GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING

GREAT DAY IN THE MORNING (1956). Director: Jacques Tourneur. 

In the period just before the Civil War, Owen Pentecost (Robert Stack) comes to town and promptly becomes the new owner of the saloon after smitten "Boston"  Grant (Ruth Roman) fixes a card game in his favor. Then there's big "Jumbo" Means (Raymond Burr), who hates it when anybody calls him fat, especially if it's a female. Ann Alaine (Virginia Mayo) also takes a shine to Owen, although she pretends that she couldn't care less about him. Owen bonds with the young son of a man he killed in a gunfight. And so on. Great Day in the Morning is a sporadically interesting western with under-developed characters and a "storyline" that's all over the lot. It seems to build primarily to the scene where the two women confront each other over Owen. The actors all handle this stuff more than competently, although Stack, playing it stoic, seems a little wooden in most of his scenes. Regis Toomey is the town preacher. 

Verdict: Half-baked western with some interesting players. **1/2.

NIGHT OF THE DEMON (1957)

NIGHT OF THE DEMON (aka Curse of the Demon/1957). Director: Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay by Charles Bennett and Hal Chester. Based on "Casting the Runes" by M. R. James.

Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham), who has challenged the abilities and veracity of a warlock named Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis), finds himself under a deadly curse, and is found dead and mutilated the following morning. Another skeptic, psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrews), arrives in London and hooks up with Harrington's beautiful niece, Joanna (Peggy Cummins), who is convinced that her uncle's death was not a grotesque accident. Holden is a complete non-believer, but he admits he is baffled by some of the things that have happened since he has encountered Karswell, whose supernatural claims he has come to investigate. Holden discovers that Karswell has secretly passed him a parchment covered in runic symbols which mark Holden as the next victim of a legendary demon. Although Holden scoffs at first, Joanna's near-hysteria and certain occurrences make him wonder if he really has something to fear ...

Dana Andrews and Peggy Cummins

Night of the Demon was released in the U.S. under the title Curse of the Demon with fifteen minutes cut from the running time. It is a superior horror film, with very good performances, a wonderfully creepy atmosphere, adroit direction from Tourneur, and sequences that stay in the memory. Clifton Parker's music adds just the right note, and Edward Scaife's [Tarzan's Three Challenges] cinematography is first-rate. At the time of the film's release and later, there were some who objected to the producers' insistence on including a demon during key sequences, suggesting that this ruined the ambiguity of the film -- is the supernatural real or is everyone over-reacting? -- but there are other sequences in the film (footprints suddenly appearing in the ground where no one is walking; a cat that turns into a much larger feline creature; those hands on the banister) that make it clear that the supernatural events are actually occurring. Besides, the monster looks great. Andrews' panicky run through the midnight woods with something after him is chilling, and despite the film's essential grimness, there is an amusing seance that features comic actor Reginald Beckwith, with Athene Seyler  [I Thank a Fool] as Karswell's conflicted mother. Brian Wilde makes an impression as the haunted prisoner, Rand Hobart, a member of Karswell's sect who has been driven insane. Tourneur also directed I Walked with a Zombie, among many others, but this is by far the better film.

Verdict: A highly effective, engrossing, well-made and scary horror film without a single severed limb and with a fine script by Charles Bennett and Hal Chester. ***1/2.  

OUT OF THE PAST

Jane Greer

OUT OF THE PAST (1947). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

"You're like a leaf that's been blown from one gutter to another."

