amorous, drunk co-star, Vance (Robert Thomson).

"Movie Crazy" is a wild comic ride, a fun-filled, laugh-a-minute film with plenty of laughs for any fan of Lloyd and of movies as well. Added to that is the most memorable performance(s) in the film by the magnetic Constance Cummings. The twinkle in her eye and her flair for comic timing work so exceedingly well that she will make one swoon with awe and delight - a marvelous actress. No wonder Hall gets into so much trouble in the film - he is in love.

Blazingly hot western noir

HEAT LIGHTNING (1934)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

In the first scene of "Heat Lightning," there is a slow pan shot across the desert that settles in on a lonely gas station/cafe. Right away we are in the throes of the atmospheric western noir trappings of "Heat Lightning," a true original and a precursor to films with central women characters in a remote setting like "Gas, Food Lodging" and "Bagdad Cafe."

"Heat Lightning" stars Aline MacMahon as Olga, a tough, possibly bitter woman who runs a service station where she is the lone fixer upper on servicing cars, and that includes fixing the engine! (Women did all kinds of jobs in this early period of Hollywood movies). Her younger sister, the ingenue Myra (Ann Dvorak, who may be best known as Scarface's sister in the original 1932 classic, "Scarface"), runs the cafe, handing out sandwiches and cold Coca-Cola bottles to weary travelers who want to get away from the intense heat. This is a lonely existence in the middle of the desert and, though Olga seems satisfied, Myra wants to escape, to get away. She wants to go to a dance but Olga disapproves, probably hoping she is not left alone to run the place (and she knows what the world of untrustworthy men is like beyond the desert). A quarrel ensues between them where Olga behaves more like a doting mother than a sister, and there is even a suggestion, possibly unmerited but you never know, of Olga having lesbian tendencies, or at least acting tomboyish to deflect any men from her direction (she wears a bandana, looking as unglamorous as possible).

For example, one day, an old flame of Olga's arrives at the cafe named George (Preston Foster), a thief and con man on the run from his latest heist with his partner (Lyle Talbot). George makes nice with Olga, trying to woo her back when in fact he is up to his old tricks. Olga resists yet she smiles, and even wears makeup and a dress to welcome back the former man in her life! There might be an intended or unintended subtext in there. Meanwhile, Myra persists and disobeys Olga by going to the dance while a boisterous Mexican family and two rich dames and their chauffeur from Reno find lodging, and there is the matter of some precious jewelry.

Based on a play by Leon Abrams and George Abbott, "Heat Lightning" has enough tension, atmosphere and hypnotic shots to merit a lasting impression, all in a little more than 64 minutes. Particularly effective are Aline MacMahon and Ann Dvorak, two sisters with opposite personalities and purpose, trying to live some semblance of a life in the middle of the desert. What is more remarkable is that this is possibly the first noir western we have ever had, especially one with such a remote setting. "The Petrified Forest" may have a similar setting but that was released 2 years later. Here, we have what starts as a character study that mixes in some noir characters, hence Olga's former bad boy lover, and other noirish aspects like sex, intrigue, jealousy betrayal with some comic relief thrown in.

"Heat Lightning" was later remade as "Highway West" in 1941, unseen by me. "Heat Lightning" deserves a wider audience and some context in its subversive combination of genres and its pre-code subject matter (and, again, with having two female protagonists). It has been shown on TCM but if you happen to catch it again, then you'll swear that 65 minutes have never induced such sweaty tension as this original.