French Crime Time

It’s simply a matter of propinquity, but lately I’ve discovered a lot of great crime novels and movies this past summer, all produced in France. Nobody renders crime stories the way the French do. Their slant on noir is unique for two reasons I can think of:

1. They are the biggest fans of noir, bigger than America. Writers like Cornell Woolrich, Jim Thompson and David Goodis have enjoyed greater popularity there than in their home country. Many American noir novels have been adapted into film on a routinely regular basis, so as a result their influence on modern French crime writing is considerable; and,

2. The French have always suffused their noir with erotica, so in addition to all the cold-blooded misanthropy the story-telling serves heaping dollops of sex. Many of the books and movies listed below have strong sexual activity in them that serve the stories well.

One of my discoveries this past summer was the works of Sebastien Japrisot, a highly successful, award-winning writer who’s virtually unknown in the United States. That’s a shame, because he’s a brilliant story-teller and deserves to be read by more people. My favorite books by him are:

One Deadly Summer, the tale of a beautiful but amoral girl who moves into a small town and marries into a family that she believes played a role in brutally attacking her mother. In the course of her revenge there’s lots of Brigitte Bardot-styled sex shenanigans.

Trap For Cinderella, a tale of two girls, one rich and beautiful, the other poor and plain, trapped in a house fire in the South of France (where else?). One girl survives with her face reconstructed and her memory lost. Which girl survived the fire? An inheritance of millions is at stake, so if the poor girl survived she’ll require lots of training from an insane female guardian.

The Lady In The Car With Glasses And A Gun, a timid yet beautiful secretary drives off with the boss’s expensive American convertible, picking up hitchhiking gigolos near the South of France (here we go again!), having her way with them and finding a dead body in the trunk of the car.

Another great crime writer is Jean Patrick Manchette, whose novel Fatale is the bizarre tale of a female hitman losing her grip on sanity. She stops in a small upper-class village and foregoes the chance to blackmail the richest citizens after having a meltdown and simply kills them methodically, one after another. This one also had some surreal touches in them, as well, like the professor who serenely urinates all over the banquet room wall in one chapter.

Right around this time I also caught TCM’s Summer Under The Stars series on the day they highlighted crime star Jean Gabin. They screened Jean Renoir’s classic film, La Bete Humaine (Human Desire), a great noir with a brilliant performance by Gabin. The film has a recurrent theme of a speeding train during scenes of murder and lovemaking. The love interest is played by Simone Simon of “Cat People” fame, and she’s also very good in it.

Another Gabin film I saw was Georges Simenon’s The Night Affair, a hipster noir about a police inspector who falls in love with a strung-out jazz singer who frequents a beatnik night club. Made in the Fifties during Gabin’s older years, it has that weird French underground vibe with a TV detective show vibe (think “Johnny Staccato”) combined. I liked it a lot, and of course there’s lots of sexy Fifties gals like Nadia Tiller in it to keep it French and noir.

The French love for noir is the stuff of legend. Film critics have always professed their love for film directors like Anthony Mann, Robert Aldrich (“Kiss Me Deadly” being a big favorite), Sam Fuller, and many others, while upper-echelon directors like Francois Truffaut have directed noir classics like “Shoot The Piano Player”, “The Bride Wore Black”, and “Mississippi Mermaid”.

I really like the French spin on noir and intend to investigate more great stuff that hasn’t enjoyed enough popularity in our country. What we take for granted here in the States is a revered genre in France, and sometimes we need the superfans to remind us what an important art form it is.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 10

TCM has decided to somewhat circumvent the movie burners by issuing a series of DVDs called “The Warner Archive Collection”, which is no better than what we fans do at home. In fact, they’re not even DVDs, but DVD-R’s, just like us, and they’re bare-bones releases, i.e. no special features, no commentaries, nothing. It’s as if TCM/Warner Bros. authorized some guy at home to burn their films and then market it at high profit ($19 each). So for that reason, this will be the last edition of “Stuff I Burned From TCM”.

