Petticoat Marshal given short-shrift

 TARGET (1952)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Seen one B-movie western shot in a Hollywood backlot, seen them all. Tim Holt was a B-movie actor of many westerns (though I'll always remember him best as handsome and vulnerable George Minafer in Orson Welles' "The Magnificent Ambersons") and 1952's "Target" might not be so distinguishable from the average but it does score a couple of points for a hint of progressiveness.

It is the lawless town of Pecos, Texas, well, lawless in the sense that there is no marshal. A marshal is desperately needed due to the greedy businessman Conroy (Walter Reed) and his stalwarts who pay for land for next to nothing so they can have their railroad. In the first scene, a newspaper man or just a printing press employee (from the Sentinel, a "progressive" newspaper and also Chairman of the Town Council) is nearly killed by the men after painting a sign warning landowners of Mr. Conroy. Tim Holt (played by Tim Holt!) is a cowhand who comes to the rescue, along with his partner Irish-Mexican Rafferty (enthusiastically played by Richard Martin). They have come into town for a job with stubborn landowner named Bailey (John Hamilton), who refuses to sell his home for a cheap price just so they can build a freight terminal and a stockyard. Land-grabbing for a railroad - progressive times ahead.

Speaking of progressive, the daughter of an ailing marshal comes into Pecos so she can aid in some law and order. Naturally, everyone except Tim and his partner believe a woman (Linda Douglas) can become a marshal (I believe an actual line of dialogue spoken is "We don't need a petticoat marshal!") The female marshal doesn't do enough to justify such a position and the filmmakers I guess felt that such a marshal would never fire a gun (she figures out how to break out of a jail using a belt, a major cliche). As I said, a hint of progressiveness.

"Target" is a fitfully exciting and humorous enough western with the same old gunfights (they could've been shot with more pizazz), same old fistfights, cowboys on horseback running through town, etc. Nothing new here but it will keep you captivated during its short running time, plus Tim Holt is an appealing hero and I love Richard Martin as the flirtatious Rafferty, a recurring role he played in many westerns.    

Frivolous yet fun Powell entertainment

PRIVATE EYE 62 (1933)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

William Powell is so dashing and such a romantic in appearance, and clearly at heart, that it is hard to see him as anything but. "Private Eye 62" is not a special treat in Powell's filmography but I wouldn't write it off either. Some occasionally pungent dialogue and some stylized moments give it some weight to make it a slight cut above the usual mediocrity. 

Starting off with a visually pleasing and foggy view of the Eiffel Tower, we are introduced to Powell as Donald Free, a State Department diplomat who is caught stealing some French government papers. Free is deported to the U.S. until he gets wind that the French want him back (an extradition despite being deported that quickly?) so he jumps off a boat to swim to NYC. Before you start being inquisitive on the movie's plot, Free is in New York and injects himself as a partner for a failing detective agency called "Peerless." Dan Hogan (Arthur Hohl) is the main detective who is more than a mite incompetent and completely unethical. Nevertheless, a sassy socialite, Janet Reynolds (Margaret Lindsay), is making huge cash winnings at Bandor's Club. Is Janet really winning based on luck or is she cheating? The movie never quite answers that and assumes we will just buy that she has exorbitant luck. The detectives are hired to check on her and there is more than meets the eye.

A Depression-era and Pre-Code crime drama that seems more comedic early on than dramatic, "Private Eye 62" is consistently engaging. Arthur Hohl shows the corruption seeping into Dan's veins and Margaret Lindsay holds her own as Janet, though whether she's duplicitous or not is questionable. William Powell is so damn good that it almost doesn't matter whether the story pays off. Frivolous Michael Curtiz movie yet you'll have a good time.

He Can't Help Himself

 M (1931)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I have a deep appreciation for Fritz Lang's "M," a German psychological suspense thriller that jangles your nerves and makes your heart skip a couple of beats. The fact that Peter Lorre, one of the most haunted and haunting faces in movies, appears in just a few scenes is extraordinary. More extraordinary is the fact that his character does not inform the film exactly - the victims' mothers, the murdered children and the mob of people at large do. 

Berlin is facing a monumental crisis - a psychopath is in the city and kidnapping and killing children. This is all presumed, the killing aspect that is, because the bodies of the children are never found and supposedly buried somewhere (or at least that is the implication). Wanted posters are placed in the town square yet the police are mystified and cannot find the child killer. Eventually, they discover the culprit but the mob of people in the area - some of them criminals and parents and there are business owners,  who feel their livelihood is being affected - gather together and decided to apprehend the killer. They fake being homeless street persons, and other just simply watch any individual passing a balloon or candy to any young child. A blind beggar is central to the identification of the killer who whistles Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King."   

