ON THE LOOSE

Joan Evans

ON THE LOOSE (1951). Director: Charles Lederer.

Jill Bradley (Joan Evans) is a small-town 16-year-old girl who has distracted parents (Lynn Bari and Melvyn Douglas) and a seemingly devoted boyfriend named Larry (Robert Arthur of Naked Youth). When Larry brings Jill to his house when his parents are gone, he passes out on the sofa and is found hungover the next morning. Larry is forced to break up with the "fast" Jill, who dates lots of guys to get over her heartbreak and winds up with a "reputation," nearly leading to tragedy. On the Loose is a time capsule of a movie, looking back at 1950's attitudes towards dating and premarital sex, as well as at timeless troubled marriages, and on that level is quite effective. Joan Evans [Roseanna McCoy] gives a very good performance as the confused and unhappy young woman, and the rest of the cast are also on target, with Melvyn Douglas [Hud] delivering some fine moments when he does his best to bond with his daughter in the second half of the film. Hugh O'Brian makes an impression as a kind-hearted doctor, and Tristram Coffin plays a judge, who shows up after some melodramatic developments in a bar. The ending is unrealistically happy but nevertheless touching.

Verdict: Teen angst well-played. ***. 

MR. MOTO'S GAMBLE

Mr. Moto meets Lee Chan, Charlie Chan's son

MR. MOTO'S GAMBLE (1938). Director: James Tinling.

Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre) is teaching a course in criminology and his students include the punch-drunk "Knock-Out" Wellington (Maxie Rosenbloom of Mr. Universe) and Charlie Chan's son, Lee (Keye Luke) -- temporarily moving from one mystery series to another -- who wants to follow in his father's footsteps. These last two serve as comedy relief -- Rosenbloom instead of Mantan Moreland -- in a tiresome tale of a boxer, Frankie Stanton (Russ Clark), who is murdered in the ring during a battle. The surviving boxer, Bill Steele (Dick Baldwin), has two women fighting over him: the plucky sports reporter Penny (Lynn Bari of City in Darkness); and spoiled society gal, Linda Benton (Jayne Regan), who is sort of a groupie for boxers, dumping them whenever they lose. Suspects include not only those already mentioned, but also Clipper McCoy (Bernard Nedell); Nick Crowder (Douglas Fowley); Connors (George E. Stone, on vacation from playing the Runt in the Boston Blackie movies); nasty boxer Biff Moran (Ward Bond of Blowing Wild); and Linda's father (John Hamilton), whose racket is the fight game. Lon Chaney Jr. has a small role; Pierre Watkin plays another of his seemingly endless bland authority figures; Harold Huber is Lt. Riggs; and Irving Bacon almost runs off with the movie in his funny portrayal of Sheriff Tuttle. The comedy relief in this is quite stupid for the most part, and the script is mediocre, but at least it has a fast pace and a slightly surprising ending. With this third entry the Mr. Moto series took a real dip in quality, adding Lee Chan and the moronic Rosenbloom to make it more resemble the Chan series, but even the weakest Chan entry had a more interesting screenplay. Lorre is as terrific as ever. Mr. Moto apparently knows Charlie Chan, at least by reputation, but the two characters, I believe, never appeared together -- too bad.

Verdict: A vehicle unworthy of both Peter Lorre and Mr. Moto. *1/2.

CITY IN DARKNESS

Leo G. Carroll and Lynn Bari

CITY IN DARKNESS  (1939). Director: Herbert I. Leeds.

Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) is in Paris where assorted characters are converging in a blacked-out city on the verge of war. Marie Dubon (Lynn Bari of Shock) is hoping to buy a forged passport from Louis Santelle (Leo G. Carroll) so that her husband, Tony (Richard Clarke), accused of embezzlement, can escape the city. Antoine (Pedro de Cordoba) sends his young son, Henri, off to war only to learn that his employer, Petroff (Douglass Dumbrille) may be up to treasonous activities. Lady spy Charlotte Ronnell (Dorothy Tree) is mighty handy with a gun, but she may not be the murderer Chan is looking for. This is an atypical Chan film in that there are no proverbs, few if any suspects, no sleuthing sons of Chan, and little suspense or excitement -- in other words it's a pretty dismal concoction. The performances are okay, with Dumbrille [A Life at Stake] taking top honors, but Harold Huber over-acts too much as a would-be French detective. Adrienne D'Ambricourt is more on the mark as a large and boisterous landlady. Lon Chaney Jr. has a bit part and just a couple of lines. Leeds also directed Bunco Squad.

Verdict: This one should have stayed dark. *1/2.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DIVORCE

Joseph Allen and Lynn Bari

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DIVORCE (1942). Director: Robert Siodmak.

"There goes "Malicious." 