Roadblock (1951) – Charles McGraw takes a break from playing a cold-blooded killer in “The Killers” to play a cop on the take in “Roadblock”. This quick-paced noir potboiler is classic RKO Studio stuff: McGraw has to keep embezzling stolen money to keep his high price-tag girlfriend happy. Even she sees him getting out of control until he has a final showdown with the LAPD in the middle of the dried-out Los Angeles River. Edmond O’Brien played a similar kind of crooked cop in “Shield For Murder”, but I think I like this one more. Script written by the awesome Steve Fisher.

The Rag Man (1925) – Jackie Coogan (aka “Uncle Fester”) rose to prominence playing the title character in Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid”, but acquitted himself later on in movies like this, where he plays a pesky runaway orphan who barges in on an old junk vendor’s heart and business. With the name of Timothy Michael Patrick Aloysius Kelly (…”and a few other names I’ve forgotten”), Coogan behaves like a Harvey Comics character in the flesh, performing such unforgivable stunts as convincing a rich man’s son to dump his entire vintage wine collection because the bottles are valuable. Pretty funny stuff.

West of Zanzibar (1928) – There’s a lot of brilliant Lon Chaney films neglected by DVD release, it was a toss-up between this or “He Who Gets Slapped”. This one wins out because in addition to being directed by Tod Browning, it also co-stars Lionel Barrymore. Chaney plays a magician whose wife and child are taken from him by a rival magician. He retires to a remote jungle village playing a character not unlike Marlon Brando’s in “Apocalypse Now”, complete with creepy African slaves. A young girl journeys to his jungle village where he tortures her, gets her hooked on drugs, only to find much too late she’s his long lost daughter! Sick, and has to be seen to be believed.

Paris Blues (1961) – The only reason I can see for this movie’s inability of DVD release are the music rights for Duke Ellington tracks or possibly Louis Armstrong’s estate maybe blocking this. Otherwise, this film’s chock full of excitement, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier portraying expatriate American jazz musicians making the beat club scene with Barbie Doll tourists Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll falling for them. The bohemian night club scene is handled nicely with some gorgeous black and white cinematography. I found the faux Django Reinhardt dude with the heroin monkey on his back character fairly droll. This is one of the best jazz movies ever and a class act all the way. But hey, let’s not release this amazing burst of superfine coolness, let’s release more Jennifer Aniston chick flick crap. The decline of Western civilization continues.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 9

A number of movies I’ve written about for the past few years have finally seen the light of day on DVD: Overexposed, Rancho Notorious, The Glass Wall, and a few more, so I’m pretty sure this will be the next to last installment of “Stuff I Burned From TCM”. I’ll probably move on to something else movie-related, but until then here are a few more movies that need to see a proper DVD release:

Heat Lightning (1934): Classic hard-boiled Warner Bros. crime film about a pair of sisters working at a motel in the Mojave Desert. Olga’s a frilly girl waitress and her older sister, Myra, (Ann Dvorak) ia a pretty butch auto mechanic. Her cover as a mechanic’s blown once her ex-boyfriend, a sleazy gangster on the run exposes her glamorous gun moll past. Similar in tone to “The Petrified Forest”, but I actually liked this better. A lot of stock Warners players, like Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh, Ruth Donnelly, and Lyle Talbot are on hand giving their usual great support. Ann Dvorak is brilliant, and this film deserves a decent release.

Ladies of The Chorus (1948): One of the few Marilyn Monroe movies that still hasn't been released to DVD, this low-budget B picture clocks under an hour at 57 minutes. In spite of its brevity it still has tons of padding with several music numbers, some which have Marilyn crooning. Many people have laughed at the casting of Adele Jergens as her mother, probably three years older than Monroe with an unconvincing gray streak dyed into her hair. The plot basically consists of Monroe and Jergens playing a mother and daughter showgirl team and Mom’s reluctance at having her daughter date a millionaire’s spoiled son. The film has all the production values of an old Three Stooges short, no surprise because Columbia Pictures released this film.