"M" is chilling to the bone throughout especially in the depiction of the aftermath of a child's disappearance. Lang and his cinematographer, Fritz Arno Wagner ("Nosferatu"), show a montage of different settings such as the empty chair at the kitchen table, the long empty staircase leading to one child's apartment where the child should be running and skipping up to her home and, the most frightening symbolic shot of lost innocence, a balloon floating up in the air near power lines. 

"M" does contain too many scenes of the mob, mostly criminals, infiltrating an office building where bug-eyed Hans Beckert (Lorre), the deranged killer, is hiding out. Still, there is much to distinguish this stylish German noir with its askew shadows (especially of the wide high-angle shot of the street where Beckert is seen) and its police procedural point-of-view of detectives finding clues to the mystery killer. One striking shot in particular shows Beckert finding a chalk imprint of an M on his back coat - moments like this impart a nightmarish logic of being identified only as a murderer. Does Beckert have any sense of remorse or guilt? It is difficult to say but by the time we arrive at the unbelievably powerful confession given by Beckert, it is an admission where he knows he has committed such crimes yet he can't help himself. Lorre is so amazingly emotional in his fear of himself that he makes the other criminals of this mob see themselves and the crimes they have committed. A purposely abrupt ending where the mothers plead for others to keep watch of their own children while they await the killer's fate, Lang's "M" is probably more moral than any American film on the same subject. E for Excellence.  

Check your pockets!

MAIN STREET AFTER DARK (1945)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I don't think there is a moral to "Main Street After Dark" other than if you are a sailor, avoid ritzy clubs where women take can advantage with their feminine wiles and swipe your wallet. A burly police lieutenant named Lorrigan (Edward Arnold) finds a way to catch these women thieves - plant sailors with wallets carrying a detectable fluorescent powder. The Lieutenant figures that if any of the suspected women identified by the victims are caught, he can check their palms with a fluorescent light! Nifty.

A criminal named Lefty (Tom Trout), known for armed robbery, is just out of the slammer and returns to home to his mother (Selena Royle); his devoted, sneaky wife, Jessie Belle (Audrey Totter, her film debut), and his young sister Rosalie (Dorothy Ruth Morris). The sister is something of a pickpocket due to her stealing watches, which the mother disapproves of! Ultimately, the mother has no problem with her son leading a criminal life with no ambition to work a regular job. Lefty's wife, much to the chagrin of Lefty, is pickpocketing sailors downtown. There is also Lefty's brother, Posey (Dan Duryea), who has taught the women how to lure men and take their wallets which initially makes Lefty angry - Posey was supposed to be the man of the house earning money! One inventive method of robbing sailors involves a hotel room scenario where Posey pretends to be a hotel clerk, thus convincing the naive sailors to pay for their rooms and place the money in a box for safekeeping!

 

"Main Street After Dark" is more of a lark and often very funny, with a few explosive and unexpected moments of violence. The actors flourish on screen giving it as much pizazz to separate the film's somewhat undernourished screenplay from the rest of the mediocre crime pictures at the time. Of course, we get a "Crime Doesn't Pay" epilogue that feels tacked on since these movies were made during the Hays Code days. Still, for 57 minutes you get your money's worth - just check your pockets after it is over. 

A Martini to Sherlock Holmes' Bourbon mix

 THE FALCON IN SAN FRANCISCO (1945)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Having seen only one Falcon film starring George Sanders in the titular role ("The Gay Falcon"), I was not sure how a different actor in the same role would fare. I had nothing to worry about because Tom Conway, George Sanders' actual brother no less, takes over the role as the amateur sleuth quixotically and with elegance and a slight brash style.

The opening sequence on a train establishes a great rapport between Conway's Falcon and his wisecrackin' sidekick Goldie Locke (Ed Brophy) as they travel on vacation to San Francisco. There is some silly humor here about the single Goldie filing his tax returns and sensing he'd pay less in taxes if he got married. Before you can say fair tax percentages, there is a small dog and a sweet young girl named Annie (Sharyn Moffett) and the death of her nurse in one of the train compartments. It is possible this stern nurse was murdered! 

All this leads to a misunderstanding involving a kidnapping; a shipping company and its pretty owner, Annie's big sister (Rita Corday) who may or may not be a prisoner in her own home; a supposedly dead gangster who may still be living, and a finale involving an exploding boiler room. "The Falcon in San Francisco" is fun and light on its feet and packs quite a solid punch. The colorful cast is tremendous fun - there is a real joy of acting on everyone's part which includes Robert Armstrong acutely showing two different sides to his character. Brophy's Goldie is very funny as he keeps trying to woo women to marry him, and Sharyn Moffett is a smart, cute Annie whom you just want to hug. The real standout is Tom Conway who brings his own downplayed suave manner to the Falcon. These Falcon movies may not be as densely layered as Sherlock Holmes stories but they just as intoxicating. The Falcon is a martini to Sherlock's bourbon. 

