Manpower (1941), Raoul Walsh.

 MANPOWER!  A crew of fist-fightin' tough guy pals working on heavy duty power lines!  Edward G Robinson, poor schmuck, can't get a woman (can he ever, in any of these flicks?) until Marlene Dietrich sees him as someone who can at least pay the bills and relieve her of a crummy job dancing with strangers at a clip joint.  George Raft plays his sensitive pal, who doesn't believe Dietrich will ever be the kind of woman to settle into married life.  The supporting actors are quite well drawn (and include Alan Hale as "Jumbo"); good to see a cast of twenty or so people where each actor has enough to chew on to differentiate him from the person standing next to him.

  

Bluebeard (1944), Edgar G Ulmer.

For some reason, I always thought Bluebeard was a pirate.  Wrong!  You know, when a prospective date tells you "you ask too many questions," and when he confesses he has "things to hide" he's probably not the man for you.  The Carradine family definitely has a cool gene.  But otherwise a sad, slapdash, badly told story with bad lighting.  

The Stolen Jools / The Slippery Pearls (William C McGann), 1931.

Strange little flick of about 20 minutes' duration which was apparently created to support National Vaudeville Artists, a union representing actors.  Nearly everyone who was anyone in 1931 is trotted out, playing themselves ("Why, look, it's Barbara Stanwyck!"), so it's more of a historic curiosity than anything.  As far as entertainment value goes, there's a couple of good gags, but for the most part I agree with this little chap, who promised to bury the reels in the backyard "before the department of health arrives." 

The World Gone Mad (1933), Christy Cabanne.

Still relevant flick about a Ponzi scheme perpetuated by seemingly noble industrialists.  A smart story, neither moralizing nor naive, about newspaperman Andy Terrell's quest to sniff out the truth behind a District Attorney's murder.  So, are there any real newspapermen left anymore?  Ones that pay a kid $10 to tail suspects?  One that questions the official story and hunts out the truth?  Terrell's character, a realist or cynic depending on your mood, hands the murdered DA's replacement a gun for protection saying, "Smith and Wesson makes all men equal.  And equality is the basis of a true democracy."  The DA responds by promising to protect the public from "these leeches who have chiseled and gouged and swindled them out of their hard earned dollars"!  Sit on that, Wall Street! 

I think this flick works nicely as a B-movie: because there are no capital-S stars (at least recognizable to a modern audience), the dialogue and story are in the foreground.  I found this one on Internet Archive http://www.archive.org, a non-profit group that makes digital material (including awesome, out of copyright films) accessible to the public. 

My Dinner With Andre (1981), Louis Malle.

Sigh.  Disappointed with both this and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, two failed viewing efforts.  I felt like I was expected to write 2500 words on the concept of time afterwards.  I suppose some viewers enjoy a challenge, but I also wonder if they tend to be college aged guys that make you mix tapes on your first date.

It (1927), Clarence G Badger.

Blech.  Everyone falls over Clara Bow, who has "it".  Until they realize she might have a kid.  Quite humourless.

Escape from Death Row/Dio, sei proprio un padreterno! (1973), Michele Lupo.

Aside from the bathtub electrocution and prison fight scenes, this one plays it mostly for laffs.  Lee Van Cleef is a seasoned assassin, who is idolized by a naive, small-time crook.   We'll call this young man Honda, because that is what his t-shirt said while he was in prison (I guess they let you keep your duds in poliziotteschi prison).  Anywhat, the guys escape and Van Cleef spends the rest of the film tracking down those jerks that double crossed him, ending up in a fish-processing plant in Marseilles.   This one wins for costume design, but the poignant trumpet track gets a bit annoying after a while.  There's about a half-dozen alternate titles, but I think my favourite might be Mean Frank and Crazy Tony!

Prisoner #439527 in the mesh shirt is SO not impressed.  Prisoner #95847 looks like he escaped from mime school.

A Kiss Before Dying (1956), Gerd Oswald.

Is this a teen-noir?  Lusciously filmed in sunny California, there's also many shots such as the one above, that show how drippingly gorgeous all those neon-lit nightclubs really were.  This film is also robustly a 50s teen flick, with a very young Robert Wagner as a self-motivated college kid who goes on a killing spree!  OK, so it said "spree" on the box.  Rather, he rids himself of a clingy girlfriend who is on the outs with her wealthy dad.  Then Joanne Woodward walks into the picture, and completely steals it away.  Somewhat predictable, and maybe a gaudier A Place in the Sun, but intriguing.  Cinematography is by Lucien Ballard, who was later associated with Sam Peckinpah.  I would argue the mise-en-scene and cinematography combine to lend dignity to the characters, and just make the actors that much more beautiful.

 

Soda Shop, complete with View Master rack! 

The Cynic, The Rat and The Fist / Il cinico, l'infame, il violento (1977), Umberto Lenzi.

So, the other day across the river I'm sitting at a red and in the next lane in a purple '95 neon is a dead-wringer for Bill Pullman in Ruthless People with a bleached blond 'do and dark roots (+ mustache) chomping on a wad of gum.  On the other end of the spectrum we have the hero of this movie, whose manages to pull off this same look but maintains a studly aura.  I mean, he's talking on a communal phone in a ratshit hotel and even I would let him buy me a drink.

The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist (don't ask me who is who - all I could figure is that our hero, ex-police inspector Tanzi, is probably the Fist) is a pretty tight poliziotteschi.  No languid scenes, no romance: just straight, gritty action.  In this one, Tanzi's life in danger when the sleazeball he testified against in court (inexplicably nicknamed The Chinaman - he's not Chinese) is released.  To get rid of him, Tanzi plays him off against a more powerful criminal organization, lead by an Italian-American mafioso, played by David Sawyer (who is one of those "hey, it's that guy" actors).  Dubbed, yeah, but the dialogue is excellent with lots of hilarious, well-translated lines. 

Being female, I always pity the women in these flicks.  They try weakly and unsuccessfully to outsmart the more powerful male characters and always lose out and are punished physically for it, typically by getting punched in the breasts or shot in the groin. 

 Yes, my dvd has Greek subtitles, you wanna make something of it? 

Mad Love (1935), Karl Freund.

No, he is not chewing his way out of some kind of orthodontic contraption.  As you can tell from the snapshot above, Peter Lorre's American film debut thrust him into a lifelong situation where he was typed as a psychopathic creep!  Lorre's character, a gifted surgeon, is besotted with a stage actress whose most famous role seems to be rather torture-pornish.  When she confesses she finds him  disgusting (as does the audience, most likely), Lorre cracks up and one Dr Wong has to take over all his surgery responsibilities.  Is Lorre an early Quincy?  Why does a bald man need a cap when performing surgery?  I kid, I kid-- quite a beautifully filmed little chiller by Freund, who is better known for The Mummy (which I found dreadfully boring - this one is a little better).