The Tragedy of Larry Talbot

THE WOLF MAN (1941)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Now you will have peace for eternity." 

                                                                                             Maleva - "The Wolf Man"

"The Wolf Man" is such a precious, sweetly precious horror film that could've been so much more. It aims to be psychological yet it only hints at the psychology of its main protagonist, Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.). It aims to scare the bejesus out of you yet it only hints at the horror, keeping it muted and mostly concerned with developing empathy towards the emotional temper tantrums of Larry Talbot (given slightly more depth in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man"). It also aims to be a love story yet it never enters such terrain, keeping the female lead at arm's length as only a very worried friend who shares a quick kiss on the lips with Larry. And with all that, there is no denying that "The Wolf Man" works wonders because it brings its elements together with fantastical convergence.

There is not much I can say about "The Wolf Man" that has not been said about a classic 70-plus year old horror flick, one of the more fascinating entries in the Universal Monsters series. Originally meant to be an ambiguous psychological horror film about Larry's neurosis concerning whether he is a werewolf and not, "The Wolf Man" has its interests set on Larry Talbot's physical and mentally unsound condition. At first, he seems a happy-go-lucky guy who can fix his dad's giant telescope and is rooting for a romantic entanglement with the blonde antique shop owner, Gwen (Evelyn Ankers, the Queen of the Screamers). Gwen already has a boyfriend but why should that stop Larry, who first notices her through his dad's rather powerful telescope that can give sharp street corner views of antique shop windows! After Larry stops the violent attack of Gwen's friend by a wolf (shown with four legs despite Larry changing into a werewolf later on), Larry is bitten and his wounds heal rather fast. When he seeks advice from the Gypsy Woman named Maleva (Maria Ouspenskaya), Larry is told that his fate is doomed - he must be killed by either a silver bullet or a silver cane (the latter of which he owns) and then he will rest in peace for eternity. The sequels that followed proved just the opposite.

"The Wolf Man" is a curious werewolf picture - all that talk about moon and wolfsbane and we never see a moon or any wolfsbane. One must wonder about the European setting - is it Romania or Transylvania as some horror film experts had thought? No idea, a common question with regards to most of the Universal Horror pictures. Ultimately what is important is that it works thanks to Lon Chaney Jr.'s iconic performance, showing much empathy and he even cries at the tomb of his Gypsy werewolf attacker (well played in a cameo by Bela Lugosi). Maria Ouspenskaya adds urgency and wisdom and her final scene with the dead Talbot will make many misty-eyed. Adding to the film is of course the always fantastic Claude Rains as Larry's father who hopes for the best for his son, and Evelyn Ankers as Gwen who clearly cares for Larry. "The Wolf Man" might be too short for its own good and it had far more potential but it is easy to see why Lon Chaney Jr.'s Larry Talbot remains the most sympathetic, tragic character of all the Universal Monsters.

Tranquil Existence of an Oyster

GOD'S GIFT TO WOMEN (1931)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Sassy, sexy women lining up to be bedmates for a wealthy bachelor may strike some as raunchy by 1930's standards but do remember that films like Michael Curtiz's "God's Gift to Women" existed in the Pre-Code era when you could almost get away with anything. A playful diversion like "God's Gift to Women" will certainly not play to a 2010 audience today but nobody should pass it up - it is a souffle of laughs that kept me smiling. Even a line like, "If you want to live, you must follow the tranquil existence of an oyster" which sums up the lead character's current status, made me do more than chuckle. It is a mild sex farce but with its heart in its sleeve.

Frank Fay is the dapper, charming bachelor Toto Duryea who always has a bevy of women in tow at the local Parisian club. It is there that he sets his eyes on one startling catch - a vivacious blonde named Diane (Laura La Plante). She is tricked into dancing with him, though she will have none of him thanks to the advice of her millionaire father who sees the gent as an amoral lover. You can't keep a wealthy ladies' man down for long as Toto pursues Diane in various disguises, one as a mustachioed janitor of all things and also as a butler. The ruse never lets up and he never backs down. After all, what can one say about a man whose lineage links to the famous Don Juan, keeping a painting of the famous lover in his mansion? When Diane's stern father visits him, an ultimatum is enforced - Toto must consult with the millionaire's doctor and not see any women for six months (that includes the iconic flapper Louise Brooks in one of her first roles post-silent film era). This is no easy task, especially when the doctor tells Toto he has an enlarged aorta and can't get too excited.

