THE CULT OF ULMER

Edgar G, Ulmer

THE CULT OF ULMER: DIRECTOR EDGAR G. ULMER, KING OF THE "B'S"

I don't remember why, but years ago when I was in grade school, our teacher let us watch a movie on television. It was called The Man from Planet X and we children were enthralled. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the ending, and decades went by before I finally got to see the movie in its entirety.

It turned out to be a not-bad B movie, and I guess it got me interested in seeing Ulmer's other movies -- at least when I'd see his name listed as director of an unfamiliar movie, I would sit up and pay attention. Ulmer seemed to specialize in genre films: horror, mystery, science fiction, which especially interested me as a kid, although he did other types of pictures as well. I enjoyed Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, which I found atmospheric and creepy, and Bluebeard with John Carradine has its moments. Murder is My Beat is a notable example of film noir. His best picture, however, may be the Zachary Scott melodrama, Ruthless.

Ulmer did more than his share of stinkers, such as Girls in Chains and the oddly-admired but perfectly awful Strange Illusion. He may have directed all of them, but the Ulmer pictures that work the best are the ones with the best scripts. One could argue that this is true of any director, of course. Ulmer's fans have argued that he was a great director who only needed better opportunities and the bigger budgets of major studios. In my opinion, Ulmer was a workmanlike director who had moments of inspiration, and who managed to helm some rather interesting pictures along the way.

Some members of what I call "the Cult of Ulmer" find genius in every frame. They wildly overpraise such movies as Strange Illusion. There has been more than one book on Ulmer, and some film scholars are taking his work very seriously. I like Ulmer -- at least many of his movies -- but I'm not necessarily convinced of his "greatness." He did come out with one certified near-classic, the fascinating Detour, the film he is most famous for.

Anyway, you can make up your own mind. His films tend to be hit or miss. This week you can read about some of these films, good or bad, as well as an excellent biography of the director.

GIRL GANG

Timothy Farrell, Lou Monson, and the Girl Gang

GIRL GANG (1954). Director: Robert C. Dertano.

Joe (Timothy Farrell) runs a gang whose members induce others to join so they can get hooked on weed and stronger stuff and participate in crimes to raise drug money. Sexy June (Joanne Arnold|) entices Wanda (Mary Lou O'Connor) and her boyfriend, Bill (uncredited), into the gang, where Mary is told she must have sex with five boys as part of her initiation. Joe's chief assistant is Jack (Lou Monson), and his girl pal is Daisy (Mildred Kilke). When Wanda is shot during a gas station robbery, Doc Bradford (Harry Keaton) operates on her as the cops close in ... Had Girl Gang been better directed it might have amounted to s snappy B movie as it has all the ingredients of a successful exploitation film. Unfortunately, the pic isn't well-produced (to put it mildly), some scenes have obvious over-dubbing because something went wrong with the soundtrack, the acting is often amateurish, and one dance sequence -- all in one long continuous shot -- goes on at such length while the story stops dead that it's positively comical. Farrell and Arnold are at least vivid in their portrayals, and Norman Stanley is professional as June's horny boss, Mr. Brown. There's a not bad cat-fight for those who stick around until the end. Keaton and Farrell were both in Gun Girls, which was also directed by Dertano.

Verdict: Just misses being a sleazy camp classic. *1/2.

GUN GIRLS

Timothy Farrell and Eleise Cameron

GUN GIRLS (1957). Writer/Director: Robert C. Dertano.

"Do you mean we went to all that trouble for a measly fourteen bucks?"

"Why you low-down tramp!"

Dora (Jacqueline Park) has fallen in with a bad crowd, most notably tough blond, Teddy (Jeanne Ferguson), who buys guns and plans a heist with her. Dora's cute boyfriend, Jimmy (Calvin Booth), who happens to be the younger brother of Dora's parole officer, begs her to stop hanging out with Teddy. Joy (Eve Brent of Fade to Black) is importuned by Teddy to help them rob the warehouse where she works, and they prove the most inept gang of robbers on the planet. Joy is pregnant by low-life Joe (Timothy Farrell) who sells the girls guns and seems to have a different woman every hour, including Trixie (Eleise Cameron), of whom he says, "things like her wash up on the beach every night." Can these girls be saved ...? Most of the "girls" in this haven't seen their teenage years in quite a while and in general the acting is so amateurish that the cast read their lines like they're little kids. Timothy Farrell, who had a similar role in Girl Gang, at least has a brusque appeal, and Jacqueline Park has some good moments during a hospital scene towards the end. Calvin Booth isn't bad but George Graham is perhaps overly earnest as his brother. Harry Keaton is a bit more professional than the others as Luke, an associate of Joe's. One of the funniest scenes out of many features a cat fight between Joy and Trixie. Amazingly the psychological explanation for gang activity actually makes sense.

Verdict: Terrible, yet strangely entertaining. **.

THE WOMEN'S CLUB

Michael Pare

THE WOMEN'S CLUB (1987). Director: Sandra Weintraub.

"I know more about how a woman feels being a sex object than any man in the world."

Patrick (Michael Pare) is a struggling screenwriter and full-time bartender with an on again/off again girlfriend named Cali (Dotty Coloroso). One night he meets a successful and wealthy lady named Angie (Maud Adams), who not only wants to hire him for stud services, but sets him up in a house -- with his actor friend Carlos (Eddie Velez) as butler -- where he can "entertain" dozens of Angie's "clients" -- rich gals who want some hot action on the side. Trouble starts when Patrick starts writing a screenplay based on his experiences, and it surfaces that he has taped all of his sex sessions with the ladies. Then Angie finds out about it ... Reminiscent of Lawrence Sander's The Seduction of Peter S, also about a call boy operation [published three years earlier], Women's Club takes a comic approach to the premise with mixed results. Although there are attempts to add a feminist perspective, the movie is basically exploitation with few laughs and some okay performances; Adams [The Man with the Golden Gun] is particularly good and Velez has a certain charm. There is no mention made of condoms, diseases, or pregnancy. A spoof of the sexy eating scene in Tom Jones is actually pretty disgusting.    