The Unholy Three (1930): Lon Chaney’s last film and the talkie version of the Tod Browning silent classic. The talkie version is similar in tone to “Freaks” and Harry Earles is even on hand to play Tweedle Dee the midget. Chaney plays half the film in drag disguised as a kindly old lady pet shop owner, and it’s always amusing watching him tear off his wig, pop a cigar in his mouth and chew out Goliath the strong man. The last line in the film would be his last, “That’s all there is to life… a little laugh, a little tear”, while waving goodbye from a departing caboose. It was as if he’s waving goodbye to the audience, because he died a week after the film wrapped.

Primrose Path (1940): Just like "Heat Lightning" this movie was originally a play, but it moves fast and doesn't seem too talky. Ginger Rogers is a shack-living tomboy from Venice who falls for Joel McCrea, a motorcycle-riding burger flipper down PCH way. He likes the "Portuguese gals" (is Mexican a dirty word?) but falls for the tough dogtown girl. Ginger's mom and stinkbug grandmom, however, are sleazy gold diggers who want Ginger to carry on the family tradition of banging rich bums for their dough. Rogers turns in a performance reminiscent of Barbara Stanwyck in "Stella Dallas" and McCrea turns in another great big galoot performance.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 8

It’s funny and crazy and even wonderful that two films I originally planned for this blog, Jacques Demy’s “Model Shop” and William Castle’s “Zotz!” have been released within the past few weeks. I recommend you rent them both, they’re just great. Nevertheless there are still a few classics that need to be released just as quickly as those two, and here they are:

Dangerous Mission (1954): Horace McCoy and W.R. Burnett co-wrote this Technicolor noir about a woman (Piper Laurie) running off to Glacier National Park in Montana after witnessing a gangland murder in Manhattan . Vincent Price plays a hit man hired to murder her while he’s dating her, only Victor Mature throws the monkey wrench into the works by barging in on them with his greasy charm. The breathtaking location photography is reminiscent of “ Niagara ” making the action secondary to the beautiful location. Irwin Allen produced this film in the early Fifties and already had an eye for disaster, throwing a forest fire and not one, but two avalanches into the movie.

Hysteria (1965): After being discharged from the psychiatric ward Robert Webber moves into an apartment where he hears a woman next door being knifed to death every night. The only problem is he's the only tenant on his floor. After doing a bit of research on the murder of his former neighbor he discovers she's a fashion model who's disappeared. His psychosis returns when he keeps seeing her appear on the street, and even has cocktails with her. The dead fashion model is played by Lelia Gordoni, who achieved movie infamy as the half-cast girl in John Cassavetes' film "Shadows". Another nutty Freddie Francis thriller, and one you shouldn't miss.

The Good Humor Man (1950): Jack Carson was always swell at comedy relief in movies like "Million Dollar Mermaid" and "Blues In The Night", but here he's taking center stage in a Jerry Lewis-styled slapstick romp that's very funny, playing your friendly neighborhood ice cream truck salesman. He finds himself implicated in dead blondes (Lola Albright) and shady crooks, and his rival for his love interest is none other than George "Superman" Reeves. Carson's very funny in this, and it's a shame he didn't do more silly comedies like this.

The Mind Reader (1933): Warren William plays a carnival mind reader who tries to go straight to win over Constance Cummings' affections, only he's at his coolest when he does the whole fake swami bit. Lots of creepy camera angles in this, and William is excellent, easily the best actor Warner's had before Cagney, Bogart and Robinson moved in. If you like creepy carnival movies this one will thrill you. Bogart's first wife Mayo Methot turns in an amazing three-minute suicide scene that'll chill your blood.

