INTERNATIONAL CRIME

Rod La Rocque, supposedly playing the Shadow

INTERNATIONAL CRIME (1938). Director: Charles Lamont.

This is the second of two films, following The Shadow Strikes, in which Rod La Rocque plays the pulp character, Lamont Cranston, aka the Shadow. Or rather he plays a pallid imitation of the Shadow. In this Lamont Cranston is not a costumed adventurer with the power to cloud men's minds, but merely a dull, rather obnoxious criminologist who writes a column and broadcasts a radio show in which he spends much of his time making fun of the alleged ineptitude of Commissioner Weston (Thomas E. Jackson). Instead of Margo Lane, we get the equally obnoxious Phoebe Lane (Astrid Allwyn of Love Takes Flight), a dilettante who got a job as a reporter only because her uncle owns the paper. The scenes of Lamont and Phoebe dickering are meant to be cute, but are merely tedious beyond measure.

Astrid Allwyn and Rod La Roicque

The plot of the film, such as it is, has to do with Phoebe hearing of a robbery that's going to take place at a theater. This turns out to be a subterfuge so that a wealthy man can be murdered by a bomb that explodes when he opens his safe. A notorious safe cracker named "Honest" John (William Pawley) is a suspect, along with the dead man's brother, Roger (John St. Polis of On the Spot). Then there are two shady characters named Flotow (Wilhelm von Brincken) and Starkhov (Tenen Holtz), whom Cranston and Phoebe encounter in a nightclub. By the time the film is over, the average viewer won't give a damn about whoever murdered Roger's poor brother. There are two minor laughs at the end of the film, and absolutely no suspense or excitement. Released by Grand National Pictures.

Verdict: One can only imagine what the millions of Shadow fans thought about this mess. *.  

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (1921)

Rudolph Valentino

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (1921 silent film). Director: Rex Ingram. Tinted edition.

Madariaga (Pomeroy Cannon) is a lusty and very wealthy rancher and entrepreneur in Argentina who has two daughters. One of them has three sons by a German husband, Karl (Alan Hale), while the other is a Frenchman, Marcelo (Josef Swickard), who was a deserter. Madariaga has a special fondness for his grandson, Julio (Rudolph Valentino), Marcelo's spoiled and womanizing son. After the death of his grandfather, Julio moves to Paris with the rest of his family while Karl takes his own family back to Germany. Julio embarks upon an affair with a married woman named Marguerite (Alice Terry), whose much older husband is Laurier (John St. Polis of Mr. Wong, Detective), but her feelings for her lover change when her husband goes off to war. Argentinian, Julio is determined to stay neutral while WW1 rages around him, and his father finds his country estate ravaged by Germans, including his own nephew and a crude Lt. Colonel (Wallace Beery) who tries to rape a maid. By their actions, both Marcelo and Julio eventually find redemption. Based on a best-selling 1919 novel by Vicente Blasco Ibanez, Four Horsemen is a strong and absorbing, fast-paced film beautifully directed by Ingram and with fine photography by John F. Seitz. Strong characterizations and dramatic presentation make this an excellent picture even without Carl Davis' rich and excellent modern score, but the music -- with themes by Liszt -- adds immeasurably to its impact. There are perhaps too many shots of the phantom horsemen riding across the skies, as well as shots of the fire-breathing dragon-like "beast," and the Christ figure at the end is a little much, but this also has many powerful sequences. (One that sticks in the mind is two crying children clinging to their dead mother in the rubble.) Alice Terry and the older actors are all quite good, while Valentino [Beyond the Rocks] gets across his initially superficial character without raising a sweat. This is a sweeping historical epic that is not for one minute dull. Remade in 1962. Alan Hale [Stella Dallas] was the father of Alan Hale Jr. of Gilligan's Island infamy.

Verdict: A silent masterpiece. ****.

MR. WONG, DETECTIVE

Boris Karloff and Grant Withers

MR. WONG, DETECTIVE (1938). Director: Hugh Wiley.

Mr. Wong is the third Oriental sleuth introduced after Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto. James Lee Wong originally appeared in stories that appeared in Collier's and was the subject of several pictures for cheapie studio Monogram (where Charlie Chan eventually wound up). In this first Mr. Wong movie, Wong (a well-cast Boris Karloff) receives a plea for help from the frightened Dayton (John Hamilton), who runs a chemical company and who is convinced that someone is out to get him. As usual in these pictures, the client winds up dead, and there are more murders to follow. The murder method is poison gas but the killer is especially clever in figuring out how to get the gas to the victim. Suspects and other characters include Captain Street (Grant Withers of Radio Patrol) who's investigating the case; his gal, Myra (Maxine Jennings); the bitter inventor Roemer (John St. Polis); the mysterious Olga Petrov (Evelyn Brent of Daughter of Shanghai); and Dayton's partners, Meisle (William Gould) and Wilk (Hooper Atchley). The performances are fine and the picture moves fairly quickly, although a musical score certainly would have helped. Withers and Brent also appeared together in the serial Jungle Jim. 

Verdict: Not bad intro to the Mr. Wong series. ***.