Between the running gag of Toto getting tsk-tsked by various characters or the complication of keeping a party of fellow friends in one room or the task of separating three "visiting nurses" who change into lingerie before accompanying the "sick" Toto in bed, "God's Gift to Women" is a fancy treat of a movie with several winsome characters and delectably humorous situations. My major quibble is that Laura La Plante's Diane is practically written out of the movie (originally there were some musical numbers so who knows if she sang a song or two) and she can't quite compete with the casting of the alluring women of Toto's life (who can compete with Louise Brooks?)

Seeing this movie in the same couple of months as "Nothing Sacred" (which Fay also appeared in) and "Dinner at Eight" paints a picture of wealth in the 1930's in varying degrees during the Great Depression (which hit France the same year this film was released). With "God's Gift to Women," Toto lives a carefree existence that has meaning when stricken with the love bug - money is not something he worries about. As the good doctor tells him, he is living life like an oyster.

Tragedy and wealth in Great Depression days

DINNER AT EIGHT (1933)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

An elegant, finely tuned 1933 comic melodrama about wealthy people may not pass muster in 2018 but who cares if they are wealthy? Made in Pre-Code days, "Dinner at Eight" is a hoot and a half, a terrific movie full of delicious zingers and dramatic moments that will give one pause. Director George Cukor plays the audience like a piano and does it about well as any director could, except maybe for Howard Hawks.

An elegant dinner is planned at the Jordans' extravagant looking home with a motley crew of guests. Billie Burke is Mrs. Oliver Jordan, the socialite married to shipping magnate Oliver Jordan (Lionel Barrymore); her main concern is not having a full serving and cooking staff or all the food she needs (a small band is all set up, however, to play a few tunes). Marie Dressler plays one of the guests, Carlotta Vance, the former glorious theatre star who once had a romantic fling with Mr. Jordan with the promise of marriage. Jordan himself has issues, he is sick and is slowly losing business from prospective clients (remember this is the Great Depression era and Carlotta herself is in near financial ruin) due to people buying his stocks. Other guests include Wallace Beery as an aggressively obnoxious businessman who brags about meeting the President for a proposed cabinet position and resolutely hates his young wife, Kitty (a radiant Jean Harlow); Legendary John Barrymore as a former movie star named Renault who squanders any possibility of returning even to Broadway, and the suave Dr. Talbot (Edmund Lowe) who has an agreement with his wife that he may have affairs as long as he comes home to her every night. You know the movie is Pre-Code when a seemingly open marriage is deemed okay by its participants.

"Dinner At Eight" is chock full of surprises and sophisticated humor despite some tragedies that befall a couple of characters. The drama that hovers around Jordan's terminal sickness (unbeknownst to him) or Renault's heavy alcoholism that ruins him is never overplayed and is never treated less than seriously. The comedy always stings with truth, especially between Harlow and Beery (both of whom hated each other off-camera). Truth be told, Cukor was a hell of a director with actors but not so hellbent on striking visuals. "Dinner at Eight" has luxurious bedrooms and magnificently spacious dining rooms that can only remind one of its stage origins - the film is static in that sense but never less than invigorating due to the high energy of the actors. The movie assumes men are somewhat weak, and the women are strong and just as ambitious to climb the social ladder (in addition, Kitty manages to teach her husband proper manners). Naturally, such rebelliously feminist attitudes did not last after the Hays Code was implemented. A classic ending and a boisterous cast, there are few films from the 1930's era that are as unique as "Dinner at Eight." 

Not all elementary, my dear Watson

THE WOMAN IN GREEN (1945)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I can't imagine a more engaging way to spend 67 minutes than watching Basil Rathbone as the pipe-smoking detective Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as the retired Dr. Watson, the latter who is always mystified at Holmes's powers of deduction. "The Woman in Green" is a pleasurable noir thriller (emphasis on noir with its deep shadows and canted angles) and I am pretty sure it will please anyone who loves anything associated with one of the greatest sleuths of all time.