The Love-Ins (1967): Laughable psychedelic corn about a Timothy Leary type who becomes a sort of psych Mussolini, a little more convincing than Max Frost in "Wild In The Streets", but not by too much. There's a great scene where the Big Guru appears on "The Joe Pyne Show", a sort of Wally George of the Sixties. There's also a freak-out Alice In Wonderland naked go-go dance scene from Susan Oliver that she'd probably like to forget. Also starring James McArthur (Hawaii Five-O) who attempts to assassinate the Guru and Mark Goddard (Lost In Space) as a misguided follower.

Well, that's it for now. I think I'll have some more gems planned for the next TCM jamboree blog. There's no shortage of unreleased classics waiting to be discovered. By the way, Turner Classic Movies is still the greatest station around and always find new stuff to screen all the time. They're finally showing "Performance" on TV, forty years after its release. Can "A Clockwork Orange" be far behind?

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 7

Considering the star power that fuels many of the films listed today you would think that these gems would have seen the light of day on DVD already, but given the poor economic weather it won’t be for awhile. It’s probably cheaper to release the latest Judd Apatow brain rot than pour some money into cleaning and digitally processing some Ann-Margret wank fest. That’s why DVD burners are crucial with TCM on all night long, and here’s some of my epic finds:

I Married a Witch (1942): Veronica Lake looks sexy but she also looks funny, as in funny lookin’, so she’s perfect in this goofy comedy. A witch burned at the stake during the Salem trials era travels through time to torment the future generation of the judge who prosecuted her, but she falls in love with him instead. Mr. Right is played by the perpetually stiff Frederic March, no dreamboat in any shape and form. Gossip has it he was a creep to poor Veronica during the filming, which I believe. They should’ve gone with Fred MacMurray or somebody halfway likeable. Any screen time without Veronica Lake is a waste of film.

All Night Long (1962): This film, touted as “the jazz version of Othello” fairly disappoints because the wife doesn’t get killed during the course of the movie but instead scats and sings with a frozen puppet face all the way through. Notable for five minutes of footage of Charles Mingus, who gets some juicy dialogue, like “let’s swing, cats!” Notable for watching a young Patrick McGoohan playing a reptilian drummer conniving his way around the swinging British jazz world. Overly talky and frankly boring, it’s worth one watch if you can mange to stay awake “All Night Long”.

Swinger (1966): If you thought Ann-Margret’s dance routines in “Viva Las Vegas” was Cinema Gold then your head will explode watching this narishkeit, the money scene showing her in a body painting party dancing and whipping her endless miles of red hair around. Tony Franciosa plays a girlie mag Hugh Hefner-type, the kind of typecast he was saddled with during the swinging Sixties, just like in “The Sweet Ride”, "Fathom" and “The Name of The Game”. Needless to say he falls head over heels for a wholesomely harlotic heroine. Pretty trashy business, but if you like psychedelic sex comedies this one’s amusing.

13 Women (1932): Myrna Loy plays an evil Eurasian woman who systematically plots the killing of the 13 sorority sisters that bullied her back in college. All of her victims are of the snotty super-white finishing school snob variety. The film runs approximately 59 minutes and never wastes a minute of action, and Loy never looked so cool. This film has to be seen to be believed.

The Screaming Mimi (1958): Anita Ekberg (“La Dolce Vita” era) plays a severely traumatized stripper who’s being manipulated by a sleazy psychiatrist. I guess back in the Fifties this was a serious plot point. Nowadays it sounds like another day in Hollywood! TCM never disappoints.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 6

DVDs have been a part of our lives for over ten years, and while it seems everything has finally been released it’s almost surprising that there are still some amazing movies that are still not available. Thanks to Turner Classic Movies (TCM) these films can still be viewed and enjoyed, never to be forgotten. By the way, some of the films I’ve written about in past blogs have eventually seen a release, like “Wild Boys of the Road”, so hope springs eternal.

