BEHIND LOCKED DOORS

Portrait of evil: Douglas Fowley

BEHIND LOCKED DOORS (1948). Director: Budd Boetticher.

Reporter Kathy Lawrence (Lucille Bremer) importunes new private eye Ross Stewart (Richard Carlson) to work with her to find a missing corrupt judge whose capture will net them $5000 a piece. The only problem is that Ross will have to get himself committed to the La Siesta sanitarium where Kathy is sure the judge is hiding. Once inside the institution, Ross discovers there's more corruption and danger than  he ever anticipated. Carlson is fine as the flip, overly insouciant private eye who discovers some situations are more serious than others, and Bremer [Till the Clouds Roll By] is okay, but the most striking performance is from Douglas Fowley [He's a Cockeyed Wonder] as the sadistic and utterly evil attendant, Larson. Thomas Browne Henry is fine as the head of the institution and there's nice work from Ralf Harolde [Night Nurse] as Dobbs, another, nicer attendant. A fully grown Dicke Moore plays a young patient who is actually Dobbs' son. John Holland plays a state psychiatrist, Kathleen Freeman has a bit as a nurse, and Tor Johnson plays another inmate who tries to box Carlson to bits in the film's liveliest sequence. I don't know if Behind Locked Doors was the first film to use the premise of a sane man feigning mental illness to get inside an institution for some purpose, but in the early sixties two movies followed suit. In Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor a reporter hopes to win a Pulitzer and Shock Treatment presents a guy whose intention is to get information about some missing moolah. This movie is barely an hour long.

Verdict: Snappy B thriller with a highly sinister Fowley. ***.

THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD

Jack Benny and Priscilla Lane

THE MEANEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1943). Director: Sidney Lanfield.

Richard Clark (Jack Benny) is a struggling small-town lawyer with a fiancee, Janie (Priscilla Lane), who wants him to make good. Janie's father, Arthur (Matt Briggs), suggests that Richard go to New York where there is real opportunity, so he packs up his employee-confidante Shufro (Eddie "Rochester" Anderson) and heads to Manhattan. When business proves just as dismal as it was back home, Richard somehow rents a Park Avenue apartment to impress Janie and her dad, but Shufro advises him that only by becoming "mean" and ruthless can he ever hope to achieve success. Richard is somewhat dubious, but takes Shufro's advice, leading to him taking a lollipop away from a small boy on the sidewalk. Literally taking candy from a baby, Clark becomes known as the Meanest Man in Town. When Janie discovers that he helped toss an old woman into the street, she wants to call off the wedding -- and things get worse from there! -- but maybe the poor sap isn't quite as mean as she and everybody think ... The Meanest Man in the World is a very funny movie, with Benny, Anderson, Lane, and the supporting cast all in fine fettle. Anne Revere [Fallen Angel] is amusing as Clark's slightly acerbic secretary; Edmund Gwenn is great in a surprisingly nasty role as one of his clients; and we've got bits by Nick Stewart as the wide-eyed elevator operator and Ralph Byrd as a reporter. Tor Johnson [The Black Sleep] of Plan Nine from Outer Space infamy even shows up in a long black wig as the Russian wrestler and wannabe bodyguard Vladimir Pulaski! Anderson [Honolulu] is up there with Benny all the while, playing an employee who is never truly subservient, thank goodness, but who displays an inoffensive wise and sassy quality. This is a remake of a silent movie made twenty years earlier.

Verdict: Lots of big laughs in this amiable and often zany movie. ***.

THE BLACK SLEEP

THE BLACK SLEEP (1956). Director: Reginald LeBorg.

A mad doctor (Basil Rathbone) tries to cure a brain disorder in his unconscious wife by experimenting on unwilling victims who are put under his control via a drug known as the “black sleep.” He even goes so far as to frame another doctor for murder so the latter can assist him in his efforts. Eventually Rathbone's pitiful victims break out of confinement and gain their revenge. Bel-Air productions gathered together a terrific cast of solid veterans – in addition to Rathbone there's Tor Johnson and John Carradine as two of the “patients” and Bela Lugosi in a bit role as a mute servant while Akim Tamiroff nearly steals the picture as a ghoulish, amusing gypsy who brings “patients” to Rathbone – but the low-budget company couldn't provide the production gloss and comparative classiness of the old Universal horror films. The movie isn't terrible, just a bit drab and slow. Rathbone is superb and he and the other actors are all pretty much wasted, providing the film's only real interest. Too bad.

Verdict: Tune in if you must but don't expect much. Great cast, though. **.