Heavenly Joe made me smile

 HERE COMES MR. JORDAN (1941)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

One of the most delightful fantasy movies ever made, "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" is pure heaven in every sense of the word. It is often ecstatically funny and expertly performed. Not a single wasted frame or emotion to be found, this is one of those rare fantasy movies I would call flawless.

Robert Montgomery is the "Flying Pug," a boxer known as Joe Pendleton. One fine day, he flies a small plane and accidentally plummets to the ground. He's dead but he wasn't supposed to die and his soul was taken to heaven prematurely. This irks Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains - absolutely fabulous), who is the chief of angels I gather and assists the poor young man. Joe insists it was not supposed to happen this way and the newly hired angel named Messenger 7013 (Edward Everett Horton) made a mistake retrieving his soul. So, under the orders of Mr. Jordan, Joe returns to Earth assuming another body, that of wealthy Mr. Farnsworth who has just been drowned in his bathtub by his wife and the husband's secretary. The plot picks up speed when Bette Logan (Evelyn Keyes) pleads for her father to be sprung from jail after Mr. Farnsworth had him incarcerated. Mr. Farnsworth, now Joe, emerges from the bathroom to the ground floor understandably shocking his wife and the secretary. Joe is smitten with Bette and makes the decision to free her father quickly (all this so that Joe can inhabit the body of another boxer in Australia!)

Everything in "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" comes as a delectable surprise and it is constructed with utmost care and shows tremendous pathos in its characters, thanks to screenwriters Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller. Montgomery shows such a flair for comic timing and such humanity that I was floored by his Joe character - you get the impression that he wants to make the world a better place and Mr. Jordan can see that clearly. Rains' Jordan is such a welcomely inventive character in that he sees hope in Joe's eyes and that the human race could benefit from Joe's ambitions. Spiritually occupying one body after another, I wouldn't be surprised if "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" inspired TV's "Quantum Leap." Also worth noting is Joe's manager, Max "Pop" Corkle (Oscar-nominated James Gleason), who brings every note of desperation and disbelief in equal measure - it takes some convincing for Joe to prove he's inside Farnsworth's body to Max. Evelyn Keyes is a heavenly sight as Bette who senses there is more to Mr. Farnsworth than she thought. All the performances are tied to such a touching, tender ending that it made my heart melt. "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" is a miraculous achievement.

4 reels of drama, 2 of laughs

 THE KID (1921)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Maybe my preference falls more in line with his consistent comic wizardry coupled with the Tramp's appearance as some sort of lonely clown with a heart of gold. "Modern Times," "The Circus" and "City Lights" are among Charlie Chaplin's greatest early films ("The Gold Rush" is somewhere in that list too). "The Kid" is something of a curiosity to me - it has charm and heart but not a whole lot of laughs. That is hardly a detriment to the movie but it is more dramatic than comedic and, although it still stands as poignant and often beautifully made, it is not at the same level of greatness as Chaplin's other films. 

The Kid is a baby left abandoned, reluctantly, by its mother (Edna Purviance) in the backseat of a car with a handwritten note. The car is found by thieves and when they discover a baby, they leave the baby on a dirt path near some ramshackle homes. The Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) finds the baby and tries to place it in someone else's stroller yet the screaming child finds its way back to the Tramp. So he takes the baby, trying in vain to avoid the police, and the baby eventually grows up to becomes the Kid (Jackie Coogan) who lives with the Tramp and becomes his partner-in-a-minor-crime. The Kid throws stones at neighbors' windows and the Tramp fixes them with window panes he carries on his back as he just happens to walk by them. The one major cop catches on and there's expected tomfoolery with the Tramp and the Kid as they scurry around the streets. 

Meanwhile, the mother who abandoned the Kid becomes a major movie star and runs a children's charity. She unknowingly runs into the scruffy Kid (named John by the Tramp). After a fight with another kid where John is winning with his singular punches, trouble brews when a call-in doctor checking on an ill John discovers that the Tramp is not John's father. It is back to the orphanage and it is here where we get one of the most moving scenes in silent cinema. Jackie Coogan's John screams for the Tramp to help him while the Tramp is being held by the cop and the driver from the orphanage. It is here where Coogan displays with enough honest emotion and grit why he was possibly the greatest child actor of that time. 

"The Kid" does fall into some heavy dramatic scenes and they are expertly acted and emotionally true. Still I am sure that anytime we see Chaplin's poor Little Tramp, we expect to laugh on occasion. The movie veers into some laughter yet it is rather infrequent, especially for a one-hour flick or its six reels. I felt a little lost during John's fight with a bully which goes on for an eternity. And there is a finale involving a dream with angels that didn't seem suited to what preceded it. I respect "The Kid" and I can't say it isn't lovable and packed with a few thrills here and there and Jackie Coogan's Kid is unforgettable. Maybe I expect more from the Tramp or from Charlie Chaplin - it still falls short of greatness.