Several women in London are found dead with their forefingers missing. This is one case that leaves Scotland Yard baffled, not to mention Sherlock himself who cannot fathom the identity of the culprit. The assumption by the police detectives is that it is a psychotic, Jack the Ripper-type killer but Holmes senses something more sinister - hypnotism is a central factor. When a certain wealthy widower Sir George Fenwick (Paul Cavanagh) is found to be a probable culprit by Holmes' archenemy Professor Moriarty (Henry Daniell), Holmes and Watson are called into action especially after Fenwick's daughter finds a forefinger in their yard! Evidence eventually points elsewhere after Fenwick is found murdered...of course, I will not reveal more details than that.

Based on two stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ("The Final Problem" and "The Empty House"), "The Woman in Green" is sheer escapist fun. Rathbone, one of the more distinguished actors of his time, relishes the Holmes role as if he was born to play him (initially, he was not pleased with the egotism of the character and became typecast). Every instance that Rathbone appears on screen, you can't wait to see what he says or does next. Bruce's Watson is played as a man vulnerable to being trapped into situations, such as getting a fake call where his duties are needed or falling for a hypnotist's trance. Dr. Watson is not dumb, just easily preyed upon unless Holmes can save him in the nick of time.

Between a Julius Caesar bust, an ex-soldier sniper, a shadowy phallic symbol that got past the censors, Holmes walking along the rooftops in a supposed trance, Hilary Brooke as Lydia Marlowe who knows how to trick men into her bidding with the use of "cannabis," and the references to Montevideo, Uruguay (which is where I was born), "The Woman in Green" packs in plenty of thrills and is always one step ahead of the audience. Like all great Holmes thrillers, this one will keep you on the edge of your seat wondering how it all comes together. It is not all elementary.

Flash in the pan in Manhattan

NOTHING SACRED (1937)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is an implicit strain of odd coolness to "Nothing Sacred," a bitter pill of a screwball romantic comedy that is neither too raucous nor too outrageous despite its subject matter. Directed with a minimum of exaggeration by William Wellman and edited with a relaxed pace, "Nothing Sacred" is often devilishly funny, extremely sardonic and critical of the mainstream newspapers of its time. It is the kind of picture that also manages to be quixotic and quite romantic, well, in ways you least expect.

Fredric March (in one of his more understated roles) plays Wally Cook, a reporter for The New York Morning Star who doesn't exactly triple check the facts of any story he writes. For instance, he has unknowingly perpetrated a hoax about a certain Sultan of Mazipan who is in fact a Harlem bootblack (The Sultan actually shines shoes for a living). Wally is demoted to obituary editor in a tight space next to a water cooler and a ladder. When Wally gets wind that a Vermont girl is dying of radium poisoning, he wants to travel there and get the scoop that could save his job. His anxious editor, Oliver Stone (Walter Connolly), would rather keep Wally editing obits for five years yet caves and gives him another chance.

When Wally arrives in Vermont, everyone speaks to him in one-word sentences. Nobody in the fictional town of Warsaw wants to deal with a hotshot reporter, that is nobody except for Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard) who is the girl dying of radium poisoning. Actually her doctor informs her she is actually healthy and has no poison in her system so when Wally locates her, she lies about her condition so she can get a free trip to NYC! One shot has Wally explaining to Hazel how she will be adored, and this brief exchange is obscured by a tree branch so you can't see their faces! This shot left me a little perplexed so I can't say why it was composed in such a way.

Writer Ben Hecht takes the screenplay's cues from a short story titled “Letter to the Editor” by James Street and the deeply disturbing true-life tale of the Radium Girls and manages to make "Nothing Sacred" into a spirited romantic comedy with a pulse and a purpose. The people of NYC embrace Hazel who is instantly treated like a celebrity and given the keys to the city. Though there is no surprise in Wally inevitably discovering the truth, he still falls deeply in love with Hazel and is forgiving. Hazel keeps up the act, to the point of staging a suicide to save her own skin and Wally's job. They fight each other, they squabble a little, but it is all in the name of love and saving each other from eventual embarrassment.

As I said, there is a coolness to the proceedings in its bitter, quietly savage indictment of the press and of people who buy into celebrity tabloid stories. Why should Hazel be celebrated for dying (Hazel asks this question too). But when you have the dazzling presence of Lombard, who gives Hazel soul, sympathy and perfect comic timing (watch her swing her arms at Wally), and March who keeps himself restrained, then you have got a winning combination of romantic fireworks. There is a radiant glow of warmth underneath its cynicism, especially in the final scene. "Nothing Sacred" is a keeper.  