Jeff (Robert Mitchum) has a new life running a gas station, as well as a girlfriend named Ann (Virginia Huston), when his past catches up with him in the person of gunsel, Joe (Paul Valentine). Joe works for crooked big shot Whit (Kirk Douglas), and some time ago he hired Jeff to go after his gorgeous gal pal, Kathie (Jane Greer), who not only shot Whit but left town with $40,000 in cash. In flashback we learn how Jeff caught up with Kathie and decided he wanted her for himself. But Kathie may have had other plans. Now she's back with Whit, who wants Jeff to do a favor for him -- or else. Well, Out of the Past should be prime film noir -- it certainly has all of the elements (even if much of it is actually played in sunlight instead of shadows), including a beautiful femme fatale, but somehow this just doesn't add up. The characters are little more than stick figures, brought to life with satisfactory but somehow second-rate thesping. Everyone, especially Douglas, who underplays nicely, is cool and professional but there's something missing, although Paul Valentine [House of Strangers] probably has the best role of his career in this and runs with it. Virginia Huston [Tarzan's Peril] is pleasant and competent but she only had a few credits after this. Dickie Moore [Passion Flower] makes an impression as the deaf and mute boy who works for Jeff at the gas station, as do Ken Niles as the nervous lawyer, Eels, and Rhonda Fleming as his secretary. Others in the cast are Steve Brodie as Jeff's former partner, and Richard Webb as a man who's carrying a long-time torch for Ann. The film is beautifully photographed in crisp black and white by Nicholas Musuraca [Clash By Night], and Roy Webb has contributed an effective theme. There's a certain poignancy to the conclusion, hinging on a not-so-little white lie. (Whether the lie should have been told or not Ill leave up to the individual viewer.) There's so much confusing going back and forth from place to place by the cast that it gets somewhat tiresome after awhile.

Verdict: For a great film noir with Robert Mitchum watch Otto Preminger's Angel Face instead of this. **1/2. 

NIGHTFALL

Brian Keith and Aldo Ray

NIGHTFALL (1957). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

James Vanning (Aldo Ray) and his friend Doc (Frank Albertson of Man-Made Monster) are on a hunting trip when they come to the aid of two men -- John (Brian Keith of The Parent Trap) and Red (Rudy Bond) -- who, unbeknownst to them, have robbed a bank. The ingrates murder doc and try to kill Vanning, who takes off with them in pursuit. The crooks take the wrong bag and assume that Vanning has the bag with the money in it. While on the run, Vanning meets a model named Marie (Anne Bancroft of Gorilla at Large) in a bar and she becomes embroiled in his problems. James Gregory plays an insurance man who is also following Vanning, albeit with less sinister intent. Although well-acted for the most part, and well-photographed by Burnett Guffey, Nightfall is a fairly weak entry in the film noir department, only really coming alive at the climax when thieves fall out and there's a sequence involving a runaway snow plow. Bancroft is good, if miscast as a model, and Ray pretty much walks through the movie, barely getting by on a little bit of charm and showing little emotion. Given a lead role, he pretty much muffs it. He kept acting right up until his death in 1991, however.

Verdict: Not much to this cheapie. **.

THE BARBARA STANWYCK SHOW VOLUME 2

THE BARBARA STANWYCK SHOW. Volume 2. 1960.

There are three outstanding episodes in volume 2 of The Barbara Stanwyck Show, but the rest are catch as catch can. Kent Smith, Robert Emhardt and John McGiver guest-star in "The Golden Acres," about a manipulative woman who lost out on love and now just wants cash. "Adventure on Happiness Street" has Stanwyck again playing Josephine Little in Hong Kong, a downbeat story of a doctor (Lew Ayres) who needs drugs for his free clinic and makes the mistake of dealing with Robert Culp. "High Tension," very well-directed by Robert Florey, is an excellent suspenser in which Barbara plays a woman returning a deaf adopted child to the orphanage when the bus they are on hits high-tension wires trapping everyone but the child aboard. [This is an especially ironic episode considering Stanwyck herself adopted a son and it didn't work out too well.] As usual, Stanwyck gives excellent performances in these, although she's miscast and somewhat weak in a black comedy called "Assassin." She appears in every episode except "Big Jake," which stars Andy Devine. A couple of episodes are nearly unwatchable, but other episodes that are entertaining include "Frightened Doll," in which Babs runs off with mob money, and "The Hitch-Hiker," in which she plays a lady lawyer married to Joseph Cotten. Other guest stars include Dana Andrews, Peter Falk, Joan Blondell, and Robert Horton. Sometimes the show is introduced as The Barbara Stanwyck Theatre and Babs herself always calls it "your gas company playhouse." Jacques Tourneur directed most of the episodes.NOTE: Click here to read a review of Volume One.