George Nordyke (Joseph Allen) is an insecure husband whose manhood is threatened by the fact that his wife, Lynn (Lynn Bari of Shock), is better at everything and even bagged the moose, Stinky, that hangs in their game room. When George almost literally runs into a more demure blonde named Lola May (Mary Beth Hughes of The Lady Confesses), he falls in love with her and he and Lynn decide to divorce, against the better judgment of their friend, Inspector "Camp" Campbell (Truman Bradley). Lynn winds up dating a radio musician named Victor Roselli (Nils Asther of Storm at Daybreak) and things get weird -- but still dull -- after one of the group gets murdered. Allen and Bari give it their all, but the script is horrible and there are few if any laughs. Kay Linaker tries to inject some life as Lynn's friend, Hedda, as does Thurston Hall as her hubby, and Mary Treen is as adept as ever as yet another maid, Olga. This doesn't even have the courage of its convictions.

Verdict: Not as much fun as clipping your toenails. *.

SHOCK

Vincent Price and Frank Latimore

SHOCK (1946). Director: Alfred Werker.

Waiting at a hotel for the husband she thought had died in the war, Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw) sees a man (Vincent Price) across the way bop his wife on the head with a candlestick, and goes into shock. Later the Doctor Cross who treats her is this very same man -- and murderer. Egged on by his callous lover and nurse Elaine, (Lynn Bari), Cross decides to do away with Anabel before she can talk, but he at least has a conscience. Will he do it or won't he? This is an okay suspense film with decent if unspectacular performances; Price is fairly artificial but as smooth and entertaining as usual. Shaw and Frank Latimore as her husband are both effective, as is Bari (Trauma; Sunny Side of the Street). The appealing Latimore was introduced in Otto Preminger's In the Meantime, Darling in 1944 and subsequently appeared in Purple Noon and many other films both in the U.S. and abroad. Werker directed much better films than this, including The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Kidnapped.

Verdict: Minor but more than passable suspense film. **1/2.

TRAUMA (1962)

TRAUMA (1962). Writer/director: Robert Malcolm Young.

Young Emmaline (Lorrie Richards) loses her memory when she sees the murder of her aunt (Lynn Bari) at the family swimming pool. She already had the trauma that same evening of discovering that one of her friends was murdered, so this second death, personally witnessed, puts her over the edge. Some years later she returns to the house with her new husband, Warren (a snippy John Conte), and some memories begin to surface. There's an architect roaming the estate, some other shady characters, and Warren himself may be up to shady business. Will she remember the killer before he does away with her? Richards was "introduced" in this picture although she had previous credits, mostly television work as well as the film The Magic Sword. Her Emmaline is annoyingly hysterical throughout the movie. Conte did a lot of TV and voice-over work, and appeared several times on Perry Mason. Bari had appeared in films and on TV since the early thirties. Young had no subsequent directorial credits but did a lot of writing for television. Trauma holds the attention but it isn't very memorable. An unusual feature is that the credits for the film don't appear until fifteen minutes into the running time. The one-word dramatic title was probably meant to invoke comparisons with Psycho, but this movie is nowhere in the same league.

Verdict: Grade C minor "shocker" with some minor appeal. **1/2.

HIDDEN WORLD

HIDDEN WORLD (1958). Director: Bert I. Gordon.

This lost, unreleased film is sort of an unofficial sequel to "Mr. B.I.G." s [Bert I. Gordon] 1957 monsterpiece The Cyclops. Marie Windsor, Henny Youngman (surprisingly good in a dramatic part), Richard Crane, Lynn Bari, and Noah Beery Jr. play members of an expedition who take a copter into the unmapped Mexican jungle to search for a lost treasure. At one point references are made to a "lost flier named Bruce who grew into a giant in this valley," stories which are discounted by most of the characters. Once the copter lands, Hidden World turns into a mini-Journey to the Center of the Earth as the expedition enters a tunnel that leads deep down into an enormous cavern filled with out-sized man-eating frogs and forty-foot giant men [who try to roast Henny on a spit at one point.] Henny tries to joke his way out of his predicament by saying to one of the giants "Take my wife -- please!" Whiny Katherine Squire plays a normal-sized tribeswoman who is constantly screeching at the giants to "destroy the invaders." The best scene has Squire picked up by a disgruntled big guy who bites her head off. The sequence with the expedition members surrounded by hungry, roaring toads with long, snapping tongues is also amazing. The film was unfinished but an upcoming DVD release uses stills to fill in for the missing footage.

Verdict: If you loved The Cyclops ... ***.

SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET

SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET (1951). Director: Richard Quine.

Frankie Laine plays himself, a singer with a TV show whose sponsor, a peanut brittle company, is represented by Gloria Pelley (Audrey Long). Gloria's old boyfriend, "Stretch" or Ted (Jerome Courtland) is hoping to make it in show business, and he has a pretty agent Betty (Terry Moore of Mighty Joe Young fame, pictured with Laine) who has a big crush on him. Naturally she's jealous of the attentions of Gloria, who wants to sign Ted up for the Frankie Laine show. Moore and Courtland are cute and competent, Pelley has a little more spice, and Frankie Laine was simply not cut out for success in the movies. Lynn Bari plays Betty's older roommate Mary and is given all the sardonic lines, but she's not in the class of Eve Arden when it comes to delivering them. One singer does an hysterically overwrought version of "I Get a Kick Out of You" -- awful! Very minor musical is as insubstantial and gooey as cotton candy.

Verdict: Try and miss it. *1/2.