Mickey One (1965): Mickey One (played by Warren Beatty) is a lounge lizard Joseph K who runs from invisible killers for a transgression that’s never explained to him. Was it for unpaid gambling debts and fucking the mob boss’ mistress? The dazzling black and white cinematography recalls Robert Frank’s legendary book “The Americans” offset by Stan Getz’s lush film score. This is easily Warren Beatty’s finest performance and one of the most bizarre Hollywood productions ever. Thanks, Columbia Pictures!

The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962): Timothy Carey’s wild brainchild nightmare movie. A bored insurance salesman decides to get into the God business and uses rock ‘n roll as a means to enlist people to his self-made religion. This concept must have been pretty daring in its time (1962) and several more popular films later ran with the idea, “Wild in the Streets”, to name an example. The rock concert scenes are genuinely exciting (watch Carey wiggle like a worm in gold lame!). I think David Lynch could learn a thing or two about surrealism when the climactic black and white footage is intercut with color showing Carey insanely laughing as he stabs a wafer expecting it to bleed.


The Twonky (1953): Arch Obler of “Lights Out” fame directed this sci-fi comedy about a television set that hypnotizes people and controls its owner, Hans Conreid. The TV set is actually an alien from a far-away planet, but never strikes me as sinister. It happily helps Conreid wash the dishes, shave and light his pipe in a matter of seconds, all at the same time, so much for world domination. That’s a pretty domestic alien! The Twonky’s also crazy for marching band music. Although this came around the era of space war movies like “War of the Worlds” this is more like “Gumby”.

Brighton Rock (1947): Brighton is the British equivalent to Atlantic City, a happy seaside playground, which provides the setting for this British noir, the best in my opinion. The happy setting provides a sick counterpoint to all the ominous crimes they commit. Adapted from the Graham Greene novel, Richard Attenborough plays Pinky, a cold blooded-killer who’s so out of control his gang decides to ice him. He’s onto their game, of course, and fleeing from them he meets a naïve waitress, who falls madly in love with his baby-faced good looks. Her loyalty is like none he’s ever experienced and he slowly learns the value of love, an alien concept to him up until now. This is very similar to the theme of another Greene story, “A Gun For Hire”.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 5

In the past I’ve written about movies that haven’t seen the light of day on DVD. Some films featured high-ticket stars (i.e., Manpower, Bordertown) and some obscure stars (i.e. The Man With My Face, The Fox), but this time I’m going to list a few films that star immortal film icons and still haven’t been released. With DVDs being on the market for over 15 years you would think everything starring these movie stars would have been available by now.

Rancho Notorious (1952): Directed by Fritz Lang, starring Marlene Dietrich, Mel Ferrer and tons of great character actors, this gorgeous Technicolor action film is about a vindictive husband seeking murder and revenge for his wife’s brutal death at an outlaw ranch named Chuck-A-Luck. There’s tons of whiskey drinking, barroom brawls and pistol toting. William Frawley is on hand to do his grumpy Fred Mertz routine but the show stopper is George “Superman” Reeves playing a scar-faced womanizer!

Trapeze (1956): Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis flying around a circus trapeze in tights barely covering their bulges and this movie isn’t available on DVD? Surely, you jest, madame. This ain’t no Walt Disney family circus extravaganza, either: Our two heroes compete for being the first team to accomplish a triple somersault mid-air but may never attain the honor with Gina Lollobrigida standing in the middle breasts-first and playing both guys at the same time. This one’s just dripping with sex!

Saratoga Trunk (1945): Ingrid Bergman and Cary Cooper plot to fleece oily Southern gentlemen of their millions in old New Orleans with the aid of a French midget butler (Cupidon) and a Voodoo cum Creole maid, this one was so weird I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, and that’s saying a lot given my dislike for Ingrid Bergman. But, but, but she’s excellent in this one. One of Coop’s best performances, too.