Verdict: It's always fun to watch Stanwyck. ***.

WAR-GODS OF THE DEEP

WAR-GODS OF THE DEEP (aka The City Under the Sea/1965). 

Director: Jacques Torneur. Very, very loosely inspired by a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, this is a weird, half-successful fantasy/sci fi flick with many interesting elements. Jill Tregillis (Susan Hart) is snatched out of her ancestral manor on the coast by gill men who somewhat resemble the Creature from the Black Lagoon. A hidden door behind a bookcase leads into a cavern that leads down into the depths below the house. Hoping to find and rescue Jill, Ben Harris (Tab Hunter) and Harold Tufnell-Jones (David Tomlinson) descend into the caverns and find a kind of water-gate that drops them into the sea. Somehow [as in The Incredible Petrified World the logistics for this are never made clear] they wind up in an underwater city, abandoned by its original occupants, which has been taken over by a band of smugglers who came down there to flee the law a hundred years ago in 1803. Their leader, Captain Hugh, is played by Vincent Price, giving one of his better latter-day performances. Hunter and Tomlinson also get into the light-hearted spirit of the piece. There's even a chicken named Herbert who was probably modeled on the duck Gertrude in Journey to the Center of the Earth [which definitely influenced parts of this movie]; Gertrude was a better actor although Herbert has his moments. An undersea volcano is now threatening the ancient city with destruction, and Hugh and his men don't dare return to the surface or they'll age and die in an instant. Frank White's art direction, such as a drowning chamber with huge statues, is often striking, and Stanley Black's theme music is effective, although the rest of his score is a very mixed bag. The movie is quite entertaining for half its length, but then gets water-logged with a confusing and dull underwater battle. The continuity of the film is absolutely wacky, with the characters escaping from the city only to inexplicably wind up back where they started from. 

Verdict: Despite many flaws, it has its moments. **1/2.

THE FEARMAKERS

THE FEARMAKERS (1958). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

Alan Eaton (Dana Andrews) comes back from a POW camp in Korea to find out that the partner in his polling firm has been killed and that he apparently sold out to a man, Jim McGinnis (Dick Foran), who uses shady methods and who seems to have a communist agenda. Although it's not the main point of the film, The Fearmakers examines how polls can be influenced by loaded questions, poor research, etc. to say whatever the pollster wants them to say -- an "unamerican" practice that has, sadly, been going on in America for decades now. Eaton agrees to join the firm only to investigate it for a concerned Senator friend, and winds up threatened and victimized by McGinnis and his cronies just as he was by the Koreans. The film has interesting casting, especially singer Mel Torme who plays an employee of the firm -- the "velvet fog" is quite good as the man who turns against his bosses out of love for a pretty secretary (Marileee Earle) whose life is endangered. Veda Ann Borg and Kelly Thordson are vivid as a battling married couple with whom Eaton boards for a hectic night. Senator Walder is played by Roy Gordon, who was the doctor in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. When Eaton sees the Senator's picture on the cover of Time, you almost expect Eaton to open the magazine to find pictures of a giant Allison Hayes in her underwear with Gordon pontificating on her in a sidebar. Dennis Moore, who plays an Army doctor, also appeared in serials The Mysterious Mr. M and The Purple Monster Strikes, not to mention The Mummy's Curse. The main problem with this movie is that it has few thrills.

Verdict: Not fearful enough. **.