Flapper's Freedom

IT (1927)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

A few close-ups of silent siren of the screen Clara Bow in stunning black-and-white should be enough to make any movie lover swoon. Only Clara Bow was not just a pretty actress who could make any man quake in his boots - she had a miraculous, captivating sense of beauty that held various emotions. In the film "It," a film that made her an iconic Hollywood star, she is a rhapsodic presence of resplendent beauty, a woman of some heft who can laugh, cry, be wickedly funny and be instantly amused. And yet she has virtues such as honesty and empathy, always looking to be noticed and yet noticing others. In my mind, those are the real reasons Clara Bow became a star.

The "It" Girl is shopgirl Betty Lou Spence (Clara Bow), working for Waltham's Department Store. Prior to her introduction, the rich heir to Waltham's, Cyrus Waltham, Jr. (Antonio Moreno), is having a brief discussion with playboy Monty (William Austin, a hysterical cartoon of a man with startling eyes) on the much ballyhooed article by Elinor Glyn that brings up the topic of who can have "It" - that instant attraction to someone who has charisma beyond words and doesn't know it or doesn't care (We know that now as sex appeal). Monty looks deeply at Cyrus and knows he does not have "it" though all the shopgirls beg to differ. In a hysterically funny moment, Monty looks at himself in the mirror and proclaims, "Old fruit, you've got It." However, when Monty notices Betty, the "It" factor is clear as day as he asks her on a dinner date to the Ritz. There is a slight dilemma - Betty is fixated on Cyrus who is already engaged to be married. Betty also lives with and supports a sick mother who has a baby out of wedlock (that was the rage of the times) and when suitor Monty comes knocking, he is tricked into believing it is Betty's baby. Cyrus eventually has his eyes set on Betty but can't commit to a woman living in shame. So what we have here is the "It" factor on both sides of the gender fence.

The wisp of a plot is not unlike anything seen back in the 1920's, carried over with more sophisticated storytelling by the time 1934's "It Happened One Night" came around (the latter being possibly the most winning romantic comedy ever made). It is not likely that the plot of "It" will be remembered as much as for the presence of the iridescent Clara Bow. She sparkles the screen, illuminates it and it is hers all the way. She is an all-around happy gal, one easily consumed by love and wanting to love and help others. Not a mean bone in her body. That is what informs "It" and her "It" factor and what makes this sly, funny and at times heartrending romantic comedy one of the best of its kind ever made. 

Walking on Eggshells Around Karloff

THE WALKING DEAD (1936)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Reprinted with permission by Steel Notes Magazine

An ex-con who has just been released from prison can't catch a break. He is a musician who had accidentally killed his wife, and is frustrated due to lack of cash. A stranger in the streets offers him a job to keep track of a certain judge, this judge being the very same one who put the ex-con in jail. It turns out there is more to this than the ex-con thought.

So begins the fast-paced, often hair-raising "The Walking Dead," a noir steeped in elements of horror and it has got the uncanny Boris Karloff as John Ellman, the unlucky pianist who can play composer Christian Sinding's "Rustle of Spring" like nobody's business. When John is hired to make notes on the judge's home schedule, a murder occurs offscreen and the body is dumped inside John's car! It is of course the judge’s corpse and John is executed for his crimes, though evidence of passerby could have saved him had they acted sooner. Nevertheless, John is resurrected by the noble Dr. Beaumont (Edmund Gwenn, best remembered as Santa Claus in “Miracle on 34th Street”) who is anxious to use an untested mechanical heart. When John is revived, he realizes he had been framed and wishes to kill the participants in his electrocution. How John acquires keen insight on the identity of his culprits while he was unaware as an unemployed musician is a good question. In a rather fascinating turn of events in the film, John doesn't actually kill his culprits -- they meet their demise through accidents of their own.

At a running time of 66 minutes, "The Walking Dead" manages to thrill us, terrify us with Boris Karloff's unmatched visage which needs no real horror makeup, humor us and leave us with a Biblical passage that has more depth about the consequences of revitalizing life than even 1931's "Frankenstein." "The Walking Dead" is a relentless nail biter, a classic, and further proof that Karloff could give one nightmares and goosebumps that could last for weeks.