Johnny Guitar (1954): Joan Crawford, surly noir thug Sterling Hayden, Ernest Borgnine, John Carradine in a movie directed by Nicholas Ray about an ex-saloon girl now butchified who hires her guitar playing ex-boyfriend to protect her gambling hall from a barn burning harpy (even more butch than her!). This one’s just brimming with hidden lesbian rage! And by the way, of the four films listed above, three of them are westerns, but very hip, ultra-modern ones. Which begs the question: is the Western movie the Red Headed Stepchild of the cinema?

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 4

Well, the past TCM entries I posted here bemoaned the non-DVD release status of certain films, ones that starred big-ticket stars. The four movies listed today are a little more obscure, the only common thread uniting them in any way is that two of them star 2 of Ronald Reagan's wives! More on that later:

Zazie Dans La Metro (1960): Louis Malle-directed rendition of the Raymond Queneau novel, lavishly filmed in beautiful color. The frenetic pace of this comedy becomes a bit irritating after awhile, but damn, I thought Richard Lester invented this hyperactive slapstick film style. Malle has him beat by a good five years! I don't think Malle ever made a truly bad film. Why isn't this one released yet?

Kid Nightingale (1939): This one's a dilly! A washed-up boxing promoter needs a new meal ticket to help pay off his debts. He sees an opera-singing waiter punch out a drunken heavyweight champ he manages, and decides to groom the waiter for ringside fighting. The waiter will only do it if he can sing Verdi during his boxing matches, hence the name "Kid Nightingale". After he wins every match he goes straight into "Pagliacci". His love interest in this yuk-fest is Jane Wyman, the future Mrs. Ronald Reagan #1. This is the kind of movie Adam Sandler's notorious for making (hint, hint).


Talk About A Stranger (1952): Weird one about a kid whose pup mysteriously dies, and everybody in the small town blames it on the quiet German shut-in. A thinly-veiled critique on the Communist witch hunts that were so prevalent at the time, ironically starring Nancy Davis (aka Reagan), Ronnie's wife #2. Even more ironic is that her husband in the movie is played by George Murphy, the future conservative Californian Senator!

The Devil Thumbs A Ride (1947): Most Lawrence Tierney movies are garbage, but is there an actor more watchable than him? I think not. This one's no exception: a psychopathic killer hitches a ride with a young, dizzy newlywed. Along the way they pick up two oily chicks and break into a house to get out of the rain. There's tons of murder and attempted rape as the censors would allow back in the Forties. Lawrence Tierney reminds me of tons of creepy punk rock guys I used to drink with who would go psycho on you at the drop of a hat. Another RKO classic! Turner Classic Movies never disappoints!

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 3

There are still a lot of great, super-worthy movies that have yet to see the light of day on DVD, and here are a few that I've been thrilled to rip and burn off the teevee set. Let's hope and pray these bad boys get released soon:

Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1967): Great psychedelic teen sex comedy from the UK starring the shrillest SOB in movies, Barry Evans. He dates a wide variety of "keen" birds, ranging from a horny church girl to a spoiled rich kid with a decadent upper crust family. Although his surroundings are drab the film gets kinetic the minute he hooks up with a new girl. The movie's notoriety exists from an excellent soundtrack featuring Traffic, the Spencer Davis Group and John's Children.

Manpower (1941): Directed by Raoul Walsh, this wild one's about two utility worker buddies played by Edward G. Robinson and George Raft, who bust up their indestructible friendship when they run across their co-workers' shady daughter, Marlene Dietrich. The movie's cool, but it's weird: all the power workers live in the same house together, just like the Monkees! Every time they need to fix power lines it's pissing rain outside.

The Man With My Face (1951): A guy returns from a business trip only to find his look-alike in his house, and his business partner and wife treat HIM like a stranger. The look-alike kicks him out and he turns to the ex-girlfriend he left behind to help him figure out how he got cut out of his own life! Weird stuff. The whole thing takes place in beautiful Puerto Rico, too, and features a hired killer who doesn't use a gun or knife but a killer Doberman Pinscher! Where do I find these nutty movies?