EXPERIMENT PERILOUS

EXPERIMENT PERILOUS (1944). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

In 1903 Hunt Bailey (George Brent), a psychiatrist, gets involved with the Bederaux family, who are keeping secrets. Nick Bederaux (Paul Lukas) wants Bailey to examine his wife, Allida (Hedy Lamarr), whose behavior, he believes, is having a negative effect on their cute little boy (a charming, uncredited child actor). Bailey suspects that it's Nick who's having a negative effect on his beautiful wife, but then Bailey is falling in love with her. Surprisingly, Tourneur does very little with this material, but the script might have even taxed Hitchcock. Slow, unconvincing and dull, there's no suspense and no peril in the movie until the very last few minutes. Albert Dekker is a friend of Bailey's and Margaret Wycherly is his maid, Maggie. The material gives the actors little to work with, but Lukas comes off best.

Verdict: An experiment in tedium. *1/2.

VAL LEWTON: MAN IN THE SHADOWS

VAL LEWTON: MAN IN THE SHADOWS (2008). Writer/director: Kent Jones. Narrated by Martin Scorsese.

Turner Classic Movies presented this interesting, informative look at the life and work of the producer and writer Val Lewton, who is best-known for a series of moody, low-budget, yet elegant horror films from the 1940's. Lewton published several novels and works of non-fiction before entering the movie business, and he tried to make tasteful films that were often given highly exploitative titles such as I Walked with a Zombie. He tried other genres in later days but these films failed to make much of an impression. Like many documentaries of this nature, the film tries a bit too hard to convince us of Lewton's genuis, and some of the film scholars who talk about him are pretentious to the extreme. They also ignore the fact that if Lewton's films worked it wasn't due to his influence alone -- he worked with highly gifted cinematographers and directors such as Jacques Tourneur. (Tourneur directed one of the finest horror films ever made, Curse of the Demon, in 1958, and Lewton had nothing to do with it, although it could be argued that it was influenced by the Lewton style, which did seem to pervade a film regardless of the director.) Some of Lewton's films still hold up quite well, while others are vastly over-rated, but his work remains interesting and watchable. Talking about him as if he were on a par with Hitchcock, however, is seriously over-stating the matter.

Verdict: Holds the attention. ***.

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

One of the better-known horror films produced by Val Lewton, this is typically tasteful, moody and interesting, if it never quite jells. Although Lewton is said to have appropriated the plot of Jane Eyre for the movie -- and there are plot similarities -- this is really nothing like Jane Eyre (the first film version with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles, with a score by Bernard Herrmann, is far superior to this, for one thing). Frances Dee comes to Haiti to care for Jessica Holland, who acts as if she's been lobotomized but supposedly suffers from the disastrous effects of a fever. Dee learns that there is bad blood between her husband Paul (Tom Conway) and his half brother Wesley (James Ellison) because Jessica and Wesley had been planning on running away together. Conway is supposed to be such a fine man -- and Jessica a viper -- but we never really get to learn her side of things, and Paul -- although Conway's performance is good -- never seems like that nice a fellow. Dee is fine, but James Ellison is a little too lightweight to convincingly get across Wesley's torment over the sad fate of the woman he illicitly loved. Edith Barrett (one of the wives of Vincent Price) nearly steals the picture as Wesley and Paul's mother. There is some very interesting dialogue in Curt Siodmak's screenplay, such as when Conway tells Dee that most of the inhabitants of St. Sebastian were brought over in slave ships and had miserable lives. Which is why they "weep when a child is born and make merry at a funeral." The atmospheric photography is by J. Roy Hunt. Of the African-American cast members, Theresa Harris as the maid, Alma, and calypso singer Sir Lancelot, make the best impression, while Darby Jones certainly has a memorably eerie look as the purported "zombie" Carrefour. There is much to admire in I Walked with a Zombie, but if you're not tuned into its charms, you're liable to think it's much ado about nothing.

Verdict: Okay, but give Jane Eyre a try, too. **1/2.