Verdict: 'Tis a pity he's a whore. **.                                              

ESCORT GIRL

ESCORT GIRL (1941). Director: Edward E. Kaye.

"He's going to try to find out if the escort business is, well, flexible."

Ruth Ashley (Betty Compson) is co-owner with Gregory Stone (Wheeler Oakman) of a clip joint named the Club Martinique and a highly successful "escort" business. Ruth is horrified at the thought that her daughter, June (Margaret Marquis), coming home from school with a fiance, might find out where her mother's considerable assets are coming from. To make matters worse, June's fiance, Drake Hamilton (Robert Kellard of King of the Royal Mounted), works for the district attorney's office. His latest assignment -- wouldn't you know? -- is to find out who the true head is of the same escort service that his future mother-in-law owns. Obviously, things don't go well for this family, with Drake eventually coming to believe that June herself is an "escort." This is a fairly frank 1940's exploitation item in which the word "prostitution" is never used. but little secret is made of what's going on with these sexy escort girls. In one scene a woman practically attacks her client on a bed, and in another eyebrow-raising moment a woman does a provocative dance number. Drake Hamilton acts like no assistant district attorney would ever act, going out and doing his own investigation and roughing up people he talks to. The acting in this is not bad; Rick Vallin [Nearly Eighteen] plays a gigolo who also works for the escort service. One thing the movie does not go into is men hiring men. This was Kaye's only directorial credit.

Verdict: Effective exploitation but nothing to miss I Love Lucy for. **1/2.

MARIHUANA

MARIHUANA (1936). Director: Dwain Esper. NOTE: Marijuana is spelled with an "h" in the film's title.

Burma Roberts (Harley Wood) is a young woman with sibling rivalry issues and a horny boyfriend, Dick (Hugh McArthur). When older men pass around marijuana joints, it starts Burma down the road to self-destruction. Marijuana seems the least of Burma's problems, frankly, but the movie blames weed on virtually every social ill of the century and overstates the problem in an effort to make a clear exploitation film seem socially responsible. Meanwhile word of mouth probably got a lot of guys to go see the scene when high-on-maryjane gals doff their clothes and run into the surf buck naked (we see their naked breasts from the front, and their completely nude bodies from behind). Without the pretentious anti-drug aspects and with a stronger script this might have amounted to a decent enough melodrama. There are a couple of interesting plot twists, and Wood gives a not-bad performance, which is also true of Hugh McArthur and other supporting players. Wood appeared in a number of movies after this, but McArthur had few other credits.

Verdict: Minor-league on all counts, but more entertaining than it has any right to be. **1/2.

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL (1958). Director: Jack Arnold.

Russ Tamblyn plays a new student at the local high school who gets involved with the gang known as the Wheelers and Dealers, a girl named Joanie (Diane Jergens), a teacher named Arlene (Jan Sterling), all the while fending off the advances of his trampy Aunt Gwen (Mamie Van Doren). Is Tamblyn bad news for everyone, or does he have a secret having to do with the drug trade and the evil weed that's destroying so many young lives? At first the film is fun -- especially sexy Van Doren -- but it isn't long before tedium sets in. John Drew Barrymore, son of John and father of Drew, co-stars as "J.I.," the leader of the Wheelers and Dealers. As usual, most of the high school students look as if they've been out of college for a couple of years. A far cry from director Jack Arnold's sci fi classic The Incredible Shrinking Man and others. Jerry Lee Lewis guest stars and sings the title tune. You can miss it.

Verdict: Not as much fun as you might imagine. *1/2.

SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY

SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY (1965). Director: Eber Lobato. NOTE: Certain key plot points are discussed in this review.

Okay, this is a rarity, a kind of semi-gay psychological thriller done in the sixties, a little ahead of its time in some ways and a little homophobic in others. David (Nick Navarro) is arrested for running over Marla, the married woman (Nelida Lobato) he was having an affair with. Most of the film consists of flashbacks interspersed with scenes in district attorney Farmer's (Robert Miller) office, as he, the public defender (Ron Vesario), and the prosecuting ADA (John Richards) debate what's to be done with David, and if he is truly guilty. David's lawyer says that the key is a man named Christian (Alan J. Smith), who lives with David, and has made him realize that he, like Christian, is essentially gay. (Smith also co-wrote the screenplay). When Marla discovers this she's horrified that she risked her marriage by having an affair with someone like David, who "doesn't even know which fence you're sitting on." In truth, Scream of the Butterfly isn't very good but it certainly contains interesting elements. It sets up an interesting situation, has some striking visual images, and moves along quickly enough to hold the viewer's attention, at least initially. The trouble is that it was made too early to take advantage of more sophisticated attitudes toward homosexuality. The three actors in the D.A.'s office are all very good but the rest of the cast is uneven, sometimes amateurish. Lobato, whose husband directed the film (they were an Argentine couple), was certainly well cast, however. Despite the intriguing plot this doesn't quite work, but it has some sexy and effective scenes (such as the first meeting of Marla and David) and a kind of nifty "twist" ending which could be taken more than one way.

Verdict: At least it's something different. **.