The Power (1968): All-star science fiction murder mystery produced by the great George Pal. George Hamilton works at a top-secret research laboratory where telekinetic killings occur to all of the members of his highly educated research team (which includes Michael Rennie, Suzanne Pleshette, Earl Holliman, Arthur O'Connell, etc.). There are some really amazing visuals that definitely titillate the psychedelic (there's that word again!) brain pan, especially in the last ten minutes, which have to be seen to be believed.

Anna May Wong: Daughter of the Dragon

Turner Classic Movies recently screened their Asian film festival, and sandwiched in between annoying Charlie Chan and even more annoying Jackie Chan they showed a magnetic but obscure actress named Anna May Wong. Like Louise Brooks and Lizabeth Scott she fell short of major stardom in spite of the fact that she illuminates a film the minute you see her. She holds her own effortlessly next to Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express", no small feat. She was sexually radiant in a silent film called "Piccadilly" playing a sinister Jazz Age showgirl. Many of her films, good and bad, were screened during the fest. Because of her ethnicity she was cast for the most part as unscrupulous Dragon Ladies, a sheer waste of her talent as most of these pictures were absolute B-movie trash. One of them hit a nerve, though, and it was called "Daughter of the Dragon".

Filmed in 1931, the film begins with Anna May Wong playing showgirl Princess Ling Moy knocking 'em dead in London's West End. Backstage after her show she's promised a meeting with her long lost father, who turns out to be the infamous Fu Manchu(!). She's taken to his hidden lair where he tells her she's the heir to his evil empire. Fu Manchu tells Ling Moy, "I wish I had another son to exact my revenge."
Ling Moy, desperate for her father's approval, vows, "I will be your son!"
There's an overall melancholic need for approval as Ling Moy desires to be accepted by her father, and later by Ronald Petrie, the blandly blonde English gentleman she lusts for.
"Will I ever have golden hair and eyes of blue?" she yearns for his love as much as she does her father's.
"Strange - I find you oddly attractive", is Petrie's left-handed compliment. Just to make sure she can successfully seduce him she relegates his fiancee Joan Marshall, equally blonde and bland, to her evil Chinese torture dungeon.
Of course Scotland Yard, led by Chinese detective Ah Kee shows up on time and heroically saves our two British white bread lovers and kills Ling Moy, but not before she fatally shoots Ah Kee. The film ends with the heroic Chinaman and the dastardly Dragon Lady dead in each other's arms, like a lover's clutch. The message: Chinese women belong with Chinese men, and not with good, upstanding Englishmen.

While I was watching this movie I couldn't help thinking how incredibly dull the good, vanilla-white English were in character and physical appearance, and how the movie only came alive when the exotic and gorgeous Ling showed up on screen. I also asked myself what the significance of showing Chinese torturing the imperialistic British was in this film, and all I could think of was some bizarre payback for the real-life abuse the Chinese suffered building railroads in America just fifty years before the release of this movie. It felt like some form of cinematic revenge.

The great irony about Wong was that although she was always cast as a Chinese woman she was born in Los Angeles, California and never dated Asian men, but American men. In spite of all that she had to play the exotic Pekingese just to make it in the movies. Even in real life she yearned to fit in somehow, just like in "Daughter of the Dragon", and that's why this silly B-movie is bigger than its intentions.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 2

Never count your chickens until the omelettes are broke: in a previous blog post I bemoaned the fact that “Black Legion” would never see the light of day on DVD. After all, it’s Humphrey Bogart joining the Ku Klux Klan. Well, guess what? It’s coming out this February as part of the Warner Bros. Gangsters DVD box set. I don’t know if the Klan can be called gangsters, psychopath hillbillies might be a better description, but Hell, it’s actually getting released. Rockin’ good news. Here’s more crap that needs to get released, and soon:

The Running Man (1963) – Legend has it this movie was a flop because it came out right after the JFK Assassination with the title “The Running Man” starring LEE Remick and Lawrence HARVEY. Good thing Gerd OSWALD didn’t work on the movie.

It’s too bad, because this is yet another great film from Sir Carol Reed, one of the most underrated directors ever (he did “The Third Man”, “Our Man In Havana”, and “Trapeze”, to name a few). Lawrence Harvey and Lee Remick play a married couple who pull a million-dollar life insurance scam and high-tail it to Spain with the money (woohoo!). Alan Bates is an insurance investigator who gives Lee Remick the 3rd Degree in England, so when she runs into him in Malaga he tells her he quit his job as an investigator, or has he? He hounds her like crazy through the picture. Is his pursuit sexual or is he still on the case?

Meanwhile Lawrence Harvey is having so much fun tomcatting in his disguise as a swinging playboy he drives her into the arms of you-know-who. So, you get the picture: it’s a wild romantic suspense adventure. You’ll marvel at Alan Bates’ uncanny resemblance to Noel Gallagher of Oasis.

Bordertown (1935) – Paul Muni plays a Mexican immigrant practicing law who gets disbarred by a rich racist attorney. Muni bolts from L.A. to Tijuana to work as a bouncer in nightclub and ultimately promotes to kick-ass club owner when he runs into the attorney’s wife. Romantic sparks ensue until she plays the race card and then the real sparks begin. While all this is going on the club owner’s wife (Bette Davis) keeps putting the moves on him, and eventually kills her husband to make it legit. You’ll marvel at Paul Muni’s uncanny resemblance to Benicio Del Toro.

Nocturne (1946) – A womanizing composer gets his brains blown out in 1940’s Hollywood and George Raft (playing a cool detective) is on the case investigating it. Every ex-girlfriend he interviews is a Forties hottie and they all say the murdered tunesmith was a dirty dog. Which girl did it? Since Raft can't act his way out of a used condom (just like Vince Vaughn) the biggest star of the film is the stylish Hollywood architecture and Sunset Boulevard location shots. RKO films are trashy fun, and this is no exception.

Stuff I Burned From TCM

You call it bootlegging, I call it killing the wait until a studio releases the movie on DVD. Releasing “Black Legion” or “711 Ocean Drive” on DVD may never happen in our lifetime, so I’ll happily burn away these minor classics from TCM (Turner Classic Movies). Here are a couple I’ve enjoyed recently:

The Killing of Sister George: Sister George is a sappy Mary Poppins-type character on British TV but off camera is a flesh/scenery chewing old chicken hawk constantly yelling at her young live-in chippy named “Childee” (Susannah York at her best). The “killing” in the title refers to her character getting taken out on the series – the movie is less about lesbianism than it is about aging and the feeling of loss whether it’s an acting gig, your youth, or your young lover. Since it’s a Robert Aldrich film you know there’ll be a sick twist ending that’ll drive you insane.

The Fox: a lesbian couple (it was “Outfest” week on TCM) shack out deep in the woodlie woods in sapphic bliss until a handsome Aryan pin-up arrives at their front door (Keir Dullea of “2001” and “David and Lisa”). Sexually he shakes things up and consequently nothing is ever what it appears – the three switch sexual roles and persuasions at the drop of a hat. While none of it’s believable for a second it’s still entertaining and beautifully photographed.

The Mad Magician: Prior to this movie director John Brahm made a film called “Hangover Square” which took place in 1895 about a madman in love with a singer which ended in a blazing house fire. He followed it with this 3-D flick starring Vincent Price as a, well, mad magician and it takes place in 1895, and uh…ends with a blazing house fire. Around this time, um um um, Vincent Price made another 3-D film called “House Of Wax” which uh, takes place around 1895, and ends with a….OKAY! YOU KNOW! Another blazing house fire!!!! Sheeesh!!! And you thought movies nowadays imitated each other!